he had been telling it. "Well," said Dodington," and yet I did not hear a word of it; but I went to sleep because I knew that about this time of day you would tell that story."

HORACE WALPOLE.

He

THE HON. GERARD HAMILTON. HAMILTON, Who in the English Parliament got the nickname of Single Speech, spoke well, but not often, in the Irish House of Commons. had a promptitude of thought, and a rapid flow of well conceived matter, with many other requisites, that only seemed waiting for opportunities to establish his reputation as an orator. He had a striking countenance, a graceful carriage, great selfpossession and personal courage: he was not easily put out of his way by any of those unaccommodating repugnances that men of weaker nerves or more tender consciences might have stumbled at, or been checked by; he could mask the passions that were natural to him, and assume those that did not belong to him: he was indefatigable, meditative, mysterious; his opinions were the result of long labour and much reflection, but he had the art of setting them forth as if they were the starts of ready genius and a quick perception he had as much seeming steadiness as a partisan could stand in need of, and all the real flexibility that could suit his purpose or advance his interest.

CUMBERLAND.

ELEGANT EXTRACTS.

PART IV.

Characters.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

LORD HOLLAND..

MR. HENRY Fox was a younger brother, of the lowest extraction. His father, Sir Stephen Fox, made a considerable fortune somehow or other, and left him a fair younger brother's portion, which he soon spent in the common vices of youth, gambling included: this obliged him to travel for some time. When he returned, though by education a jacobite, he attached himself to Sir Robert Walpole, and was one of his ablest éléves. He had no fixed principles either of religion or morality, and was too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them. He had very great abilities and indefatigable industry in business; great skill in managing, that is, in corrupting the House of Commons; and a wonderful dex

terity in attaching individuals to himself. He promoted, encouraged, and practised their vices; he gratified their avarice, or supplied their profusion. He wisely and punctually performed whatever he promised, and most liberally rewarded their attachment and dependence. By these and all other means that can be imagined he made himself many personal friends and political dependants. He was a most disagreeable speaker in parliament; inelegant in his language, hesitating and ungraceful in his elocution, but skilful in discerning the temper of the house, and in knowing when and how to press or to yield. A constant good humour and seeming frankness made him a welcome companion in social life, and in all domestic relations he was good natured. As he advanced in his life his ambition became subservient to his avarice. His early profusion and dissipation had made him feel the many inconveniences of want; and, as it often happens, carried him to the contrary and worse extreme of corruption and rapine. Rem, quocumque modo rem, became his maxim, which he observed (I will not say religiously and scrupulously, but) invariably and shamefully. He had not the least notion of or regard for the public good or the constitution, but despised those cares as the objects of narrow minds, or the pretences of interested ones; and he lived, as Brutus died, calling virtue only a name.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.