pounds, and was become more reconciled to my situation. The first who took a fancy to me was Samuel Salte, à mercer's apprentice, who five years after, resided in London, where he acquired £100,000. He died in 1797. Our intimacy lasted his life.

In this first opening of prosperity, an unfortunate circumstance occurred which gave me great uneasiness, as it threatened totally to eclipse the small prospect before me. The overseers, fearful I should become chargeable to the parish, examined me with regard to my settlement; and, with the voice of authority, ordered me to procure a certifi cate, or they would remove me. Terrified, I wrote to my father, who returned for answer, "That All Saints, in Derby, never granted certificates."

I was hunted by ill-nature two years. I repeatedly of. fered to pay the levies, which was refused. A succeeding overseer, a draper, of whom I had purchased two suits of clothes, value £10, consented to take them. The scruple exhibited a short sight, a narrow principle, and the exultations of power over the defenceless.

Among others who wished to serve me, I had two friends, Mr. Dowler, a surgeon, who resided opposite me, and Mr. Grace, a hosier at the Gateway, in the High-street. Great consequences often arise from small things. The house adjoining that of Mr. Grace's, was to be let. My friends both urged me to take it. I was frightened at the rent, eight pounds. However, one drew, and the other pushed, till they placed me there. A small house is too large for a man without furniture, and a small rent may be too large for an income which has nothing certain in it but the smallness. Having felt the extreme of poverty, I dreaded nothing so much; but I believed I had seized the tide, and I was unwilling to stop.

Here I pursued business in a more elevated style, and with more success.

No event in a man's life is more consequential than marriage; nor is any more uncertain. Upon this die his sum of happiness depends. Pleasing views arise, which vanish as the cloud; because, like that, they have no foundation. Circumstances change, and tempers with them. Let a man's prior judgment be ever so sound, he cannot foresee a change; therefore he is liable to deception. I was deceived myself, but, thanks to my kind fate, it was on the right side. I found in my wife more than I ever expected to find in woman. Just in proportion as I loved her, I must regret her loss. If my father, with whom I only lived fourteen years, who loved me less, and has been gone forty, never is a day out of my thoughts, what must be my thoughts towards her, who loved me as herself, and with whom I resided an age!

1756. My dear wife brought me a little daughter, who has been the pleasure of my life to this day. We had now a delightful plaything for both.

Robert Bage, an old and intimate friend, and a papermaker, took me to his inn, where we spent the evening. He proposed that I should sell paper for him, which I might either buy on my own account, or sell on his by commission. As I could spare one or two hundred pounds, I chose to purchase; therefore appropriated a room for the reception of goods, and hung out a sign-The Paper Warehouse. From this small hint I followed the stroke forty years, and acquired an ample fortune.

1763. We took several pleasurable journeys; among others, one at Aston, and in a superior style to what we had done before. This is the peculiar privilege of us Birming

ham men if ever we acquire five pounds extraordinary, we take care to show it.

1764. Every man has his hobby-horse and it is no disgrace prudently to ride him. He is the prudent man who can introduce cheap pleasures without impeding business.

About ten of us, intimate friends, amused ourselves with playing at tennis. Entertained with the diversion, we erected a tennis-court and met on fine evenings for amusement, without expense. I was constituted steward of our little fraternity.

My family continued their journeys, and were in a prosperous state.

THE END.

Against Inconsistency in our Expectations.

FROM AN ESSAY BY MRS. BARBAULD.

BETTER Writing or reasoning than the following it would not be easy to find. There are some additional remarks in the original, which, though not without merit, we cannot help thinking by an inferior hand, and have, therefore, omitted. Every sentence here set down is admirable; nor is there anything, however vigorous in the tone, which a noble-minded woman might not utter, without committing the delicacy of her sex. All is conformable to kindness as well as zeal, and to the beauty of right thinking.

In reading this excellent piece of advice one feels astonished to think how so many could have stood in need of it, ourselves perhaps among the number. But so it is. We feel it to have been necessary, while we are surprised at its having been so; and we become anxious that all the world should be acquainted with it. The good it is calculated to do is evident, and of the greatest importance. We have heard of reflecting men who are proud to acknowledge their obligations to it; who say it has influenced the greater part of their lives; and we know of others who have spoken of it with admiration; Mr. Hazlitt for one.

At the same time, good as the spirit of the admonition is for everybody, the line drawn between the seekers of wealth and the cultivators of wisdom appears to us to be a little too strong; or at least to have become so in our days, whatever the case may have been in those in which it was written. The recognition of the beauty and

even the utility of mental accomplishments has latterly been keeping better pace with commercial industry; men in trade have influenced the opinions of the world on the most unexpected and important points, by means of their share of them; and in the passages extracted from the biography of Hutton, the reader has seen an account of a man who, in Mrs. Barbauld's own time, rose to wealth from the humblest beginnings, and whose career was accompanied, nevertheless, by a love of books and by liberal feelings, by the regard and assistance of men of genius, and by the warmest affections of his family. The instance of his distinguished friend Bage, the novelist and paper-maker, is still more striking on the side of independence. But we have noticed them both more at large in the place referred to, as well as the exceptions to sordid rules that have occurred in all ages and nations. Still the essay remains necessary to many, useful and a good caution to all.

Our gratitude must not forget, that the chief honor of the admonition remains with the good old Stoic philosopher, the following passage out of whose writings Mrs. Barbauld made the text of her

sermon:

"What is more reasonable than that they who take pains for anything, should get most in that particular for which they take pains? They have taken pains for power, you for right principles; they for riches, you for a proper use of the appearance of things. See whether they have the advantage of you in that for which you have taken pains, and which they neglect. If they are in power, and you not, why will not you speak the truth to yourself, that you do nothing for the sake of power, but that they do everything? No: but since I take care to have right principles, it is more reasonable that I should have power. Yes, in respect to what you take care about, your principles; but give up to others the things in which they have taken more care than you; else it is just as if, because you have right principles, you should think it fit that when you shoot an arrow you should hit the mark better than an archer, or that you should forge better than a smith."-CARTER's Epictetus.

A

S most of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discontent. The laws of natural philosophy, indeed, are tolerably understood and attended to; and, though we may