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368 to his care as a sacred deposit, to be administered with more scrupulous care and attention than his private affairs. The consequence was, that though he perhaps missed some opportunities of making a great fortune, yet he raised the reputation of the house to the highest degree for prudence and able management, and thus laid the foundation of that eminent character which it has ever since so deservedly enjoyed.

One peculiar and most salutary species of benevolence, was practised by Sir William Forbes to the greatest extent His situation as head of a great banking establishment, led to his receiving frequent applications in the way of business for assistance, from young men not as yet possessed of capital. By a happy combination of caution with liberality in making these advances, by inquiring minutely into the habits and moral character of the individuals assisted, and proportioning tire advance to their means and circumstances, he was enabled, to an almost incredible extent, to assist the early efforts of industry,- without in the least endangering the funds committed by others to his care. Hundreds in every rank in Edinburgh were enabled, by his paternal assistance, to commence life with advantage, who otherwise could never have been established in the world; and numbers who afterwards rose to affluence and prosperity, never ceased in after years to acknowledge with the warmest gratitude, the timely assistance which first gave the turn to their heretofore adverse fortunes, and laid the foundation of all the success which they afterwards attained.

The benevolence of his disposition and the warmth of his heart seemed to expand with the advance of life and the increase of his fortune. Unlike most other men, he grew even more indulgent and humane, if that were possible, in his older than his earlier years. The intercourse of life, and the experience of a most extensive business, had no effect in diminishing his favourable opinion of mankind, or cooling his ardour in the pursuit of beneficence. Viewing others in the pure and unsullied mirror of his own mind, he imputed to them the warm and benevolent feelings with which he himself was actuated; and thought they were influenced by the same high springs of conduct which directed his own life. It was an early rule with him to set aside every year a certain portion of his income to works of charity, and this proportion increasing with the growth of his fortune, ultimately reached an almost incredible amount. Unsatisfied even with the immense extent and growing weight of his public and private charities, he had, for many years before his death, distributed large sums annually to individuals on whom he could rely to be the almoners of his bounty; and his revered friend, bishop Jolly, received in this way £100 a year, to be distributed around the remote village of Fraserburgh, in Aberdeenshire. These sums were bestowed under the most solemn promise of secrecy, and without any one but the person charged with the bounty being aware who the donor was. Numbers in this way in every part of the country partook of his charity, without then knowing whose was the hand which blessed them; and it frequently happened, that the same persons who had been succoured by his almoners, afterwards applied to himself; but on such occasions he invariably relieved them if they really seemed to require assistance ; holding, as he himself expressed it, that his public and private charities were distinct ; and that his right hand should not know what his left hand had given.

Lady Forbes having fallen into bad health, he was advised by her physician to spend the winter of 1792-3 in the south of Europe; and this gave him an opportunity of enjoying what he had long desired, without any probable prospect of obtaining a visit to the Italian peninsula. He left Scotland in autumn, 1792; and returned in June, 1793. His cultivated taste made him enjoy this tour in the very highest degree; and the beneficial effect it produced