mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the magi of letters, all
are insensibly guided--moulded--formed--by the judgment of the tribe they
belong to, and the circle in which they move. Still more is it the case
with the idlers of the great world, amongst whom the only main staple of
talk is "themselves."

And in the last-named set, Ridicule being more strong and fearful a deity
than she is amongst the cultivators of the graver occupations of life,
reduces the inmates, by a constant dread of incurring her displeasure, to
a more monotonous and regular subjection to the judgment of others.
Ridicule is the stifler of all energy amongst those she controls. After
man's position in society is once established--after he has arrived at a
certain age--he does not like to hazard any intellectual enterprise which
may endanger the quantum of respect or popularity at present allotted to
him. He does not like to risk a failure in parliament--a caustic
criticism in literature: he does not like to excite new jealousies, and
provoke angry rivals where he now finds complaisant inferiors. The most
admired authors, the most respected members of either house, now looked up
to Godolphin as a man of wit and genius; a man whose house, whose wealth,
whose wife, gave him an influence few individuals enjoy. Why risk all
this respect by provoking comparison? Among the first in one line, why
sink into the probability of being second-rate in another?

This motive, which secretly governs half the aristocracy--the cleverer
half, viz., the more diffident and the more esteemed; which leaves to the
obtuse and the vain, a despised and unenviable notoriety; added new force
to Godolphin's philosophical indifference to ambition. Perhaps, had his
situation been less brilliant, or had he persevered in that early
affection for solitude which youth loves as the best nurse to its dreams,
he might now, in attaining an age when ambition, often dumb before,