It was this false fire which led J⸺ G⸺ astray, and with no ordinary deviation. It was not like the error of an inconsiderate young man, who for a time obeys the impulse of some particular passion, but on reflection sees his danger, retraces his steps, and makes compensation by acknowledging his indiscretion, and afterwards pursuing the safe and straight line of duty. G⸺ all at once, like an unbroken colt, burst every check and restraint, and bounded away over hill and dale, through woods, over plains and rivers, with the impetuous and ungovernable fury of the wildest buffalo. The word liberty being once sounded in his ears, he dressed up her image in the gaudiest hues of a vivid imagination, and bowed before it, with all the devotion of the most superstitious idolatry. In the interval, however, but it is not pretended to be particularly accurate as to chronological periods, G⸺ returned to the West-Indies, where he married, and had a son and a daughter. There he left his wife and children, and coming back to England, immediately took an active part in the busy and perilous scenes which were then exhibiting. His former and natural love of literature was totally forgotten, or rather absorbed, by the boundless prospects presented to his political ambition. He had made some preparations to be called to the bar, but all ideas of entering upon any profession, were now contemptuously thrown aside, and conventions, corresponding societies, committees, delegates, &c. danced before his disturbed fancy, in all the mazes of political confusion. Finally, he became a zealous and active member of the Corresponding Society, and in the year 1793, had, what to his infatuated mind appeared no ordinary distinction, the high honour of being elected with Maurice Margarot (_par nobile fratrum_) as a delegate to what was absurdly denominated the British Convention, which assembled at Edinburgh. Here be it permitted to pause awhile, and lament the waywardness of this man’s mind. There was no eminence in any profession to which he might not have aspired, and had he pursued any other path but the delusive one which obtained his partial preference, he might have lived in dignified independence, and left a revered and honoured name behind him. His temper, it must be confessed, was not of the most conciliating kind, and like most of the lovers of reform, and advocates of liberty and equality, he was tyrannical, insolent, imperious, and overbearing. Among his other qualifications, he had considerable theatrical talents, and when very young, performed the arduous character of Zanga in the Revenge, to the admiration and delight, of a numerous and very enlightened assembly.