LORD ELDON AND MR. WILBERFORCE.

Lord Eldon is an exceedingly good-natured man; but this does not prevent him, like other good-natured people, from consulting his own ease or interest.  The character of good-nature, as it is called, has been a good deal mistaken; and the present Chancellor is not a bad illustration of the grounds of the prevailing error.  When we happen to see an individual whose countenance is “all tranquillity and smiles;” who is full of good-humour and pleasantry; whose manners are gentle and conciliating; who is uniformly temperate in his expressions, and punctual and just in his every-day dealings; we are apt to conclude from so fair an outside, that

  “All is conscience and tender heart”

within also, and that such a one would not hurt a fly.  And neither would he without a motive.  But mere good-nature (or what passes in the world for such) is often no better than indolent selfishness.  A person distinguished and praised for this quality will not needlessly offend others, because they may retaliate; and besides, it ruffles his own temper.  He likes to enjoy a perfect calm, and to live in an interchange of kind offices.  He suffers few things to irritate or annoy him.  He has a fine oiliness in his disposition, which smooths the waves of passion as they rise.  He does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others; bears their calamities with patience; he listens to the din and clang of war, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political and moral world with the temper and spirit of a philosopher; no act of injustice puts him beside himself, the follies and absurdities of mankind never give him a moment’s uneasiness, he has none of the ordinary causes of fretfulness or chagrin that torment others from the undue interest they take in the conduct of their neighbours or in the public good.  None of these idle or frivolous sources of discontent, that make such havoc with the peace of human life, ever discompose his features or alter the serenity of his pulse.  If a nation is robbed of its rights,

  “If wretches hang that Ministers may dine,”—­

the laughing jest still collects in his eye, the cordial squeeze of the hand is still the same.  But tread on the toe of one of these amiable and imperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney and spoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it.  All their patience is confined to the accidents that befal others:  all their good-humour is to be resolved into giving themselves no concern about any thing but their own ease and self-indulgence.  Their charity begins and ends at home.  Their being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing to their indifference to the common feelings of humanity; and if you touch the sore place, they betray more resentment, and break out (like spoiled children) into greater fractiousness than others, partly from a greater degree of selfishness, and partly because they are taken by surprise, and mad to think they have not guarded every point against annoyance or attack, by a habit of callous insensibility and pampered indolence.