N° CCIX. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1756. HE public will no doubt be a good deal aftonished, that inftead of the great name of Adam Fitz-Adam to this paper, they now fee it written by a poor weak woman, it's publisher, and dated from the Globe in Paternofter Row. Alas! nothing but my regard and veneration for that dear good man could have got the better of my modefty, and tempted me to an undertaking that only himfelf was equal to. Before thefe lines can reach the prefs, that truly great and amiable gentleman will, in all probability, be no more. An event fo fudden and unexpected, and in which the public are fo deeply interested, cannot fail to excite the curiofity of every reader; I fhall therefore relate it in the concifelt manner I am able, not in the Jeaft doubting but my defects in style will be overlooked, and that grief and concern will prevent criticifin. The reader may remember, that in the first number of the World, and in feveral fucceeding papers, the good old gentleman flattered himself that the profits of his labours would fome time or other enable him to make a genteel figure in the world, and feat him at least in his One Horfe Chair. The death of Mrs. Fitz-Adam, which happened a few months fince, as it relieved him from the great expence of housekeeping, made him in a hurry to fet up this Equipage; and as the fale of his paper was even beyond his expectations, I was one of the fit of his friends that advised him to purchafe it. The Equipage was accordingly bespoke, and fent home; and as he had all along promifed that his first vifit in it should be to me, I expected him lat Tuelday at my country-houfe at Hoxton. The poor gentleman was punctual to his appointment; and it was with great delight that I faw him from my window driving up the road that leads to my house. Unfortunately for him, his eye caught mine; and hoping (as I fuppofe) to captivate me by his great fkili in driving, he made two or three flourishes with his whip, which fo frightened the horse, that he ran furiously away with the carriage, dafhed it against a poft, and threw the driver from his feat with a violence hardly to be conceived. I fcreamed out to my maid - Lord blefs me!" fays I; Mr. Fitz-Adam is killed!' and away we ran to the ipot where he lay. At first I imagined that his head was off; but upon drawing nearer to him, I found it was his hat! He breathed, indeed, which gave me hopes that he was not quite dead; but for other figns of life, he had pofitively none. In this miferable condition, with the help of fome neighbours, we brought him into the house, where a warm bed was quickly got ready for him; which, together with bleeding and other helps, brought him by degrees to life and reafon. He looked round about him for fome time; and at last, feeing and knowing me, enquired after his Chaife. I told him it was fafe, though a good deal damaged. No matter, Madam,' he replied; it has done my business: it has carried me a journey from this world to the next; I fhall have no ufe for it again." Here his speech failed him, and I thought him expiring; but after a few minutes, recovering as it were from a trance, he proceeded thus. 'Mrs. Cooper,' fays he, you behold in the miferable object now before you, a fpeaking monument of the folly and madness of ambition. This fatal Chaife was the ultimate end of all my purfuits; the hope of it animated my labours, and filled me with ideas of felicity and grandeur. Alas! how has it humbled me! May other great men take warning by my fall! The World, Mrs. Cooper, is now at an end! I thought it deftined to a longer period; but the decrees of Fate are not to be refifted. It would indeed have ple fed me to have written the laft paper myfelf; but that task, Madam, must be yours; and, however painful it may be to your modcfty, I conjure you to undertake it. He paused here for a moment or two, as if waiting for my anfwer; and as well as I could speak for forrow and concern, I promifed what he asked. Your knowledge as a publisher, Madam,' proceeded he, and your great fluency of words, will make it perfectly ealy to you. Little more will • be would offend my modefty, if, after He was the deepest PHILOSOPHER, be neceffary than to fet forth my fud-would have decent and concife. It den and unhappy end; to make my acknowledgments to the public for the indulgente it has fhewn me; and, above all, to testify my gratitude to my numerous correfpondents, to whose elegant pieces this paper has been principally indebted for it's uncommon ⚫ fuccefs. I intended (with permiffion) ❝ to have closed the work with a lift of. thofe correfpondents; but death prevents me from raising this monument to my