it again. This had lately appeared; Dr. Middleton, the best writer of the age, had overturned the fathers, and exploded some visions of the Bishop of London, without a tolerable answer being made in defence of either. Of the prelates, the archbishop was a harmless good man, inclined to much moderation, and of little zeal for the tinsel of religion. Hutton, the other archbishop, was well bred and devoted to the ministry. Honest old Hoadley, who, to the honour of his times, had, though the champion of liberty, risen to the rich bishopric of Winchester, was in a manner superannuated. Sherlock, of London, almost as able a combatant for the power and doctrines of the Church, was past his strength, and still fonder of the politics of the government, than of the honour of the keys. The Bishop of Durham had been wafted to that see in a cloud of metaphysics, and remained absorbed in it. Gooch, of Ely, the highest churchman in his heart, had risen to his present greatness in the Church by shifting his politics. The rest were men neither of note nor temper to give the ministry any disturbance.'

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For an instance, Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, when introduced as tutor of the young Prince, is described (vol. i. p. 74.) as a sensible, well bred man, natural son of Blackbourn, the jolly old Archbishop of York, who had all the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a buccaneer, and was a clergyman; but he retained nothing of his first profession, except his seraglio.' On Secker, also, he is very severe: (vol. i. p. 56.)

The King would not go to chapel because Secker Bishop of Oxford was to preach before him. The ministers did not insist upon his hearing the sermon, as they had lately upon his making him dean of St. Paul's. Character and popularity do not always depend upon the circumstances that ought to compose either. This bishop, who had been bred a Presbyterian and man-midwife, which sect and profession he had dropt for a season, while he was president of a very free-thinking club, had been converted by Bishop Talbot, whose relation he married, and his faith settled in a prebend at Durham: from whence he was transplanted, at the recommendation of Dr. Bland, by the Queen, and advanced by her (who had no aversion to a medley of religions, which she always compounded into a scheme of heresy of her own,) to the living of St. James's, vacant by the death of her favourite Arian, Dr. Clarke, and afterwards to the bishoprics of Bristol and Oxford. It is incredible how popular he grew in his parish, and how much some of his former qualifications contributed to heighten his present doctrines. His discourses from the pulpit, which, by a fashion that he introduced, were a kind of moral essays, were as clear from quotations of Scripture, as when he presided in a less scripture-society but what they wanted of gospel, was made up by a tone of fanaticism that he still retained. He had made a match between a daughter of the late Duke of Kent and a Dr. Gregory,

whose

whose talents would have been extremely thrown away in any priesthood, where celibacy was one of the injunctions. He had been presented with a noble service of plate for procuring a marriage between the heiress of the same Duke of Kent and the Chancellor's son, and was now forced upon the King by the gratitude of the same minister, though he had long been in disgrace for having laid his plan for Canterbury in the interest he had cultivated at the Prince's court. But even the Church had its renegades in politics, and the King was obliged to fling open his asylum to all kinds of deserters; content with not speaking to them at his levee, or listening to them in the pulpit,'

The following account is given of Warburton's promotion to the Bench in 1759: (vol. ii. p. 401.)

Pitt, in contradiction to the house of Manners, who solicited for Dr. Ewer, to Newcastle, who stickled for a Cambridge man, and to the opposition of the episcopal bench, made Warburton Bishop of Gloucester; whose doubtful Christianity, whose writings and turbulent arrogance, made him generally obnoxious. Warburton, inquiring of a friend what the clergy thought of his promotion, and being told how much it offended them, said, "Tell them it was well for their cause that I did not embrace any other profession.""

That Lord Orford's general opinion of Warburton was very unfavorable appears from several of his letters, and particularly from one to George Montagu, dated April 5. 1765, in which he relates the well known anecdote of Quin's dialogue with the bishop, on the subject of the execution of Charles 1.; and in introducing which he calls Warburton a turn-coat hypocrite infidel,' and 'a saucy priest.'

We think that our readers will be amused with the characters here given of Lords Lyttelton and Bolingbroke, and of the five great men,' as he terms them, of his own day, which are written in the author's most elaborate manner. The delineation of Bolingbroke, severe as it is, appears to us particularly just, and coincides very much with the admirable review of the life and writings of that extraordinary man which is given by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in one of her letters.

