A moderate fortune, with a quiet retirement in the country, is
preferable to the greatest affluence which is attended with care and the
perplexity of business, and inseparable from the noise and hurry of the
town. The practice of the generality of people of the best taste, it is
to be owned, is directly against us in this point; but, when it is
considered that this practise of theirs proceeds rather from a
compliance with the fashion of the times, than their own private
thoughts, the objection is of no force. Among the great numbers of men
who have received a learned education, how few are there but either have
their fortunes entirely to make, or, at least, think they deserve to
have, and ought not to lose the opportunity of getting, somewhat more
than their fathers have left them! The town is the field of action for
volunteers of this kind; and whatever fondness they may have for the
country, yet they must stay till their circumstances will admit of a
retreat thither. But sure there never was a man yet, who lived in a
constant return of trouble and fatigue in town, as all men of business
do in some degree or other, but has formed to himself some end of
getting some sufficient competency, which may enable him to purchase a
quiet possession in the country, where he may indulge his genius, and
give up his old age to that easy smooth life which, in the tempest of
business, he had so often longed for. Can any thing argue more strongly
for a country life, than to observe what a long course of labour people
go through, and what difficulties they encounter to come at it? They
look upon it, at a distance, like a kind of heaven, a place of rest and
happiness; and are pushing forward through the rugged thorny cares of
the world, to make their way towards it. If there are many who, though
born to plentiful fortunes, yet live most part of their time in the
noise, the smoke, and hurry of the town, we shall find, upon inquiry,
that necessary indispensible business is the real or pretended plea
which most of them have to make for it. The court and the senate require
the attendance of some: lawsuits, and the proper direction of trade,
engage others: they who have a sprightly wit and an elegant taste for
conversation, will resort to the place which is frequented by people of
the same turn, whatever aversion they may otherwise have for it; and
others, who have no such pretence, have yet this to say, that they
follow the fashion. They who appear to have been men of the best sense
amongst the ancients, always recommended the country as the most proper
scene for innocence, ease, and virtuous pleasure; and, accordingly, lost
no opportunities of enjoying it: and men of the greatest distinction
among the moderns, have ever thought themselves most happy when they
could be decently spared from the employments which the excellency of
their talents necessarily threw them into, to embrace the charming
leisure of a country life.