that discourse which has gratified our vanity with victory and applaufe.

Some caution, therefore, must be used, left copioufness and facility be made less valuable by inaccuracy and confufion, To fix the thoughts by writing, and fubject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophifms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practises on others; in conversation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of converfation.

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters. For all these there is not often equal opportunity; excellence, therefore, is not often attainable; and most men fail in one or other of the ends proposed, and are full without readiness, or ready without exactness. Some deficiency must be forgiven all, because all are men; and more must be allowed to pass uncensured in the greater part of the world, because none can confer upon himself abilities, and few have the choice of situations proper for the improvement of those which nature has bestowed: it is, however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye; that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached.

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No,

To indulge that restless impatience which every man feels to relate incidents by which the paffions have been greatly affected, and communicate ideas that have been forcibly impressed, I have given you fome account of my life, which, without farther apology or introduction, may, perhaps, be favourably received in an Adventurer.

My mother died when I was very young; and my father, who was a naval commander, and had, therefore, no opportunity to superintend my conduct, placed me at a grammar school, and afterwards removed me

to

to the university. At school the number of boys was so great, that to regulate our morals was impossible; and at the university, even my learning contributed to the diffoluteness of my manners. As I was an only child, my father had always allowed me more money than I knew how to lay out, otherwise than in the gratification of my vices: I had fometimes, indeed, been restrained, by a general sense of right and wrong; but I now opposed the remonstrances of confcience by the cavils of sophistry; and having learned of fome celebrated philosophers, as well ancient as modern, to prove that nothing is good but pleasure, I became a rake upon principle.

My father died in the same year with queen Anne, a few months before I became of age, and left me a very confiderable fortune in the funds. I immediately quitted the university, and came to London, which I confidered as the great mart of pleasure; and as I could afford to deal largely, I wisely determined not to endanger my capital. I projected a scheme of life that was most agreeable to my temper, which was rather sedate than volatile, and regulated my expences with the economy of a philosopher. I found that my favourite appetites might be gratified with greater convenience and less scandal, in proportion as my life was more private: instead, therefore, of incumbering myself with a family, I took the first floor of a house which was let into lodgings, hired one fervant, and kept a brace of geldings at a livery stable. I constantly frequented the theatres, and found my principles confirmed by almost every piece that was represented, particularly my resolution never to marry. In comedy, indeed, the action terminated in marriage; but it

was

was generally the marriage of a rake, who gave up his liberty with reluctance, as the only expedient to recover a fortune; and the husband and wife of the drama were wretches whose example justified this reluctance, and appeared to be exhibited for no other purpose than to warn mankind, that, whatever may be presumed by those whom indigence has made defperate, to marry is to forfeit the quiet, independence, and felicity of life.

In this course I had continued twenty years, without having impaired my constitution, lessened my fortune, or incumbered myself with an illegetimate offspring; when a girl about eighteen, just arrived from the country, was hired as a chambermaid by the perfon who kept the house in which I lodged: the native beauty of health and fimplicity in this young creature, had fuch an effect upon my imagination, that I praetised every art to debauch her, and at length fuc

ceeded.

I found it convenient for her to continue in the house, and therefore made no proposal of removing her into lodgings: but after a few months the found herself with child; a discovery which interrupted the indolence of my sensuality, and made me repent my indifcretion: however, as I would not incur my own censure by ingratitude or inhumanity, I provided her a lodging and attendants; and she was at length delivered of a daughter. The child I regarded as a new incumbrance; for though I did not confider myself as under parental or conjugal obligations, yet I could not think myself at liberty wholly to abandon either the mother or the infant. To the mother, indeed, I had still some degree of inclination; though I should have been heartily content never to have feen her again, if I could at once have been freed from any farther trouble about her; but as something was to be done, I was willing to keep her within my reach, at least till she could be fubfervient to my pleasure no longer: the child, however, I would have sent away; but the entreated me to let her fuckle it, with an importunity which I could not refift. After much thinking, I placed her in a little shop in the fuburbs; which I furnished, at the expence of about twenty pounds, with chandlery ware; commodities of which she had fome knowledge, as her father was a petty shopkeeper in the country. She reported, that her husband had been killed in an engagement at fea; and that his pay, which she had been impowered to receive by his will, had purchased her stock. I now thought I had difcharged every obligation, as I had enabled her to subsist, at least as well as she could have done by her labour in the station in which I found her; and as often as I had an inclination to see her, I fent for her to a bagnio.

But these interviews did not produce the pleasure which I expected: her affection for me was too tender and delicate; she often wept in spight of all her efforts against it; and could not forbear telling me stories of her little girl, with the fond prolixity of a mother, when I wished to regard her only as a mistress. These incidents at once touched me with compunction, and quenched the appetite which I had intended to gratify: my visits, therefore, became less frequent: but she never sent after me when I was absent, nor reproached me, otherwise than by tears of tenderness when she saw me again.

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