Alas!--either in letters or in politics, how utterly poor, barren, and
untempting, is every path that points upward to the mockery of public
eminence, when looked upon by a soul that has any real elements of wise or
noble; unless we have an impulse within, which mortification chills not--a
reward without, which selfish defeat does not destroy.

But, unblest by one friend really wise or good, spoilt by the world,
soured by disappointment, Godolphin's very faculties made him inert, and
his very wisdom taught him to be useless. Again and again--as the spider
in some cell where no winged insect ever wanders, builds and rebuilds his
mesh,--the scheming heart of the Idealist was doomed to weave net after
net for those visions of the Lovely and the Perfect which can never
descend to the gloomy regions wherein mortality is cast. The most common
disease to genius is nympholepsy--the saddening for a spirit that the
world knows not. Ah! how those outward disappointments which should cure,
only feed the disease!

The dinner at Saville's was gay and lively, as such entertainments with
such participators usually are. If nothing in the world is more heavy
than your formal banquet,--nothing, on the other hand, is more agreeable
than those well-chosen laissez aller feasts at which the guests are as
happily selected as the wines; where there is no form, no reserve, no
effort; and people having met to sit still for a few hours are willing to
be as pleasant to each other as if they were never to meet again. Yet the
conversation in all companies not literary turns upon persons rather than
things; and your wits learn their art only in the School for Scandal.

"Only think, Fanny," said Saville, "of Clavers turning beau in his old
age! He commenced with being a jockey; then he became an electioneerer;