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tages, however improbable, are admitted to lie within the bounds of possibility. Let the drone, therefore, be told, that if by the error of fortune he obtains the stores of the bee, he cannot enjoy the felicity; that the honey which is not gathered by industry, will be eaten without relish, if it is not wasted in riot; and that all who become possessed of the immediate object of their hope, without any efforts of their own, will be disappointed of enjoy

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No life can be happy, but that which is spent in the prosecution of some purpose to which our powers are equal, and which we, therefore, prosecute with success: for this reason it is absurd to dread business, upon pretence that it will leave few intervals to pleasure. Business is that by which in dustry pursues its purpose, and the purpose of industry is seldom disappointed: he who endeavours to arrive at a certain point, which he perceives himself perpetually to approach, enjoys all the happiness which nature has allotted to those hours, that are not spent in the immediate gratification of appetites by which our own wants are indicated, or of affections by which we are prompted to supply the wants of others. The end proposed by the busy, is various as their temper, constitution, habits, and circumstances: but in the labour itself is the enjoyment, whether it be pursued to supply the necessaries or the conveniences of life, whether to cultivate a farm or decorate a palace; for when the palace is decorated, and the barn filled, the pleasure is at an end, till the object of desire is again placed at a distance, and our powers are again employed to obtain it with apparent success. Nor is the value of life less, than if our enjoyment did not thus consist in anticipation; for by anticipation, the pleasure which would otherwise be con

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tracted within an hour, is diffused through a week ; and if the dread which exaggerates future evil is confessed to be an increase of misery, the hope which magnifies future good cannot be denied to be an accession of happiness.

The most numerous class of those who presume to hope for miraculous advantages, is that of gamesters.. But by gamesters, I do not mean the gentlemen who stake an estate, against the cunning of those who have none; for I leave the cure of lunatics to the professors of physic: I mean the dissolute and indigent: who in the common phrase put themselves in Fortune's way, and expect from her bounty that which they eagerly desire, and yet believe to be too dearly purchased by diligence and industry; tradesmen who neglect their business, to squander in fashionable follies more than it can produce; and swaggerers who rank themselves with gentlemen, merely because they have no business to pursue.

The gamester of this class will appear to be equally wretched, whether his hope be fulfilled or disappointed; the object of it depends upon a contingency, over which he has no influence; he pursues no purpose with gradual and perceptible success, and, therefore, cannot enjoy the pleasure which arises from the anticipation of its accomplishment; his mind is perpetually on the rack; he is anxious in proportion to the eagerness of his desire, and his inability to effect it; to the pangs of suspense, succeed those of disappointment; and a momentary gain only embitters the loss that follows. Such is the life of him, who shuns business because he would secure leisure for enjoyment; except it happens, against the odds of a million to one, that a run of success puts him into the possession of a sum sufficient to subsist him in idleness the remainder of his life and in this case, the idleness which made him wretched while he waited

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for the bounty of fortune, will necessarily keep him wretched after it is bestowed: he will find, that in the gratification of his appetites he can fill but a small portion of his time, and that these appetites themselves are weakened by every attempt to increase the enjoy ment which they were intended to supply ; he will, therefore, either doze away life in a kind of listless indolence, which he despairs to exalt into felicity, or he will imagine that the good he wants is to be ob tained by an increase of his wealth, by a larger house, a more splendid equipage, and a more numerous retinue. If with this notion he has again recourse to the altar of fortune, he will either be undeceived by a new series of success, or he will be reduced to his original indigence by the loss of that which he knew not how to enjoy : if this happens, of which there is the highest degree of probability, he will instantly become more wretched in proportion as he was rich; though, while he was rich, he was not more happy in proportion as he had been poor. Whatever is won, is reduced by experiment to its intrinsic value; whatever is lost, is heightened by imagination to more. Wealth is no sooner dissipated, than its inanity is forgotten, and it is regretted as the means of happiness which it was not found to afford. The gamester, therefore, of whatever class, plays against manifest odds; since that which he wins he discovers to be brass, and that which he loses he values as gold. And it should also be remarked, that in this estimate of his life, I have not supposed him to lose a single stake which he had not first won.

But though gaming in general is wisely prohibited by the legislature, as productive not only of private but of public evil; yet there is one species to which all are sometimes invited, which equally encourages the hope of idleness, and relaxes the vigour of industry.

Ned Froth, who had been several years butler in a family of distinction, having saved about four hundred pounds, took a little house in the suburbs, and laid in a stock of liquors, for which he paid ready money, and which were, therefore, the best of the kind. Ned perceived his trade increase; he pursued it with fresh alacrity, he exulted in his success, and the joy of his heart sparkled in his countenance; but it happened that Ned, in the midst of his happiness and prosperity, was prevailed upon to buy a lottery ticket. The moment his hope was fixed upon an object which industry could not obtain, he determined to be industrious no longer: to draw drink for a dirty and boisterous rabble, was a slavery to which he now submitted with reluctance, and he longed for the moment in which he should be free: instead of telling his story, and cracking his joke for the entertainment of his customers, he received them with indifference, was observed to be silent and sullen, and amused himself by going three or four times a day to search the register of fortune for the success of his ticket.

In this disposition Ned was sitting one morning in the corner of a bench by his fire-side, wholly abstracted in the contemplation of his future fortune; indulging this moment the hope of a mere possibility, and the next shuddering with the dread of losing the felicity which his fancy had combined with the possession of ten thousand pounds. A man well dressed, entered hastily, and inquired for him of his guests, who many times called him aloud by his name, and curst him for his deafness and stupidity, before Ned started up as from a dream, and asked with a fretful impatience what they wanted. An affected confi dence of being well received, and an air of forced jocularity in the stranger, gave Ned some offence; but the next moment he catched him in his arms in a transport of joy, upon receiving his congratulation as

proprietor of the fortunate ticket, which had that morning been drawn a prize of the first class.

It was not, however, long before Ned discovered that ten thousand pounds did not bring the felicity which he expected; a discovery which generally produces the dissipation of sudden affluence by prodiga lity. Ned drank, and whored, and hired fidlers, and bought fine clothes; he bred riots at Vauxhall, treated flatterers, and damned plays. But something was still wanting; and he resolved to strike a bold stroke, and attempt to double the remainder of his prize at play, that he might live in a palace and keep an equipage; but in the execution of this project, he lost the whole produce of his lottery ticket, except five hundred pounds in Bank notes, which when he would have staked he could not find. This sum was more than that which had established him in the trade he had left; and yet, with the power of returning to a station that was once the utmost of his ambition, and of renewing that pursuit which alone had made him happy, such was the pungency of his regret, that in the despair of recovering the money which he knew had produced nothing but riot, disease, and vexation, he threw himself from the bridge into the Thames.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

CAUTUS.

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