LIFE OF MYTTON. 235 



would be vain to attempt it, unless, as Johnson with 

 his usual force says, " by those inconsistencies which 

 folly produces and infirmity suffers in the human 

 mind." At all events, an analysis of such a character 

 as that now in our view, can only be effected by a sort 

 of debtor and creditor account of good and evil, hold- 

 ing the balance with a charitable hand. But it must 

 be said of Mytton, what Clarendon said of Cromwell, 

 and what had been said of another more than a thou- 

 sand years back, that his enemies (if he had any) 

 could not condemn him without commendinof him at 

 the same time. His cardinal virtue was benevolence 

 of heart ; his besetting sin a destroying spirit, not 

 amenable to any counsel, and an apparent contempt 

 for all moral restraint. In fact, like Charles the Fifth, 

 who impiously asserted " there was but one Charles 

 and one God," Mytton appeared to aim at similar 

 notoriety ; and every man pays a dear price for that. 

 To a prodigality of heart he added a prodigality of 

 hand, which no such fortune as his could suffice, and 

 I am very much of Tom Penn's opinion, "that if he 

 had had two hundred thousand a year he would have 

 been in debt in five years." But although his extra- 

 vagance might have reduced Mr. Mytton to want, he 

 would have remained a man of unblemished integrity 



