fixed pursuits; and the
man who receives his direction in active life from the fortuitous
impulse of circumstances, will be very apt to receive his principles
likewise from chance. Genius, under such guidance, attains no noble
ends; but resembles rather a copious spring, conveyed in a falling
aqueduct; where the waters continually escape through the frequent
crevices, and waste themselves ineffectually on their passage. The law
of nature is here, as elsewhere, binding; and no powerful results ever
ensue from the trivial exercise of high endowments. The finest mind,
when thus destitute of a fixed purpose, passes away without leaving
permanent traces of its existence; losing its energy by turning aside
from its course, it becomes as harmless and inefficient as the
lightning, which, of itself irresistible, may yet be rendered powerless
by a slight conductor.

These remarks apply perhaps in some measure even to Leibnitz, whose
sublime intelligence and mental activity were the wonder of his age. He
attained a celebrity of reputation, but hardly a contented spirit; at
times he descended to the consideration of magnitudes infinitely small,
and at times rose to the belief that he heard the universal harmony of
nature; for years he was devoted to illustrating the antiquities of the
family of a petty prince; and then again he assumed the sublime office
of defending the perfections of Providence. Yet with all this variety of
pursuit, the great philosopher was hardly to be called a happy man; and
it almost fills us with melancholy to find, that the very theologian who
would have proved this to be absolutely the best of all possible worlds,
died after all of chagrin.

Yet the name of Leibnitz is one which should rather excite unmingled
admiration; for the rich endowments of Heaven distinguished him as one
of the most favoured in that intellectual superiority which is the
choicest gift of God. Our subject is more fully illustrated in the case
of a less gifted, though a notorious man; one whose qualities have been
recently held up to admiration, yet for whom we find it impossible to
conceive sentiments of respect. We mean Lord Bolingbroke.

His talents as a writer have secured to him a very distinguished place
in the literature of England; and his political services, during the
reign of Queen Anne, have rendered him illustrious in English history.
But though he was possessed of wit, eloquence, family, wealth, and
opportunity, he n