CHAP. XLIII.

PRIVATE HISTORY concluded.

See Chapters XII and XXIII.

HA

AVING the charge of our own fortune on our hands, is attended with a good deal of thought, care, and anxiety. I mufed much on this fubject, framed many schemes, for the purpose, engaged in them with fpirit, and purfued them with indefatigability. But I had no credit for my industry. My plans were fomewhat out of the common road of life, and I was deemed a projector.

Though I could not fairly be called fó, in the abufed fenfe of the word;

for

for all my attempts might paradoxically have been stiled Adventures," "without hazard.-1 ftaked nothing, myself, but time and diligence, which if you do not spend, you cannot fave; and might be faid rather to have played at the Game of Crofs, I win-Pile, I only mifs.

Thofe who know me can fill up this unhappy chafin, and to those who do not, the detail would be uninterefting to fome impertinent-not to pay them a compliment.

How

However, this was not my only miffortune-I was disappointed of fuccefs, in all my endeavours, though one of them happened unluckily to bear fuch plaufible appearances of an happy iffue, that its failure was cruelly imputed to my own want of care or

conduct.

This is too much the way of the world. We liberally forgive our own faults, and balance the per contra, by fhewing not the least mercy, to those of others. Ovid is very fevere, against fuch kind of judgments:

Careat fucceffibus opto,

Quifquis, ab eventû, falta notanda putat.

Says the heathen; but I am not fo un

charitable as to join in fuch an unchrif

tian

tian prayer, and only mean to hint the moral, without the curfe.

The mortifications and difappointments I have met with, and the unlucky confequences attending them, having at length quelled all further spirit of adventure, in me, I acquiefced in my misfortunes, without repining, and refigned myfelf up intirely to my favourite occupations of contemplation and study; for by this time I had become mafter of fome books beyond a wig-box library, or a news paper literature*.

Yet even here, cenfure did not fubfide. I was in hopes that when I had

* See Chapter XXIII. paragraph first.

for

forborn all further project, and had quite retired from bufy life, no new objection could have been raised, up against me.—But in this vain hope I foon found myself mistaken--for the very perfons who had before condemned my former activity, now blamed my prefent indolence.-- So that by the very fame people I have been accufed both for being a projector, and for not being one..

Here I might aptly enough introduce the Spanish Tale, of a father, a son, and a mule, paffing together through the city of Saragoffa, or Valladolidno matter which.-But as I fuppofe the story to be fufficiently known, already, I fhall haften on to the moral VOL. II.

F

of