Antony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, whose name he bears. This
ancestor, notwithstanding his sceptical philosophy, did some good
things, as he was the author of the habeas corpus act.

After dinner we went back to the drawing rooms again; and while tea
and coffee were being served, names were constantly being announced,
till the rooms were quite full.

Among the earliest who arrived was Mr.----, a mulatto gentleman,
formerly British consul at Liberia. I found him a man of considerable
cultivation and intelligence, evincing much good sense in his
observations.

I overheard some one saying in the crowd, "Shaftesbury has been about
the chimney sweepers again in Parliament." I said to Lord Shaftesbury,
"I thought that matter of the chimney sweepers had been attended to
long ago, and laws made about it."

"So we have made laws," said he, "but people won't keep them unless we
follow them up."

He has a very prompt, cheerful way of speaking, and throws himself
into every thing he talks about with great interest and zeal. He
introduced me to one gentleman, I forget his name now, as the patron
of the shoeblacks. On my inquiring what that meant, he said that he
had started the idea of providing employment for poor street boys, by
furnishing them with brushes and blacking, and forming them into
regular companies of shoeblacks. Each boy has his' particular stand,
where he blacks the shoes of every passer by who chooses to take the
trouble of putting up his foot and paying his twopence. Lord