detection, he suddenly put an end to his existence. The shock which Mr Holcroft received was almost mortal. For three days he could not see his own family, and nothing but the love he bore that family could probably have prevented him from sinking under his affliction. He seldom went out of his house for a whole year afterwards: and the impression was never completely effaced from his mind. BOOK IV CHAPTER I Mr Holcroft had been, for some years, imbibing principles, and forming a system in his mind, relative to political and moral questions, considerably different from those which are generally received, or at least acted upon by the world. The interest which he felt in the success of these speculations, will be best expressed by extracting some part of a letter to a friend, written in February, 1790. He says, ‘The great object I have in view, is not the obtaining of riches, but the power of employing my time according to the bent of my genius, in the performance of some works which shall remain when I am no more—works that will promote the general good. This is a purpose I have so strongly at heart, that I would with pleasure sacrifice ease, peace, health, and life for its accomplishment: nay, accomplish it I will, unless cut off in the midst of my labours. It has been my pursuit for years, and you are my witness, I have never relaxed, never been discouraged by disappointment, to which indeed I hold men of real strength of mind to be superior.’ A clearer picture cannot be given of the motives from which the writer appears to have engaged in and prosecuted his task—the regard of good men hereafter, and a wish to promote the general welfare of mankind, by diffusing a system of more just and enlightened principles of action. These rational and worthy motives are those which actuated Mr Holcroft’s whole conduct in the part he took in such questions: they are the only ones which he had at heart, and he never seems in a single instance to have wavered in his pursuit, by flattering the prejudices, or soothing the vices of any set of men, by cajoling or inflaming the multitude, or by adapting his views or language to those of the ignorant, the rash, or profligate. He was a man of too honest, and of too independent a turn of mind to be a time-server, to lend himself as a tool to the violence of any party; his habits and studies rendered him equally averse to political intrigues or popular tumults; and he had no other desire than to speak the truth, such as he saw it, with a conviction that its effects must be beneficial to society. Whether his opinions were right or wrong, is another question: I speak here of his intentions. But I am anticipating the subject; and also deviating from my plan, which was not to write a panegyric, but a history.