CHAPTER LI.
The next individual to whom our reader is to be introduced, is a personage of very congenial feelings, and of similar merits with her who preceded, though possibly somewhat inferior in ability. But the love of justice scorns to make invidious discriminations, where the general claims to approbation are alike, and universally acknowledged; where they are founded on the noblest and most generous private virtues, continually exercised for the good of the community. Here let it be remembered, (as indeed it has before been remarked) that regular and circumstantial biographical sketches are not to be expected. Had the Sexagenarian survived, he would in all probability have filled up and compleated these portraits, of which, unluckily, the outlines only, are to be found in his notes. Whatever his ultimate intention might have been, in their present form they seem only intended to call his recollection to those, to whom, from a congeniality of pursuits, an introduction, more or less familiar, was obtained, in the progress of a literary life.
Some of these connections and acquaintances were formed at a house, where, previously to the calamity of the French Revolution, individuals of all parties and persuasions, political and religious, used to meet in easy and agreeable familiarity. Here were seen Dr. Priestley, Mr. Henley, Dr. Price, Horne Tooke, Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld, Bishop Percy, the venerable Bishop Douglas, Dr. Gregory, and Mrs. Woolstoncroft, to whom there could not possibly exist a greater or more striking contrast than the immediate subject of this article.