good sense directed to its proper remedy. We grow tired,' said she, ‘of this life of inactivity. We languish for want of an object to occupy us. I have been meditating a small experiment; and if you ap prove, we shall put it in execution. What if we

should for a while become farmers ourselves? You are surprised at the proposal, but let me explain my meaning. Suppose our good landlord should transfer to us the remainder of his lease; that he should have the charge of management, with a suitable recompense, while the chance of profit, and the risk of loss, should be ours. I know he will agree to it, for I have sounded him on the subject. The laborious part, the business of agriculture, shall be his, while we occupy ourselves in decorating this little spot, with a thousand embellishments, which nature points out, and which your good taste could easily execute. Remember, it is only an experiment. Our bargain must be conditional. If we tire of it, we can when we please drop the scheme, and pursue any other we chuse to adopt.' To be short, Sir, I was pleased with the idea; our plan was soon arranged, and I became what you now see me, Farmer Saintfort.

"I set to work with alacrity in the business of improvement; and proceeding on the principle of uniting beauty with utility, I had, in the space of a few months, accomplished the outlines of that plan which I have been continually occupied since that time in finishing in detail. In this employment, in which the mind has much more share than is generally imagined, I found a source of pleasure infinitely beyond my expectation. Every day added to the beauties of my little paradise; and I had the satisfaction of finding that those operations which the motive of ornament had first suggested, were frequently of the most substantial benefit. The beautiful variety of the ground was obscured by an undistinguished mass

of brush-wood. I enlarged the extent of my arable ground, by opening fields to the sun, which had lain hid under a matting of furze and brambles. In the formation of a fish-pond, I have drained an unwholesome fen, and converted a quagmire into a luxuriant meadow. At the end of the first year, my tutor in husbandry gave me hopes that the succeeding crop would double the returns which the farm had ever afforded under his management; and the event justi fied his prediction. How delightful, my dear friend, was it for me to perceive that the taste of my Lucinda seemed equally adapted with my own to our new mode of life! Far from inheriting that instability of mind with which her sex is generally reproached, her ardour was unabated, and every thought was centered in the cares of her household and the education of her children. Completely engaged in these domestic duties, while I superintended the labours of the fields and garden, we had no other anxiety than what tended to give a zest to our enjoyments. In place of feeling time lie heavy on our hands, we rose with the sun, and found the day too short for its occupations.

"We had now learned, by experience, how very moderate an income is sufficient to purchase all the real comforts of life. At the conclusion of the third year, on summing up our accounts, we found a clear saving of 400l. This sum we might, perhaps, without any breach of what the world terms honesty, have considered as our own. But (thank God!)

slaves as we had been to the world, we had better notions of moral rectitude. It was unfit that we should accumulate for ourselves, while there existed a single person that could say, we had done him wrong. We set apart this sum as the beginning of a fund for the payment of that equitable claim which yet remained to our creditors; and it is now some years since we could boast of having faithfully discharged the last

farthing of our debts. The pleasure attendant on this reflection, you may conceive, but I cannot describe. How poor, in comparison to it, are the selfish gratifications of vanity, the mean indulgence of pampered appetities, and all the train of luxurious enjoyments, when bought at the expence of conscience!

"Since my residence here, I have more than once made a visit to town on an errand of business. I there see the same scenes as formerly; and others intoxicated, like myself, with the same giddy pleasures. To me the magical delusion is at an end; and I wonder where lay the charm which once had such a power of fascination. But one species of pleasure I have enjoyed from these visits, which I cannot omit to mention; the affectionate welcome I have received from the most respectable of my old acquaintance. I read from their countenances their approbation of my conduct; and in their kindness mingled with respect, I have a reward valuable in proportion to the worth of those who bestow it. Nor is the pleasure less which I derive from the regard and esteem of my honest neighbours in the country. Of their characters I had formed a very unfair estimate, when seen through the medium of my own distempered mind; and in their society my Lucinda and I enjoy, if not the refined pleasures of polished intercourse, the more valuable qualities of sincerity, probity, and good sense.

"Such, Sir, for these fourteen years past, has been my manner of life; nor do I believe I shall ever exchange it for another. The term of my lease has, within that period, been renewed in my own name, and that of my son. If a more active life should be his choice, he is free to pursue it. I should be content with the reflection of having bestowed on him a better patrimony than I myself enjoyed, - a mind uncorrupted by the prospect of hereditary affluence,

and a constitution tempered to the virtuous habits of industry and sobriety."

Here Mr. Saintfort made an end of his story. I have given it as nearly as I could in his own words; and judging it to afford an example not unworthy to be recorded, I transmit it in that view to the author of a work which bids fair to pass down to posterity. I am, SIR, yours,

J. D.

N° 71. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1786.
Dove of sente

Quærite nunc babeat quam nostra superbia causam.

OVID.

THERE is no complaint more common than that which is made against the pride of wealth. The claim of superiority which rests upon a circumstance so adventitious as that of suddenly-acquired riches, is universally decried as the insolent pretension of mean and illiberal minds, and is resisted with a greater degree of scorn and indignation, than perhaps any other encroachment of vanity or self-importance.

Yet one might observe in those who are loudest in the censure of this weakness, a certain shame of being poor, which in a great measure justifies the pride of being rich. One may trace this in their affectation of indifference to all those pleasures and conve veniences which riches procure, and in the eulogium they often make, in despite of their own real feelings, of the opposite circumstances. When they are at pains to declare how much better the plain dish and home-brewed liquor suits their taste than the highseasoned ragout and the high-priced wine, what is it

but disguising their inability to procure the luxury under the pretence of their preferring its opposite? Poverty, in this case, flies from her own honourable tattered colours, to join the fresh and flaunting standard of Wealth; she allows the power of those very external circumstances by which Wealth lays claim to a superiority. The dignity of her station should be supported on other grounds: the little value of those external circumstances in which Wealth has the advantage, when compared with the virtues and qualities which money cannot buy, when set in competition with that native purity and elevation of mind, which in the acquisition of wealth we frequently forfeit, and in its possession we frequently destroy.

Both in those who possess riches and in those who want them, false pretension often defeats itself. It would often be for the honour of Wealth if he could lay down his insolence, and for the happiness of Poverty if she could smooth her scorn. True benevolence and delicacy would teach both their proper duties, and preserve those cordial charities of life, which, in different stations and in different circumstances, promote alike the comfort of individuals and the general advantage of society.

But it is only over minds of a higher order that external circumstances do not possess a power to push them from that equlibrium in which virtue and happiness reside. Ordinary men will equally feel the inflation of prosperity, and the harshness of a less favourable situation; will in the one case incur the contempt and derision of the world, and in the other experience the grating of a ruffled spirit. Modera tion and wisdom would teach the one to procure respect, and the other to attain good-humour.

I remember some years ago, it was during the last war, and it is of no importance that have for