t, what moralists term the libertine; hence
the light wooing, the quick desertion, the broken faith, the organized
perfidy, that manifested thy bearing to those gentler creatures who
called thee 'Gentleman George.' Never to one solitary woman, until
the last dull flame of thy dotage, didst thou so behave as to give no
foundation to complaint and no voice to wrong. But who shall say be
honest to one, but laugh at perfidy to another? Who shall wholly confine
treachery to one sex, if to that sex he hold treachery no offence? So
in thee, as in all thy tribe, there was a laxness of principle, an
insincerity of faith, even unto men: thy friends, when occasion suited,
thou couldst forsake; and thy luxuries were dearer to thee than justice
to those who supplied them. Men who love and live for pleasure as thou,
are usually good-natured; for their devotion to pleasure arises from the
strength of their constitution, and the strength of their constitution
preserves them from the irritations of weaker nerves. So went thou
good-natured and often generous; and often with thy generosity didst
thou unite a delicacy that showed thou hadst an original and a tender
sympathy with men. But as those who pursue pleasure are above all
others impatient of interruption, so to such as interfered with thy main
pursuit thou didst testify a deep, a lasting, and a revengeful anger.
Yet let not such vices of temperament be too severely judged! For
to thee were given man's two most persuasive tempters, physical and
moral,--Health and Power! Thy talents, such as they were,--and they were
the talents of a man of the world,--misled rather than guided thee, for
they gave thy mind that demi-philosophy, that indifference to exalted
motives, which is generally found in a clever rake. Thy education was
wretched; thou hadst a smattering of Horace, but thou couldst not write
English, and thy letters betray that thou went wofully ignorant of
logic. The fineness of thy taste has been exaggerated; thou wert
unacquainted with the nobleness of simplicity; thy idea of a whole
was grotesque and overloaded, and thy fancy in details was gaudy and
meretricious. But thou hadst thy hand constantly in the public purse,
and thou hadst plans and advisers forever before thee; more than all,
thou didst find the houses in that neighbourbood wherein thou didst
build, so preternaturally hideous that thou didst require but little
science to be less frightful in thy creations. If thou d