Polished perturbation! golden care!
and add—
O majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
That scalds with safety.
Goldsmith has somewhat sarcastically lamented that the appetites of the rich do not increase with their wealth; in like manner, it would be a grievous thing could liberty be monopolized or scraped into heaps like wealth; a petty tyrant may persecute and imprison thousands, but he cannot thereby add one hour or inch to his own liberty.
Another and a very common loss of liberty is by pleasure and the love of fame, especially by the slaves of fashion and the lovers of great place;
Whose lives are others' not their own.
Pleasure for the most part, consists in fits of anticipation; since, the extra liberty or license of a debauch must be repaid by the iron fetters of headache, and the heavy hand of ennui on the following day: even the purblind puppy of fashion will tell you, if you make free with your constitution, you must suffer for it; and this by a species of slavery. To dance attendance upon a great man for a small appointment, and to boo your way through the world, belongs to the worst of servitude. Congreve compares a levee at a great man's to a list of duns; and Shenstone still more ill-naturedly says, "a courtier's dependant is a beggar's dog."