it from the opportunities which the author enjoyed,
through the advantage of one of the finest private libraries in the
kingdom, of conversing at all hours, and in all conceivable frames of
mind, with the illustrious dead of every age and nation. But the
solution of the difficulty is still incomplete, for although these
literary "Pleiades" could furnish as it were "the sweet influences of
rain and sunshine," to foster his native talent; yet, breath being
denied them, its improvement is more than his friend Cowper could have
accounted for, without violating his poetical axiom, that

--Ev'n the oak
Thrives by the rude concussion of the storm.

"As to the defects of the character of Hayley, perhaps the most
prominent feature was a pertinacity of determination with regard to his
modes of action, which has been seldom exemplified to the same extent in
the case of others. When, in the contemplation of supposed advantage,
whether to himself or his friends, he had once matured his purpose, it
was an attempt of no ordinary difficulty to divert him from the pursuit
of it. To this may, perhaps, be attributed the perpetual disappointments
with which his life was chequered. Certain it is, that his matrimonial
infelicities may be traced to this source. His first adventure of the
kind alluded to, had the warning voice of his surviving parent against
it, and it may naturally be supposed, the dissuasive arguments of all
his thinking and judicious friends. And as to the similar connexion he
formed in the decline of life, he must have overcome obstacles both
numerous and weighty, with respect to his own situation and habits in
accomplishing that object of his wishes. Instead of entering into a
detail of these, however, it will be more profitable to secure the good
effect that may arise from the contemplation of the former part of his
character, from the danger of being neutralized by the present
exhibition of it. This may, perhaps, be accomplished by reminding the
reader of that principle of our lapsed nature, which inclines us, too
often, to confound evil with good. The good, in Hayley's case, appears
to have been the viewing, through his native cheerfulness, every
_dispensation of Providence_ on its bright side; and the evil, his
applying this rule to what might be not improperly designated _the
dispensation of his own will_. There can be no doubt that his example in
the first instance and his mistake i