no active code of morals so difficult to conquer as the inertness of his
indolence; he is the only being in the world for whom the present has a
supremer gratification than the future.

My cabriolet soon whirled me to Lady Roseville's door; the first person I
saw in the drawing-room, was Ellen. She lifted up her eyes with that
familiar sweetness with which they had long since began to welcome me.
"Her brother may perish on the gibbet!" was the thought that curdled my
blood, and I bowed distantly and passed on.

I met Vincent. He seemed dispirited and dejected. He already saw how ill
his party had succeeded; above all, he was enraged at the idea of the
person assigned by rumour to fill the place he had intended for himself.
This person was a sort of rival to his lordship, a man of quaintness and
quotation, with as much learning as Vincent, equal wit, and--but that
personage is still in office, and I will say no more, lest he should
think I flatter.

To our subject. It has probably been observed that Lord Vincent had
indulged less of late in that peculiar strain of learned humour formerly
his wont. The fact is, that he had been playing another part; he wished
to remove from his character that appearance of literary coxcombry with
which he was accused. He knew well how necessary, in the game of
politics, it is to appear no less a man of the world than of books; and
though he was not averse to display his clerkship and scholastic
information, yet he endeavoured to make them seem rather valuable for
their weight, than curious for their fashion. How few there are in the
world who retain, after a certain age, the character originally natural
to them! We all get, as it were, a second skin; the little foibles,
propensities, eccentricities, we first indulged through affectation,