His sister-in-law, Lady Hampden,[166] is a woman of a most extraordinary character, and a melancholy proof of how much we depend upon others even for our virtues. Her father was the man who first mentioned the present Queen to Lord Bute, and was employed by him afterwards to arrange the business, and he was, by-the-bye, neglected by the upstart Majesty merely because he knew the obscurity and poverty of her native Court. Ly. H. was his only child, and was extremely young and beautiful when first married. For ten years their marriage was perfectly happy--the old Lord was living; they lived in retirement and were poor. His death gave them riches, and the fond, domestic husband was lost in the dissipated gambler. His house was amongst the first where a faro bank was kept. Unfortunately this has become prevalent, and many hold a share at those houses where every allurement is held out to attract and seduce. It was in this country that a man first dared to deal at faro without a mask, so infamous did they esteem the office upon the Continent. It would be a curious subject to investigate and write a book upon, to trace back the little points and hazards upon which the fate of the world, its manners and opinions, have depended. Had Carthage triumphed, and Hannibal been a second Alexander, how different in all probability would have been the genius and customs of the world! Commerce would have stifled the glory of arms, and crushed the taste for the fine arts. Their industry would have spread civilisation into the heart of Africa, and that extent of country, now only a barbarous land, might have satisfied the wants of society, and these miserable Northern latitudes might still have been left to their Odins, their Druids, their fogs, and their frosts. What a blessing to have been confined to go no farther north than the Pyrenees! I may be justified in this wish, whilst at the moment of making it I am wrapped up in flannels, and roasting by a fire, to keep my blood in sufficient circulation to carry on the economy of animal life. Another epoch that would have operated even more powerfully upon the character of mankind and their usages was the chance of the battle in France between the Saracens and the Christians.[167] What would have been the effect had the former succeeded? One good would have been certain, the human mind would not have been priest-ridden as it is, and the fear of death would have been checked and not encouraged. The worst part of the Christian dispensation is the terror it inculcates upon a deathbed. The wisest dread it; no person who is strictly brought up in the principles of Christianity can ever thoroughly shake off the fear of dying. The Catholics supply instances of this every day; from infancy to manhood their minds are debased by superstition in every terrific shape. When capable of reflecting they shake off their shackles, and become from bigots atheists. So they live, but in fact the evil is but suspended; a