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worsted stockings, usually blue *, and a small brass hilted sword peeping through the skirts of his coat. His wig was decorated with several rows of formal curls, as exhibited in his portrait. Those who knew him in early life, speak in the highest terms of the fascination of his society; and age did not rob him of this charm. His address was easy, polite, and captivating; his manner modest without bashfulness; his voice touching and melodious; his eye expressive, and his smile indicative of all the benignity of his mind. In conversation he was uncommonly pleasing and insinuating, catching the tone of the society, and trifling, even with children, with the same ease and pleasure as he conversed with persons of science and literature.

Almost the first and most lasting impression which I received of any person next to my parents, was that of Mr. Stillingfleet; and it is displaying, perhaps, not the least amiable part of his character, to

*From this singularity of dress, some have derived the epithet of Blue Stocking Clubs, now given to most literary meetings.

"Mr. Stillingfleet almost always wore blue worsted stockings, and whenever he was absent from Mrs. Montague's evening parties, as his conversation was very entertaining, the company used to say, 66 we can do nothing without the blue stockings," and by degrees the assemblies were called Blue Stocking Clubs, and learned bodies Blue Stockings."

Bisset's Life of Burke, 8vo. p. 83,

mention the satisfaction with which myself, my brothers and sisters, as well as others of our age, heard his name announced, and the delight with which we crowded about him, realising the beautiful picture drawn by Goldsmith:

"E'en children follow with endearing wile,

And pluck his gown to share the good man's smile."

This sentiment of love ripened into gratitude and veneration at a later period, when I call to remembrance the information which his conversation afforded, and the condescension and kindness which he employed to overcome the timidity of youth; the skill with which he drew forth my early acquirements, and the affectionate solicitude with which he directed and encouraged my literary pursuits.

CHAPTER XV.

Religious and Moral Principles of Mr. Stillingfleet-Fragments on Religious and Moral Subjects.

WE have the satisfaction to add the name of Mr. Stillingfleet to the list of those philosophers and men of letters who were also advocates for the truth of natural and revealed religion. In all his writings, he labours to establish the doctrine of a general and particular Providence, and the necessity of Revelation to remedy the weakness of human reason; and the writer of these pages frequently heard him give the strongest testimony to the same awful truths. Among his Memoranda are a few fragments, which are subjoined as illustrative of his moral and religious principles. "It is," he says, a just observation made by many able divines, that one of the internal proofs that the New Testament could not be the work of impostors, is its consistency and invariable confor

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mity to the true rules of goodness. With reason it is observed, that had several cheats united in drawing such a character as that of our Saviour, they would from time to time, in spite of the utmost caution, have suffered something to escape which would have unravelled the whole mystery of iniquity. The learned Prideaux has ably employed this principle to prove that Mahomet was an impostor, and that our Saviour could not be one." Shocked at the natural deformity of Vice, and smitten with the beauty of Virtue, as pourtrayed in the Holy Scriptures, and the writings of his favourite Plato, he readily embraced the pleasing theory of the celebrated Hutcheson, who called in the aid of Sentiment to render Morality attractive, and mixed religion with the beautiful visions of the antient moralists.

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"Sober men, in all ages," he observes, "have been so much convinced of the benefits accruing from the strictest obedience to laws, that they laid greater stress on the execution than on the nature of them. The elder Brutus thought it necessary to punish his son with death, who had even served his country against orders. Whence it has happened that we so loosely obey the laws at present, is not perhaps so easy, nor is it my business to decide; but it is certain that the eternal disputes about Right and Obligation; words whose metaphysical sense will perhaps never be cleared up, but whose useful sense

may be, and is known, and felt by every one, will not remedy the evil.

"Is it likely that reason should assist us so won derfully in settling the true criterion of morality, when it is acknowledged that these unintelligible words of Right and Obligation, as the speculative call them, must form the basis of all systems founded on reasoning? This is the source from whence flows the variety of sentiment in different ages; and that it may not vary and be eyen corrupted, I never designed to maintain. Beauty is its object, but in our present condition it must be chiefly comparative beauty. No wonder then, if we fall in love with the best image of her; or, if we even prefer the less perfect to that which is more perfect, when wrong associations of ideas, owing to prejudice, education, and authority, have grown into a habit. We see the same thing happen daily in relation to natural beauty, in painting, architecture, poetry, and the other arts. But the excellent treatise on the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, by Mr. Hutcheson, has removed all objections against the existence and influence of this moral sentiment."

Yet, however warmly attached Mr. Stillingfleet was to the doctrine of Moral Sentiment, which, according to Hutcheson, is improved and strengthened by revelation, he was too zealous a Christian to be

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