exuberant strength and
freshness of youth. Lord Bacon, who has analyzed some of the human
accompaniments so well, is silent as to the softening sway and
pleasing influence of this choice attuner of the human mind. But
Shaftesbury, the illustrious author of the _Characteristics_, was so
enamoured of it, that he terms "gravity (its counterpart,) the essence
of imposture;" and so it is, for to what purpose does a man store his
brain with knowledge, and the profitable burden of the sciences, if he
gathers only superciliousness and pride from the hedge of learning?
instead of the milder traits of general affection, and the open
qualities of social feelings. I remember, when a youth, I was
extremely fond of attending the House of Commons, to hear the debates;
and I shall never forget the repulsive loftiness which I thought
marked the physiognomy of Pitt; harsh and unbending, like a settled
frost, he seemed wrapped in the mantle of egotism and sublunary
conceit; and it was from the uninviting expression of this great man's
countenance, that I first drew my conceptions as to how a proud and
unsociable man looked. With very different emotions I was wont to
survey the mild but expressive features of his great opponent, Fox:
there was a placidity mixed up with the graver lines of thought and
reflection, that would have invited a child to take him by the hand;
indeed, the witchcraft of Mr. Fox's temper was such, that it formed a
triumphant source of gratulation in the circle of his friends, from
the panegyric of the late Earl of Carlisle, during his boyish days at
Eton, to the prouder posthumous circles of fame with which the elegant
author of _The Pleasures of Memory_, has entwined his sympathetic
recollections. The late Mr. Whitbread, although an unflinching
advocate for the people's rights, and an incorruptible patriot in
the true sense of the word, was unpopular in his office as a country
magistrate, owing to a tone of severity he generally used to those
around him. The wife of that indefatigable toiler in the Christian
field, John Wesley, was so acid and acrimonious in her temper, that
that mild advocate for spiritual affection, found it impossible to
live with her. Rousseau was tormented by such a host of ungovernable
passions, that he became a burden to himself and to every one around
him. Lord Byron suffered a badness of temper to corrode him in the
flower of his days. Contrasted with this unpleasing part of the
perspective