left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my Lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character, by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion, and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.
You had already taken your degrees with credit, in those schools in which the English nobility are formed to virtue, when you were introduced to Lord Chatham's protection[1]. From Newmarket, White's, and the opposition, he gave you to the world
- ↑ To understand these passages, the reader is referred to a noted pamphlet, called The history of the minority.