Soon after the Prince died, an unlucky discovery had been made. George Lyttelton had written a lamentation, on that occasion, to his father, an antiquated baronet in Worcestershire, telling him that he and his friends had just renewed their connexions with the Prince of Wales, by the mediation of Dr. Ayscough, which," though not ripe for discovery, was the true secret of their oblique behaviour this session in Parliament. This letter he had delivered to a gentleman's servant, who was going into the country; but, the fellow, having some other letters for the post, had by mistake

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given

given in the private negociation, which was only subscribed To Sir Thomas Lyttelton. It was opened at the post-office and carried to Mr. Pelham. Had it been seen by no other person, the secret had been safe, and the treachery concealed, as carefully as if he had been in the conspiracy himself, instead of being the object of it; but it was talked of from the post-office, though obscurely for some time, till at last it was nursed up some how or other, and arrived at the King's ears, who grew outrageous, and could not be hindered from examining Shelvocke, the secretary of the post-office, himself. Here he got very little farther light; for Shelvocke had been instructed to affirm that the letter was sent back to Mr. Lyttelton unopened; but Lyttelton, who had not been so well instructed in his own secret, avowed it; and as if there were nothing to be ashamed of but the discovery, he took pains to palliate no other part of the story.

Absurdity was predominant in Lyttelton's composition; it entered equally into his politics, his apologies, his public pretences, his private conversations. With the figure of a spectre, and the gesticulations of a puppet, he talked heroics through his nose, made declamations at a visit, and played at cards with scraps of history, or sentences of Pindar. He had set out on a poetical love plan, though with nothing of a lover but absence of mind, and nothing of a poet but absence of meaning: yet he was far from wanting parts: spoke well when he had studied his speeches; and loved to reward and promote merit in others. His political apostacy was as flagrant as Pitt's: the latter gloried in it; but Lyttelton, when he had been forced to quit virtue, took up religion, and endeavoured to persuade mankind, that he had just fixed his views on Heaven, when he had gone the greatest lengths to promote his earthly interest; and so finished was his absurdity, that he was capable of believing himself honest and agreeable.' -(Vol.i. p. 174.)

12th Dec. 1751,-died Lord Bolinbroke; a man who will not be seen in less extraordinary lights by posterity, than he was by cotemporaries, though for very different reasons. His own age regarded him either as the greatest statesman, oppressed by faction, and the greatest genius persecuted by envy; or as the most consummate villain, preserved by clemency, and the most treacherous politician, abandoned by all parties whom he had successively betrayed. Posterity will look upon him as the greatest philosopher from Pope's writings; or as an author of a bounded genius from his own. To see him in a true light, they must neither regard all the incense offered to him by Tories, nor credit all the opprobrium cast upon him by Whigs.

They must see him compounded of all those vices and virtues, that so often enter into the nature of a great genius, who is not one of the greatest. Was it being master of no talents to have acted the second part, when little more than a youth, in overturning such a ministry, and stemming such a tide of glory, as Lord Godolphin's, and the Duke of Marlborough's? Was there no ability, after his return from banishment, in holding such a power

as

as Sir Robert Walpole's at bay for so many years, even when excluded from the favourable opportunity of exerting his eloquence in either House of Parliament? Was there no triumph in having chiefly contributed to the fall of that minister? Was there no glory in directing the councils and operations of such men as Sir William Windham, Lord Bath, and Lord Granville? And was there no art in persuading the self-fondest and greatest of poets, that the writer of the Craftsman was a more exalted genius than the author of the Dunciad? Has he shewn no address in palliating the exploded treaty of Utrecht? Has he not, in his letters on that event, contrived to make assertions and hypothesis almost balance stubborn facts? To cover his own guilt, has he not diverted our attention towards pity for the great enemy, in whose service he betrayed his own country? On the other hand, what infamy to have sold the conqueror to the conquered! What ingratitude in labouring the ruin of a minister, who had repealed his sentence of banishment! What repeated treasons to the Queen, whom he served; to the Pretender, who had received and countenanced him; to the late King, who had recalled him! What ineffectual arts to acquire the confidence of the late King by means of the Duchess of Kendal, and of the present King, by Lady Suffolk! What unwearied ambition, even at seventy years of age, in laying a plan of future power in the favour of the Prince of Wales! What deficiency in the very parts that had given success to the Opposition, to have left him alone excluded from reaping the harvest of so many labours! What blackness in disclosing the dirtiness of Pope, who had deified him! And what philosophy was that which had been initiated in the ruin of the Catalans; had employed its meridian in labouring the restoration of popery and arbitrary power; and busied the end of its career, first in planning factions in the Pretender's court, by the scheme of the father's resigning his claim to the son; and then in sowing the seeds of division between a king and prince, who had pardoned all his treasons.'-(P. 191.)

