and generosity, the candour and politeness of
the man, whom, when he no longer loved him, he declared to be a wretch
without understanding, without good-nature, and without justice; of
whose name he thought himself obliged to leave no trace in any future
edition of his writings; and, accordingly, blotted it out of that copy
of the Wanderer which was in his hands.

During his continuance with the lord Tyrconnel, he wrote the Triumph of
Health and Mirth, on the recovery of lady Tyrconnel from a languishing
illness. This performance is remarkable, not only for the gaiety of the
ideas, and the melody of the numbers, but for the agreeable fiction upon
which it is formed. Mirth, overwhelmed with sorrow for the sickness of
her favourite, takes a flight in quest of her sister health, whom she
finds reclined upon the brow of a lofty mountain, amidst the fragrance
of perpetual spring, with the breezes of the morning sporting about her.
Being solicited by her sister mirth, she readily promises her
assistance, flies away in a cloud, and impregnates the waters of Bath
with new virtues, by which the sickness of Belinda is relieved.

As the reputation of his abilities, the particular circumstances of his
birth and life, the splendour of his appearance, and the distinction
which was, for some time, paid him by lord Tyrconnel, entitled him to
familiarity with persons of higher rank than those to whose conversation
he had been before admitted; he did not fail to gratify that curiosity,
which induced him to take a nearer view of those whom their birth, their
employments, or their fortunes, necessarily place at a distance from the
greatest part of mankind, and to examine whether their merit was
magnified or diminished by the medium through which it was contemplated;
whether the splendour with--which they dazzled their admirers was
inherent in themselves, or only reflected on them by the objects that
surrounded them; and whether great men were selected for high stations,
or high stations made great men.

For this purpose he took all opportunities of conversing familiarly
with those who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or
their influence; he watched their looser moments, and examined their
domestick behaviour, with that acuteness which nature had given him, and
which the uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, and
that inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind,
by an absolute freed