riority over them which he fo long maintained. In forming his fchemes, he was, by nature as well as by habit, cautious and confiderate. Born with talents, which unfolded themselves flowly, and were late in attaining maturity; he was accustomed to ponder every fubject that demanded his confideration with a careful and deliberate attention. He bent the whole force of his mind towards it, and dwelling upon it with a ferious application, undiverted by pleafure, and hardly relaxed by any amufe. ment, he revolved it in filence in his own breast: he then communicated the matter to his minifters; and after hear. ing their opinions, took his refolution with a decifive firmnefs, which feldom follows fuch flow consultations. In confequence of this, Charles's meafures, instead of resembling the defultory and irregular fallies of Henry VIII. or Francis I. had the appearance of a confiftent fyftem, in which the parts were arranged, the effects were forefeen, and the accidents were provided for. His promptitude in execution, was no lefs remarkable than his patience in deliberation. He confulted with phlegm, but he acted with vigour; and did not difcover greater fagacity in his choice of the measures which it was proper to purfue, than fertility of genius in finding out the means for rendering his purfuit of them fuccefsful. Though he had naturally fo little of the martial turn, that during the moft ardent and bustling period of life, he remained in the cabinet inactive yet when he chofe at length to appear at the head of his armies, his mind was fo formed for vigorous exertions in every direction, thathe acquired fuch knowledge in the art of war, and fuch talents for command, as rendered him equal in reputation and fuccefs to the moft able generals of the age. But Charles poffeffed, in the most eminent degree, the fcience which is of greatest importance to a monarch, that of knowing men, and of adapting their talents to the various departments which he allotted to them. From the death of Chievres to the end of his reign, he employed no general in the field, no minifter in the cabinet, no ambaffador to a foreign court, no governor of a pro vince, whofe abilities were inadequate to the truft which he repofed in them. Though deftitute of that bewitching affability of manner, which gained Francis the hearts of all who approached his perfon, he was no ftranger to the vir tues which fecure fidelity and attachment. He placed unbounded confidence in his generals; he rewarded their fervices with munificence; he neither envied their fame, nor difcovered any jealousy of their power. Almost all the generals who conducted his armies may be placed on a level with those illuftrious perfonages who have attained the higheft eminence of military glory; and his advantages over his rivals are to be afcribed fo manifeftly to the fuperior abilities of the commanders whom he fet in oppofition to them, that this might feem to detract, in fome degree, from his own merit, if the talent of discovering and employing fuch inftruments were not the most undoubted proof of his capacity for government. There were, nevertheless, defects in his political character, which must confiderably abate the admiration due to his extraordinary talents. Charles's ambition was infatiable; and though there feems to be no foundation for an opinion prevalent in his own age, that he had formed the chimerical project of eftablifhing an univerfal monarchy in Europe, it is certain that his defire of be ing diftinguished as a conqueror, involved him in continual wars, which exhaufted and oppreffed his fubjects, and left him little leifure for giving attention to the interior police and improvement of his kingdoms, the great objects of every prince who makes the happinefs of his people the end of his government. Charles, at a very early period of life, having added the imperial crown to the kingdoms of Spain, and to the hereditary dominions of the houses of Auftria and Burgundy; this opened to him fuch a vaft field of enterprise, and engaged him in fchemes fo complicated as well as arduous, that feeling his power to be unequal to the execution of thefe, he had often recourse to low ar tifices, unbecoming his fuperior talents; and fometimes ventured on fuch deviations from integrity, as were dishonour. able able in a great prince. His infidious and fraudulent policy appeared more confpicuous, and was rendered more odious, by a comparison with the open and undeigning character of his contemporaries, Francis I. and Henry VIII. This difference, tho' occafioned chiefly by the diverfity of their tempers, muft be afcribed in fome degree to fuch an oppofition in the principles of their political conduct, as affords fome excufe for this defect in Charles's behaviour, though it cannot ferve as a juftification of it. Francis and Henry feldom acted but from the impulfe of their paffions, and rushed headlong towards the object in view. Charles's meafures being the refult of cool reflection, were difpofed into a regular fyftem, and carried on upon a concerted plan. Perfons who act in the former