future evil is confessed to be an increase of misery, the hope which magnifies future good cannot be denied to be an acceffion of happiness.

The most numerous class of those who prefume to hope for miraculous advantages, is that of gamesters. But by gamesters I do not mean the gentlemen who stake an estate, against the cunning of those who have none; for I leave the cure of lunatics to the profeffors of phyfic: I mean the diffolute and indigent, who in the common phrase put themselves in fortune's way, and expect from her bounty that which they eagerly defire, and yet believe to be too dearly purchased by dili. gence and industry; tradesmen who neglect their business, to squander in fashionable follies more than it can produce; and swaggerers, who rank themselves with gentlemen, merely because they have no business to pursue.

The gamester of this class will appear to be equally wretched, whether his hope be fulfilled or disappointed; the object of it depends upon a contingency, over which he has no influence; he pursues no purpose with gradual and perceptible success, and, therefore, cannot enjoy the pleasure which arises from the anticipation of its accomplishment; his mind is perpetually on the rack; he is anxious in proportion to the eagerness of his defire, and his inability to effect it; to the pangs of fufpence, fucceed those of disappointment; and a momentary gain only embitters the lofs that follows. Such is the life of him, who shuns business because he would secure leifure for enjoyment; except it happens, against the odds of a million to one, that a run of success puts him into the possession of a sum sufficient to subsist him in idleness the remainder of his life: and in this cafe,

the idleness which made him wretched while he waited

for the bounty of fortune, will necessarily keep him wretched after it is bestowed: he will find, that, in the gratification of his appetites, he can fill but a small portion of his time, and that these appetites themfelves are weakened by every attempt to increase the enjoyment which they were intended to supply; he will, therefore, either doze away life in a kind of liftless indolence, which he despairs to exalt into felicity, or he will imagine that the good he wants is to be obtained by an increase of his wealth, by a larger house, a more fplendid equipage, and a more numerous retinue. If with this notion he has again recourse to the altar of fortune, he will either be undeceived by a new feries of fuccess, or he will be reduced to his original indigence by the loss of that which he knew not how to enjoy: if this happens, of which there is the highest degree of probability, he will instantly become more wretched in proportion as he was rich; though, while he was rich, he was not more happy in proportion as he had been poor. Whatever is won, is reduced by experiment to its intrinfic value; whatever is lost, is heightened by imagination to more. Wealth is no fooner diffipated, than its inanity is forgotten, and it is regretted as the means of happiness which it was not found to afford. The gamester, therefore, of whatever class, plays against manifest odds; fince that which he wins he discovers to be brass, and that which he lofes he values as gold. And it should also be remarked, that in this estimate of his life, I have not supposed him to lose a single stake which he had not first won.

But though gaming in general is wisely prohibited by the legiflature, as productive not only of private but

but of public evil; yet there is one species to which all are sometimes invited, which equally encourages the hope of idleness, and relaxes the vigour of induftry.

Ned Froth, who had been several years butler in a family of distinction, having saved about four hundred pounds, took a little house in the fuburbs, and laid in a stock of liquors for which he paid ready money, and which were, therefore, the best of the kind. Ned perceived his trade increase; he pursued it with fresh alacrity, he exulted in his success, and the joy of his heart sparkled in his countenance: but it happened that Ned, in the midst of his happiness and prosperity, was prevailed upon to buy a lottery ticket. The moment his hope was fixed upon an object which industry could not obtain, he determined to be industrious no longer: to draw drink for a dirty and boisterous rabble, was-a flavery to which he now fubmitted with reluctance, and he longed for the moment in which he should be free: instead of telling his story and cracking his joke for the entertainment of his customers, he received them with indifference, was observed to be filent and. fullen, and amused himself by going three or four times a day to search the register of fortune for the fuccess of his ticket.

In this disposition Ned was fitting one morning inthe corner of a bench by his fire-fide, wholly abstracted in the contemplation of his future fortune; indulging. this moment the hope of a mere possibility, and the next shuddering with the dread of losing the felicity which his fancy had combined with the poffefsion of. ten thousand pounds. A man well dressed entered haftily

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hastily, and inquired for him of his guests, who many times called him aloud by his name, and curst him for deafness and stupidity, before Ned started up as from a dream, and asked with a fretful impatience what they wanted. An affected confidence of being well received, and an air of forced jocularity in the stranger, gave Ned some offence; but the next moment, he catched him in his arms in a transport of joy, upon receiving his congratulation as proprietor of the fortunate ticket, which had that morning been drawn a prize of the first class.

It was not, however, long before Ned discovered that ten thousand pounds did not bring the felicity which he expected; a discovery which generally produces the diffipation of fudden affluence by prodigality. Ned drank, and whored, and hired fiddlers, and bought fine clothes; he bred riots at Vauxhall, treated flatterers, and damned plays. But something was ftill wanting; and he resolved to strike a bold stroke, and attempt to double the remainder of his prize at play, that he might live in a palace and keep an equipage: but in the execution of this project, he loft the whole produce of his lottery ticket, except five hundred pounds in Bank notes, which when he would have staked he could not find. This sum was more than that which had established him in the trade he had left; and yet, with the power of returning to a station that was once the utmost of his ambition, and of renewing that pursuit which alone had made him happy, fuch was the pungency of his regret, that in the defpair of recoverug the money which he knew had produced nothing but but riot, disease, and vexation, he threw himself from the Bridge into the Thames.

Ir is often charged upon writers, that with all their pretenfions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another; and that compositions obtruded upon the world with the pomp of novelty, contain only tedious repetitions of common sentiments, or at best exhibit a transposition of known images, and give a new appearance to truth only by some flight difference of dress and decoration.