��vice, with talents that might have made him conspicuous in literature, and respectable in any profession he could have chosen: his cousin has mentioned him in the lives of Fenton and of Broome * ; and when he spoke of him to me, it was always with tenderness, praising his acquaintance with life and manners, and recollecting one piece of advice that no man surely ever followed more exactly : ' Obtain (says Ford) some general principles of every science ; he who can talk only on one subject, or act only in one department, is seldom wanted, and perhaps never wished for ; while the man of general knowledge can often benefit, and always please V He used to relate, however, another story less to the credit of his cousin's penetration, how Ford on some occasion said to him, ' You will make your way the more easily in the world, I see, as you are contented to dispute no man's claim to conversation excellence ; they will, therefore, more willingly allow your pretensions as a writer.' Can one, on such an occasion, forbear recollecting the predictions of Boileau's father, when streaking the head of the young satirist, Ce petit bon homme (says he) ria \sic\ point trop d'esprit, mais il ne dira jamais mat de personne 3 . Such are the prognostics formed by
1 In the Life of Fenton he de- that he understands the art of war, scribes Ford as ' a clergyman at that but I have no wish to make war upon time [1723] too well known, whose anybody. The world is full of wants, abilities, instead of furnishing con- and loves only those who can satisfy vivial merriment to the voluptuous them. It is false praise to say of and dissolute, might have enabled any one that he is skilled in poetry, him to excel among the virtuous and and a bad sign when he is quoted the wise.' Works, viii. 57. ' At his solely about verses." ' Quarterly college Broome lived for some time Review, No. 206, p. 306. See Les in the same chamber with the well- Pensees de Pascal, i. ix. 18.
known Ford.' Ib. p. 229. See Life, 3 ' II fut e*lev jusqu'a 1'age de sept
i. 49 ; iii. 348. Broome entered St. a huit ans dans la maison de son
John's College, Cambridge, in 1708. pere, qui parcourant quelquefois les
In the Gent. Mag., 1731, p. 354, is differens caracteres de ses enfans,
recorded the death on August 22 of et surpris de 1'extreme douceur, de
1 The Rev. Mr. Ford, esteem'd for la simplicite meme qu'il croyait re-
his polite, agreeable conversation.' marquer en celui-ci, disait ordinaire-
2 ' Paschal had before enforced ment de lui, par une espece d'opposi T the same maxim. " You tell me that tion aux autres, que c'etait un bon such a person is a good mathemati- gar$on qui ne dirait jamais mal de cian, but I have nothing to do with personne! CEuvres de Boileau, ed. mathematics. You assert of another 1747, i. xxxiv.
men
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