both, although not in an
equal degree, sceptical and creative. Nature had gifted him with
precocious talents; and with a temperament essentially poetic, he
was nevertheless a great student. His early reading, originally by
accident and afterwards by an irresistible inclination, had fallen
among the works of the English freethinkers: with all their errors,
a profound and vigorous race, and much superior to the French
philosophers, who were after all only their pupils and their
imitators. While his juvenile studies, and in some degree the
predisposition of his mind, had thus prepared him to doubt and finally
to challenge the propriety of all that was established and received,
the poetical and stronger bias of his mind enabled him quickly to
supply the place of everything he would remove and destroy; and, far
from being the victim of those frigid and indifferent feelings
which must ever be the portion of the mere doubter, Herbert, on the
contrary, looked forward with ardent and sanguine enthusiasm to a
glorious and ameliorating future, which should amply compensate and
console a misguided and unhappy race for the miserable past and
the painful and dreary present. To those, therefore, who could not
sympathise with his views, it will be seen that Herbert, in attempting
to fulfil them, became not merely passively noxious from his example,
but actively mischievous from his exertions. A mere sceptic, he would
have been perhaps merely pitied; a sceptic with a peculiar faith of
his own, which he was resolved to promulgate, Herbert became odious. A
solitary votary of obnoxious opinions, Herbert would have been looked
upon only as a madman; but the moment he attempted to make proselytes
he rose into a conspirator against society.

Young, irresistibly prepossessing in his appearance, with great
eloquence, crude but considerable knowledge, an ardent imagination
and a subtle mind, and a generous and passionate soul, under any
circumstances he must have obtained and exercised influence, even if
his Creator had not also bestowed upon him a spirit of indomitable
courage; but these great gifts of nature being combined with accidents
of fortune scarcely less qualified to move mankind, high rank, vast
wealth, and a name of traditionary glory, it will not be esteemed
surprising that Marmion Herbert, at an early period, should have
attracted around him many enthusiastic disciples.

At Christchurch, whither he repaired at an unusually early