was my friend's only man-servant. The cookery, as well as the fare, was excellent: trout from his own stream, a barn-door fowl from his own farmyard, eggs not an hour old, and small mutton from Snowdon, where he had a sheep-walk. Then, again, there were mushrooms absolutely piquante, and cauliflowers like marrow, both the production of his own spade; home-cured bacon; and home-brewed ale, the produce of his own barley, operated upon by the skill of the aforesaid domestic, who seemed alike meritorious in all his capacities. In short, the dinner was formed, as Mordaunt said, upon those pleasant maxims of Horace in favour of moderation in the art of living, beginning with

"Quæ virtus, et quanta boni sit vivere parvo;

which maxims, with their pregnant illustrations, he said, had become his favourite as well as necessary code, ever since he had retired on his limited fortune. “And yet,” added he, “ you see how much a limited fortune may be aided by having so many things within one's self, while the little cares and labours they occasion keep one in excellent health and spirits, never suffering, even though books may fail, a single hour to languish for want of interest or employment. Hence my whole life, if only exemplified in the production of this dinner, makes me recall with unction that exquisite description in the *Thus adopted by Pope, in one of his imitations:

"What, and how great, the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart!"

"Georgics,' which other poets have in vain attempted to imitate, or even translate:

'O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,

Agricolas! quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis,
Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.'

This, as you well know," continued Mordaunt, "is thus incorrectly translated by Dryden:

'O happy, if he knew his happy state,

The swain who, free from business and debate,
Receives his easy food from Nature's hand,
And just returns of cultivated land.'

This is, what I have called it, sadly incorrect; for the farmer is any thing but free from business, and there is nothing about business or debate in the original; while of what he is said to be free from, namely, discordant arms, not a word is mentioned."

I was charmed with this classical seasoning to his repast, upon which I could not help complimenting him in all particulars, not excluding his able servant, whom he called David, and of whom he gave me the following account.

"He is, in truth, all you think him, and my excellent factotum in doors and out. Out of doors, as you have seen, he is an attentive groom, and does not disdain a hoe or a rake when hands are wanting and the season requires it. But in doors is his sphere. Here he is butler, valet, brewer, and master of the household; he is also an excellent upholsterer, and no mean librarian, assisting me intelligently in the arrangement of my books. Add to all, that he is not a bad apothecary, owing to his having kept a drug-shop in Llangollen; and, from sheer

natural disposition to observe it, bestowed great attention to the phenomenon of the pulse."

"A Welshman, no doubt," said I.

"O yes; and, like most Welshmen, sufficiently proud of it. In fact, but for a sort of family attachment, he would not be here, for he was doing very well in his shop at Llangollen. But, like myself, he was born in this house, though he will not allow that I am a Welshman, often twitting me, though never forgetting his respect, with not being of such pure Welsh blood as his own family, the Ap Griffiths. Yet, however this may be, his grandfather condescended to take service under mine; his father under my uncle; and as for himself, having, from being four years older than I, been intrusted with a share in my education, that is, teaching me fly-fishing and to ride my pony, he conceived an affection for me which was not forgotten during twenty years' absence. Hence, though well to do, as he said, as a shopkeeper in Llangollen, the moment I came back I found him urgently entreating to return to the family in his native home. You may suppose that I gladly yielded, and more certain it is that neither of us has repented."

This account made me conceive the highest opinion of the descendant of the Ap Griffiths, while it increased that of my friend's kindness of heart; and I complimented him upon this accession to his happiness, for such it was, particularly as he did not contest David's opinion of the superiority of his Welsh blood. "Still," said I, "my wonder is, that you could

take the step you did, and persevere in it with such constancy at the time you did, your life not half over, nay, almost in the heyday of your blood. I attributed much of this to the poets, and own I thought you would find yourself mistaken."

"All this," said he, "depends upon one's natural bent when so decided as mine, and which nothing but necessity could alter. My uncle's apparently sound health made it necessary for me to choose a profession, though what I did choose I never liked, notwithstanding its temptations. I allow the poets did much in nursing, though not in inspiring, this disposition of mine. When most occupied, as was supposed, with ambition, I was under their influence getting less and less ambitious; and, like Hume, I might say of myself, when it was thought I was poring over Voet and Vinius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors I was devouring.* Virgil and Horace, in fact, became my enchiridion, not a little aided by Cowley, Evelyn, and Beaumont and Fletcher; and, though still a votary, I am almost ashamed to say how much in my youth I was struck by the latter in the following passage, repeated too often to be forgotten:

This is a beautiful life now, privacy,

The sweetness and the benefit of essence.
I see there's no man but may make his paradise;
And it is nothing but his love and dotage
Upon the world's joys keeps him out on't.
For he that lives retir'd in mind and spirit
Is still in paradise, and has his innocence
Partly allowed for his companion too.'"†

*Hume's own Life.

†The Nice Valour; or, the Passionate Madman, act v. sc. 2.

"And yet," said I, " I always thought Cowley was your model."

"That," replied he, "must be taken with a very large grain of salt. For though delightful in bringing his various and pleasant stores to bear upon the subject, till I wished, like him, to possess a life of my own, I was not blind to his exaggerations, and therefore disappointments, and, above all, to his affected hatred and contempt of his fellow-men. For my part, whether in retreat or in the world, I love my species; and, though my taste leads me to comparative solitude, it is only comparative, and from no sort of disgust. Hence its permanency."

"He seems, however," observed I, "to have given you some excellent lessons, which you have obeyed."

"He certainly has," rejoined Mordaunt; who then read from the book, which was close at hand, the superior pleasures of moderation, so much more easy to manage than those of an overgrown fortune, attended with care, disquiets, slavery, temptation, and often with guilt. "The extraordinary disadvantage is, that while the

of great riches,' says the author, greatest will not content the possessors, who always want a little and a little more to be perfectly happy, it is only when they have recourse to the simplest and cheapest pleasures that they are so.""

Here my friend paused again to remember Horace, who, he said, was his favourite master in this sort of philosophy, and wound up with an emphasis which marked his sincerity: