but it is not to be supposed that it should lose him his seat for Yorkshire, the smile of Majesty, or the countenance of the loyal and pious.  He is anxious to do all the good he can without hurting himself or his fair fame.  His conscience and his character compound matters very amicably.  He rather patronises honesty than is a martyr to it.  His patriotism, his philanthropy are not so ill-bred, as to quarrel with his loyalty or to banish him from the first circles.  He preaches vital Christianity to untutored savages; and tolerates its worst abuses in civilized states.  He thus shews his respect for religion without offending the clergy, or circumscribing the sphere of his usefulness.  There is in all this an appearance of a good deal of cant and tricking.  His patriotism may be accused of being servile; his humanity ostentatious; his loyalty conditional; his religion a mixture of fashion and fanaticism.  “Out upon such half-faced fellowship!” Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of being familiar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of an approving conscience.  He is coy in his approaches to power; his public spirit is, in a manner, under the rose.  He thus reaps the credit of independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages of servility, without incurring any obligations.  He has two strings to his bow:—­he by no means neglects his worldly interests, while he expects a bright reversion in the skies.  Mr. Wilberforce is far from being a hypocrite; but he is, we think, as fine a specimen of moral equivocation as can well be conceived.  A hypocrite is one who is the very reverse of, or who despises the character he pretends to be:  Mr. Wilberforce would be all that he pretends to be, and he is it in fact, as far as words, plausible theories, good inclinations, and easy services go, but not in heart and soul, or so as to give up the appearance of any one of his pretensions to preserve the reality of any other.  He carefully chooses his ground to fight the battles of loyalty, religion, and humanity, and it is such as is always safe and advantageous to himself!  This is perhaps hardly fair, and it is of dangerous or doubtful tendency.  Lord Eldon, for instance, is known to be a thorough-paced ministerialist:  his opinion is only that of his party.  But Mr. Wilberforce is not a party-man.  He is the more looked up to on this account, but not with sufficient reason.  By tampering with different temptations and personal projects, he has all the air of the most perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality and candour, when he is only striking a balance in his mind between the eclat of differing from a Minister on some ’vantage ground, and the risk or odium that may attend it.  He carries all the weight of his artificial popularity over to the Government on vital points and hard-run questions; while they, in return, lend him a little of the gilding of court-favour to set off his disinterested