manner, naturally purfue the end in view, without affuming any difguife, or difplaying much addrefs. Such as hold the latter courfe, are apt, in forming as well as in executing their defigns, to employ fuch refinements, as always lead to artifice in conduct, and often degenerate into deceit. Robertfon. § 60. The Character of EPAMINONDAS. Epaminondas was born and educated in that honeft poverty which thofe lefs corrupted ages accounted the glorious mark of integrity and virtue. The inftructions of a Pythagorean philofopher, to whom he was entrusted in his earliest years, formed him to all the temperance and feverity peculiar to that fect, and were received with a docility and pleafure which bespoke an ingenuous mind. Mufic, dancing, and all thofe arts which were accounted honourable diftinctions at Thebes, he received from the greateft mafters. In the athletic exercifes he became confpicuous, but foon learned to apply particularly to thofe which might prepare him for the labours and occafions of a military life. His modefty and gravity rendered him ready to hear and receive inftruction; and his genius enabled him to learn and improve. A love of truth, a love of virtue, tenderness, and humanity, and an exalted patriotism, he had learned, and foon difplayed. To thefe glorious qualities, he added penetration and fagacity, a happiness in improving every incident, a confummate skill in war, an unconquerable patience of toil and diftrefs, a boldness in enterprife, vigour, and magnanimity. Thus did he become great and terrible in war; nor was he lefs diftinguished by the gentler virtues of peace and retirement. He had a foul capable of the most exalted and difinterefted friendship. The warmth of his benevolence fupplied the deficiencies of his fortune; his credit and good offices frequently were employed to gain that relief for the neceffities of others, which his own circumftances could not grant them: within the narrow sphere of these were his defires regularly confined; no temptations could corrupt him; no profpects of advantage could shake his integrity; to the public he appeared unalterably and folely devoted; nor could neglect or injuries abate his zeal for Thebes. All these illuftrious qualities he adorned with that eloquence which was then in fuch repute, and appeared in council equally eminent, equally ufeful to his country, as in action. By him Thebes first rose to sovereign power, and with him fhe loft her greatness. Leland. § 61. A Comparison of the political Principles and Conduct of CATO, ATTICUS, and CICERO. The three fects which chiefly engroffed the philofophical part of Rome, were, the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Academic; and the chief ornaments of each were, Cato, Atticus, and Cicero ; who lived together in ftrict friendship, and a mutual efteem of each other's virtue: but the different behaviour of thefe three will fhew, by fact and example, the different merit of their feveral principles, and which of them was the beft adapted to promote the good of fociety. ; The Stoics were the bigots or enthufiafts in philofophy; who held none to be truly wife or good but themselves placed perfect happiness in virtue, tho' ftript of every other good; affirmed all fins to be equal, all deviations from Nn 3 right right equally wicked; to kill a dunghill-cock without reafon, the fame crime as to kill a parent; that a wife man could never forgive; never be moved by anger, favour, or pity; never be deceived; never repent; never change his mind. With thefe principles, Cato entered into public life; and acted in it, as Cicero fays, as if he had lived in the polity of Plato, not in the dregs of Romulus.' He made no diftinction of times or things; no allowance for the weakness of the republic, and the power of thofe who oppreffed it: it was his maxim, to combat all power not built upon the laws, or to defy it at least, if he could not controul it; he knew no way to his end, but the direct; and whatever obftructions he met with, refolved ftill to rush on; and either to furmount them, or perish in the attempt; taking it for a baseness, and confeffion of being conquered, to decline a tittle from the true road. In an age therefore of the utmost libertinifm, when the public difcipline was loft, and the government itself tottering, he truggled with the fame zeal against all corruption, and waged a perpetual war with a fuperior force; whilst the rigour of his principles tended rather to alienate friends, than reconcile enemies; and by provoking the power that he could not fubdue, help to haften that ruin which he was striving to avert: fo that after a perpetual courfe of difappointments and repulfes, finding himself unable to purfue his old way any farther, inftead of taking a new one, he was driven by his philofophy to put an end to his life. But as the Stoics exalted human nature too high, fo the Epicureans depreffed it too low; as thofe raifed it to the heroic, thefe debafed it to the brutal ftate; they held pleasure to be the chief good of man; death the extinction of his being; and placed their happiness, confequently, in