for many months teased with a slow fever; and the loss of my excellent friend has cast a cloud over my mind. I remember Sir William Temple says, in one of his Essays, that when he recollects how many excellent men and amiable women of his acquaintance have died before him, he is ashamed to be alive. With much more reason than Sir William Temple, whose merit I dare say was equal at least to that of any of the friends he survived, I feel this very strongly. I have lived in the most intimate connexion with some persons of the highest characters in this age; they are gone and I remain all that adorned me is taken away, and only a cypress wreath remains. I used to borrow some lustre from them, but now I seem respectable (even in my own eyes) only as the mourner of departed merit. I agree with your Lordship, that I ought not to lament the death of Lord Lyttelton on his account his virtue could not have been more perfect in this mortal state, nor his character greater, than it was with all those whose praise could be an object to a wise and worthy man. He now reaps the full reward of those virtues, which here, though they gave him a tranquil cheerfulness amidst many vexations, and the sufferings of sickness, yet could not bring a perfect calm to the wounds his paternal affection suffered. When I consider how unhappy his former, how blessed his present condition, I am ashamed to lament him : the world has lost the best example, modest merit the most zealous protector, mankind its gentlest friend: my loss is unspeakable; but as the friendship of so excellent a man is the best gift of God, and I am sensible I was never deserving of so great a blessing, I ought rather to offer thanks it was bestowed, than repine it was taken. away; and only to beg, that by theremembrance of his precepts and example, I may derive the same helps to doing my duty in all the relations of life, and social engagements, as I did from his advice. But virtue never speaks with such persuasion as when she borrows the accents of a friend. Moreover, my time in this world will probably be very short; and if it were long, I could not forget to admire so admirable a pattern of goodness. I ever am, my Lord, &c. &c. ELIZ. MONTAGU. III. FROM THE SAME. On a Domestick Event: and on Re ligious Education. [Written within a few weeks of the death of Lord Kames] Portman Square, Nov. 12, 1782. MY LORD, I cannot wait till I have conferred with the grave Bench of Bishops on the doctrine of your letter, to return my warmest thanks for the kind and friendly sentiments it expresses for me, and the good domes. tick news which it communicates. Mr. Drummond Home's excellent choice is an event of the highest importance to your happiness, as well as his own. I have long been solicitous, that a name to which you have given celebrity, a noble estate you have improved, and a charming place you have embellished, should be transmitted to your posterity. This wish was made of the common stuff, the hardware of this world: ambition, and the love of fame, &c. you may see, furnished, and fashioned it. By the account your Lordship and others have given me of your new connexion, many softer and sweeter blessings will flow from that alliance. She will embellish your society, and enliven your hours of retirement. When your are all well and in good spirits, she will add to your gaiety and pleasure: in the hours of sickness, she will alleviate pain by tender attentions. My amiable Miss G has made me know how much pleasure and comfort may be derived from a near connexion with a person, who adds to the various agrémens of youth, the discretion, and sober, and solid inerit of a mature character. The seasons of life have been often compared to the seasons of the year, and each have their comforts. I think the calm autumn of life, as well as of the year, has many advantages. Both have a peculiar serenity, a gentle tranquillity. We are less busy and agitated, because the hopes of the spring, and the vivid delights of the sum mer, are over; but these tranquil seasons have their appropriate enjoy ments; and a well regulated mind sees every thing beautiful that is in the order of nature. I hope your Lordship received my acknowledgements and thanks for your excellent sentiments on religious education. To errours, defects, and faults, in the first training up, we may often ascribe the irreHigion of many persons; for, philosophically speaking, man is a religious animal. Sensible of his weakness, he is ever desirous of obtaining the assistance of a superiour Being. The most ignorant are sensible, that great power and intelligence must have combined to form all they see in the creation they wish for the protection and favour of this Great Being. Man must be much perverted, before he can wish to disbelieve a God and providence. His interest must be misrepresented to him, or he would never reject the means of fered by Divine Revelation to make the Omnipotent his friend. The unsophisticated man is never an atheist. But when either erroneous impress ions have been made upon the youthful mind, as where the Deity has been held forth as a wrathful being, clothed in terrours; or where he has observed, that those with whom he has lived, have not acted with any reference to a Superiour Power, he is easily made the disciple of those who call themselves Freethinkers. Our Bishops are now in their dioccses. When they return to town, I will not fail to communicate what you sent me. I cannot imagine it is calculated to give the slightest offence. Beyond the regions of human knowledge, human authority can. not form establishments of doctrine. I shall always be glad to find excuses to write to you. I passed the summer in Berkshire, but removed to London the first week in November. No augur ever paid more regard to the flight of birds than I do. I take a hint from the swallows to leave the country. To what region they repair, I do not know enough of their constitutions and taste to say; but I will pronounce, that for a human creature, of flimsy materials of mind and body, a capital city is the best situation. The weather has less power there; the blank and silence of the vegetable and animal world is less perceived, and there are great resources in society to prevent our feeling our own insignificance and weakness. My new house af is now fords me many comforts; but it has lost at present its best ornament. My amiable Miss Gmaking a visit to her family at Edinburgh; but I flatter myself she will return to me some time in the next month. In the mean while I reflect with satisfaction on the happiness she is enjoying in her friends and they in her. My best and most affectionate regards attend all at Blair-Drummond. And I am, with the greatest esteem, &c. ELIZ. MONTAGU. For the Anthology. CHARACTER OF THE HON. FISHER AMES. The Honourable FISHER AMES, the ornament of the bar, the delight of his friends, and the boast of his country, died at the early age of fifty years, on the fourth day of July last, the anniversary of American Independence, which he had spent his life to support and perpetuate. The following character from one, who knew him well, will be read as the tribute of justice rather than the foud exaggeration of eulogy. ED. ANTH.] To say that Mr. Ames was a great