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