manifested thy bearing to those gentler creatures who called thee
'Gentleman George.' Never to one solitary woman, until the last dull
flame of thy dotage, didst thou so behave as to give no foundation to
complaint and no voice to wrong. But who shall say be honest to one, but
laugh at perfidy to another? Who shall wholly confine treachery to one
sex, if to that sex he hold treachery no offence? So in thee, as in all
thy tribe, there was a laxness of principle, an insincerity of faith,
even unto men: thy friends, when occasion suited, thou couldst forsake;
and thy luxuries were dearer to thee than justice to those who supplied
them. Men who love and live for pleasure as thou, are usually good-
natured; for their devotion to pleasure arises from the strength of their
constitution, and the strength of their constitution preserves them from
the irritations of weaker nerves. So went thou good-natured and often
generous; and often with thy generosity didst thou unite a delicacy that
showed thou hadst an original and a tender sympathy with men. But as
those who pursue pleasure are above all others impatient of interruption,
so to such as interfered with thy main pursuit thou didst testify a deep,
a lasting, and a revengeful anger. Yet let not such vices of temperament
be too severely judged! For to thee were given man's two most persuasive
tempters, physical and moral,--Health and Power! Thy talents, such as
they were,--and they were the talents of a man of the world,--misled
rather than guided thee, for they gave thy mind that demi-philosophy,
that indifference to exalted motives, which is generally found in a
clever rake. Thy education was wretched; thou hadst a smattering of
Horace, but thou couldst not write English, and thy letters betray that
thou went wofully ignorant of logic. The fineness of thy taste has been
exaggerated; thou wert unacquainted with the nobleness of simplicity; thy
idea of a whole was grotesque and overloaded, and thy fancy in details
was gaudy and meretricious. But thou hadst thy hand constantly in the
public purse, and thou hadst plans and advisers forever before thee; more