N° 136. thirst, and cold and nakedness. In this hour of trial, I was again assailed by the wretch, who had produced it only to facilitate her success. And let not those, before whom the path of virtue has been strewed with flowers, and every thorn removed by prosperity, too severely censure me, to whom it was a barren and a rugged road in which I had long toiled with labour and anguish, if at last, when I was benighted in a storm, I turned at the first light, and hasted to the nearest shelter: let me not be too severely censured, if I now accepted liberty and ease and plenty, upon the only terms on which they could be obtained. I consented, with whatever reluctance and compunction, to return, and complete my ruin in the place where it was begun. The action of debt was immediately withdrawn, my fees were paid, and I was once more removed to my lodging near Covent Garden. short time I recovered my health and beauty; I was again dressed and adorned at the expence of my ty rant, whose power increased in proportion to my debt; the terms of prostitution were prescribed me; and out of the money, which was the price not only of my body but my soul, I scarce received more than I could have earned by weeding in a field. The will of my creditor was my law, from which I knew not how to appeal. My slavery was most deplorable, and my employment most odious; for the principles of virtue and religion, which had been implanted in my youth, however they had been choaked by weeds, could never be plucked up by the root; nor did I ever admit a dishonourable visit, but my heart sunk, my lips quivered, and my knees smote each other.

In a

From this dreadful situation I am at length delivered. But while I lift up my heart in gratitude to Him, who alone can bring good out of evil, I desire it may be remembered, that my deviation to ill was natural, my recovery almost miraculous. My first

step to vice was the desertion of my service; and of this, all my guilt and misery were the consequence. Let none, therefore, quit the post that is assigned them by Providence, or venture out of the strait way; the bye-path, though it may invite them by its verdure, will inevitably lead them to a precipice; nor can it, without folly and presumption, be pronounced of any, that their first deviation from rectitude will produce less evil than mine.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the story of my child, and such are her reflections upon it; to which I can only add, that he who abandons his offspring, or corrupts them by his example, perpetrates greater evil than a murderer, in proportion as immortality is of more value than life,

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

AGAMUS.

As man is a being very sparingly furnished with the power of prescience, he can provide for the future only by considering the past; and as futurity is all in which he has any real interest, he ought very diligently to use the only means by which he can be enabled to enjoy it, and frequently to revolve the experiments which he has hitherto made upon life, that he may gain wisdom from his mistakes, and caution from his miscarriages.

Though I do not so exactly conform to the precepts of Pythagoras, as to practise every night this solemn recollection, yet I am not so lost in dissipation as wholly to omit it; nor can I forbear sometimes to inquire of myself, in what employment my life has passed away. Much of my time has sunk into nothing, and left no trace by which it can be distinguished; and of this I now only know, that it was once in my power, and might once have been improved.

Of other parts of life memory can give some account; at some hours I have been gay, and at others serious; I have sometimes mingled in conversation, and sometimes meditated in solitude; one day has been spent in consulting the ancient sages, and another in writing Adventurers.

At the conclusion of any undertaking, it is usual

to compute the loss and profit. As I shall soon cease to write Adventurers, I could not forbear lately to consider what has been the consequence of my labours; and whether I am to reckon the hours laid out in these compositions, as applied to a good and laudable purpose, or suffered to fume away in useless evaporations.

That I have intended well, I have the attestation of my own heart: but good intentions may be frustrated, when they are executed without suitable skill, or directed to an end unattainable in itself. Some there are, who leave writers very little room for self-congratulation; some who affirm, that books have no influence upon the public, that no age was ever made better by its authors, and that to call upon mankind to correct their manners, is like Xerxes, to the wind or shackle the torrent.

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This opinion they pretend to support by unfailing experience. The world is full of fraud and corrup tion, rapine, and malignity: interest is the ruling motive of mankind, and every one is endeavouring to increase his own stores of happiness by perpetual accumulation, without reflecting upon the numbers whom his superfluity condemns to want in this state of things à book of morality is published, in which charity and benevolence are strongly enforced; and it is proved beyond opposition, that men are happy in proportion as they are virtuous, and rich as they are liberal. The book is applauded, and the author is preferred; he imagines his applause deserved, and receives less pleasure from the acquisition of reward than the consciousness of merit. Let us look again upon mankind: interest is still the ruling motive, and the world is yet full of fraud and corruption, malevolence and rapine.

The difficulty of confuting this assertion arises. merely from its generality and comprehension: to

overthrow it by a detail of distinct facts, requires a wider survey of the world than human eyes can take; the progress of reformation is gradual and silent, as the extension of evening shadows; we know that they were short at noon, and are long at sun-set, but our senses were not able to discern their increase: we know of every civil nation, that it was once savage, and how was it reclaimed but by precept and admonition?

Mankind are universally corrupt, but corrupt in different degrees; as they are universally ignorant, yet with greater or less irradiations of knowledge. How has knowledge or virtue been increased and preserved in one place beyond another, but by diligent inculcation and rational enforcement?

Books of morality are daily written, yet its influence is still little in the world; so the ground is annually ploughed, and yet multitudes are in want of bread. But, surely, neither the labours of the moralist nor of the husbandman are vain: let them for a while neglect their tasks, and their usefulness will be known ; the wickedness that is now frequent would become universal, the bread that is now scarce would wholly fail.

The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind.

That a writer, however zealous or eloquent, seldom works a visible effect upon cities or nations, will rea