and good man, though rarely said with more justice, is not sufficiently discriminative. The greatness of his mind has such distinguishing lines, such peculiar features, as form a very distinct, indi'vidual picture. Few men, in this, or any country, have possessed what may be truly called genius, in a more eminent degree than Mr. Ames. If we regard his understanding, so acute and profound does it appear, that it would seem nature had intended him for a logician: if we regard his imagination, it would seem that nature had intended him for a poet, so ductile, so excursive, so brilliant does it appear. He was indeed both, for there was no subject so complex, or subtle that he could not comprehend, analyze and embellish it. His thoughts were ingenious. original and profound; now abounding with points and contrasts, now sportively diffused, and now vigorously condensed. In his use of figurative language, there was sometimes such a brilliancy of colouring, such an excess of light, as almost to confuse ordinary perceptions. Hence it sometimes happened, that he was regarded as a man, of fine imagination merely, when in truth, the imagery, that excited so much admiration, was not mere decoration, but pictured the sentiment and thought itself. Such was the versatility of his mind, that he could, and often did, when the occasion required it, reason in a close and dry manner ; but his arguments were more frequently attended with such vivid illustrations, as to take away the im pression of a logical deduction, though they displayed all its truth and certainty. So copious was his mind, that his thoughts flowed like a perennial spring, always full, always pressing for utterance; such the multitude of his ideas, that no variety of discussion seemed to diminish them; and so rapid were his associations, that to some he appeared to wander from his subject, while he was only placing it in new lights, or pursuing it in a new manner. His knowledge of human nature was so thorough, that, like Shakespeare, he needed not to consult it 66 through the spectacles of books.” His knowledge of books, however, was very general, and his acquaintance with history, in particular, was minute and extensive; yet his learning rarely ever appeared as such, s● incorporated was it with his habits of thinking, so subservient at all times to his purpose, that it seemed to spring spontaneously from his mind to give authority to senti'ments. Thus gifted by nature, and thus furnished with knowledge, politicks, so complex, so refined, and yet so interesting, almost absorbed those faculties, that, employed in any work of ethicks or general literature, would have given him a preeminent name. The causes and consequences of revolutions, the principles on which free governments can be supported, the nature and kind of those dangers, to which they are exposed from within and without, were often the theme of his discourse, and often employed his pen. The combined and multiform operations of the interests and passions of men in states, or of governments in the more extended circle of coalitions were equally within the reach of his comprehensive and perspicacious mind. Hence many of his political speculations on the passing events of his own and other countries have all the authori. ty of predictions fulfilled, and now fulfilling. His imagination was that faculty of his mind, which excited most surprise. It appeared to be an attending spirit, that accompanied and assisted in the operations of his intellect; sometimes assembling the most pleasing images, from nature and art, and spreading over them all the colours of heaven; at others, rising in the storm, wielding the elements, or flashing with the most awful splendours. It has been often said, that genius is allied to that eccentrick and wayward conduct, to those vices and imperfections, which spring from strong passions and quick sensibilities; and many are disposed to claim exemption for it from the observance of the sober duties, the ordinary virtues and customary forms of life. But who, let me ask, ever more strongly felt the inspirations of genius than Mr. Ames? Yet who was more temperate, moral or stable in his habits? Or who possessed a truer discernment of all the proprieties of polished life, or observed them with more unaffected ease? Non vixit sibi-was never more truly applied, for he was a patriot in truth and in deed. Patriotism had its seat in his heart, and to use his own language, was "twisted into its minutest filaments." It was in him a virtue of the highest order; it was almost exalted into piety; it had all the ardour, which inflamed the best men of Greece or Rome, tempered and guided by the solid convictions of a christian. It for sook him only with his life. It is not for me to speak of his disinterested zeal, the long continued la bours of his pen; these I trust will appear in due season, the just pride of his country, and his own best eulogy. The loss of such a man, in any times, and especially in such as the present, cannot casily be calculated. The impulse he gave to publick opinion, the light he imparted to it, by his speeches, his writings, and his conversations, extended like circles on the smooth surface of the water far beyond our sight, and continued long after the cause had ceased to operate. Who or what can fill the chasm his death has made? Alas, our hopes seem buried with him in the tomb! In vain our sorrows linger there. The lustre of his eye that once shone the clear mirrour of his fervid mind is obscur ed! That eloquer ce which once carried dismay and trembling throughthe ranks of opposition is dumb forever! That vigorous and pervading mind, that so often displayed our dangers and their remedies, is gone into another state of being; but we thank God, that such monuments of its wisdom remain to direct us in the right course, and that such an example is left us to pursue it That luminary, which so often threw its beams across the darkness and confusion of the publick mind,has gradually and serenely sunk from our sight to appear in another hemisphere arrayed in new splendours. In his conversation and manners there was something so sincere, so frank, so affable, and so cheerful, that his political enemies, and he had no others, were conciliated into a regard for the man; but when he appeared among his friends and acquaintance, they felt an elevation of sentiment, a serene delight, like what would be experienced if a superiour intelligence should visit us, on some errand of good will. His wit was brilliant and almost incessant, but it never made one "honest man his foe." Assured of his delicate regard to the feelings of others, we could behold the play of his fancy and wit without uneasiness; for in his most relaxed moments he seemed to have some object of utility in view. Few, very few "idle words" escaped his lips, and we can with equal truth and consolation say, that his "ten talents were well employed." I cannot dwell on the unobserved offices of his friendly heart, on his private and domestick virtues; there was something in them so pure, so elevated, and so tender, that those, who have never known or felt them, cannot be made to understand them, and those, who have, cherish their memory with something of a sacred regard. |