different virtues.  Otherwise, he will not gain his own approbation, or secure the respect of others.  The graces and accomplishments of private life mar the man of business and the statesman.  There is a severity, a sternness, a self-denial, and a painful sense of duty required in the one, which ill befits the softness and sweetness which should characterise the other.  Loyalty, patriotism, friendship, humanity, are all virtues; but may they not sometimes clash?  By being unwilling to forego the praise due to any, we may forfeit the reputation of all; and instead of uniting the suffrages of the whole world in our favour, we may end in becoming a sort of bye-word for affectation, cant, hollow professions, trimming, fickleness, and effeminate imbecility.  It is best to choose and act up to some one leading character, as it is best to have some settled profession or regular pursuit in life.

We can readily believe that Mr. Wilberforce’s first object and principle of action is to do what he thinks right:  his next (and that we fear is of almost equal weight with the first) is to do what will be thought so by other people.  He is always at a game of hawk and buzzard between these two:  his “conscience will not budge,” unless the world goes with it.  He does not seem greatly to dread the denunciation in Scripture, but rather to court it—­“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!” We suspect he is not quite easy in his mind, because West-India planters and Guinea traders do not join in his praise.  His ears are not strongly enough tuned to drink in the execrations of the spoiler and the oppressor as the sweetest music.  It is not enough that one half of the human species (the images of God carved in ebony, as old Fuller calls them) shout his name as a champion and a saviour through vast burning zones, and moisten their parched lips with the gush of gratitude for deliverance from chains—­he must have a Prime-Minister drink his health at a Cabinet-dinner for aiding to rivet on those of his country and of Europe!  He goes hand and heart along with Government in all their notions of legitimacy and political aggrandizement, in the hope that they will leave him a sort of no-man’s ground of humanity in the Great Desert, where his reputation for benevolence and public spirit may spring up and flourish, till its head touches the clouds, and it stretches out its branches to the farthest part of the earth.  He has no mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so much live-stock on their estates; the country rings with the applause of his wit, his eloquence, and his indignant appeals to common sense and humanity on this subject—­but not a word has he to say, not a whisper does he breathe against the claim set up by the Despots of the Earth over their Continental subjects, but does every thing in his power to confirm and sanction it!  He must give no offence.  Mr. Wilberforce’s humanity will go all lengths that it can with safety and discretion: