Page images
PDF
EPUB

ESSAY XXXII.

EULOGY ON MALMSBURY'S LIFE OF
HARRIS.

I CANNOT but congratulate the world on the great literary acquisition which it has lately received from the right honourable the Lord Malmsbury, who hath favoured us with a most delectable account of his father Mr. Harris. As my good Lord of Malmsbury possesses so distinguished a post in the cabinet council of a most puissant and sapient prince; and as all the world knows the said Lord Malmsbury's abilities, and genius, and judgment, to be most transcendant, and brilliant, and profound; the public expected that the life of Mr. Harris would abound in those general observations, drawn from fixed and immutable principles, which tend to advance the interest of society, and to promote the welfare of mankind; in a word, that it would display all the extensive powers of the mighty mind of my Lord Malmsbury. Nor hath the public

been disappointed in its expectation, as I shall abundantly prove, by pointing out a few of the most striking beauties of this, hitherto, in the annals of literature unrivalled performance. My Lord of Malmsbury, very judiciously, and with all true filial piety and affection, begins by recording, for the benefit of society, that he, my Lord Malmsbury, owes his present dignified situation, as a peer of the British realm, and a ci-devant ambassador to the French Republic, to his father's very early taking care to introduce him to the notice of powerful patrons; for which, observes his lordship, I really thank my father, and should have been well pleased if my father had lived to see me a lord. And here, I must pause a moment, to call the attention of my readers to the admirable elegance of my Lord Malmsbury's diction, the beauty and splendour of which is not a little heightened by the happy introduction of the pious phrase "my father," at every third word. Indeed, the whole biographical, critical, and philosophical account of Mr. Harris, is "a fine volley of words, and quickly shot off." My

father, continues his lordship, was born in the close of Salisbury, in the month of July, in the year 1709; and in the year 1709, in the month of July, in the close of Salisbury, was the natal day of my father. My father was maternally related to the Shaftesbury family; and consanguinity with Mr. Cooper the translator of Xenophon's Cyropædia, could my father claim. My father rose at five o'clock in the morning, in winter, and rescued Aristotle, and the Greek philosophers, out of the hands of Locke, who has been ever since thrown by as so much lumber on the shelf, while Aristotle and my father are the only philosophers, that all sensible men read. My father was a famous justice of peace and wrote three treatises; one on Art; the second on Music, Poetry, and Painting; the third on Happiness; which are considered as masterpieces of writing by Lord Monboddo, for my father knew Lord Monboddo, and not unknown was Lord Monboddo to my father. My father married Miss Elizabeth Clarke, by whom he had divers and sundry children; but only two daughters and my

U

self survived my father. Although he was married, my father still continued to study, and in 1751 was delivered of Hermes, a work that astonished all mankind, and was vehemently commended by bishop Lowth, who pays a very great compliment to the learning and elegance of my father. I rather wonder, that my Lord Malmsbury hath omitted to mention the great praises bestowed on the said book, called Hermes, by the author of the Επεα Πτερόεντα, who hath certainly appreciated the work of my Lord Malmsbury's father at its true value. But to proceed with his lordship's narrative: My father lived much of his time in the close of Salisbury, and being a great musician, promoted much the cultivation of music, for greatly did music delight the soul of my father. My father in 1761 was made a member of parliament; soon after, my father was made one of the lords of the admiralty, and, at no very distant period, was my father created a lord of the treasury; and in 1774, my father was made secretary and comptroller to the Queen; which was very grateful to my father, because, thereby, my

father had an opportunity of witnessing the amiable virtues, the goodness, the kindness, the gentleness, the liberality, the benevolence, the religion, the piety, the tenderness, &c. of his gracious, and adorable, and royal mistress. And my father was very careful to instruct me in an admiration of the said virtues of my female sovereign, and I have profited by the instructions of my father. In 1775, my father published Philosophical Arrangements, which is only a part of a larger work, which my father intended to publish, but my father did not publish. My father was no party-man, but he mortally hated the French, because they overturned all the foundations of religion and morality; and put an end to all burdensome and iniquitous salaries, and all useless and insignificant titles. My father could never think, with patience, of the places of lord of the admiralty, of lord of the treasury, and of comptroller to the Queen, with many others. equally honourable to the possessor, and beneficial to the public, being abolished. In 1781, my father published Philological

« PreviousContinue »