When an act of great and signal humanity was to be done, and done with
all the weight and authority that belonged to it, the world would cast
its eyes upon none but him. I hope that few things which have a tendency
to bless or to adorn life have wholly escaped my observation in my
passage through it. I have sought the acquaintance of that gentleman,
and have seen him in all situations. He is a true genius; with an
understanding vigorous, and acute, and refined, and distinguishing even
to excess; and illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and
original cast of imagination. With these he possesses many external and
instrumental advantages; and he makes use of them all. His fortune is
among the largest; a fortune which, wholly unincumbered, as it is,
with one single charge from luxury, vanity, or excess, sinks under the
benevolence of its dispenser. This private benevolence, expanding itself
into patriotism, renders his whole being the estate of the public, in
which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of profit, diversion,
or relaxation. During the session, the first in, and the last out of
the House of Commons; he passes from the senate to the camp; and, seldom
seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in the senate to serve
his country, or in the field to defend it.