Upon this principle I was amused with another distress, of a whole family, whose chief, retiring from trade, had laid out his fortune in an estate in the county of Middlesex; and, though it consisted of a venerable mansion in a beautiful neighbourhood, they said all was provokingly spoiled, as three miles farther would have placed them in Hertfordshire, which was full of gentry.

Yet these would have laughed at the pride of an honest linendraper, who was painfully anxious that his correspondent, in directing to him, should never omit the word "wholesale" before linendraper.

This is the ambition of the meaner sort noticed by our motto; and, though more harmless than the more heroic passion that destroys its patient when disappointed, its mortifications are not the less severe because they are only ridiculous. Yet, if there is common sense in the patient, it is soon cured.

I have fallen into these reflections from an amusing, and, at the same time, instructive, account of this lower ambition, as it, many years ago, poisoned the youthful feelings of one of my oldest and most respected college friends. He is now a distinguished scholar and divine, one of the ornaments of Oxford, and particularly remarkable for a plain common sense, which renders both his conduct and opinions a sort of beacon for all his acquaintance, especially those much younger than himself, who all look up to him with pleasure and respect.

It seems, however, that this was not always so, and that, during his extreme youth, before he entered the

University (and occasionally, perhaps, as he says, for some time afterwards), he suffered great and real unhappiness, from causes so little proportioned to their effects, that he has often told me he was ashamed to confess them; and he allowed me to separate from him when I prepared to go into the world, leaving him happy in a philosophy as to the true value of things in an easy college life, which never failed him, but without informing me of what he called his silliness. He, indeed, often promised to reveal this part of his history to me, but never did. At first, as I have said, from shame, but afterwards from what he thought its insignificance. This continued till I set up for a dreamer, and renewed my application to him on the score of his owing it as a duty to make his weakness public, if it would help any young mind to a right view of itself. This won him, and a few days ago, in return for my numbers of the "Dreamer," which I sent him, he wrote me the following letter:

My dear Somnolent,

***Coll., Oxford, Oct. 18th.

Having read all your "Dreams," as you call them, I little thought that dreaming could be turned to such good account in, as I trust, rendering us wiser and better, if we please, than we sometimes are when awake. I know that I once suffered so long and so keenly from a waking excitement, in which I lost much of the little reason I ever had, that nothing but a series of sober dreams, by which I mean correcting lessons, restored me to my senses. This I have often

hinted to you, and, not to keep you any longer in suspense, my case was this.

I was the son of a little, or at least by no means considerable, tradesman, though a general dealer, in the good town of Reading. Our merchandise was various, for my father sold cloth and flannel, silk stockings and kid gloves, upon the strength of which he would have called himself a mercer, but that he also dealt largely in drugs, and made up prescriptions, on which account he had set up a pestle and mortar, of abundant dimensions, over his door, with the appropriate title of 'chemist and druggist.' He also added something to his revenue by occasionally letting two or three spare rooms to lodgers, whenever persons of a respectable class were in want of a temporary abode. Here, however, we enjoyed a productive, if not a flourishing trade, and were happy in one another; and one of the greatest pleasures in life, a progressing prosperity and perfect contentment with our lot. We had too the gratification of a reasonable ambition in seeing that, by our industry and good conduct, we grew in the estimation of our neighbours, and, though only fifteen, I was quite alive to the pleasure of our quiet and humble respectability. I was particularly fond of reading, and strenuously sought to improve my school-learning, and this led me in the end to the cultivation of very serious subjects above all, divinity; so that, till I was full seventeen, my high ambition was to enter the church. I had indeed a fair, I may say good, school education, in the great free-school of the town, then under the

direction of the most skilful masters; and while I confined myself to classics, a little history, the soulimproving "Spectator," and a few of Shakspeare's plays, my life passed pleasantly, and wholly undisturbed by any discontent or hankering after what did not belong to me. On the contrary, my vanity, of which I had a reasonable share, was sufficiently gratified by being always thought a youth of great hopes, and likely to make a figure among my equals.

Thus I passed to my seventeenth year, unknowing and unknown, at least to any beyond our own walk of life. But, at this critical age, I unfortunately became a subscriber to a circulating library, and, leaving my pleasant guides, inundated myself with novels, at the head of which was "Evelina," then in its full splendour of reputation. But, while this inspired the greatest contempt for vulgar shopkeepers like the Brangtons, it filled me with the sensible notion that happiness and elegance of mind were only to be found among people of fashion, and to be a man of fashion and a Lord Orville was, I thought, the only lot in life worth aiming at. It is astonishing how rapidly absorbing this corruption became, and with what damage to my peace, when I thought of my own inferiority of condition. My views of life were changed, and all my notions and feelings towards men, women, and things, underwent a metamorphosis for the worse. Instead of the cheerful lad, happy in himself, his friends, and his duty, every thing was distasteful. My profession was not fixed, but my father inclined to the shop, and, though I knew not what I should like, I knew what I

hated; for a shop began to make me feel sick; and my father's pestle and mortar, indicating a ready sale of drugs, was no longer music. I could not bear to look at his brown holland sleeves while pounding; and once, when I had just finished the account of Lord Orville's triumph over all his competitors in goodness, elegance, and virtue, I thought I should have fainted to see my parent so pleased while measuring out flannel for an under-petticoat, to a snivelling old

woman.

Had things rested here, I perhaps might have soon recovered; but, unfortunately for my common sense, a pert jaunty Frenchman opened an academy for dancing in the principal street in town, which he said he did purely to accommodate the noblesse of the place and its fashionable environs; and, whether to be ranked among this noblesse, or from a real love of dancing, I prevailed upon my good plain father to expend a few pounds in polishing his son, under the tuition of the accomplished Monsieur Dove. To do him justice, the fellow had astonishing powers of setting off himself and his art, and in a short time enlisted among his scholars, not only many youths of the real noblesse, but many of the bons bourgeois of the place, to whom, however, he made it appear "von very great preuve de sa condescendance." Be this as it may, by the help of straight limbs and a good ear, I made such progress, or rather became such an adept in his own art, under this prince of country dancingmasters, that he pronounced me born to do him credit, and only lamented that my talents should be