SIR,

I HAVE been for many years a trader in London.

My beginning was narrow, and my stock small;

I was, therefore, a long time brow-beaten and

despised by those, who, having more money, thought

they had more merit than myself. I did not,

however, suffer my resentment to instigate me to any

mean arts of supplantation, nor my eagerness of

riches to betray me to any indirect methods of gain;

I pursued my business with incessant assiduity,

supported by the hope of being one day richer than

those who contemned me; and had, upon every

annual review of my books, the satisfaction of

finding my fortune increased beyond my expectation.

In a few years my industry and probity were fully

recompensed, my wealth was really great, and my

reputation for wealth still greater. I had large

warehouses crowded with goods, and considerable sums

in the publick funds; I was caressed upon the

Exchange by the most eminent merchants; became

the oracle of the common council; was solicited to

engage in all commercial undertakings; was flattered

with the hopes of becoming in a short time one of

the directors of a wealthy company, and, to

complete my mercantile honours, enjoyed the expensive

happiness of fining for sheriff.

Riches, you know, easily produce riches; when I

had arrived to this degree of wealth, I had no longer

any obstruction or opposition to fear; new acquisitions

were hourly brought within my reach, and I

continued for some years longer to heap thousands

upon thousands.

At last I resolved to complete the circle of a

citizen's prosperity by the purchase of an estate in

the country, and to close my life in retirement.

From the hour that this design entered my

imagination, I found the fatigues of my employment

every day more oppressive, and persuaded myself

that I was no longer equal to perpetual attention,

and that my health would soon be destroyed by

the torment and distraction of extensive business.

I could imagine to myself no happiness, but in

vacant jollity, and uninterrupted leisure: nor

entertain my friends with any other topick than the

vexation and uncertainty of trade, and the happiness

of rural privacy.

But, notwithstanding these declarations, I could

not at once reconcile myself to the thoughts of

ceasing to get money; and though I was every day

inquiring for a purchase, I found some reason for

rejecting all that were offered me; and, indeed, had

accumulated so many beauties and conveniences in

my idea of the spot where I was finally to be

happy, that, perhaps, the world might have been

travelled over without discovery of a place which

would not have been defective in some particular.

Thus I went on, still talking of retirement, and

still refusing to retire; my friends began to laugh at

my delays, and I grew ashamed to trifle longer with

my own inclinations; an estate was at length

purchased, I transferred my stock to a prudent young

man who had married my daughter, went down into

the country, and commenced lord of a spacious

manor.

Here for some time I found happiness equal to my

expectation. I reformed the old house according to

the advice of the best architects, I threw down the

walls of the garden, and enclosed it with palisades,

planted long avenues of trees, filled a green-house

with exotick plants, dug a new canal, and threw the

earth into the old moat.

The fame of these expensive improvements brought

in all the country to see the show. I entertained my

visitors with great liberality, led them round my

gardens, showed them my apartments, laid before

them plans for new decorations, and was gratified by

the wonder of some and the envy of others.

I was envied: but how little can one man judge

of the condition of another! The time was now

coming, in which affluence and splendour could no longer

make me pleased with myself. I had built till the

imagination of the architect was exhausted; I had

added one convenience to another, till I knew not

what more to wish or to design; I had laid out my

gardens, planted my park, and completed my water-

works; and what now remained to be done? what,

but to look up to turrets, of which when they were

once raised I had no further use, to range over

apartments where time was tarnishing the furniture, to

stand by the cascade of which I scarcely now

perceived the sound, and to watch the growth of woods

that must give their shade to a distant generation.

In this gloomy inactivity, is every day begun and

ended: the happiness that I have been so long

procuring is now at an end, because it has been procured;

I wander from room to room, till I am weary of

myself; I ride out to a neighbouring hill in the centre

of my estate, from whence all my lands lie in

prospect round me; I see nothing that I have not seen

before, and return home disappointed, though I knew

that I had nothing to expect.

