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than respectable. His brother Roger writes thus of the Lord Keeper's
youth:—
“It was singular and remarkable in him that, together with the study of the
law, which is thought ordinarily to devour the whole studious time of a
young gentleman, he continued to pursue his inquiries into all ingenious arts,
history, humanity, and languages; whereby he became not only a good
lawyer, but a good historian, politician, mathematician, natural philosopher,
and, I must add, musician in perfection.”
The Hon. Sir Dudley North, his younger brother, was a man of
exceedingly high abilities and vigour. He went as a youth to Smyrna, where
his good works are not yet forgotten, and where he made a large fortune;
then, returning to England, he became at once a man of the highest note in
Parliament as a financier. There was an unpleasant side to his character
when young, but he overmastered and outgrew it. Namely, he first showed
a strange bent to traffic when at school; afterwards he cheated sadly, and
got into debts; then he cheated his parents to pay the debts. At last he made
a vigorous effort, and wholly reformed himself, so that his brother
concludes his biography in this way:—
“If I may be so free as to give my thoughts of his morals, I must allow
that, as to all the mercantile arts and stratagems of trade which could be
used to get money from those he dealt with, I believe he was no niggard;
but as for falsities ... he was as clear as any man living.”
It seems, from the same authority, that he was a very forward, lively, and
beautiful child. At school he did not get on so well with his books, as he had
an excessive desire for action; still, his ability was such that a little
application went a long way with him, and in the end he came out a
moderate scholar. He was a great swimmer, and could live in the water for
a whole afternoon, (I mention this,
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