in philosophy, and thoroughly acquainted with the laws and practice of reasoning, he was extremely fastidious in matters of authority, and in assaying an opinion paid little regard to its currency. If he erred it was from misinformation of fact, and not feebleness of investigation, or falsity of principle. Conceiving that political freedom was necessary to the best exertions of men; and that the French had long been the victims of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, he rejoiced at what he thought their emancipation. He admitted that some of their proceedings were extremely violent, but imputed the outrages to a ferment of enthusiasm, which would gradually subside into rational freedom. As many of the wars of the French monarchs had arisen from the ambition of the court, he hoped that when that cause was removed no other would operate in hostility to his country. Somewhat tinged with the doctrines of the œconomique philosophers, he thought the human race susceptible of much greater perfection than it had hitherto attained, and in the refinement of speculation conceived such intellectual and moral improvement might result from the dissemination of liberty, as would prevent the frequent recurrence of wars. Though he disapproved of Price’s exultation over the fallen monarch, as indiscreet and liable to misconstruction, yet he himself derived it from a liberal spirit and comprehensive benevolence; which regarding an individual on the one hand, and twenty-five millions of individuals on the other, preferred the happiness which he conceived to be attained by the many to the power which he saw to be wrested from the one. He therefore approved of the motives and spirit of Price, without implicitly assenting to his positions. Such was the state of his political sentiments when Burke produced his extraordinary work. Captivated by the poetry, and charmed by the eloquence of this wonderful production, he in his first reading hurried through it without waiting to examine its reasoning and philosophy. Like the magic pen of Shakespeare this performance, whithersoever it expatiated, carried with it his fancy and passions. He saw English votaries of the French revolution, in one page terrible, in the next contemptible, and in the third disgusting, now as tigers panting after slaughter and carnage, now as grashoppers teasing with their importunate chink; then a loathsome object full of blotches and putrified sores. Here he regarded chivalry as the great parent of social happiness, lamented its age as for ever gone; there he viewed Marie Antoinette as in beauty beyond the lot of human excellence; and next as in pity beyond the lot of human suffering. By the author’s luminous torch he saw her bearing her son to the loyal officers; he viewed the Parisian mob breaking into her apartments, and the swords of ruffians drawn for her destruction, and lamenting followed her dragged in triumph by a banditti of ruffians. The scene being