130 MEMOIR OF 



served but to render those talents the means of 

 proportionally greater mischief and misery, and 

 every worldly advantage the source of self-degra- 

 dation to the possessor, involving too frequently 

 that of others also ; or which propensity, if re- 

 strained, requires that concentration of intellect 

 upon the mere effort of preserving a decent regu- 

 larity which almost entirely absorbs its energies. 

 Mr Willughby y though doubtless sharing in the 

 general frailty of mankind, seems to have suffered 

 no diminution of his usefulness from any lapses or 

 aberrations of good principle, or from the corrod- 

 ing regrets by which these are retrieved. Still 

 this right direction of his powers was, no doubt, an 

 act of voluntary selection, on his own part, to 

 the extent needful to have rendered it virtuous, 

 a selection which, in order to its being praise- 

 worthy, must have been made upon an acquain- 

 tance with the difference of those objects which 

 compete for human preference. There is reason 

 also to believe that he owed much to the instruc- 

 tions, example, and assistance of his parents, who 

 were themselves highly educated, and truly excel- 

 lent persons ; capable not only of conducting the 

 earlier part of his education upon the best prin- 

 ciples, but also of appreciating the bias of his 

 natural disposition, and of adopting right means 

 for its development. There is, however, one 

 portion of Mr Willughby's character, the praise 

 of which must be, partly at least, ascribed to him- 

 self, which was, his abhorrence of idleness, which 

 he justly considered as the parent of almost every 



