CHARACTER OF THE HONOURABLE ALGERNON

GREVILLE.*

THE whole life of this noble person was a more serious preparation for death than most men's dying thoughts.

He well knew that the nobility of his extraction would be no excuse to him from the peremptory summons of death; neither did he make it any excuse to him from an industrious and strict preparation for it. This he testified by the series of his whole life; in which there evidently appeared such an awe of God, and a real sense of true piety and religion, as clearly evinced that he had strong and habituated meditations of that great levelling day, wherein the highest shall stand upon no higher ground than the meanest.

He did not think religion any stain to his honour, nor minding heaven to be the employment of those only who have nothing on earth,

Indeed, irreligion and atheism are now reckoned as a piece of good breeding among the great ones of the world; it is now counted as a sign of a degenerous and low sunk spirit to acknowledge even God himself for their superior. Those are cried up as the wits of the time, who can daringly dis. pute it against whatsoever is sacred in Christiani, ty; yea, against the being of God himself. It is now become an argument of a judicious and gal lant mind, to call into question the most fundamental maxims of our faith; and the authority too of those holy oracles which confirm them. Reason alone is extolled as the best and most sufficient guide, both in matters of belief and of practice; and

*He died young, in 1668.

they appeal to that for their judge which commonly, by their debauches and intemperances, they either so corrupt that it will not discern the truth, or else so sot and stupefy that it cannot. And, thus, as the moon shines brightest when it is at the greatest opposition to the sun, these think their reason then shines brightest, when it stands at the greatest opposition to God.

This noble person, whose reason had as fleet a wing, and could soar as high a pitch as any of theirs who pretend to nothing above it, yet saw it reason to give his faith the precedency, and always found more acquiescence in a Thus saith the Lord, than in the most critical researches, and positive conclusions of his reason. So reverend an esteem had he for those sacred dictates of Scripture, that, though his wit and parts shone forth to admiration in whatsoever he pleased to employ them about, yet he never presumed to exercise them on that common-place of abusing divine verities: he was not ambitious to commence a wit by blasphemy; nor did he pretend ingenuity by being impious. But, whereas too many use their wit in jesting at them, he showed his early wisdom in believing and obeying. Other books he made the ornament of his mind: this, the guide of his life. He knew what others said, but did what God spake.

He was not made a Christian out of old heathens; nor owed his virtues to the sage precepts of Plutarch or Epictetus: these are now become the penmen and evangelists of our young gentry: Seneca is with them preferred before St. Paul, though his chief credit be that he wrote so well that some have mistakingly thought him St. Paul's disciple. The virtue of this noble person acknowledged a more divine original; being formed in

him by the same spirit that gave him rules to act it. This taught him to outstrip, in true wisdom, temperance, and fortitude, not only whatsoever those starched moralists did, but whatsoever they wrote; and, whereas they prescribed but the exercise of virtue, he sublimed it, and made it grace.

Next to his absolute subjection to God, was his obedience unto his honourable, and now disconsolate mother: wherein he was to such a degree punctual, that, as her wisdom commanded nothing but what was fit, so his duty disputed not the fitness of things beyond her command. His demean. our towards her was most submissive: and towards all so obliging that it was but the same thing to know and admire him.

His converse gave the world a singular pattern of harmless and inoffensive mirth; of a gentility, not made up of fine clothes and hypocritical courtship; a sweetness and familiarity that, at once, gained love and preserved respect; a grandeur and nobility, safe in its own worth, nor needing to maintain itself by a jealous and morose distance.

Never did vice, in youth, find a more confirmed goodness: so impregnable was he against the temptations which gain an easy access to those of his rank and quality, that they could neither insinuate into him by their allurements, nor force him by their importunities.

Nor did he think it enough to secure his mind from the infection of vice, unless also he secured his fame from the suspicion of it. Some, indeed, owe their innocence to their dullness and stupidity; and are only not vicious, because not witty enough to be takingly and handsomely wicked. His virtue was of choice; and the severest exercise of it mingled with such charms from his parts and

ingenuity, that his very seriousness was more alluring than those light divertisements in others, which entice only because they please.

His apprehension was quick and piercing, his memory faithful and retentive, his fancy sprightly and active; and his judgment overruling them all, neither prejudicated by vulgar opinions nor easily cozened by varnished and plausible errors.

After all this, there can be nothing wanting to make up a most complete and absolute person, but only industry to quicken his parts, and time to ripen both to perfection.

His industry was remarkable, in the assiduousness of his studies: where he spent not his hours in plays or romances, those follies of good wits; but in the disquisition of solid and masculine knowledge, in which he outstripped even those who were to depend upon learning for their livelihood, and had no other revenue than what arose out of their fruitful and well cultivated brains.

And, as for that other, I mean time, to maturate these growing hopes, Providence hath denied it; by a sudden and surprising stroke cutting off his days, and thereby rendering that virtue, those parts, that industry, useless to us in any thing but the example, and I should say unprofitable to him too, but only that which he never had opportunity to employ in this world, hath, I doubt not, fitted him for a better. BISHOP HOPKINS.

CHARACTER OF HORACE WALPOLE.

WALPOLE had a warm conception, vehement attachments, strong aversions, with an apparent contradiction in his temper-for he had numerous

caprices, and invincible perseverance. His principles tended to republicanism, but without any of its austerity; his love of faction was unmixed with any aspiring. He had a great sense of honour, but not great enough, for he had too much weak. ness to resist doing wrong, though too much sensibility not to feel it in others. He had a great measure of pride, equally apt to resent neglect, and scorning to stoop to any meanness or flattery. A boundless friend; a bitter, but a placable enemy. His humour was satiric, though accompanied with a most compassionate heart. Indiscreet and abandoned to his passions, it seemed as if he despised or could bear no restraint; yet this want of government of himself was the more blamable, as nobody had greater command of resolution whenever he made a point of it. This appeared in his person: naturally very delicate, and educated with too fond a tenderness, by unrelaxed temperance, and braving the inclemency of weathers, he formed and enjoyed the firmest and unabated health. One virtue he possessed in a singular degree-disinterestedness and contempt of money-if one may call that a virtue, which really was a passion. In short, such was his promptness to dislike superiors, such his humanity to inferiors, that, considering how few men are of so firm a texture as not to be influenced by their situation, he thinks, if he may be allowed to judge of himself, that had either extreme of fortune been his lot, he should have made a good prince, but not a very honest slave. HORACE WALPOLE.