_Combien de changemens depuis que suis au monde, Qui n'est qu' un point du tems!_ PASQUIER. Peter Hopkins was a person who might have suffered death by the laws of Solon, if that code had been established in this country; for though he lived in the reigns of George I. and George II. he was neither Whig nor Tory, Hanoverian nor Jacobite. When he drank the King's health with any of his neighbours, he never troubled himself with considering which King was intended, nor to which side of the water their good wishes were directed. Under George or Charles he would have been the same quiet subject, never busying himself with a thought about political matters, and having no other wish concerning them than that they might remain as they were,—so far he was a Hanoverian, and no farther. There was something of the same temper in his religion; he was a sincere Christian, and had he been born to attendance at the Mass or the Meeting House would have been equally sincere in his attachment to either of those extremes. For his whole mind was in his profession. He was learned in its history; fond of its theories; and skilful in its practice, in which he trusted little to theory and much to experience. Both he and his wife were at this time well stricken in years; they had no children, and no near kindred on either side; and being both kind-hearted people, the liking which they soon entertained toward Daniel for his docility, his simplicity of heart, his obliging temper, his original cast of mind, and his never failing good-humour, ripened into a settled affection.