I79I' HISTORY OF A FORTUNATE IDLER. '85 



ing me" — Stop 3'ou, Sirrah, faid I, this will never do ;^ 

 go to fome other part of this damn'd book. ; I never 

 heard fuch wretched lluft' in my life. 



The boy, turning over a couple of pages, began h- 



" Auguftus, a few moments before his death, aiked his 

 friends who ftood about him, if they thought he had 

 i.ded his part well." 



Stop, my lad, that wont do either. Take tltat other 

 volume, and read where you pleafe. 



" Tliere are few who know how to be idle and in- 

 " noceut, or have a relifh of any plealures that are not 

 i-' criminal ; every diverlion they take is at the expenue 

 " of foa.e one virtue or other, and their very firlt 

 " ftep out of buiinefs, is into vice or folly. A man 

 *' fliouid endeavour therefore, to make the fphere of 

 " his innocent pleafures as wide as pollible, that he 

 " may retire into them with faf'ety, and find in them 

 " fuch a fatisfaction as a wife man would not bluih to 

 *' take." 



Irritated and confounded by thefe reflexions, fo ap- 

 plicable to my own unhappy fituation, I fprung out of 

 bed, fnatched the book out of my fervant's ha)id, and 

 in the fcufRle, overthrew the table at which he lat, 

 with the bottle and glaffes tliat were upon it ; after 

 wliich, overwhelmed with ibame and difgud, I return- 

 ed to a fleeplefs pillow, and fpcnt the long night ui a- 

 gony of thought. 



I re-entered, as it were, into my own mind, and look- 

 ed back upon the laft tlirce years of my life, as on a 

 ivathfome dream : I refolved inftautly to adopt a plan 

 of raiional exillence ; and having called in the whole 

 of my bills, I wrote a long letter to my father, in ex- 

 planation of my future refolutions, borrowed a fum of 

 money fufllcient to pay every thing I owed in London, 

 and fet out for the country, where, with my father's 

 confent, I applied myfelf to the fuperintendence ot 

 !ils patrimonial affairs, and, in the intervals of Itiiure, 

 ■.plied myfelf to iludy. 



