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society among the young men of rank and education, which took to itself the name of "The Mohocks," and whose barbarous habits were worthy of the name, insulted alike public justice and endangered personal safety. Thomas Burnet was said to have been engaged in some of their violences, though he, perhaps, was not one of the "affiliated." It may be naturally supposed, that those excesses grieved so distinguished a man as his father; and it is equally to be supposed that they led to frequent remonstrance. If so, they operated effectively at last. One day the bishop, observing the peculiar gravity of his son's countenance, asked, "On what he was thinking." "On a greater work than your 'History of the Reformation.'--_My own_," was the answer. "I shall be heartily glad to see it," said the father, "though I almost despair of it." It was undertaken, however, and vigorously pursued. The young _roue_ became a leading lawyer, and finally attained the rank of Chief-justice of the Common Pleas. He died in 1753. There is, perhaps, in public history, no more curious instance of the power which circumstances may place in the hands of a private individual, than the deference paid to Mrs Clayton. Her whole merit seems to have been caution, a perpetual sense of the delicacy of her position, and an undeviating deference to the habits, opinions, and purposes of the Queen. Those were useful qualities, but not remarkable for dignity, and rather opposed to personal amiability of mind. Yet this cautious, considerate, and frigid personage, was all but worshipped by the world of fashion, of talents, and of celebrity. Among those worshippers was the man who did the most evil, and gained the most renown, of any man of his generation. The wit, who eclipsed all the witty pungency of France in his sportive sarcasm; all the libellers of royalty in his scorn of thrones; and all the grave infidelity of England, in his restless and envenomed antipathy to all religion--the memorable Voltaire. He was then only beginning his mischievous career, but he had already made its character sufficiently marked to earn an imprisonment in the Bastille, and, on his liberation, an order to quit Paris. In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his "Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works. At length he was permitted to return to that spot o
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