POLE's remarks, that "all the traditional accounts of Lord SOMERS, the historians of the last age and its best authors, represent him as the most incorrupt lawyer and the honestest statesman; as a master-orator, a genius of the finest taste, and as a patriot of the noblest and most extensive views; as a man who dispensed blessings by his life, and planned them for posterity." His eloquence was often exerted in stemming the tide of faction, and in promoting the real interests of his country, but was never displayed with greater vigour and dignity than in repelling the malignant attacks of his political enemies. In the year 1701, when the Tories, at that time the superior party in the House of Commons, seemed determined upon aiming an irrecoverable blow at the heads of their antagonists, and selected Lord SOMERS and three more of his noble colleagues, as the objects of their fury, he desired to be heard in his own defence, during the debates which preceded the ultimate resolution on this subject. The request could not be denied; and his Lordship, having been admitted within the bar, entered into so masterly a defence of his conduct, that, had the question been immediately put, it was believed he would have been acquitted by a great majority. But the ardor of honest conviction being suffered to cool, other considerations finally prevailed, and the vote of impeachment was carried by a division of 198 against 188. An address to the King for the removal of Lords SOMERS, OXFORD, PORTLAND, and HALIFAX, from his Majesty's presence and councils soon followed; but all this was only a temporary triumph. Violent altercations took place between both Houses, which ended in the dismissal of the impeachment by the Lords; and before the end of the year, the Great Seal was restored to Lord SOMERS, whose clearness of head head and incorruptibility of heart rendered him most deserving of it. Mr. BELSHAM gives us in a few words a very faithful sketch of the character of Lord BOLINGBROKE, whom he represents as possessed of abilities of the first order,—of manners the most captivating, and of eloquence the most commanding; by which he acquired and maintained a surprising ascendancy over the opinions of all his political associates *. But his portrait at full length by the Earl of CHESTERFIELD is much better adapted to our purpose, because it was drawn with a view of animating a favorite. son to the study of the highest and most shining species of oratory. "I have sent you," says this great master of the art which he recommends, "Lord Bolingbroke's book †, which he published about a year ago. I desire that you will read it over and over again, with particular attention to the style, and to all those beauties of oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that book, I confess I did not know all the extent and powers of the English language. Lord BOLINGBROKE has both a tongue and a pen to persuade : his manner of speaking, in private conversation, is full as elegant as his writings: whatever subject he either speaks or writes upon, he adorns it with the most splendid eloquence-not a studied or labored cloquence, but such a flowing happiness of diction, which (from the care perhaps at first) is become so habitual to him, that even his most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would bear the press without the leaft correction either as to method or style. If his conduct, in the former part of his life, had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would most juttly have merited the epithet of all-accomplished. He is himself * Introduction to vol. 11. History of England. + Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, first published in 1748. sensible sensible of his past errors: those violent passions, which seduced him in his youth, have now subsided by age; and, take him as he is now, the character of all-accomplished is more his due than any man's I ever knew in my life. "But he has been a most mortifying instance of the violence of human passions, and of the weakness of the most exalted human reason. His virtues and his vices, his reason and his passions, did not blend themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a shining and sudden contrast-here the darkest, there the most splendid colors; and both rendered more fhining from their proximity. Impetuosity, excess, and almost extravagancy, characterized not only his passions, but even his senses. His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he most licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination has often been heated and exhausted with his body, in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of the frantic Bacchanals. Those passions were interrupted but by a stronger,-Ambition. The former impaired both his constitution and his character; but the latter destroyed both his character and his reputation. "He has noble and generous sentiments, rather than fixed reflected principles of good nature and friendship; but they are more violent than lasting, and suddenly and often varied to their opposite extremes, with regard even to the fame persons. He receives the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returns with interest; and resents with passion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repays with interest too. Even a difference of opinion upon a philosophical subject, would provoke and prove him no practical philosopher, at least. "Notwith "Notwithstanding the dissipation of his youth, and the tumultuous agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and almost universal knowledge, which from the clearest and quickest conception, and happiest memory, that ever' man was blessed with, he always carries about him. It is his pocket-money; and he 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, 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 moft 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 fmallest 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 mania mundi, and explore the unknown and unknowable regions of metaphysics, which open open an unbounded field for the excursions of an ardent imagination; where endless conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge, and too often usurp both its name and influence." A just censure of Lord BOLINGBROKE's philofophical works could not be expressed with greater delicacy; but it is the style of his political writings which merits the attention of the young orator. He will find them as animated as the noble Lord's speeches in parliament; for we may say of him with greater truth, perhaps, than of other celebrated orator, either ancient or modern, that he had the most masterly command both of the pen and the tongue; and that, when he took up the former, it seemed endued with all the powers of an electrical conductor, and transfused the fire of his genius into every sentence with undiminished force and ardor. any The other cotemporary orators above-named were little inferior to SOMERS or to BOLINGBROKE; and it is farther remarkable, that many of our most admired writers in every department of useful and polite learning flourished nearly at the same period. The art of thinking, of judging, of reasoning was reduced to a few plain principles by LOCKE, whose Essay on the Human Understanding ought to supersede for ever all the former subtilties and barbarous jargon of the Schools. NEWTON, about the same time, excited still greater astonishment by his discoveries in Natural Philosophy, and by explaining the " sublimely simple" laws of the Universe with the utmost clearness and precision. SWIFT, ADDISON, POPE, and their friends, formed, as it were, a constellation of wit and genius, the lustre of which will never fade. By the emanation of this pure light, we instantly distinguish real beauties from meretricious ornaments; and we are not |