254 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



Without entering into any part of Dr, Tillot- 

 son's character, whose memory is generally and 

 most deservedly esteemed, let the just part be 

 done to Dr. Sharp's, concerning the distinction 

 made between them. 



He was, as is confessed on all hands, a plain- 

 dealing man ; one who neither disguised his sen- 

 timents on any occasion, nor feared at any time 

 to take the liberty of following his own judg- 

 ment. He was so great a stranger himself to 

 wile and dissimulation, that he might be rather too 

 slow in discerning it, and too backward in suspect- 

 ing it in others; for which reason he was not 

 perhaps so skilful as some others are in pene- 

 trating into the intention of an intricate con- 

 duct, or shrewd in discovering men's designs at 

 a distance, not for want of good natural dis- 

 cernment, but for want of that acquired saga- 

 city which is only to be attained by long obser- 

 vation and study on the dark and shadowed, the con- 

 cealed and disagreeable side of human nature. He 

 studied mankind more as a divine than as a 

 statesman, and had a much clearer and quicker 

 apprehension of what men ought to be, than what 

 they really were, or might prove. If he some- 

 times judged wrong of particular persons, it 

 was owing to a generous motive (which was the 

 effect of the natural openness and honesty of 

 his own heart), that he cared not to be jealous 