the fecure enjoyment of a pleasurable life, efteeming virtue on no other account than as it was a handmaid to pleasure, and helped to enfure the poffeffion of it, by preferving health and conciliating friends. Their wife man, therefore, had no other duty, but to provide for his own eafe, to decline all ftruggles, to retire from public affairs, and to imitate the life of their gods, by paffing his days in a calm, contemplative, undisturbed repofe, in the midft of rural fhades and pleasant gar dens. This was the fcheme that Atticus followed: he had all the talents that could qualify a man to be useful to fociety; great parts, learning, judg ment, candor, benevolence, generofity, the fame love of his country, and the fame fentiments in politics, with Cicero; whom he was always advifing and urging to act, yet determined never to act himself; or never, at least, fo far as to difturb his eafe, or endanger his fafety. For though he was fo ftrictly united with Cicero, and valued him above all men, yet he managed an intereft all the while with the oppofite faction, and a friendship even with his mortal enemies, Clodius and Antony; that he might fecure, against all events, the grand point which he had in view, the peace and tranquillity of his life. Thus two excellent men, by their miftaken notions of virtue, drawn from the principles of their philofophy, were made ufelefs in a manner to their country, each in a different extreme of life: the one always acting and expofing himfelf to dangers, without the profpect of doing good; the other, without attempting to do any, refolving never to act at all. Cicero chofe the middle way, be. tween the obstinacy of Cato and the indolence of Atticus; he preferred always the readieft road to what was right, if it lay open to him, if not, he took the next that feemed likely to bring him to the fame end; and in politics as in morality, when he could not arrive at the true, contented himself with the probable. He often compares the ftatefman to the pilot, whofe art confifts in managing every turn of the winds, and applying even the most perverse to the progrefs of his voyage; fo as, by chang ing his courfe and enlarging his circuit of failing, to arrive with fafety, though later, at his defined port. He mentions likewise an observation which long experience had confirmed to him, that none of the popular and ambitious, who afpired to extraordinary commands, and and to be leaders in the republic, ever chofe to obtain their ends from the people, till they had first been repulfed by the fenate. This was verified by all their civil diffenfions, from the Gracchi down to Cæfar: fo that when he faw men of this spirit at the head of the government, who, by the fplendor of their lives and actions, had acquired an afcendant over the populace, it was his conftant advice to the fenate, to gain them by gentle compliances, and to gratify their thirft of power by voluntary grants of it, as the best way to moderate their ambition, and reclaim them from defperate councils. He declared contention to be no longer prudent than while it either did fervice, or at least no hurt; but when faction was grown too ftrong to be withftood, that it was time to give over fighting; and nothing left but to extract fome good out of the ill, by mitigating that power by patience, which they could not reduce by force, and conciliating it, if poffible, to the intereft of the ftate. This was what he advised, and what he practifed; and it will account, in a great measure, for those parts of his conduct which are the most liable to exception, on the account of that complaifance which he is fuppofed to have paid, at different times, to the several ufurpers of illegal power. Middleton. § 62. The Character of Lord Towns HEND. Lord Townshend, by very long experience, and unwearied application, was certainly an able man of business, which was his only paffion. His parts were neither above nor below it; they were rather flow, a defect of the fafer fide. He required time to form his opinion; but when formed, he adhered to it with invincible firmness, not to fay obftinacy, whether right or wrong, and was impatient of contradiction. He was a most ungraceful and confufed fpeaker in the houfe of lords, inelegant in his language, perplexed in his arguments, but always near the ftrefs of the question. His manners were coarse, ruftic, and feemingly brutal; but his nature was by no means fo; for he was a kind He was a warm friend, and a warm enemy; defects, if defects they are, infeparable in human nature, and often accompanying the most generous minds. Never minifter had cleaner hands than he had. Mere domestic œconomy was his only care as to money, for he did not add one acre to his eftate, and left his younger children very moderately provided for, though he had been in confiderable and lucrative employ ments near thirty years. As he only loved power for the fake of power, in order to preserve it he was obliged to have a most unwarrantable complaifance for the interefts and even dictates of the electorate, which was the only way by which a British