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Exchange by the moft eminent merchants; became the oracle of the common council; was folicited to engage in all commercial undertakings; was flat-. tered with the hopes of becoming in a short time one of the directors of a wealthy company; and, to complete my mercantile honours, enjoyed the expenfive happiness of fining for fheriff.

Riches, you know, eafily produce riches: when, I had arrived to this degree of wealth, I had no longer any obstruction or oppofition to fear; new acquifitions were hourly brought within my reach, and I continued for fome years longer to heap thoufands upon thousands.

At last I refolved to complete the circle of a citizen's profperity by the purchase of an estate in the country, and to clofe my life in retirement. From the hour that this defign entered my imagination, I found the fatigues of my employment every day more oppreffive, and perfuaded myself that I was no longer equal to perpetual attention, and that my health would foon be destroyed by the torment and diftraction of extenfive bufinefs. I could image to myself no happiness, but in vacant jollity, and uninterrupted leifure; nor entertain my friends with any other topick, than the vexation and uncertainty of trade, and the happiness of rural privacy.

But notwithstanding these declarations, I could not at once reconcile myself to the thoughts of ceafing to get money; and though I was every day enquiring for a purchase, I found fome reafon for rejecting all that were offered me; and, indeed, had accumulated so many beauties and conveniences in my idea of the fpot, where I was finally to be

happy,

happy, that, perhaps, the world might have been travelled over, without difcovery of a place which would not have been defective in fome particular.

Thus I went on ftill talking of retirement, and ftill refusing to retire; my friends began to laugh at my delays, and I grew afhamed to trifle longer with my own inclinations; an eftate was at length purchafed, I transferred my ftock to a prudent young man who had married my daughter, went down into. the country, and commenced lord of a fpacious

manor.

Here for fome time I found happiness equal to my expectation. I reformed the old house according to the advice of the beft architects, I threw down the walls of the garden, and inclofed it with pallifades, planted long avenues of trees, filled a greenhoufe with exotick plants, dug a new canal, and threw the earth into the old moat.

The fame of thefe expenfive improvements brought in all the country to fee the fhew. I entertained my vifitors with great liberality, led them round my gardens, fhewed them my apartments, Jaid before them plans for new decorations, and was gratified by the wonder of fome and the envy

of others.

I was envied; but how little can one man judge of the condition of another? The time was now coming, in which affluence and fplendor could no longer make me pleafed with myfelf. I had built till the imagination of the architect was exhaufted; I had added one convenience to another, till I knew not what more to wifh or to defign; I had laid out my gardens, planted my park, and completed my

water

water-works; and what now remained to be done? what, but to look up to turrets, of which when they were once raised I had no farther use, to range over apartments where time was tarnishing the furniture, to ftand by the cascade of which I fcarcely now perceived the found, and to watch the growth of woods that must give their fhade to a diftant ge

neration.

In this gloomy inactivity, is every day begun and ended the happiness that I have been fo long procuring is now at an end, because it has been procured; I wander from room to room till I am weary of myself; I ride out to a neighbouring hill in the centre of my estate, from whence all my lands lie in profpect round me; I fee nothing that I have not feen before, and return home difappointed, though I knew that I had nothing to expect.

In my happy days of bufinefs I had been accuftomed to rife early in the morning; and remember the time when I grieved that the night came fo foon upon me, and obliged me for a few hours to fhut out affluence and profperity. I now feldom fee the rifing fun, but to tell him," with the fallen angel, "how I hate his beams." I awake from fleep as to languor or imprisonment, and have no employment for the first hour but to confider by what art I fhall rid myself of the fecond. I protract the breakfast as long as I can, becaufe when it is ended I have no call for my attention, till I can with fome degree of decency grow impatient for my dinner. If I could dine all my life, I should be happy; I eat not because I am hungry, but because I am idle: but, alas! the time quickly comes when I can eat no longer,

and fo ill does my conftitution fecond my inclina tion, that I cannot bear ftrong liquors: feven hours must then be endured before I fhall fup; but fupper comes at last, the more welcome as it is in a fhort time fucceeded by fleep.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the happiness, the hope of which feduced me from the duties and pleasures of a mercantile life. I fhall be told by those who read my narrative, that there are many means of innocent amufement, and many fchemes of useful employment, which I do not appear ever to have known; and that nature and art have provided pleafures, by which, without the drudgery of fettled business, the active may be engaged, the folitary foothed, and the focial entertained.

Thefe arts, Sir, I have tried. When first I took poffeffion of my eftate, in conformity to the taste of my neighbours, I bought guns and nets, filled my kennel with dogs and my ftable with horfes; but a little experience fhewed me, that thefe inftruments of rural felicity would afford me few gratifications. I never shot but to mifs the mark, and, to confefs the truth, was afraid of the fire of my own gun. I could difcover no mufick in the cry of the dogs, nor could divest myself of pity for the animal whofe peaceful and inoffenfive life was facrificed to our fport. I was not, indeed, always at leifure to reflect upon her danger; for my horfe, who had been bred to the chace, did not always regard my choice either of speed or way, but leaped hedges and ditches at his own difcretion, and hurried me along with the dogs, to the great diverfion of my brother sportsmen. His eagerness of perfuit once incited

him to fwim a river; and I had leifure to refolve in the water, that I would never hazard my life again for the deftruction of a hare.

I then ordered books to be procured, and by the direction of the vicar had in a few weeks a clofet elegantly furnished. You will, perhaps, be furprifed when I fhall tell you, that when once I had ranged them according to their fizes, and piled them up in regular gradations, I had received all the pleasure which they could give me. I am not able to excite in myself any curiofity after events which have been long paffed, and in which I can, therefore, have no intereft: I am utterly unconcerned to know whether Tully or Demofthenes excelled in oratory, whether Hannibal loft Italy by his own negligence or the corruption of his countrymen. I have no skill in controverfial learning, nor can conceive why fo many volumes fhould have been written upon queftions, which I have lived fo long and fo happily without understanding. I once refolved to go through the volumes relating to the office of justice of the peace, but found them fo crabbed and intricate, that in lefs than a month I defifted in defpair, and refolved to fupply my deficiences by paying a competent falary to a skilful

clerk.

I am naturally inclined to hofpitality, and for fome time kept up a conftant intercourfe of vifits with the neighbouring gentlemen: but though they are easily brought about me by better wine than they can find at any other houfe, I am not much relieved by their converfation; they have no fkill in commerce or the stocks, and I have no knowledge

of

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