it deserves a serious consideration. In all expansive minds, in minds
formed for an extensive stage, to embrace the welfare and the interest
of nations, there is a certain incessant activity, a principle that must
be employed. Debar them from their proper field, and it will most
inevitably run out into excesses, which perhaps had better have been
avoided. But do these excrescences, which only proceed from the richness
and fertility of the soil, disqualify a man for public business? Far,
very far from it. Where ever was there a man, who pushed dissipation and
debauchery to a greater length, than my lord Bolingbroke? And yet it is
perhaps difficult to say, whether there ever existed a more industrious,
or an abler minister. The peace of Utrecht, concluded amidst a thousand
difficulties, from our allies abroad, and our parties, that were never
so much exasperated against each other at home; must ever remain the
monument of his glory. His opposition to sir Robert Walpole seems
evidently to have been founded upon the most generous principles. And
though the warmth and ebullition of his passions evermore broke in upon
his happiest attempts, yet were his exertions in both instances attended
with the most salutary consequences. But Mr. Fox appears to me to
possess all the excellencies, without any of the defects of lord
Bolingbroke. His passions have, I believe, never been suspected of
having embroiled the affairs of his party, and he has uniformly retained
the confidence of them all. His friendships have been solid and
unshaken. His conduct cool and intrepid. The littleness of jealousy
never discoloured a conception of his heart. In office he was more
constant and indefatigable, than lord Bolingbroke himself. All his
lesser pursuits seemed annihilated, and he was swallowed up in the
direction of public affairs.

He has been accused of ambition. Ambition is a very ambiguous term. In
its lowest sense, it sinks the meanest, and degrades the dirtiest of our