upon the broad expanse of his shoulders, as a cue would have been upon the robes of the Lord Chief Justice.

Having thus dilated more than perhaps I should have done upon this distinguished person's passion for magnificence and display, when I proceed to enquire into those principles of good taste, which should naturally have been the accompaniments and directors of that magnificence, I fear I must be compelled by truth to admit that in these he was deficient. Of pictures he seemed to take his estimate only by their cost; in fact he was not possessed of any; but I recollect his saying to me one day in his great saloon at Eastbury, that if he had half a score pictures of a thousand pounds apiece, he would gladly decorate his walls with them, in place of which I am sorry to say he had stuck up immense patches of gilt leather shaped into bugle horns upon hangings of rich crimson velvet, and round his state bed he displayed a carpeting of gold and silver embroidery, which too glaringly betrayed its derivation from coat, waistcoat and breeches by the testimony of pockets, button-holes and loops with other equally incontrovertible witnesses,

subpoena'd from the tailor's shopboard. When he paid his court at St. James's to the present queen upon her nuptials, he approached to kiss her hand decked in an embroidered suit of silk with lilac waistcoat and breeches, the latter of which in the act of kneeling down forgot their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous and uncourtly manner.

In the higher provinces of taste we may contemplate his character with more pleasure, for he had an ornamented fancy and a brilliant wit. He was an elegant Latin classic, and well versed in history ancient and modern.His favourite prose writer was Tacitus, and I scarce ever surprised him in his hours of reading without finding that author upon his table before him. He understood him well, and descanted upon him very agreeably and with much critical acumen, Mr. Dodington was in nothing more remarkable than in ready perspicuity and clear discernment of a subject thrown before him on a sudden; take his first thoughts then, and he would charm you; give him time to ponder and refine, you would perceive the spirit of his sentiments and the vigour of his genius evaporate by the process;

for though his first view of the question would be a wide one and clear withal, when he came to exercise the subtlety of his disquisitorial powers upon it, he would so ingeniously dissect and break it into fractions, that as an object, when looked upon too intently for a length of time, grows misty and confused, so would the question under his discussion, when the humour took him to be hyper-critical. Hence it was that his impromptu's in parliament were generally more admired than his studied speeches, and his first suggestions in the councils of his party better attended to than his prepared opinions.

Being a man of humble birth, he seemed to have an innate respect for titles, and none bowed with more devotion to the robes and fasces of high rank and office. He was decidedly aristocratic: he paid his court to Walpole in panegyric poems, apologizing for his presumption by reminding him, that it was better to be pelted with roses than with rotten eggs to Chesterfield, to Winnington, Pulteney, Fox and the luminaries of his early time he offered up the oblations of his genius, and incensed them with all the odours of his wit:

in his latter days, and within the period of my acquaintance with him, the Earl of Bute in the plenitude of his power was the god of his idolatry. That noble Lord was himself too much a man of letters and a patron of the sciences to overlook a witty head, that bowed so low, he accordingly put a coronet upon it, which, like the barren sceptre in the hand of Macbeth, merely served as a ticket for the coronation procession, and having nothing else to leave to posterity in memory of its owner, left its mark upon the lid of his coffin.

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During my stay at Eastbury, we were visited by the late Mr. Henry Fox and Mr. Alderman Beckford the solid good sense of the former, and the dashing loquacity of the latter, formed a striking contrast between the characters of these gentlemen. To Mr. Fox our host paid all that courtly homage, which he so well knew how to time and where to apply; to Beckford he did not observe the same attentions, but in the happiest flow of his raillery and wit combated this intrepid talker with admirable effect. It was an interlude truly comic and amusing. Beckford loud, voluble, selfsufficient and galled by hits, which he could

not parry and probably did not expect, laid himself more and more open in the vehemence of his argument; Dodington, lolling in his chair in perfect apathy and self-command, dosing and even snoring at intervals in his lethargic way, broke out every now and then into such gleams and flashes of wit and irony, as by the contrast of his phlegm with the other's impetuosity, made his humour irresistible, and set the table in a roar. He was here upon his very strongest ground, for no man was better calculated to exemplify how true the observation is

Ridiculum acri

Fortius ac melius

At the same time he had his serious hours and graver topics, which he would handle with all due solemnity of thought and language, and these were to me some of the most pleasing hours I have passed with him, for he could keep close to his point, if he would, and could be not less argumentative than he was eloquent, when the question was of magnitude enough to interest him. It is with singular satisfaction I can truly say that I never knew