No. 102. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1753
— Quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
Conatus non pœniteat votique peracti? JUV. Sat. x. 5.
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well design'd, so luckily begun,
But when we have our wish, we wish undone. DRYDEN.
TO THE ADVENTURER.
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.
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.
I am yours, &c. MERCATOR.