Princess Catherine of France; and his chief excellence consisted in larding meat and dressing poulets. He became, afterwards, pimp to Henry IV., then councillor of state, and lastly, comptroller-general of the Post-office.

The origin of the dukedom of Leeds is very remarkable. An apprentice to a rich merchant, Sir William Hewitt, having saved the life of his master's daughter, when a child, by plunging into the Thames, and bringing her safe to land, she having fallen out of the window of a house standing on London Bridge, the master gave him this daughter in marriage. Osborne was afterwards elected sheriff, became lord mayor, and was knighted. One of his successors was made a baronet; and his great-grandson having materially assisted in the restoration of Charles II., was not only made treasurer of the navy and a privy councillor; but, subsequently, lord high-treasurer, and Earl of Danby. Having assisted in recovering the Stuarts, and been rewarded amply for that service, he was equally active in effecting their disgrace; the revolution being so much indebted to him, that, in 1689, the Prince of Orange created him Marquis of Carmarthen; and in 1694, Duke of Leeds.

CLXXVI.

WHO WORSHIP SUCCESS AS A GOD.

SUCCESS and resolution seem to be, alternately, father and son, mother and daughter. Some rely upon their fortune, as they are pleased to call it. 'But when a

'town is besieged,' says a celebrated French historian, by a superior army, the works properly conducted, ⚫ and season favourable; one may guess, pretty nearly, in what time it will be taken, though the defence be ever so vigorous.'

The Romans adored success as a god, and erected to him a temple. The Imperators kept a statue of him even in their cabinets. Cicero asserts, that Fortune, not Wisdom, governs human affairs; and Terence declares, that Chance gives men many things they scarcely dared to hope for.

The Romans have been generally styled successful, because they neglected nothing that could add to their grandeur, magnificence, and power. They had violent passions and bad hearts. If we speak of their whole period of empire, they had a poverty of virtue; and many of their good qualities merely resembled those of the juniper, cinchona, and cinnamon, the virtues of which do not reside in the wood, but in the bark. All outside!

They had usefulness, strength, and beauty,-the principal characteristics of an edifice; but those qualities were so feebly combined, that their usefulness at length degenerated into injury; their strength into weakness; their beauty into deformity. No people effected more than the Romans, if we except the British; yet no people ever made greater errors, submitted to a more galling domestic tyranny, committed greater crimes, or consented to bear the responsibility of greater atrocities.

CLXXVII.

WHO KNOW NOT THE EXTENT OF THEIR SUCCESS.

THE plans of Columbus were executed with great vigour, great daring, and great success. But he died in ignorance, that he had discovered islands contiguous to a continent, separated by a vast ocean from the world he had left, and the one he thought he had visited; surpassing both in the grandeur and beauty of its vegetable productions; and peopled with nations, whose languages, customs, and manners were wholly unknown to the inhabitants of every other hemisphere. In this he stands aloof and alone from every other

man.

'In one respect,' said Sir John Sinclair to Mongolfier*, 'you are more fortunate than Columbus. Vous avez * decouvrez Columbia, et elle ne pas nommé l'Ame

rique. You have all the direct merit of the discovery, ' though others may have indirectly discovered it.' And this reminds us of what Sir John says in regard to Lord North. 'He was so tormented with the diffi'culty arising from the American war, that he often • lamented the success with which Columbus had ac

complished his voyage to America; contending that Europe would have gone on much better without it†.'

The first to ascend in a balloon.

+ Corresp. i. 74; ii. 86.

CLXXVIII.

WHO FANCY THE JUST CAN NEVER SUCCEED.

DESPAIR never plots; it always acts from sudden impulse.

It is hope which induces us to form plans; hence it arises that perpetual HOPE is almost fortune enough for any one. Pre-eminently unfortunate is it, when a bad man loses all hope of what may be obtained by honesty, industry, and frugality; since he is but too apt to adopt the language of Satan:

'So farewell Hope; and with Hope, farewell Fear.
Farewell Remorse :-all good to me is lost;

Evil! be thou my good!'

Men of the world, and indeed men of almost every description, are continually whispering, or thundering in the ears of those, who talk of The Just,' in the conduct of human affairs, that they are mere men of speculation. All this, my dear sir,' they exclaim,' is ' very well to talk of: but it will never do in practice.' These persons forget, that the just has never yet politically been tried; whereas the expedient has been tried, a hundred thousand times, with little or no success. And here I am reminded of what Cardinal de Retz says * of Emeri, superintendent of finances:- I heard him say 'these words, and at a meeting of the council. Honesty ' is only fit for merchants. Those masters of requests, 'who allege honesty as a reason in affairs relating to 'the king, ought to be punished.'

* Mem. v. i. 117.

If a man were to arise among us, born, as it were, like Pericles, with great political genius, and speaking like a philosopher, he would excite so much attention, that it is probable he might be permitted to act like one. We have, Heaven knows, a multitude of orators; but not one, who appears to have heard even of the name of philosophy. Philosophy, from a man of letters, might be ridiculed in every drawing-room, parlour, coffeehouse, tavern, and pot-house, in the country; but philosophy, from the lips of a minister, would be admired from the Thames to the Ganges, and thence to the Nile, the Amazon, and Mississippi. All the world laughed at any thing like common sense in philosophy, till Addison brought her from the schools, and Grotius turned its inquiries from abstruse speculations to the business and affairs of life. Let no one, therefore, despair of its effects in political transactions. A transcendent period is approaching; but it is even now at a distance, and scarcely to be measured by human intellects. It is wise, therefore, to say no more at present. It is easy to laugh, when we have nothing wherewith to confute.

CLXXIX.

WHO EXERCISE CUNNING IN PROPOSING ACCUSATIONS.

'These close-pleach'd walks and bows have been

The deadly marksman's lurking screen.'

THERE is a cunning common among those, who seek to climb high precipices by rotten ropes. La Harpe alludes to it, though I forget to whom and on what occasion he applies the remark It is his-to sup