130 
MEMOIR OF 
served but to render those talents the means of 
proportionably 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, 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 
\Vere 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 
