death, he rose every midnight out of his bed, and, having nothing but his shirt and waistcoat upon him, kneeled on his bare knees, and prayed earnestly and strongly one quarter of an hour before he went to his rest again, * * *. He observed the season of midnight, because the scriptures speak of Christ's coming to judge the quick and the dead at midnight. It is true, according to the motion of the sun and stars, it will be day as well as night, that is, cloudy darkness over all the earth. The matter of his prayer was principally this:-Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and put an end to these days of sin and misery. Sọ much I learned from himself, and so report it. His days were consumed in heaviness, as his nights in mourning. Facetiousness, in which he was singular, came no more out of his lips, he ceased from discourse, from company as he could, and nothing could hale him out of this obscurity. Such another condoler for his King, worthy Spottswood remembers, (Hist. p. 106.) That Will. Elphelston, Bishop of Aberdeen, hearing of the unfortunate death of K. James IV. at Floyden, was never afterwards perceived to laugh, nor willingly did he hear anything that sounded to mirth or gladness. Mourning for the dead profits not, yet a tender nature is liberal of it, and will pay more than it needs. Says Sophocles, If tears would call the dead again, 'O xguros sleu

κτῆμα το κλαίειν αν ἦν, they would be more valuable than gold.' But a bucket of them will not empty the Dead Sea of grief. Wise Solon, in Laertius, taking on heavily for his son's death, says his companion to him, Grief will do you no good.' And that makes me grieve the more,' says Solon, because it will do me no good.' It is a very weak passion, and yet often too strong for reason. The Archbishop remained very silent in his dejected heaviness, and enquired after no news, except that sometimes he would lift up his head, and ask what was become of the King's Triers, Baanah and Rachab, especially, Cromwell and Bradshaw; looking for some remarkable judgment of God to come down upon them; which they have escaped for the great trial of good men's patience; and a gleam of felicity is granted to them here, that passing from extremity to extremity, their pain may be the sharper when they awake to judgment." (Hacket's Life of Williams, Part ii. p. 226.)

SIR WILLIAM JONES'S CHARACTER OF DUNNING.

We have already given the character of Lord Ashburton, which Sir Nathaniel Wraxall has drawn ; we shall now present Sir William Jones's sketch of the same celebrated man. To Lord Ashburton Sir William was indebted for his seat on the Indian Bench, and for many other kind

nesses, which he acknowledges in the strongest language, in a letter, addressed to his Lordship from India. "As to you, my dear Lord, we consider you as the spring and fountain of our happiness, as the author and parent, (a Roman would have added, what the coldness of our northern language will hardly admit,) the God of our fortune." (Works, vol. ii. p. 6.)

"The public are here presented not with a fine picture, but a faithful portrait, with the character of a memorable and illustrious man, not in the style of panegyric on a monument, but in the language of sober truth, which friendship itself could not induce the writer to violate.

"John Dunning, (a name to which no title could add lustre,) possessed professional talents, which may truly be called inimitable, for, besides their superlative excellence, they were peculiarly his own; and as it would scarcely be possible to copy them, so it is hardly probable that nature or education will give them to another. His language was always pure, always elegant; and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places, with a fluency at all times astonishing, and when he had perfect health, really melodious; his style of speaking consisted of all the turns, oppositions, and figures, which the old rhetoricians taught, and which Cicero frequently practised; but which the austere and solemn spirit of De

mosthenes refused to adopt from his first master, and seldom admitted into his orations, political or forensic.

Many at the bar, and on the bench, thought this a vitiated style; but though dissatisfied as critics, yet, to the confusion of all criticism, they were transported as hearers. That faculty, however, in which no mortal ever surpassed him, and which all found irresistible, was his wit. This relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy; this drew smiles even from such as were the objects of it; scattered flowers over a desert; and, like sun-beams sparkling on a lake, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting cause. Not that his accomplishments as an advocate, consisted principally in volubility of speech, or liveliness of raillery. He was endued with an intellect sedate, yet penetrating, chaste, yet profound, subtle, yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge. He was no less deeply learned in the sublime principles of jurisprudence, and the particular laws of his country, than accurately skilled in the minute but useful practice of all our different courts. In the nice conduct of a complicated cause, no particle of evidence could escape his vigilant attention, no shade of argument could elude his comprehensive reason. Perhaps the vivacity of his imagination sometimes

prompted him to sport where it would have been wiser to argue; and, perhaps, the exactness of his memory sometimes induced him to answer such remarks as hardly deserve notice, and to enlarge on small circumstances, which added little to the weight of his argument; but those only who have experienced, can in any degree conceive the difficulty of exerting all the mental faculties in one instant, when the least deliberation might lose the tide of action irrecoverably. The people seldom err in appreciating the character of a speaker, and those clients who were too late to engage DUNNING on their side, never thought themselves secure of success; while those against whom he was engaged, were always apprehensive of a defeat.

"As a lawyer, he knew that Britain could only be governed happily on the principles of her constitution, or public law; that the legal power was limited, and popular rights ascertained by it; but that the aristocracy had no other power than that which too naturally results from property, and which laws ought rather to weaken than fortify he was, therefore, an equal supporter of just prerogative and of national freedom, weighing both in the noble balance of our recorded constitution. An able aspiring statesman, who professed the same principles, had the wisdom to solicit, and the merit to obtain, the friendship of this great man, and a connexion, planted ori