he would have prided himself more upon the cut of a doublet, which would have secured a multitude of imitators, than upon the wisest saying he could have uttered, or upon the profoundest reflections that could have passed through his mind. But this philosophy, or whatever it was, had its dangers and its evils. He looked upon morals with the same distorted vision as upon all other matters; even laughed at restraints which other men held sacred, and regarded every course of conduct as perfectly indifferent, because all things were equally empty and idle. To the punctilios of honour, as to the ceremonies of religion, he submitted with a good grace, merely because it was not worth while to contest them; and, if he did not injure a friend, or betray a cause he had espoused, or violate his plighted word, it was merely--I will not say by accident--by some slight impression received in youth, which he would have scoffed at in his own mind, if any one attempted to erect it into a principle. He seldom argued indeed, and never combatted other men's opinions, because he thought it quite as well that they should have them as not; and the only thing he thought it worth while to reason upon for five minutes was the fashion of a point, or a cloak, the design of a piece of embroidery, or the composition of an essence. These matters indeed rose into some importance with him; but the cause was, that he had talked himself into a vanity upon the subject, and other men had given value to his decisions by following them as law. He thought then, while his companion was engaged in conversation; and his mind rested naturally upon things which had just passed.