In the members, however, which swelled the list of the male part of this circle, few indeed were there who ever made an effort to withdraw from it. Vice and folly, in manners and in dress--male coquetry--ineffable impertinence--ignorance--detraction of virtue which might have resisted, or talents which eclipsed them--insipidity in mind, and effeminacy in person--devotion to luxury,--these, and more than these, if such could be catalogued, of the immoralities and follies of man, were all to be found here, in degree and kind, revolving in their different orbits--and fulfilling their allotted parts in the system, till their existence closed. What though wit might sometimes play around their board, or the quick repartee enliven the monotonous circle of the evening--what though talent might be allowed, for a brief season, to expatiate on higher topics, and the deep discourse of great human learning might be suffered to dwell at intervals on subjects more intellectual--yet what profited this to those who listened or to those who spoke?--The moment's amusement, the indulgence of mere curiosity, the establishing of some political tenet or philosophical dogma, were alone the objects looked to. Talents, when found in this society, were in fact directed to none but _worldly_ views; and the feeling which should have guided their possessors to acknowledge the bounty of the Author who bestowed them, and a faithful employment of his gifts, was not only wanting, but the sacred religion of that very Author was too frequently made an exercise for them--a subject of their scorn or cavil. Though untitled, yet of noble family, there was one, who figured first as most licentious and unprincipled among the devotees of _ton_. He was handsome, winning, specious; but he concealed under this attractive exterior a heart of the blackest dye; no sense of right or wrong checked its impulses. All to him was lawful that was attainable. Pleasure was his object; and he had sailed down the short voyage of his life unchecked by any of those reverses, unscared by any of those feelings of shame or compunction, which would have operated on a weaker mind; and if, for a moment, some enormity of conduct made the more timid--they could not be called the more virtuous--of his associates recoil, the hardened face, the laugh of carelessness, the ready excuse, soon dissipated these transient feelings of shame; and patronized, courted, upheld, in that true _esprit de corps_ which bound each member of the society to protect the other, his youthful career had been run from excess to excess.