A thousand obliging Things flow from him upon every Occasion, and they are always so just and natural, that it is impossible to think he was at the least Pains to look for them.  One would think it were the Daemon of good Thoughts that discovered to him those Treasures, which he must have blinded others from seeing, they lay so directly in their Way.  Nothing can equal the Pleasure is taken in hearing him speak, but the Satisfaction one receives in the Civility and Attention he pays to the Discourse of others.  His Looks are a silent Commendation of what is good and praise-worthy, and a secret Reproof to what is licentious and extravagant.  He knows how to appear free and open without Danger of Intrusion, and to be cautious without seeming reserved.  The Gravity of his Conversation is always enlivened with his Wit and Humour, and the Gaiety of it is tempered with something that is instructive, as well as barely agreeable.  Thus with him you are sure not to be merry at the Expence of your Reason, nor serious with the Loss of your good Humour; but, by a happy mixture in his Temper, they either go together, or perpetually succeed each other.  In fine, his whole Behaviour is equally distant from Constraint and Negligence, and he commands your Respect, whilst he gains your Heart.

There is in his whole Carriage such an engaging Softness, that one cannot persuade one’s self he is ever actuated by those rougher Passions, which, where-ever they find Place, seldom fail of shewing themselves in the outward Demeanour of the Persons they belong to:  But his Constitution is a just Temperature between Indolence on one hand and Violence on the other.  He is mild and gentle, where-ever his Affairs will give him Leave to follow his own Inclinations; but yet never failing to exert himself with Vigour and Resolution in the Service of his Prince, his Country, or his Friend.

Z.

[Footnote 1:  Julius Caesar and Trajan.  Cicero most flattered Caesar in the speech pro Marcello, but the memorable speech of his before Caesar was that for Ligarius, who had borne arms against the new master of Rome in the African campaign.  Caesar had said,

  ’Why might we not as well once more hear a speech from Cicero?  There
  is no doubt that Ligarius is a bad man and an enemy.’

Yet the effect of the speech was that Caesar was stirred with emotion, changed colour, and at reference to the battle of Pharsalia,

  ‘he was,’ says Plutarch, ’so affected that his body trembled, and some
  of the papers he held dropped from his hands, and thus he was
  overpowered, and acquitted Ligarius.’

Of Pliny the younger there remains a fulsome Panegyric upon Trajan.]

[Footnote 2:  Lord Cowper?]

[Footnote 3:  Second Olympic Ode.]

[Footnote 4:  Bussy d’Amboise had become famous in England through a tragedy by George Chapman, often presented in the time of James I., and revived after the Restoration.  In 1691 Chapman’s play was produced with some changes by Thomas D’Urfey.  The man himself killed a relation in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, to get a title, and was trapped and killed by the Comte de Montsoreau, whose wife he went to seduce.]