fame.' The greatest MAN, "Of THIS AGE OF NATION. I fay, Madam, of this age and nation, • because other times and other countries have produced very great men; infomuch, that there are names among the ancients hardly inferior to that of Adam Fitz-Adam.' A violent fit of coughing, in which I feared the poor gentleman would have gone off, robbed him of his fpeech for more than half an hour: at last, however, The good old gentleman would have he came again to himself; and, though proceeded, but his fpeech failed him more feebly than before, proceeded as again, and he lay as if expiring for two follows. I am thankful, Madam, whole hours; during which interval, as that I yet live, and that an opportunity I had no time to fpare, and as all I had is given me of confeffing the frailties heard was then fresh in my memory, I of my nature to a faithful friend. I fat myself down to fulfil the promife I winked at Sufan to withdraw; but he had made. When I had written thus would not understand me: her stay, how far, he again attempted to speak to me, ever, did not prevent Mr. Fitz-Adam but could not. I held up the paper to from giving me a full detail of the fins him, and asked if he would hear it read. of his youth; which, as they only He nodded his affent; and, after I had amount to a few gallantries among gone through it, his approbation. I dethe ladies, with nothing more heinous fired him to fignify by fome motion of than a rape or two at college, we bid his hand, if there was any thing in it him be of comfort, and think no more that he wished to have altered. He nodded of fuch trifles. And now, Madam, his head again, and gave me a look of fays he, I have another concern to fuch complacency and regard, as con⚫ trouble you with. When I was a boy vinced me I had pleafed him. It is from at fchool, it always poffeffed my a knowledge of this circumftance, that thoughts, that whenever I died II fhall now fend what I have written to fhould be buried in Westminster Abbey. I confefs freely to you, Madam, that this has been the conftant ambition of my riper years. The great good which my labours have done to mankind will, I hope, entitle my remains to an interment in that honour*able place; nor will the public, I believe, be difinclined to erect a fuitable monument to my memory. The frontispiece to the World, which was the lucky thought of my printer, I ⚫take to be a most excellent defign; and, if executed at large in virgin marble, ⚫ must have an admirable effect. I can think only of one alteration in it; which is, that in the back ground I would have, in relief, a one-horfe chair in the act of overturning; that the story of my death, as it contains a leffon for the ambitious, may be recorded with my name. My epitaph, if the public might be fo fatisfied, I the prefs, with no other concern than for Globe, Pater Nofter Row, P. S. Wednesday night, ten o'clock-i Mr. Fitz-Adam is ftill alive, though in a dangerous way. He came to his fpeech this morning, and directed me to inform the public, that, as the World is now clofed, he has ordered a general Index to the folio volumes to be printed, and given Gratis, in a few days, at Mr. Dodfley's, in Pall Mall; and at M. Cooper's, at the Globe, in Pater Nofter Row. 1 N A WORLD A WORLD EXTRAORDINARY. THE FOLLOWING PAPER HAVING BEEN TRANSMITTED TO MR. FITZ-ADAM'S BOOKSELLER, ON THE VERY DAY OF THAT GENTLEMAN'S MISFORTUNE, HE TAKES THE LIBERTY TO OFFER IT TO THE PUBLIC JUST AS IT CAME TO SAND. STR, TO MR. FITZ-ADÁM. ing one of the moft refpectable afperfed, in the molt injurious manner. He holds That perfon's fame as much fuperior to As the contagion of politics has been reproach, as he thinks himself inferior to fo prevalent of late, that it has even (I won't fay infected, but at least) infufed itfelf into the papers of the impar tial Mr. Fitz-Adam, perhaps I may not make him an unacceptable prefent in the following piece, which will humour the bent of his diforder, (for I muft confider political writings as a distemper) and at the fame time will cool, not increafe, any fharpnefs in his blood. That perfon's defence; and yet he can- MADAM, C. F.. Though the author of this little effay is retired from the bufier fcenes of life, he has not buried himself in fuch indifference to his country, as to defpife, or not to attend to, what is paffing even in thofe fcenes he has quitted; and having withdrawn from inclination, not from difguft, he preferves the fame attachments that he formerly made, though contracted, even then, from efteem, not from intereft. He fees, with a feeling concern, the diftreffes and distractions of his coun- TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY try; he forefees, with