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his intimate friends made it an object of their sportive sallies, he would enliven them by his own good humour, and turn aside any pleasant ridicule by the display of his own admirable temper. If, however, he had one fashionable folly, he had no fashionable vice, and his leisure hours were passed in the pursuits and embellishments of science. It was, we believe, at this period that he produced the set of etchings, which are highly estimated by the collectors in that branch of art, and which the late Lord Orford mentions in his works as a very beautiful specimen of it. The French fancy, however, wore away, and was lost in the easy affability of the accomplished English gentleman. Lord Harcourt considered good breeding as the first of the minor virtues, and never deviated from it; but as his notion of it partook rather de la vielle cour, he might be represented by those who only knew him in the public circles, as an inflexible observer of every rule of courtly etiquette; and especially at a time when the manners and appearance of our young men of fashion and fortune are scarcely superior to those of their grooms, and very often inferior to that of their valets and butlers. But he had no unbecoming pride; his behaviour never overawed the poor, nor did it trench upon the ease of familiar association. His punctilios were those of a refined and dignified benevolence, and never served as a check but to such indecorums as are ever held, by those of correct understanding, to be inadmissible in the sphere of polished life. He might think as many men of superior minds have done, that, on certain occasions, it is the duty of rank and station to preserve certain forms, and to dress behaviour with somewhat of appropriate ceremony; and it may be owing, in some degree, to a neglect of those forms, which at present prevail too much in rank and station, that a respect for the higher orders has so materially diminished among the inferior classes of the people. But in his family, among his private friends, in his intercourse with his tenants, and in all his ordinary avocations, his carriage was such as to give pleasure to all who

NUNEHAM COURTENAY.

had communication with him. With his more ennobling qualities he possessed a comic elegance of thought, and a classical facetiousness, which rendered his private society infinitely pleasant; and even in his nervous moments, for he was occasionally troubled with them, he would describe himself in such a way, as not only to relieve the distress of his friends, but force that hilarity upon them, which would operate also as a temporary relief to himself. At Nuneham, his country residence, and whose native beauties his taste had so embellished and improved, he was a blessing to all who lived within the sphere of his protection; while to its neighbourhood it is well known, that the village of Nuneham is so ordered, by the regulations he framed, by the encouragements he afforded, by the little festivals he established, and the rewards he distributed, as to display a scene of good order, active industry, moral duty, and humble piety, of which it were to be wished there were more examples. To these qualities may be added his capacity for friendship; nor can we pass unnoticed a very signal example of it, in the asylum he afforded to the Duc d'Harcourt, and his family, when the French Revolution drove them from the proud situation, the exalted rank, and extensive property, which they possessed in their own country, to a state of dependence in this. Indeed to all, whatever their condition might be, who had shewn him kindness, or done him service, his friendship was appropriately directed. Mr. Whitehead, the Poet Laureat, and Mr. Mason, the poet, were among those whom he distinguished by his early regard, and it accompanied them to the end of their lives;-nor did it quit them there :-in certain spots of his beautiful garden at Nuneham, which they respectively preferred, the urn and the tablet commemorate and record their virtues. The old and faithful domestics who died in his service are not without their memorials; and in the parochial church-yard, the grave of an ancient gardener is distinguished by the flowers which are cultivated around it. These may be said to be little.

things, but they nevertheless mark the character of that heart which suggested them. It is almost superfluous to add, that, in the nearer and dearer relations of life, he exercised the virtues which they required of him. Above all, Earl Harcourt was a sincere christian; and it pleased that Being, who measures out days and years at his pleasure, to suffer him to attain an age beyond the common allotment of man. In his seventy-fourth year, he closed his venerable, useful, and honourable life.

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