526 MEMOIR OF 
These were circumstances sufficient to excite and to justify 
ambition ; but although Mr Tyrrer was ambitious, it was not 
so much of fame he was ambitious, as of usefulness. The mo- 
desty, as well as the benevolence of bis nature, disqualified him 
for those adventurous speculations, in which nothing but perso- 
nal celebrity is attained; and in looking at the literary scene 
before him, the path that invited him, was not that which rises 
amid dangers and difficulties into solitary eminence, but that 
which follows out its humbler and happier way amid the duties 
and charities of social life. In all his ambition, too, there was 
(if I may use the expression) something always domestic. The 
honours to which he aspired were those which he could share 
with those he loved, and the “ eyes” in which he wished fo 
read his history, were not so much the eyes of the world, as 
those of his family and friends. It was with this moral and 
chastised taste that he looked even to the honours of his pro- 
fession: And when he recollected the brightest distinction it 
ever received, it was not Cicero in the Forum or in the Senate 
House, that was so much the object of his admiration, as 
Cicero at his Formian or his Tusculan Villa, amid the enjoy- 
ments of domestic friendship, and the delights of philosophic 
study. 
With these dispositions, Mr TyrLzr soon found, that the 
share of business which a young man can acquire at the Bar, 
was insufficient to employ the activity of his mind, and that 
the merely occasional attention which particular cases requi- 
red, was at variance with those habits of continued study in 
which he was accustomed to be employed. To consider law 
as a science was more congenial to his mind, than to consider 
it only as a profession ; and he became desirous, therefore, of 
engaging in some continued work, where (like some eminent 
men before him) he might entitle himself to the honours of 
his 
