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in the highest circles of it; a sort of natural or early acquired fastidiousness having, even as a younger brother, forbidden much mixture with any

other...

Being the younger son of a younger brother, he was designed, having much quickness of parts, for a learned profession. There was a considerable family living which might have made him easy in fortune; and accordingly, he gave some little time to Divinity. But this pursuit did not prevent the cultivation of those high acquaintance among whom his own connections threw him, and whose manners and notions were particularly pleasing to his frame of mind. He indeed at first loved the court, for the sunshine with which it often dazzles a young bosom; and he thought at one time of pursuing a court life; but soon drew back, from finding that his heart had need of better things. In short, if fashionable society had charms for him, literature and reflection had more; or at least it was always doubtful to which he was most devoted, This disposition at once to refinement and sensibility, pushed as far as it would go, formed at length a peculiarity in his character, which never quitted him; nor was it at all diminished by his being, at the same time, not only peculiarly alive to the charms of female society, but fastidiously nice in his notions of female character. That with much susceptibility, therefore, he was still

a bachelor, though approaching the middle of lifethat he should even have seemed to take his leave of the sex-is not at all inconsistent. His fastidiousness, though always allied to integrity and feeling, coloured, indeed, all his pursuits; his earlier conduct scarcely more than his subsequent fate.

Finding, therefore, many of his tastes promoted by the pursuit of the ecclesiastical profession, and none of them thwarted, he listened to the advice given him by his friends, and the advantage held out by the head of his family, in the promise of the living before-mentioned.

Tremaine's first impressions in Divinity delighted him. A great first cause, with all its million of consequences; a deep research into antiquity, tradition, criticism, and even poetry;-these held possession of his soul for a time. But at length metaphysics came; and what was worse, metaphysical jargon. His mind was appalled, more perhaps through his taste than his understanding; and having left his landmarks, he betook himself to Bolingbroke and Voltaire, instead of proceeding with the Bible. In short, he dabbled with, instead of studying " Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate;" till, like the devils who had dabbled before him, he

"Found no end, in wandering mazes lost."

He embraced, indeed, a kind of Epicurean notion

of the Deity; which, while it confessed his existence, by denying every thing else, rendered it of little consequence whether he existed or not. And after trying a little, and but a little, to unravel the difficulties in which he had enwrapped himself, and which task the subtlety of his own mind only rendered a more hopeless one, he thought it right to refuse the living, and renounce the church.

Had he been contented with this, he might have been rewarded by the approbation which at least his disinterestedness and principle deserved. But unfortunately for himself, he was not sufficiently decided against the tenets he had rejected, to render his satisfaction perfect in the sacrifice he had made. An amiable and sincere clergyman, apparently happy in the performance of his duties, always made him doubtful; and he was disposed to seek refuge, at last, in an opinion which he took pains (though here also without success) to render as fixed as he could, that all church ceremonies were useless, and almost all churchmen insincere.

He was indeed too naturally just not to feel uneasy at this; for he had a disposition, particularly in his youth, to feel

"All various Nature pressing on the heart;"

and he was always happiest when most under that influence. At the same time, a listless temper,

operating upon an over-delicate taste, made him too often reject, what, if not rejected, might have made him happy.

Tremaine's unsatisfied mind having induced him to reject the church, he endeavoured to find anchorage in the certainty of the law. Accordingly, for about twelve months he studied its philosophy in the moralists-its antiquities in the historians-and its rewards in the splendour which attends upon the eloquence of counsel, and the honours of the Bench. But he studied them in his lodgings in May Fair, not at the Temple: for except at the only dinner he ate in the Temple Hall, when hẹ endeavoured to keep a term, he never was known to have been in an Inn of Court. He once, indeed, heard the Chancellor from the woolsack in the House of Lords, on a great constitutional question; and he once heard a distinguished popular advocate, in mitigation of the crime of a young woman of high birth, who, sacrificed by her family to a man she could not love, and who did not love her, fell, after a struggle, into the arms of a man who had always possessed her heart.

It was the impression produced by these speeches that sent him to the law; but the bent of character above described soon sent him back again. His over-delicate and sickly fancy could not endure law society. The hard sense, indeed, which he there

met with, sometimes arrested his understanding; but the pedantry in which it was attired absolutely petrified him. Spoiled by his prejudices, he stayed not to discover, as he might have done, the genius, taste, and real elegance of mind which belong to many, who are yet the most learned at the bar.

As to their females,—having once ventured to one of their assemblies in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, he escaped, after an hour's purgatory, vowing never to see another; and no arguments of his friends could persuade him that happiness of any kind could be found in what he called such a second-rate profession.

Though his patrimony was now almost exhausted, he betook himself to arms, and entered the Guards. Here at least he was sure of finding honourable feeling, polished manners, and gallantry of spirit. He made a campaign, and obtained distinction; that is, such distinction as a captain of a company could acquire. But from the lateness of his entry into the army, he had the mortification to find himself commanded by persons some years his juniors. It is true, his family interest placed him at head-quarters. But it was not there that he was always likely to feel satisfied. He was indeed remarked as a sort of frondeur, who was ever commending merit which others did not choose to allow, and advocating the claims of officers who had