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sidered that their doctrine, taken in the latitude in which they usually preach it, would cut off the greatest source of our happiness, overthrow every social establishment, and is nothing less than an attempt to alter the nature of man. It may be a truth, that the balance of happiness and misery is much the same in most conditions of life, and consequently that no change of circumstances will either greatly enlarge the one, or diminish the other. But, while we know that, to attain an object of our wishes, or to change our condition, is not to increase our happiness, we feel, at the same time, that the pursuit of this object, and the expectation of this change, can increase it in a very sensible degree. It is by hope that we truly exist; our only enjoyment is the expectation of something which we do not possess: the recollection of the past serves us but to direct and regulate those expectations; the present is employed in contemplating them: it is therefore only the future which we may be properly said to enjoy.

A philosopher who reasons in this manner has a much more powerful incentive to cheerfulness and contentment of mind, than what is furnished by that doctrine which inculcates a perpetual warfare with ourselves, and a restraint upon the strongest feelings of our nature. For while he feels that the possession of the object of his most earnest desires has given him far less pleasure than was promised by a distant view of it, he is consoled by reflecting that the expectation of this object has, perhaps, brightened many years of his life, enabled him to toil for its attainment with vigour and alacrity, to discharge, with honour, his part in society; in short, has given him in reality as substantial happiness as human nature is capable of enjoying.

Though several years younger than Euphanor, I have been long acquainted with him. He is now in

his fifty-second year; an age when, with most men, the romantic spirit and enthusiasm of youth have long given place to the cool and steady maxims of business and the world. It is, however, a peculiarity of my friend's disposition, that the same sanguine temperament of mind which, from infancy, has attended him through life, still continues to actuate him as strongly as ever. As he discovered, very early, a fondness for classical learning, his father, at his own desire, advanced his patrimony for his education at the university. At the age of twenty he was left without a shilling, to make the best of his talents in any way he thought proper. Certain concurring circumstances, rather than choice, placed him as an under-clerk in a counting-house. His favourite studies were here totally useless; but while he gave to business the most scrupulous attention, they still, at the intervals of relaxation, furnished his chief amusement. It would be equally tedious and foreign to my purpose to mark minutely the steps by which Euphanor, in the course of thirty years application to business, rose to be master of the moderate fortune of twenty thousand pounds. My friend always considered money not in the common light, as merely the end of labour, but as the means of purchasing certain enjoyments which his fancy had pictured as constituting the supreme happiness of life.

In the beginning of last spring I received from Euphanor the following letter:

MY DEAR SIR,

You, who are familiar with my disposition, will not be surprised at a piece of information, which, I doubt not, will occasion some wonder in the general circle of my acquaintance. I have now fairly begun to execute that resolution, of which you have long heard

me talk, of entirely withdrawing myself from business. You know with what ardour I have longed for that period, when Fortune should bless me with a competence just sufficient to prosecute my favourite scheme of retiring to the country. It was that darling prospect which made the toils of business (for which, God knows, I never was intended by nature) light, and even pleasant to me. I have acquired, by honest industry, a fortune equal to my wishes. These were always moderate; for my aim was not wealth, but happiness. Of that, indeed, I have been truly covetous; for I must confess, that, for these thirty years past, I have never laid my head to my pillow without that ardent wish which my favourite Horace so beautifully expresses:

'O rus! quando ego te aspiciam, quandoque licebit
Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis,
Ducere solicita jucunda oblivia vitæ!'

Or the same sentiment in the words of the pensive, moral Cowley:

'Oh fountains! when in you shall I
Myself eased of unpeaceful thoughts espy?

Oh fields! oh woods! when, when shall I be made
The happy tenant of your shade ?'

That blissful period, my dear friend, is at length arrived. I yesterday made a formal resignation of all concern in the house in favour of my nephew, a deserving young man, who, I doubt not, will have the entire benefit of those numerous connexions with persons in trade, whose good opinion his uncle never, to his knowledge, forfeited.

I have made a purchase of a small estate in shire, of about 200 acres. The situation is delightfully romantic:

VOL. I.

S

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My house is small, but wonderfully commodious. It is embosomed in a tall grove of oak and elm, which opens only to the south. A green hill rises, behind the house, partly covered with furze, and seamed with a winding sheep-path. On one side is an irregular garden, or rather border of shrubbery, adorning the sloping bank of a rivulet; but intermixed, without the smallest injury to its beauty, with all the variety of herbs for the kitchen. On the other side, a little more remote, but still in sight of the house, is an orchard filled with excellent fruit-trees. The brook which runs through my garden retires into a hollow dell, shaded with birch and hazel copse, and, after a winding course of half a mile, joins a large river. These are the outlines of my little paradise. -And now, my dear friend, what have I more to wish, but that you, and a very few others, whose souls are congenial to my own, should witness my happiness? In two days hence I bid adieu to the town, a long, a last adieu!

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The remainder of my life I dedicate to those pursuits in which the best and wisest of men did not blush to employ themselves; the delightful occupations of a country life, which Cicero well said, and after him Columella, are next in kindred to true philosophy. What charming schemes have I already formed; what luxurious plans of sweet and rational entertainment! But these, my friend, you must approve and participate. I shall look for you about the beginning of May; when, if you can spare me a couple of months,

I can venture to promise that time will not linger with us. I am, with much regard, yours, &c.

As I am, myself, very fond of the country, it was with considerable regret that I found it not in my power to accept of my friend's invitation, an unexpected piece of business having detained me in town during the greatest part of the summer. I heard nothing of Euphanor till about nine months after, when he again wrote me as follows:

MY DEAR SIR,

It was a sensible mortification to me not to have the pleasure of seeing you last summer in -shire, when I should have been much the better for your advice in a disagreeable affair, which, I am afraid, will occasion my paying a visit to town much sooner than I expected. I have always had a horror at going to law, but now I find myself unavoidably compelled to it. Sir Ralph Surly, whose estate adjoins to my little property, has, for the purpose of supplying a new barley-mill, turned aside the course of a small stream which ran through my garden and enclosures, and which formed, indeed, their greatest ornament. In place of a beautiful winding rivulet, with a variety of fine natural falls, there is now nothing but a dry ditch, or rather crooked gulf, which is hideous to look at. The malice of this procedure is sufficiently conspicuous, when I tell you that there is another, and a larger stream, in the same grounds, which I have offered to be at the sole expense of conducting to his mill. I think the law must do me justice. At any rate, it is impossible tamely to bear such an injury. I shall probably see you in a few days. To say the truth, my dear friend, even before this last mortification, I had begun to find, that the expectations I had formed of the pleasures of a country-life

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