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g ies of Sir Sam « el Romiily w 6 r ^ , a few short weeks ago , consecrated , had ahnost beg-un to forget that he was riot , in earthly being * , immortal ' . His name had been so long and so closel y identified with princip les which can never ^ perish ,- —his progress seemed so secure in its very gentleness of continuance , —his ^ liole . demeanour ap ^ peared so formed to procure for his designs
gradual hut beneficent successes , —that , while the mind contemplated the completion of these objects for wfilch he struggled , through a loeg vista of prudent enterprises and noiseless triumphs , it learned insensibly to link his personal existence to their duration , and scarcely adverted to the possibility that his span of life might be passed before truth should have achieved its final
victory . How fearful then was the blow hy which this spell was rudely broken t—This honourable career , which the soul feit refreshment i& thinking on , closed in horror $ and the sweet dreams of golden days , led on by the favoured agent of
mercy , were changed , in an instant , to thoughts of agony , despair , and the grave ! If , however , th < e mode of Sir Samuel Romiily ' s removal from the world deepens our grief , it alters itot , in the least , our rational estimate of his character . It
breaks in , no doubt , upon the * harmony of that picture en which the imagination would otherwise have delighted to repose . It was a sad and uncharacteristic close of a life so placid , so gentle , so animated with generous zeal , jet so guided by
practical wisdom : but our regrets on this subject extend bo further . His conduct from his youth proves , beyond a question , even were the fact unestablished by more immediate evidence , that Sir Samuel Rom illy could never have formed a determination
to quit the world merely because he imagined lhat it had left him nothing personally to enjoy . His whole public life was a continued self-sacrifice . Endued with the most
exquisite relish for domestic joys ., he resigned them , almost without reserve , to his cause- and while tremblingly sensible of misery , he steeled his mind with heroic resolution to investigate its minutest details . He was wedded to the loftiest
interests of his species . If a beloved family had mot survived to claim his love and to solace his afflictions , he would have found a thousand ties to existence in the apprehensions , th-ehopes , the struggles of humanity with which he was so generously allied . His death , hy an act of the will , would *> ave heen the result of a selfishness of
which he is proved incapable bv the wliole tenour of his being-: nn 4 whije it appears a moral impossibility that -he should "llave " voluntaril y relinquished life , it is easy to trace the causes of the frenzy which 4 e-^ loyed him . Its foundation hud been laid in yours of 'inconceivable und dis-VOL . xiii . _ 4 z
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trading * labour , during- which he had b # ei | literally " prodigal of his mighty split . * His intellect had , day after day ^ to disentangle the most tedious perplexities , t £ g-tasp the most comprehensive masses of facts , probabilities and reasonings ; te
glance on a multitude of important subjects , and to retain and arrange them all 5 to ri ^ sl f from the minute details of the nicestrtegal proceedings to great questions , involving the honour and happiness of man . ffe hurried from toil to toil—long argument at the bar alone diversified the dreariness of his professional exertions , and the op ~
position bench in the House of Commons was his only relief frona the unutterable distraction of his engagements in the Court of Chancery . Thus were his nejye ^ always finely strung * , disordered $ his A e ^ licate organization deraaaged , and hi $ faculties too painfully excited lonrg to endure . The springs by whicW his spiritual nature should have been nourished
and invigorated , were dried up Witqiu him . Harassed , fatigued , bewildered , inwardly exhausted , he was little prepared te bear the severest of earthly trials . The beloved wifej whp , with his children , alone shed a tinge of social joy over his career
of toil , was laid on a death-bed ; suspense { agitated his frame already shaken ; despair and agony succeeded 5 and his mind sunk at last , after no unwortb y effort , to reassert her seat . His habits , and even his natural constitution of mind , had compelled him to feel the affliction in all the chilncss of
its reality . He was essentially a practical man , destitute , for the most part , of fancy and imagination ; and aeuustoined to view the apparent only as the real 3 to relieve actual misery , to combat substantial oppressions , and to strive for objects ,
valuable indeed , but little known , back from the sphere of ordinary existence . Hence lie was little prepared to draw consolatioii from things unseen 3 to rest on sentipaerit or unearthly hopes ; to cherish sweet fancies and tender thoughts which soften
the grief that incites the-m , or to indulge in that gentle pensiveness which throws a lich , yfet sober enchantment over the grave . Surely , then , it is not wonderful that his heart , exhausted in the cause of virt ue ^ fainted within him ; and that the silver cord , so long too intensely drawn , was , -in one sad moirient , broken .
From the painful contemplation of Sir Samuel Romiily ' s death , we may turn foicomfort to the thoitg-ftt , that it is good indeed for man ' that he has lived . 'Humanity regarded him as the'first and noblest of its advocates . He jpussessed , indeed , no faculties of the loftiest intellectual ordeiV
no brilliant wit , no intuitive perception , no exquisite felicity of combination , no wild urid burning- energy : but he united in hinrsclf more capabilities of virtuous
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0 biiiittry . ~ $£ r Samuel Romill y * 721
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 721, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/57/
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