His exercises were not noted for any excess of merit, or the want of it. He certainly had parts, if they had been put in their proper direction: that was trade. In that he might have been conspicuously useful.

As he was in college, and nothing loath in any occasion that led to notice, in spite of a lisp in his speech, he played Davus in the Phormio; which he opened with singidar absurdity, as the four first words terminate in the letter s, which he, from the imperfection in his speech, could not help mangling.

From the patronage of Lord Orford, Mr. Langford had one of the best livings in Norfolk, £1000 a year; and afterwards, I understand, very well exemplified the useful and honourable duties of a clergyman resident on his benefice.

Hamilton. Every thing is the creature of accident; as that works upon time and place, so are the vicissitudes which follow; vicissitudes that reach through the whole allotment of man, even to the charm of character, and the qualities which produce it.

Physically speaking, human nature can redress itself of climate, can generate warmth in high latitudes, and cold at the equator; but in respect to mind and manners, from the law of latitude there is no appeal. Man, like the plants that grow for him, has a proper sky and soil: with them to flourish, without them to fade; through either kingdom, vegetable and moral, in situations that are aquatic, the alpine nature cannot live.

All this applies to Hamilton wasting himself at Westminster. "Wild nature's vigour working at his root;"

his situation should have been accordingly; where he might have spread wide and struck deep.

With more than boyish aptitudes and abilities, he should not thus have been lost among boys. His incessant intrepidity, his restless curiosity, his undertaking spirit, all indicated early maturity; all should have led to pursuits, if not better, at least of more pith and moment than the mere mechanism of dead language!

This by Hamilton (disdaining as a business what as an amusement perhaps might have delighted him) was deemed a dead letter, and as such, neglected; while he bestowed himself on other mechanism, presenting more material objects to the mind.

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