Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/172

170 something of that keen susceptibility is wanting, which constitutes the poetical and picturesque; and, certainly, to neither of these qualities had his lordship the slightest claim. His style of conversation was made up of set sentences; and his manner, what his inferiors called overbearing, and his equals tiresome. His mind was made up of lessons and examples, he only reasoned by precedents; every thing with him went by example, and it was a relief to him when he could quote an authority. If he had a passion, it was love of money: he loved it both for its own sake—that close kind of attachment which money certainly does inspire—and also for the enjoyments that it could procure. He liked the pleasures of the table, and he liked attendance; he was a sort of Sublime Porte to his valets. Generally speaking, his comprehension was slow, and his ideas narrow; but the moment his own interest was concerned, it was astonishing how his perception enlarged: he became cautious, if not enlightened; and