minifter could hold either favour or power during the reigns of king George the first and fecond. The coarsenefs and imperioufness of his manners made him difagreeable to queen Caroline. Lord Townshend was not of a temper to act a fecond part, after having acted a first, as he did during the reign of king George the firft. He refolved therefore to make one convulfive struggle to revive his expiring power, or, if that did not fucceed, to retire from bufinefs. He tried the experiment upon the king, with whom he had a perfonal intereft. The experiment failed, as he might eafily, and ought to have forefeen. He retired to his feat in the country, and, in a few years, died of an apoplexy. Having thus mentioned the flight defects, as well as the many valuable parts, of his character, I must declare that I owed the former to truth, and the latter to gratitude and friendship as well as to truth, fince, for fome years before he retired from business, we lived in the ftricteft intimacy that the difference of our age and fituations could admit, during which time he Nn 4 gave gave me many unafked and unequivocal proofs of his friendship. Chesterfield. § 63. The Character of Mr. POPE. Pope in converfation was below himfelf; he was feldom eafy and natural, and feemed afraid that the man fhould degrade the poet, which made him always attempt wit and humour, often unfuccefsfully, and too often unfeafonably. I have been with him a week at a time at his houfe at Twickenham, where I neceffarily faw his mind in its undress, when he was both an agreeable and inftructive companion. His moral character has been warmly attacked, and but weakly defended; the natural confequence of his fhining turn to fatire, of which many felt, and all feared the smart. It must be owned that he was the most irritable of all the genus irritabile vatum, offended with trifles, and never forgetting or forgiving them; but in this I really think that the poet was more in fault than the man. He was as great an inftance as any he quotes, of the contrarieties and inconfiftencies of human nature; for, notwithstanding the malignancy of his fatires, and fome blameable paffages of his life, he was charitable to his power, active in doing good offices, and piously attentive to an old bed-ridden mother, who died but a little time before him. His poor, crazy, deformed body was a mere Pandora's box, containing all the phyfical ills that ever afflicted humanity. This, perhaps, whetted the edge of his fatire, and may in fome degree excufe it. I will fay nothing of his works, they fpeak fufficiently for themfelves; they will live as long as letters and tafte fhall remain in this country, and be more and more admired, as envy and refentment fhall fubfide. But I will venture this piece of claffical blafphemy, which is, that however he may be fuppofed to be obliged to Horace, Horace is more obliged to him. Ibid. $64. Character of Lord BOLING BROKE. It is impoffible to find lights and fhades strong enough to paint the charafter of lord Bolingbroke, who was a moft mortifying inftance of the violence. of human paffions, and of the most improved and exalted human reafon. His virtues and his vices, his reason and his paffions, did not blend themfelves by a gradation of tints, but formed a fhining and fudden contrast. Here the darkest, there the most fplendid colours, and both rendered more ftriking from their proximity. Impetuofity, excefs, and almost extravagancy, characterized not only his paffions, but even his fenfes. His youth was diftinguished by all the tumult and ftorm of pleasures, in which he licentioufly triumphed, difdaining all decorum. His fine imagination was often heated and exhausted, with his body, in celebrating and deifying the proftitute of the night; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals. These paffions were never interrupted but by a stronger ambition. The former impaired both his conftitution and his character; but the latter deftroyed both his fortune and his reputation. He engaged young, and diftinguished himself in bufinefs. His penetration was almost intuition, and he adorned whatever fubject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most fplendid eloquence; not a ftudied or laboured eloquence, but by fuch a flowing happinefs of diction, which (from care, perhaps, at first) was become fo habitual to him, that even his most familiar converfations, if taken down in writing, would have borne the prefs, without the least correction, either as to method or ftyle. He had noble and generous fentiments, rather than fixed, reficcted principles of good-nature and friendfhip; but they were more violent than lafting, and fuddenly and often varied to their oppofite extremes, with regard even to the fame perfons. He received the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returned with in. tereft; and refented with paffion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repaid with interest too. Even a difference of opinion upon, a philofophical fubject would provoke, and prove him no practical philofopher at least. Notwithstanding |