magnificence, quite useless to me, and which would cost a great deal to make habitable. I have fitted up six rooms with lodging for five servants, which are all I ever will have in this place; and I am persuaded that I could make a profit if I would part with my purchase, having been very much favoured in the sale, which was by auction, the owner having died without children, and I believe he had never seen this mansion in his life, it having stood empty from the death of his grandfather. The governor bid for me, and nobody would bid against him. Thus I am become a citizen of Louvere, to the great joy of the inhabitants, not, as they would pretend, from their respect for my person, but I perceive they fancy I shall attract all the travelling English; and, to say truth, the singularity of the place is well worth their curiosity; but, as I have no correspondents, I may be buried here thirty years, and nobody know anything of the matter.

Letters, during her last residence abroad.

P. 174, l. 1. Spot. Louvere, or rather Lovere, at the head of the Lago d'Iseo and the mouth of the Val Camonica.

P. 175, l. 38. Pieces. It is uncertain whether Lady Mary uses this in the French sense ("rooms") or not.

JOSEPH BUTLER.

Joseph Butler was born in 1692 at Wantage of a Nonconformist family, but joined the Church and became Rolls Preacher, Bishop of Bristol, and Bishop of Durham. His two books, the Analogy and the Sermons, are not bulky, and exhibit a strange incapacity for clothing thought in fit language. But the thought is always noble, and sometimes it forces the rebellious style into harmony. He died in 1752.

THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

How much soever men differ in the course of life they

prefer, and in their ways of palliating and excusing their vices to themselves; yet all agree in the one thing, desiring to "die the death of the righteous." This is surely remarkable. The observation may be extended further, and put thus: Even without determining what that is which we call guilt or innocence, there is no man but would choose, after having had the pleasure or advantage of a vicious action, to be free of the guilt of it, to be in the state of an innocent man. This shows at least the disturbance, and implicit dissatisfaction in vice. If we inquire into the grounds of it, we shall find it proceeds partly from an immediate sense of having done evil; and partly from an apprehension that this inward sense shall, one time or another, be seconded by an higher judgment, upon which our whole being depends. Now, to suspend and drown this sense, and these apprehensions, be it by the hurry of business or of pleasure, or by superstition, or moral equivocations, this is in a manner one and the same, and makes no alteration at all in the nature of our case. Things and actions are what they are, and

N

the consequences of them will be what they will be: Why then should we desire to be deceived? As we are reasonable creatures, and have any regard to ourselves, we ought to lay these things plainly and honestly before our mind, and upon this, act as you please, as you think most fit; make that choice, and prefer that course of life, which you can justify to yourselves, and which sits most easy upon your own mind. It will immediately appear, that vice cannot be the happiness, but must, upon the whole, be the misery of such a creature as man ; a moral, and accountable agent. Superstitious observances, self-deceit, though of a more refined sort, will not, in reality, at all amend matters with us. And the result of the whole can be nothing else, but that with simplicity and fairness we "keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right; for this alone shall bring a man peace at the last."

P. 177, l. to.

Sermon on Balaam.

Implicit. Implied or underlying-the proper sense, which in modern usage is constantly obscured by a misunderstanding of the phrase “implicit obedience."

P. 178, ll. 2-7. We.... you. A confusion which in the preceding century would have been nothing wonderful, but which shows Butler's awkwardness at writing clearly enough.

IN

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE,
EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694. He was a great gambler, a statesman of no small ability, an admirable writer. The letters to his natural son put the most questionable side of eighteenth century manners somewhat prominently forward; his miscellaneous writings have equal or greater literary elegance, and better if not always more amusing subjects. He died in 1773.

THE CHARACTER OF RICHARD, EARL OF
SCARBOROUGH.

N drawing the character of Lord Scarborough, I will be strictly upon my guard against the partiality of that intimate and unreserved friendship, in which we lived for more than twenty years; to which friendship, as well as to the public notoriety of it, I owe much more than my pride will let my gratitude own. If this may be suspected to have biassed my judgment, it must, at the same time, be allowed to have informed it; for the most secret movements of his soul were, without disguise, communicated to me only. However, I will rather lower than heighten the colouring; I will mark the shades, and draw a credible rather than an exact likeness.

He had a very good person, rather above the middle size; a handsome face, and when he was cheerful, the most engaging countenance imaginable; and when grave, which he was oftenest, the most respectable one. He had in the highest degree the air, manners and address of a man of quality, politeness with ease, and dignity without pride.

Bred in camps and courts, it cannot be supposed that he was untainted with the fashionable vices of these warm climates;

but, if I may be allowed the expression, he dignified them, instead of their degrading him into any mean or indecent action. He had a good degree of classical, and a great one of modern, knowledge; with a just, and, at the same time, a delicate taste.

In his common expenses he was liberal within bounds; but in his charities and bounties he had none. I have known them put him to some present inconveniencies.

He was a strong, but not an eloquent or florid speaker in parliament. He spoke so unaffectedly the honest dictates of his heart, that truth and virtue, which never want, and seldom wear, ornaments, seemed only to borrow his voice. This gave such an astonishing weight to all he said, that he more than once carried an unwilling majority after him. Such is the authority of unsuspected virtue, that it will sometimes shame vice into decency at least.

He was not only offered, but pressed to accept, the post of Secretary of State; but he constantly refused it. I once tried to persuade him to accept it; but he told me, that both the natural warmth and melancholy of his temper made him unfit for it; and that moreover he knew very well that, in those ministerial employments, the course of business made it necessary to do many hard things, and some unjust ones, which could only be authorised by the jesuitical casuistry of the direction of the intention; a doctrine which he said he could not possibly adopt. Whether he was the first that ever made that objection, I cannot affirm; but I suspect that he will be the last.

He was a true constitutional, and yet practicable patriot; a sincere lover and a zealous asserter of the natural, the civil, and the religious rights of his country. But he would not quarrel with the crown, for some slight stretches of the prerogative; nor with the people, for some unwary ebullitions of liberty; nor with any one, for a difference of opinion in speculative points. He considered the constitution in the aggregate, and only watched that no one part of it should preponderate too much.

His moral character was so pure, that if one may say of that imperfect creature man, what a celebrated historian says of Scipio, nihil non laudandum aut dixit, aut fecit, aut sensit, I sincerely think, I had almost said I know, one might say it with