necessary, interfere with this duty, either in public or in private. Nor, on the other hand, must a man be so intent upon religious duties, as to neglect the proper times and seasons of business. There is a medium to be observed in everything, and works of supererogation are not required at any man's hands; though it must be confessed, there is far less need of cautions to be given on this side of the question than on the other; for, alas! so little danger are we in generally of being hurt by too much religion, that it is more than twenty times for once, that tradesmen neglect their shops and business, to follow the track of their vices and extravagancies, by taverns, gaming-houses, balls, masquerades, plays, harlequinery, and operas, insomuch that this may be truly called an age of gallantry and gaiety. The playhouses and balls are now filled with citizens and young tradesmen, more than with gentlemen and families of distinction; the shopkeepers wear different garbs than what they were wont to do, are decked out with long wigs and swords, and all the frugal badges of trade are quite disdained and thrown aside.

But what is the consequence? You did not see in those days such frequent acts of grace for the relief of insolvent debtors, and yet the jails filled with insolvents before the next year, though ten or twelve thousand have been released at a time by those acts. Nor did you see so many commissions of bankrupt in the Gazette as now. The wise man

said long ago, He that loves pleasure shall be a poor man. But nothing ruins a tradesman so effectually as the neglect of his business; he therefore who is not determined to pursue his trade diligently, had much better never begin it.

Nor can a man, without diligence, ever thoroughly understand his business; and how should he thrive

when he does not perfectly know what he is doing, or how to do it? Application to his trade teaches him how to carry it on as much as his going apprentice taught him how to set it up. The diligent tradesman is always the knowing and complete tradesman.

Now in order to have a man apply heartily, and pursue earnestly the business he is engaged in, there is yet another thing necessary, namely, that he should delight in it. To follow a trade, and not to love and delight in it, is making it a slavery or bondage, not a business; the shop becomes a bridewell, and the warehouse a house of correction to the tradesman, if he does not delight in his trade. To delight in business is making business pleasant and agreeable, and such a tradesman cannot but be diligent in it. This, according to Solomon, makes him certainly rich, raises him above the world, and makes him able to instruct and encourage those who come after him.

CHAP. VI.

Of over-trading.

I BELIEVE it will hold true, in almost all the chief trading towns in England, that there are more tradesmen undone by having too much trade than for having too little; for the latter, if he be industrious, will try twenty ways to mend his case. Overtrading is among tradesmen as overlifting is among strong men; such people, vain of their strength, and their pride prompting them to put it to the utmost trial, at last lift at something too heavy for them, overstrain their sinews, break some of nature's bands, and are cripples ever after.

For a young tradesman to over-trade himself, is like a young swimmer going out of his depth, when, if help does not come immediately, it is a thousand to one but he sinks and is drowned.

All rash adventurers are condemned by the prudent part of mankind; but it is as hard to restrain youth in trade as it is in any other thing where the advantage stands in view, and the danger out of sight. The profits of trade are baits to the avaricious shopkeeper, and he is forward to reckon them up to himself, but does not perhaps cast up the difficulty which there may be to compass it, or the unhappy consequences of a miscarriage. Avarice is the ruin of many people besides tradesmen; and I might give the late Southsea calamity for an example, in which the longest heads were most overreached, not so much by the wit or

cunning of those they had to deal with, as by the secret promptings of their own avarice, wherein they abundantly verified an old proverbial saying, 'All covet, all lose.'

There are two things which may be properly called over-trading in a young beginner, and by both which tradesmen are overthrown :

1. Trading beyond their stock;

2. Giving too large credit.

A tradesman ought to consider and measure well the extent of his own strength, his stock of money, and credit, is properly his beginning, for credit is a stock as well as money. He that takes too much credit is really in as much danger as he that gives too much, and the danger lies particularly in this; if the tradesman overbuys himself, the payments perhaps come due too soon for him, the goods not being sold he must answer the bills upon the strength of his proper stock, that is, pay for them out of his own cash. If that should not hold out, he is obliged to put off his bills after they are due, or suffer the impertinence of being dunned by the creditor, and perhaps by servants, and that with the usual indecencies of such kind of people.

This impairs his credit; and if he comes to deal with the same tradesman again, he is treated like one that is but an indifferent paymaster; and though he may give him credit as before, yet depending that if he bargains for six months he will take eight or nine in the payment, he considers it in the price, and uses him accordingly, and this impairs his gain; so that loss of credit is indeed loss of money, and this weakens him both ways.

A tradesman, therefore, especially at his beginning, ought to be very wary of taking too much credit; he had much better slip the occasion of buying now and then a bargain to his advantage,

for that is usually the temptation, than venture to buy a greater quantity of goods than he can pay for, by which he runs into debt, is insulted, and at last ruined. Merchants and wholesale dealers, to put off their goods, are very apt to prompt young shopkeepers and young tradesmen to buy great quantities of goods, and take large credit at first; but it is a snare that many a young beginner has fallen into, and been ruined in the very bud; for if the said young beginner does not find a vend for the quantity, he is undone, for at the time of payment the merchant expects his money, whether the goods are sold or not.

The tradesman who buys warily always pays surely. If he has money to pay he need never fear goods to be had; the merchants' warehouses are always open, and he may supply himself upon all occasions as he wants, and as his customers call.

It may pass for a kind of an objection here, that there are some goods which a tradesman may deal in which are to be bought at such and such markets chiefly, and at such and such fairs, as the cheesemongers buy their stocks of cheese and of butter, the cheese at several fairs in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, and at Stourbridge fair, and their butter at Ipswich fair in Suffolk, and so of many other things: but the answer is plain; those things which are generally bought thus are ready-money goods, and the tradesman has a sure rule for buying, namely, his cash. But as I am speaking of taking credit, so I must be necessarily supposed to speak of such goods as are bought upon credit, as the linendraper buys of the Hambro' and Dutch merchants; the woollen-draper of the Blackwellhall men; the haberdasher, of the thread merchants; the mercer, of the weavers and Italian merchants; the silkman, of the Turkey merchants ;