A name next comes forward that must not briefly be glided by; that of William Bewley; a man for whom Mr. Burney felt the most enlightened friendship that the sympathetic magnetism of similar tastes, humours, and feelings, could inspire.
Mr. Bewley was truly a philosopher, according to the simplest, though highest, acceptation of that word; for his love of wisdom was of that unsophisticated species, that regards learning, science, and knowledge, with whatever delight they may be pursued abstractedly, to be wholly subservient, collectively, to the duties and practice of benevolence.
To this nobleness of soul, which made the basis of his character, he superadded a fund of wit equally rare, equally extraordinary: it was a wit that sparkled from the vivid tints of an imagination as pure as it was bright; untarnished by malice, uninfluenced by spleen, uninstigated by satire. It was playful, original, eccentric: but the depth with which it could have cut, and slashed, and pierced around him, would never have been even surmised, from the urbanity with which he forbore making
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that missile use of its power, had he not frequently darted out its keenest edge in ridicule against himself.
And not alone in this personal severity did he resemble the self-unsparing Scarron; his outside, though not deformed, was peculiarly unfortunate; ............