In my happy days of business I had been

accustomed to rise early in the morning; and remember

the time when I grieved that the night came so soon

upon me, and obliged me for a few hours to shut out

affluence and prosperity. I now seldom see the rising

sun, but to "tell him," with the fallen angel, "how

I hate his beams[m]." I awake from sleep as to languor

or imprisonment, and have no employment for the

first hour but to consider by what art I shall rid

myself of the second. I protract the breakfast as long as

I can, because when it is ended I have no call for

my attention, till I can with some degree of decency

grow impatient for my dinner. If I could dine all my

life, I should be happy; I eat not because I am hungry,

but because I am idle: but, alas! the time quickly

comes when I can eat no longer; and so ill does my

constitution second my inclination, that I cannot bear

strong liquors: seven hours must then be endured

before I shall sup; but supper comes at last, the more

welcome as it is in a short time succeeded by sleep.

[m] Johnson was too apt to destroy the KEEPING of character

in his correspondences. A retired trader might desire a little

more slumber, "a little folding of the hands to sleep;" but the

lofty malignity of a fallen spirit sickening at the beams of day,

would not be among the feelings of an ordinary mind. Some good

remarks on this point may be seen in Miss Talbot's Letters to

Mrs. Carter.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the happiness, the hope

of which seduced me from the duties and pleasures

of a mercantile life. I shall be told by those who read

my narrative, that there are many means of innocent

amusement, and many schemes of useful employment,

which I do not appear ever to have known;

and that nature and art have provided pleasures, by

which, without the drudgery of settled business, the

active may be engaged, the solitary soothed, and

the social entertained.

These arts, Sir, I have tried. When first I took

possession of my estate, in conformity to the taste

of my neighbours, I bought guns and nets, filled my

kennel with dogs, and my stable with horses: but

a little experience showed me, that these instruments

of rural felicity would afford me few gratifications.

I never shot but to miss the mark, and, to

confess the truth, was afraid of the fire of my own

gun. I could discover no musick in the cry of the

dogs, nor could divest myself of pity for the animal

whose peaceful and inoffensive life was sacrificed to

our sport. I was not, indeed, always at leisure to

reflect upon her danger; for my horse, who had been

bred to the chase, did not always regard my choice

either of speed or way, but leaped hedges and

ditches at his own discretion, and hurried me along

with the dogs, to the great diversion of my brother

sportsmen. His eagerness of pursuit once incited

him to swim a river; and I had leisure to resolve in

the water, that I would never hazard my life again

for the destruction of a hare.

I then ordered books to be procured, and by the

direction of the vicar had in a few weeks a closet

elegantly furnished. You will, perhaps, be surprised

when I shall tell you, that when once I had ranged

them according to their sizes, and piled them up in

regular gradations, I had received all the pleasure

which they could give me. I am not able to excite

in myself any curiosity after events which have been

long passed, and in which I can, therefore, have no

interest; I am utterly unconcerned to know whether

Tully or Demosthenes excelled in oratory, whether

Hannibal lost Italy by his own negligence or the

corruption of his countrymen. I have no skill in

controversial learning, nor can conceive why so

many volumes should have been written upon questions,

which I have lived so long and so happily

without understanding. I once resolved to go

through the volumes relating to the office of justice

of the peace, but found them so crabbed and intricate,

that in less than a month I desisted in despair,

and resolved to supply my deficiencies by paying a

competent salary to a skilful clerk.

I am naturally inclined to hospitality, and for

some time kept up a constant intercourse of visits

with the neighbouring gentlemen; but though they

are easily brought about me by better wine than

they can find at any other house, I am not much

relieved by their conversation; they have no skill in

commerce or the stocks, and I have no knowledge

of the history of families or the factions of the

country; so that when the first civilities are over,

they usually talk to one another, and I am left alone

in the midst of the company. Though I cannot

drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the

circulation of the glass; their mirth grows more

turbulent and obstreperous; and before their merriment

is at end, I am sick with disgust, and, perhaps,

reproached with my sobriety, or by some sly

insinuations insulted as a cit.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the life to which I am

condemned by a foolish endeavour to be happy by

imitation; such is the happiness to which I pleased

myself with approaching, and which I considered

as the chief end of my cares and my labours. I

toiled year after year with cheerfulness, in

expectation of the happy hour in which I might be idle:

the privilege of idleness is attained, but has not

brought with it the blessing of tranquillity.