102 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



although it yielded to strength of constitution, it seemed to have 

 sown the seed of future ailment ; for in a few days after its dis- 

 appearance a thirst came on, as intense as any I had experienced on 

 the other side of the tropic. This was an awful warning. A 

 dysentery at last made its appearance, and it harassed me cruelly 

 all the way through Italy and the intervening countries to Ostend, 

 at which port I embarked for London, and thence took steam to 

 Walton Hall. 



" I have little or nothing more to add by way of memoir, except 

 that the severe attacks of dysentery, and the former indispositions 

 caused by remaining in unwholesome climates, and by exposure to 

 the weather, seem to have made no inroad into my constitution ; 

 for, although life's index points at sixty-two, I am a stranger to all 

 sexagenarian disabilities, and can mount to the top of a tree with my 

 wonted steadiness and pleasure. As I am confident that I owe this 

 vigorous state of frame to a total abstinence from all strong liquors, 

 I would fain say a parting word or two to my young reader on this 

 important subject. 



" If he is determined to walk through life's chequered path with 

 ease to himself, and with satisfaction to those who take an interest 

 in his welfare, he will have every chance in his favour, provided he 

 makes a firm resolution never once to run the risk of losing his 

 reason through an act of intemperance : for the preservation of his 

 reason will always insure to him the fulfilment of his resolution, and 

 his resolution will seldom fail to crown his efforts with success. The 

 position of an irrational ass, cropping thistles on the village common, 

 is infinitely more enviable than that of a rational man under the 

 influence of excessive drinking. Instinct teaches the first to avoid 

 the place of danger, whilst intemperance drives the last headlong 

 into the midst of it. To me there is no sight in civilised society 

 more horribly disgusting than that of a human being in a state of 

 intoxication. The good Jesuit who, six and forty years ago, advised 

 me never to allow strong liquors to approach my lips, conferred a 

 greater benefit on me than if he had put the mines of Potosi at my 

 immediate disposal. I might fill a large volume with the account of 

 miseries and deaths which I could distinctly trace to the pernicious 

 practice of inebriety. I have seen manly strength, and female 



