influence and talents, he may have lost much fame and honour in public life. He could not indeed have had the remotest conception that the rise of that luminary should prefigure his own decadence, nay prove, from whatever cause, the extinction of his eloquence and consequent political importance in the country.
In the esteem of the Grenvilles, he took a high place. No guest was more frequent or favoured at Stowe. Many eminent men of the day spoke of his talents as first-rate. Select circles of good society made him an oracle. Dr. Johnson admired his conversation and encouraged his visits. He left behind several volumes of Adversaria, none of which but that mentioned here found its way into the press.
Of such a man, who spoke little in public while living, and has left nothing behind to earn reputation, what shall we say? Probably that he was overrated. Critical justice can scarcely award celebrity where there is nothing of moment to warrant it. He observed keenly and discriminated minutely; but if we are to take Parliamentary Logick as a specimen—though it contains useful precepts for young members of Parliament—he appears prone to note the forms rather than substance of things—the manner of a debater more than his matter—in fact, that he was a mere rhetorician. Otherwise, how can we conceive that a really powerful mind should be profoundly taciturn between 1756 and 1761, and again from 1763 to 1796 in the British House of Commons, when the most exciting topics ever discussed in Europe were daily before him? Or if too nervous