anxiety, the confequences of both. He laments the dif cord that divides thofe men of fuperior genius, whofe union, with all their abili ties, were perhaps inadequate to the crifis of our affairs. He does not prefume to difcufs the grounds of their diffenfions, which he wishes themselves to overlook; and he would be one of the laft men in England to foment divifion, where his interest as a Briton, and his private inclinations as a man, bid him hope for coalition. Yet he would not be a Man, he might be a Stoic, if even thefe inclinations were equally balanced: his admiration may be fufpended, his heart will be partial. From thefe fenfations, he has been naturally led to lament and condemn the late torrent of perfonalities: he fees with grief the greatest characters treated with the greateft licentioufnefs; his friendship has been touched at find Have been attempting to draw a pic ture of one of your friends, and think I have in fome degree fucceeded; but, as I fear natural partiality may make me flatter myfelf, I chufe to fubmit to your. ladyfhip's judgment, whofe prepoffeffion for the perfon reprefented is likely to balance what fondness I may have for my own performances. As I believe you love the perfon in question, as much as ever other people love themselves, the medium between the faults you fhall find, and the just resemblance that I fes in the following portrait, is likely to be an exact image. The gentleman I am drawing is about three-and-forty. As you fee all the fondness and delicacy and attention of a lover in him, perhaps your ladyship may take him to be but three-and * This was written in the year 1748. twenty: the admiration of an age apt to be more cheaply pleafed. But his vanity cannot fatisfy itself on the terms it could fatisfy others; nor would he thank any man for his approbation, unless he were con this delicacy ftill farther, and has been at the idle labour of making himself fame and honours by pursuing a regular and fteady plan, when art and eloquence would have carried him to an equal height, and made thofe fear him, who now only love him-if a party can love a man who they fee is only connected with them by principles, not by prejudices. twenty: but I, whofe talent is not flat- He has the true characteristic of a great man, that he is fuperior to others in his private, focial, unbended hours. I am far from meaning by this superiority, that he exerts the force of his genius unneceffarily on the contrary, you only perceive his pre-eminence in thofe moments by his being more agreeably good-natured, and idle with more eafe, than other people. He feems inquifitive, as if his only bufinefs were to learn; and is unreferved, as if he were only to inform; and is equally incapable of myftery in pretending to know what he does not, or in concealing what he does. In another light one may difcover another littleness in his conduct: in the affairs of his office, he is as minute and as full of application as if he were always to remain in the fame post; and as exact and knowing as if he always had been in it. He is as attentive to the folicitation and interefts of others in his province, as if he were making their fortune, not his own; and, to the great detriment of the miniftry, had turned one of the best finecures under the government into one of the most laborious employments; at the fame time imagining that the cafe with which he executes it will prevent a difcovery of the innovation. He receives all officers who addrefs to him with as little pride as if he were fecure of innate nobility; yet this defect of illuftrious birth is a blemish which some of the greatest men have wanted to make them compleatly great: Tully had it; had the happiness and glory of railing himself from a private condition; but boafting of it, might as well have been noble: he degraded himfelf by ufurping that prerogative of nobility, pride of what one can neither caufe nor prevent. I fay nothing of his integrity, because I know nothing of it, but that it has never been breathed upon even by fufpicion: it will be time enough to vindi cate it when it has been impeached. He is as well-bred as thofe who colour over timidity with gentleness of manners; and as bravely fincere as thofe who take, or would have brutality taken for honefty: but though his great freedom is polite, his greatest condefcenfion is digSecretary at War. In the House of Commons he was for fome time an ungraceful and unpopular fpeaker, the abundance of his matter overflowing his elocution: but the force of his reafoning has prevailed both over his own defects and those of his audience. He speaks with a ftrength and perfpicuity of argument that commands 2 N nified |