e never has
occasion to draw upon a book for any sum. He excels more particularly in
history, as his historical works plainly prove. The relative political
and commercial interests of every country in Europe, particularly of his
own, are better known to him, than perhaps to any man in it; but how
steadily he has pursued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies,
of all parties and denominations, tell with joy.

He engaged young, and distinguished himself in business; and his
penetration was almost intuition. I am old enough to have heard him speak
in parliament. And I remember that, though prejudiced against him by
party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial in
Milton, "he made the worse appear the better cause." All the internal and
external advantages and talents of an orator are undoubtedly his. Figure,
voice, elocution, knowledge, and, above all, the purest and most florid
diction, with the justest metaphors and happiest images, had raised him
to the post of Secretary at War, at four-and-twenty years old, an age at
which others are hardly thought fit for the smallest employments.

During his long exile in France, he applied himself to study with his
characteristical ardor; and there he formed and chiefly executed the plan
of a great philosophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are
too narrow for his warm and aspiring imagination. He must go 'extra
flammantia maenia Mundi', and explore the unknown and unknowable regions
of metaphysics; which open an unbounded field for the excursion of an
ardent imagination; where endless conjectures supply the defect of
unattainable knowledge, and too often usurp both its name and its
influence.

He has had a very handsome person, with a most engaging address in his
air and manners; he has all the dignity and good-breeding which a man of
quality should or can have, and which so few, in this country at least,
really have.

He professes himself a deist; believing in a general Providence, but
doubting of, though by no means rejecting (as is commonly supposed) the
immortality of the soul and a future state.

Upon the whole, of this extraordinary man, what can we say, but, alas,
poor human nature!

In your destination, you will have frequent occasions to speak in public;
to princes and states abroad; to the House of Commons at home; judge,
then, whether eloquence is necessary for you or not; not only common
eloquence, which is rather free