for the family called him nothing but Captain, came in, and after talking a little to us about the weather, the roads, and the crop, (though he seemed to have but a bad notion of farming,) left the room again, telling us that my lord and lady would soon be down; but that dinner was somewhat later to-day than usual, as they and their company had been at a bearbaiting, my lord's bear having been backed against his neighbor Sir Harry Driver's dogs. This accident kept us from our dinner till six o'clock, by which time my neighbor and I, who had breakfasted by tines, were almost famished. Meanwhile we were left to entertain ourselves with the pictures, not to mention my lady's French lapdog, which a servant brought in (I suppose by the time he had been dressed for dinner) and laid on a cushion at the fireside. I found indeed one of the late numbers of the Lounger, which I began to read; but my neighbor Broadcast yawned so on the first page, that I laid it by out of complaisance to him. Soon after the lapdog, some of her ladyship's company came in, one after another, and did us the honor of staring at us, and speaking to the lapdog. The dinner bell was rung before the lady appeared, who, to do her justice, behaved politely enough, and began to ask half a dozen questions about our wives and children, to which she did not wait for an answer; but to say truth, she had her hands full of the bearbaiting company, who, when they were all assembled, made a very numerous party. My lord entered a few minutes after her; he did not give himself much trouble about any of us, till on the Captain's whispering something in his ear, he came up to where my neighbor and I stood, and said he was very happy to have the honor of seeing lodge.

us at

When we went to dinner, we contrived to place ourselves on each side of our good friend the Captain, and things went on pretty well. I knew that at such a table the victuals were not always what they seemed; and therefore I was cautious of asking for any of your figured dishes. At last, however, I got helped to a mutton-chop, as I would have called it; but the Captain told me it was a ragout. When I tasted it, it was so Frenchified, and smelt so of garlic, which I happen to have an aversion to, that I was glad to get rid of it, as soon (and that was not very soon) as I could prevail on a servant to take away my plate. The Captain, who guessed my taste I suppose, very kindly informed me there was roast beef on the sideboard, and sent a request to a fine gentleman out of livery, who had the carving of it, for a slice to me. But whether he thought I looked like a cannibal, or that the dish, being little in request, was neglected in the roasting, he sent me a monstrous thick cut, so red and raw, that I could not touch a morsel of it; so I was

obliged to confine my dinner to the leg and wing of a partridge, which the second course afforded me. I did not observe how my friend Broadcast fared at dinner; but I saw he catched a tartar at the dessert; for happening to take a mouthful of a peach, as he thought it, what should it be but a lump of ice, that stung his hollow tooth to the quick, and brought the tears over his checks. The wine after dinner might have consoled us for all these little misfortunes, if we had had time to partake of it; but there the French mode came across us again, and we had drank but a few glasses, and had not got half through the history of the bearbaiting, when coffee was brought.

She re

When we went into the drawing room, we found the card tables set, and my lady engaged with a party at whist. commended some of us to the care of a friend of her's, a lady somewhat advanced in life, though she was still a maiden one, for they called her Miss Lurcher, who made up a table at farthing loo. As this was a game I was used to play at home, and the stake was so very trifling, I consented to make one. My neighbor Broadcast refused, and sat down at the other end of the room, to hear one of the young ladies play on the harpsichord, where he affronted himself by falling asleep. It had been as well for some other people that they had been asleep too. This game, though it began with farthings, soon mounted up to a very considerable sum, and I had once lost to the amount of twenty pounds. A lucky reverse of fortune brought me a little up again, and I went to supper only five thousand farthings, that is, five guineas out of pocket. It would not become me to suspect any foul play at lodge; but I could not help observing, that Miss Lurcher held Pam plaguily often, I have been told since, that she has little other fortune than what she makes by her good luck at cards; and yet she was as finely drest as my lady, and had as fine a plume of feathers on her hat: I shall never look on that hat again without thinking that I see Pam in the front of it.

When we were shown to our rooms, I looked for the attendance of John, to whom I had given strict charge to be watchful in that matter; but he was not to be found, and, I was told, had never appeared at the lodge after he went with his horses to the inn. Before going to bed, I stole into the chamber where my friend Broadcast lay, and agreed with him, who seemed as willing to be gone as myself, that we should cut short our visit, and (since French was the word) take a French leave early next morning. We were both up by daylight, and groped our way down stairs to get our hats and whips, that we might make our escape to where John and the horses were lodged. But we could not find our road to the lobby, by which we had entered.

There did not seem to be a creature stirring in the house; and, after wandering through several empty halls, in one of which we found a backgammon table open, with a decanter not quite empty, on which was a claret label, we went down a few steps to another passage, where we imagined we heard somebody stirring. But we had not gone many steps when the rattle of a chain made us take to our heels; and it was well we did; for we were within half a yard of being saluted by my lord's bear, whose quarters it seemed we had strayed into. The noise of our flight, and his pursuit, brought a chambermaid, who happened to be up, to our assistance, and by her means we had the good fortune to get safely through the lobby into the lawn, from whence we had only a mile or two's walk to the inn where John was put up.

