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

Thus I went on ftill talking of retirement, and still 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 stock 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 houfe 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 green-house 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, laid 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-works;

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 tarnifhing the furniture, to ftand by the cafcade of which I fcarcely now perceived the found, and to watch the growth of woods that must give their fhade to a diftant generation.

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 eftate, from whence all my lands lie in prospect round me; I fee nothing that I have not seen before, and return home disappointed, though I knew that I had nothing to expect.

In my happy days of business 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 fhould be happy; I eat not because I am hungry, but becaufe I am idle: but, alas! the time quickly comes when I can eat no longer;

and fo ill does my

conftitution second my inclination, that I cannot bear strong 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 amusement, and many schemes of useful employment, which I do not appear ever to have known; and that nature and art have provided pleasures, by which, without the drudgery of settled business, the active may be engaged, the folitary foothed, and the focial entertained.

Thefe arts, Sir, I have tried. When firft 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 fhot but to mifs the mark, and, to confefs the truth, was afraid of the fire of my own gun. I could discover no mufic in the cry of the dogs, nor could diveft myself of pity for the animal whose peaceful and inoffenfive life was facrificed to our sport. I was not, indeed, always at leifure to reflect upon her danger; for my horfe, who had been bred to the chafe, 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 fportfmen. His eagernefs of purfuit once incited

him to swim a river, and I had leifure to refolve in the water, that I would never hazard my life again for the destruction 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 furprised 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 fkill in controverfial learning, nor can conceive why fo many volumes fhould have been written upon questions, which I have lived fo long and fo happily without understanding. I once refolved to go through the volumes relating to the office of juftice 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 deficiencies by paying a competent salary 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 ftocks, and I have no knowledge

of the history of families or the factions of the country; fo that when the first civilities are over, they usually talk to one another, and I am left alone in the midst of the company. Though I cannot drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the circulation of the glafs; their mirth grows more turbulent and obftreperous; and before their merriment is at an end, I am fick with disgust, and, perhaps, reproached with my fobriety, or by fome fly infinuations infulted as a cit.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the life to which I am condemned by a foolish endeavour to be happy by imitation; fuch is the happiness to which I pleased myself with approaching, and which I confidered as the chief end of my cares and my labours. I toiled year after year with cheerfulness, in expectation of the happy hour in which I might be idle; the privilege of idleness is attained, but has not brought with, it the bleffing of tranquillity.

I am,

Yours, &c.

MERCATOR.