disadvantageous parts of my character, and these I resolved,
if possible, to subdue. Whatever may have been my efforts
to effect this, it is most certain that even to this moment
(1788) those efforts have not been completely successful.*
Though more easily controlled, I still occasionally blush to
think that my temper sometimes carries me beyond that
calm serenity which true wisdom demands, but I trust that
I have obtained a considerable dominion over it, and that
my vanity has now subsided to that just estimation of my
own faculties which every man, who wishes to maintain
himself in a due equipoise with those around him, ought to
preserve. I often reflect with pleasure that, when I was
young in the world and had nothing to boast of, I was vain
and supercilious, and that, in proportion as I have had cause
to rise in my own opinion, I have gained a just appreciation
of myself, and have become more humble.
Vanity was to the last the besetting weakness of Sir J. B.
