During the years when his spirit was high, and his pen cut deep, and when the habits of society were different from what they are at present, more than one adversary displayed symptoms of a desire to meet him elsewhere than on paper.

On these occasions, while showing consideration for his opponent, he evinced a quiet but very decided sense of what was due to himself, which commanded the respect of all who were implicated, and brought difficulties that might have been grave to an honourable and satisfactory issue.
He reserved his pugnacity for quarrels undertaken on public grounds, and fought out with the world looking on as umpire.

In the lists of criticism and of debate it cannot be denied that, as a young man, he sometimes deserved the praise which Dr.Johnson pronounced upon a good hater.

He had no mercy for bad writers, and notably for bad poets, unless they were in want of money; in which case he became within his means, the most open-handed of patrons.

He was too apt to undervalue both the heart and the head of those who desired to maintain the old system of civil and religious exclusion, and who grudged political power to their fellow-countrymen, or at any rate to those of their fellow-countrymen whom he was himself prepared to enfranchise.
Independent, frank, and proud almost to a fault, he detested the whole race of jobbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers, led-captains, led-authors, and led-orators.