For want of John's attendance, I had comforted myself with the reflection, that if he had not been employed in taking care of me, the horses would fare the better for it. But when we reached the house, we found that John had been employed in nothing but taking care of himself. The servants of my lord's other guests who were there, kept a very good house, as the landlord called it: and John had been a good deal jollier at dinner the day before than his master. It was with some difficulty we got him on his legs, and brought him along with us. It was a long time before my portmanteau could be found: and my new bridle, with a plated bit, had been exchanged by some clearerheaded fellow, for an old snaffle not worth a groat.

Such, Sir, is the history of my first visit, and I hope my last, to lodge. But as I have found the experience even of one visit a little expensive, I think it is doing a kindness to people in my situation, to let them know what they have to expect there. When my lord asks a vote again, let it be conditioned on the part of the freeholder, that he shall not be obliged to study the pictures of his saloon above half an hour, that he shall have something to eat and something to drink at dinner, and be insured from falling into the paws of the bear, or the hands of Miss Lurcher. I am, &c.

JOHN HOMESPUN.

15

[No. 100. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1786.]

AMONG the cautions which prudence and worldly wisdom inculcate on the young, or at least among those sober truths which experience often pretends to have acquired, is that danger which is said to result from the pursuit of letters and of science, in men destined for the labors of business, or the active exertions of professional life. The abstraction of learning, the speculations of science, and the visionary excursions of fancy, are fatal, it is said, to the steady pursuit of common objects, to the habits of plodding industry which ordinary business demands. The fineness of mind, which is created or increased by the study of letters, or the admiration of the arts, is supposed to incapacitate a man for the drudgery by which professional eminence is gained; as a nicely-tempered edge, applied to a coarse and rugged material, is unable to perform what a more common instrument would have successfully achieved. A young man destined for law or commerce is advised to look only into his folio of prece dents, or his method of book-keeping; and Dulness is pointed to his homage, as that benevolent goddess, under whose protection the honors of station, and the blessings of opulence, are to be attained; while learning and genius are proscribed, as leading their votaries to barren indigence, and merited neglect. In doubting the truth of these assertions, I think I shall not entertain any hurtful degree of scepticism, because the general current of opinion seems, of late years, to have set too strongly in the contrary direction; and one may endeavor to prop the failing cause of literature, without being accused of blameable or dangerous partiality,"

In the examples which memory and experience produce, of idleness, of dissipation, and of poverty, brought on by an indul gence of literary or poetical enthusiasm, the evidence must necessarily be on one side of the question only. Of the few whom learning or genius have led astray, the ill success or the ruin is marked by the celebrity of the sufferer. Of the many who have been as dull as they were profligate, and as ignorant as they were poor, the fate is unknown, from the insignificance of those by whom it was endured. If we may reason à priori on the matter, the chances, I think, should be on the side of literature.

In young minds of any vivacity, there is a natural aversion to the drudgery of business, which is seldom overcome, till the effervescence of youth is allayed by the progress of time and habit, or till that very warmth is enlisted on the side of their profession,

by the opening prospects of ambition or emolument. From this tyranny as youth conceives it, of attention and of labor, relief is commonly sought from some favorite avocation or amusement, for which a young man either finds or steals a portion of his time; either patiently plods through his task, in expectation of its approach, or anticipates its arrival, by deserting his work before the legal period for amusement is arrived. It may fairly be questioned, whether the most innocent of those amusements is either so honorable or so safe, as the avocations of learning or of science. Of minds uninformed and gross, when youthful spirits agitate, but fancy and feeling have no power to impel, the amusements will generally be either boisterous or effeminate, will either dissipate their attention or weaken their force. The employment of a young man's vacant hours is often too little attended to by those rigid masters, who exact the most scrupulous observance of the periods destined for business. The waste of time is undoubtedly a very calculable loss; but the waste or the depravation of mind is a loss of a much higher denomination. The votary of study, or the enthusiast of fancy, may incur the first; but the latter will be suffered chiefly by him whom ignorance, or want of imagination, has left to the grossness of mere sensual enjoyments.

In this, as in other respects, the love of letters is friendly to sober manners and virtuous conduct, which in every profession is the road to success and to respect. Without adopting the common-place reflections against some particular departments, it must be allowed, that in mere men of business, there is a certain professional rule of right, which is not always honorable, and though meant to be selfish, very seldom profits. A superior education generally corrects this, by opening the mind to different motives of action, to the feelings of delicacy, the sense of honor, and a contempt of wealth, when earned by a desertion of those principles.

The moral beauty of those dispositions may perhaps rather provoke the smile, than excite the imitation, of mere men of business and the world. But I will venture to tell them, that, even on their own principles, they are mistaken. The qualities which they sometimes prefer as more calculated for pushing a young man's way in life, seldom attain the end in contemplation of which they are not so nice about the means. This is strongly exemplified by the ill success of many, who from their earliest youth, had acquired the highest reputation for sharpness and cunning. Those trickish qualities look to small advantages unfairly won, rather than to great ones honorably attained. The direct, the open, and the candid, are the surest road to success in every department of life. It needs a certain superior degree