38 EARLY LIFE. 



brother and her on some capital conviction, when 

 she leant towards mercy, and against that kind of 

 punishment. Her view was perfectly sound, that 

 the smallest punishment which was sufficient to pre- 

 vent a repetition of the offence, was all we had a 

 right to inflict, and that punishing with death tended 

 to counteract one of the objects of all punishment, 

 by turning the feelings in the party's favour through 

 the aversion felt to the punishment. The Principal 

 would say that her reasoning was owing to her feel- 

 ings of misplaced pity for the offender. And this 

 was the case latterly, when her mind had no longer 

 its original strength, and the discussion was renewed 

 with her daughter and the rest of us. We then saw 

 that she was arguing from her feelings. But in 

 former times these were the impressions on all sub- 

 jects she has left, and they were inherited by her 

 daughter. It used to be a joke amongst us that she 

 had not inherited her mother's beauty ; and we after- 

 wards found that the extraordinary likeness to Dante 

 of her profile and her bust, so much admired by 

 Chantrey, made some amends for the defect. 



Of the relations who have been alluded to, the 

 Adams and the Clerks were the most remarkable, as 

 they were all first-cousins of the Principal and his 

 sister. The Adams were famous as architects, break- 

 ing through the old and plain, but bad style, and 

 introducing, witli some variations, the Greek and 

 Italian. They were patronised by Lord Bute and 

 Lord Mansfield, and by most of the English nobles 