Thinly, very thinly, were great men sown in my remembrance: I can pretend to have seen but five; the Duke of Cumberland, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Granville, Lord Mansfield, and Pitt. I have expatiated on all their characters separately; and yet I am inclined to say a few words more in the light of comparison. It is by setting the same characters in different oppositions and points of view, that nearer acquaintance with them may be struck out.

Lord Granville was most a genius of the five; he conceived, knew, expressed, whatever he pleased. The state of Europe and the state of literature were equally familiar to him. His eloquence was rapid, and flowed from a source of wit, grandeur, and knowledge. So far from premeditated, he allowed no reflection to chasten it. It was entertaining, it was sublime, it was hyperbole, it was ridiculous, according as the profusion of ideas crowded from him. He embraced systems like a legislator, but was capable of none of the detail of a magistrate. Sir Robert Walpole was much the reverse; he knew mankind, not their writings; he consulted their interests, not their systems; he intended their happiness, not

their grandeur. Whatever was beyond common sense, he disregarded. Lord Mansfield, without the elevation of Lord Granville, had great powers of eloquence. It was a most accurate understanding, and yet capable of shining in whatever it was applied to. He was as free from vice as Pitt, more unaffected, and formed to convince, even where Pitt had dazzled, The Duke of Cumberland had most expressive sense, but with that connection between his sense and sensibility, that you must mortify his pride before you could call out the radiance of his understanding. Being placed at the head of armies without the shortest apprenticeship, no wonder he miscarried; it is cruel to have no other master than one's own faults. Pitt's was an unfinished greatness; considering how much of it depended on his words, one may almost call his an artificial greatness; but his passion for fame, and the grandeur of his ideas, compensated for his defects. He aspired to redeem the honour of his country, and to place it in a point of giving law to nations. His ambition was to be the most illustrious man of the first country of Europe, and he thought that the eminence of glory could not be sullied by the steps to it being passed irregu larly. He wished to aggrandize Britain in general, but thought not of obliging or benefiting individuals. Lord Granville you loved till you knew him; Sir Robert Walpole the more you knew him; you would have loved the Duke if you had not feared him. Pitt liked the dignity of despotism; Lord Mansfield, the reality; yet the latter would have served the cause of power, without sharing it; Pitt would have set the world free, if he might not command it. Lord Granville would have preferred doing right, if he had not thought it more convenient to do wrong: Sir Robert Walpole meaned to serve mankind, though he knew how little they deserved it; and this principle is at once most meritorious in one's self and to the world,' (Vol. ii, p. 272.)

pose

This comparison manifests a very observable and a very excusable bias to place the merits of Sir Robert Walpole in the most prominent point of view. On many other occasions in the volumes before us, also, he is brought forwards for the purof throwing other characters into the shade; and though there may be some obtrusion and some injustice in all this, yet on the whole it is rather gratifying than otherwise to remark such instances of filial partiality and filial piety. Indeed, these touches of nature are an agreeable relief in the midst of a composition which is occupied almost entirely with details of court-intrigues, and with attempts to draw off the various disguises assumed by artifice and faction. The cabals of courts are doubtless curious and interesting, and the history of them gives much insight into human nature under a particular form: but repetitions of ingratitude and treachery leave a most disagreeable impression on the mind; and the varying hues of that camelion, Insincerity, distract and weary the

attention.

The