The character of Daguesseau has been drawn minutely, and at great length, by one of the most penetrating of his contemporaries, who sat at the council board with him, and was his most decided political enemy. Nevertheless, we need go no farther than this very writer, the Duc de St. Simon, for a record of the Chancellor’s virtues and genius:—“An infinity of talent, assiduity, penetration, knowledge of all kinds, all the gravity of a magistrate, piety and innocence of morals, formed the foundation of his character. He might be considered incorruptible (St. Simon makes an exception); and with all this, mild, good, humane, of ready and agreeable access, full of gaiety, and poignant pleasantry, without ever hurting; temperate, polished without pride, noble without a stain of avarice. Who would not imagine that such a man would have made an admirable Chancellor? Yet in this he disappointed the world.” His faults, according to the same writer, were indecision as a judge, and too high a respect for the Parliament and the legal profession, to which St. Simon asserts he sacrificed the royal authority. In this the aristocratic writer is mistaken. Daguesseau compromised too much for the independence of Parliament; it is among his faults. “He was the slave of the most precise purity of diction, not perceiving how excess of care rendered him obscure and unintelligible. His taste for science added to his other defects. He was fond of languages, especially the learned ones, and took infinite delight in physics and mathematics; nor did he even let metaphysics alone: in fact, it was for science that he was born. He would, indeed, have made an excellent First President, Chief Judge of Parliament; but he would have been best placed of all at the head of the literature of the country, of the Academies, the Observatory, the Royal College, the Libraries; there his tediousness would have incommoded no one, &c.” In short, the Duke, in his scheme of restoring the aristocracy to exclusive influence, found the Chancellor in his way, and wished him out of it. He tells us that Daguesseau was of middling stature, with a full and agreeable countenance, even to the last expressive of wisdom and of wit. [Illustration: _Engraved by E. Scriven._ CROMWELL. _From the Picture presented by Cromwell To Col^l. Rich, and bequeathed by his great grandson, Sir Rob^t. Rich, Bar^t. to the British Museum._ Under the Superintendance of the Society far the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall East._ ] [Illustration] CROMWELL.