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tious of neglecting my business, or injuring my character, by openly keeping what is considered

bad company.

All this, as I have before described in another part of this work (sect. 2. of chap. 1.), was not accomplished without much remorse; and I have often wondered since at my weakness and irresosolution, as well as stood aghast at the fatal, and, to others, injurious consequences of my proceedings---but I have amply suffered for it.

I could enforce all the above arguments to induce you to avoid dissipated or bad company, by examples without number, as well as my own; but these will every day more or less occur to your observation;

And, as I have already pointed out to you who to avoid, I shall next direct you who to chuse, viz. persons as carefully educated, and as honestly disposed as yourself; such as 'have property to preserve and characters to endanger; such as are known and esteemed; whose pursuits are laudable; whose lives are temperate, and whose expences are moderate. With such companions as these you can neither contract discredit, or degenerate into excesses: you will be a mutual check to each other, and your reputation become so established, that it will be the ambition of others to be admitted members of your society.

Such

Such should be your company, in general; but if you are in a counting-house or shop, as a life of trade is almost incompatible with study and contemplation, and as conversation is the most natural and easy path to knowledge, select those to be your intimates, who, by being excellent in some art, science, or accomplishment, may, in the course of your acquaintance, make your very hours of amusement contribute to your improvement. In general, they are open and communicative, and take as much pleasure in being heard, as you to be informed: whence you will attain, at your ease, what they atchieved with great expence of time and study. And the knowledge thus procured is easier digested, and becomes more our own, than what we make ourselves masters of in a more formal and contemplative way; facts, doctrines, opinions, and arguments, being thoroughly winnowed from their chaff, by the wind of controversy, and nothing but the golden grain remaining. In illustration of this remark, I may here observe to you, with great propriety, that Francis I. of FRANCE, though he came to the crown young and unlearned, yet, by associating himself with men of genius and accomplishments, he so improved himself, as to surpass in knowledge the most learned princes of his time. And I myself knew a young gentleman who was taken from school

to

to sit in the House of Commons, and had never much leisure to return to his books; and yet so well did he chuse his companions, and make so good a use of their conversation, that nobody spoke better on almost all points, or was better heard; it being immediately expected, from the characters of those he chose to be familiar with, that he was either already wise, or soon would be so; by which means his youth and inexperience were so far from exposing him to contempt, that they greatly contributed to establish an universal prejudice in his favour.

Besides, the advantage of keeping company with men of sense and capacity is obvious; for you may not only improve in your understanding by conversing with them, but may have the benefit of their whole judgment and experience whenever any difficulty occurs that puzzles your own. Men of superior sense and candour exercise a ready and flowing indulgence towards those who intreat their favour, and are never more pleased than when they have an opportunity to make their talents most serviceable to mankind. Prudence, address, decorum, correctness of speech, elevation of mind, and delicacy of manners, are learned in this noble school; and, without affecting the vanity of the name, you imperceptibly become a finished gentleman.

Whereas, low, sordid, ignorant, vulgar spirits, would debase you to their own level, would un

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learn you all the decencies of life, and make you. abhor the good qualities you could not attain. To preside among a herd of brutes, would be no compliment to a man; and yet this ridiculous pre-eminence would be all the advantage you could expect from such boorish companions, which likewise, if not purchased, would not be allowed; for those who pay an equal share of the reckoning allow no precedency; and our coun-, trymen are too proud (I had almost said, too insolent) to make any concessions, unless they are paid for them.

*

In advising you to shun excess of wine yourself, it must be understood that I have already advised you to shun such as, in the words of Scripture, are mighty to drink strong drink. Bears and lions ought not to be more dreadful to the sober, than men made such by inflaming liquors. Danger is ever in their company; and reason, on your side, is no match for the frenzy on their's. In short, he that is drunk is possessed; and though, in other cases, we are to resist the devil, that he may fly from us; in this, to fly from the devil is an easier task than to make him fly from us,

It was my good fortune, in the outset of life, to possess very respectable acquaintances, previously formed by family connexions and the nature of the line in which I was brought up; the respectability and number of which was further increased by views that I then had of entering into

holy

be

holy orders, in which I had proceeded so far, as to upon the point of being ordained; when, unexpectedly, an offer was made me to relinquish that plan, and to fill a situation under the then SURVEYOR and COMPTROLLER GENERAL of the POST OFFICE, which, to my regret, I accepted; and by quitting the profession to which I was brought up, and entering into a totally different kind of employment, I unfortunately dropped, by degrees, my former acquaintances and companions for others who naturally gave a very different and pernicious turn to my ideas.

An observation made to me by one of those former acquaintances, now a most respectable merchant in the city, has frequently sunk deep into my mind;—it was at his own table, and his words were these:-" You don't come to see us now; what's the reason? I hope you will never forsake the company of your old friends, for newmade acquaintances in a public office, whose characters and conduct you are entirely a stranger to: -take my advice, prefer old friends to the new.

Had I taken this advice, I should never have been reduced to the necessity of acknowledging, that a public office was my ruin; that the leisure I had, and the company I was in a manner obliged to associate with, gave me a turn for dissipation and extravagance, and ended in my being voluntarily obliged, from pecuniary embarrassments, to resign my place, after having punctually disG2 charged

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