84 LIFE OF MYTTON. 



State of intoxication in which he lived was, I could 

 perceive, become somewhat insufferable to his oldest 

 friends. Neither was this the worst. His asso- 

 ciating himself with a late well-known sporting 

 character, immeasurably inferior to himself in every 

 possible point of view, gave the finishing blow ; 

 and who can wonder at it ? for it must have been 

 not only repulsive to good taste, but extremely 

 mortifying to his friends, to see Mr. Mytton of 

 Halston, with his natural talents and accomplish- 

 ments, to say nothing of his connections, making 

 a bosom friend of a man who had once filled the 

 honourable post of a waterman to a hackney-coach 

 stand ! But there are moral as well as fabulous 

 Actseons in this world, who are surely devoured 

 by objects of their own choosing, and here we have 

 an instance of it. In what way, however, can we 

 account for a mind that had tasted the learninof and 

 elegfance of Athens and Rome findinof itself at ease 

 in such an unsuitable association ? Why, only by 

 its being reduced to a state of perfect apathy and 

 imbecility by the repetition of vicious and debili- 

 tatino- indulofences. 



There is but one excuse for a man being almost 

 perpetually intoxicated, and prostituting the reason 



