ascendant over her husband, who, with all his impetuosity, was governed by his favourite in a style that approached to domineering. Rigby had an advantageous and manly person, recommended by a spirited jollity that was very pleasing, though sometimes roughened into brutality: of most insinuating good-breeding when he wished to be agreeable. His passions were turbulent and overbearing; his courage bold and fond of exerting itself. His parts strong and quick, but totally uncultivated; and so much had he trusted to unaffected common sense, that he could never afterwards acquire the necessary temperament of art in his public speaking. He had been a pupil of Winnington, and owed the chief errors of his life to that man’s maxims, perniciously witty. Winnington had unluckily lived when all virtue had been set to notorious sale, and in ridicule of false pretences had affected an honesty in avowing whatever was dishonourable. Rigby, whose heart was naturally good, grew to think it sensible to laugh at the shackles of morality; and having early encumbered his fortune by gaming, he found his patron’s maxims but too well adapted to retrieve his desperate fortunes. He placed his honour in steady addiction to whatever faction he was united with: and from the gaiety of his temper, having indulged himself in profuse drinking, (for in private few men were more temperate,) he was often hurried beyond the bounds of that interest which he meant should govern all his actions, and which his generous extravagance for ever combated. In short, he was a man who was seldom loved or hated with moderation; yet he himself, though a violent opponent, was never a bitter enemy. His amiable qualities were all natural; his faults acquired, or fatally linked to him by the chain of some other failings.