discharged with honour and dexterity. He was at last wife enough to confider, that life fhould not be devoted wholly to accumulation, and therefore refigned his employments, and retiring to his eftate, applied himself to the education of his children, and the cultivation of domestick happiness.

HE paffed feveral years in this pleasing amusement, and faw his care amply recompenfed; his daughters were celebrated for modesty and elegance, and his fons for learning, prudence and fpirit. In time the eagerness, with which the neighbouring gentlemen courted his alliance, obliged him to refign his daughters to other families; the vivacity and curiofity of his fons, hurried them out of rural privacy into the open world, from whence they had not foon an inclination to return. This however was no more than he had always hoped; he pleafed himself with the fuccefs of his fchemes, and felt no inconvenience from folitude till an apoplexy deprived him of his wife.

THRASYBULUS had now no companion; and the maladies of encreafing years

having taken from him much of the power of procuring amufement for himself, he thought it neceffary to procure fome inferior friend, who might cafe him of his economical folicitudes, and divert him by chearful converfation. He foon recollected all these qualitiesin Vafer, a clerk in one of the offices over which he had formerly prefided. Kafer was invited to vifit his old patron, and being by his ftation neceffarily acquainted with the prefent modes of life, and by conftant practice dexterous in business, entertained him with fo many novelties, and fo readily difentangled his affairs, that his prefence was thought the principal conftituent of happinefs; he was defired to refign his clerkship,. and accept a liberal falary in the house of Thrafybulus.

VAFER having always lived in a state of dependance, was well verfed in the arts by which favour is obtained, and being long accustomed to reprefs all ftarts of refentment: and fallies of confidence, could without repugnance or hefitation accommodate himself. to every caprice, adopt every opinion, and echo every affertion. He never doubted but L 5

to.

to be convinced, nor attempted oppofition but to flatter Thrafybulus with the opinion of a victory. By this practice he found his way quickly into the heart of his patron, and having firft made himself agreeable, foon became important. His infidious diligence by which the lazinefs of age was gratified, foon engroffed the management of affairs; and his warm profeffions of kindness, petty offices of civility, and occafional interceffions, persuaded the tenants to confider him as their friend and benefactor, to confult him in all their fchemes, and to entreat his enforcement of their reprefentations of hard years, and his countenance to petitions for abatement of

rent.

THRASYBULUS had now banquetted on Aattery, till he could no longer bear the harshness of remonftrance or the infipidity of truth. All contrariety to his own opinion fhocked him like a violation of fome natural right, and all recommendation of his affairs to his own inspection was dreaded by him as a fummons to torture. His children were alarmed by the fudden riches of Vafer, but their complaints were heard by their father

with impatience, and their advice rejected with rage, as the refult of a confpiracy against his quiet, and a defign to condemn him for their own advantage to groan out his last hours in perplexity and drudgery. The daughters retired with tears in their eyes, but the fon continued his importunities till he found his inheritance hazarded by his obftinacy. Vafer having thus triumphed over all their efforts, and continuing to confirm himself in authority and encrcafe his acquifitions, at the death of his mafter purchased an eftate, and bad defiance to enquiry and juftice.

NUMB. 163. TUESDAY, October 8, 1751. Mitte fuperba pati faftidia, fpemque caducam Defpice; vive tibi, nam moriere tibi.

SENECA.

ONE of the cruelties exercifed by..

N wealth and power upon indigence and

dependance, is more mifchievous in its confequences, or more frequently practised with wanton negligence, than the encouragement of expectations which are never to be grati

fied, and the elation and depreffion of the heart by needless viciffitudes of hope and difappointment.

EVERY man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his defires and enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally deftructive to happiness with the diminution of poffeffion, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain, is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

BUT reprefentations thus refined exhibit no adequate idea of the guilt of pretended friendship; of artifices by which followers are attracted only to decorate the retinue of pomp, and fwell the fhout of popularity, and to be difmiffed with contempt and ignomony when their officioufnefs is no longer ufeful, when their leader has fucceeded or mifcarried, when he is fick of fhow and weary of noife. While a man, infatuated with the promifes of greatness, wastes his hours and days in attendance and folicitation, the honeft opportunities of improving his condition

pafs