against a profession into private life, and to bor. row our idea of a man from our opinion of his calling. Habit, it is true, lessens the horror of those actions which the profession makes necessary, and consequently habitual; but, in all other instances, nature works in men of all professions alike; nay, perhaps, even more strongly with those who give her, as it were, a holiday, when they are following their ordinary business. A butcher, I make no doubt, would feel compunction at the slaughter of a fine horse; and though a surgeon can conceive no pain in cutting off a limb, I have known him compassionate a man in a fit of the gout. The common hangman, who hath stretched the necks of hundreds, is known to have trembled at his first operation on a head and the very professors of human bloodshedding, who in their trade of war butcher thousands, not only of their fellow professors, but often of women and children, without remorse; even these, I say, in times of peace, when drums and trumpets are laid aside, often lay aside all their ferocity, and become very gentle members of civil society. In the same manner an attorney may feel all the miseries and distresses of his fellow creatures, provided he happens not to be con. cerned against them.

Jones, as the reader knows, was yet unacquainted with the very black colours in which he had been represented to Mr. Allworthy; and as to other matters, he did not show them in the most disadvantageous light; for though he was unwilling to cast any blame on his former friend and patron; yet he was not very desirous of heaping too much upon himself. Dowling therefore observed, and not without reason, that very ill offices must have been done him by some body:

For certainly,' cries he, the squire would 'never have disinherited you only for a few faults, which any young gentleman might have committed. Indeed, I cannot properly say disinherited; for to be sure by law you cannot claim as heir. That's certain; that nobody need go to counsel for. Yet when a gentleman had in a manner adopted you thus as his own son, you might reasonably have expected some very considerable part, if not the whole; nay, if you had expected the whole, I should not have blamed you: for certainly all men are for getting as much as they can, and they are not to be blamed on that account.'

never once

Indeed you wrong me,' said Jones; I should have been contented with very little: I never had any view upon Mr. Allworthy's fortune; 6 nay, I believe, I may truly say, I 'considered what he could or might give me. This I solemnly declare, if he had done a prejudice to his nephew in my favour, I would have undone it again. I had rather enjoy my own mind than the fortune of another man. What is the poor pride arising from a magnificent house, a numerous equipage, a splendid table, "" and from all the other advantages or appearances ' of fortune, compared to the warm, solid con6 tent, the swelling satisfaction, the thrilling trans'ports, and the exulting triumphs, which a good mind enjoys, in the contemplation of a generous virtuous, noble, benevolent action? I envy not Blifil in the prospect of his wealth; nor shall I envy him in the possession of it. I would not think myself a rascal half an hour, to exchange • situations. I believe, indeed, Mr. Blifil suspected me of the views you mention; and I suppose these suspicions, as they arose from the

baseness of his own heart, so they occasioned 'his baseness to me. But, I thank Heaven, I 'know, I feel I feel my innocence, my 'friend; and I would not part with that feeling 'for the world. For as long as I know I have 6 never done, nor even designed, an injury to any < being whatever,

Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
Arbor estiva recreatur aura,
Quod latus mundi nebulæ, malusque
Jupiter urget.

Pone, sub curru nimium propinqui
Solis in terra dominibus negata;
Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem.*

He then filled a bumper of wine, and drank it off to the health of his dear Lalage; and, filling Dowling's glass likewise up to the brim, insisted on his pledging him. Why then, here's Miss Lalage's health with all my heart,' cries Dowling. I have heard her toasted often, I protest, though 'I never saw her; but they say she's extremely handsome.'

Though the Latin was not the only part of this speech which Dowling did not perfectly under

Place me where never summer breeze
Unbinds the glebe, or warms the trees;
Where ever low'ring clouds appear,
And angry Jove deforms th' inclement year.

Place me beneath the burning ray,
Where rolls the rapid car of day;

Love and the nymph shall charm my toils,

The nymph who sweetly speaks, and sweetly smiles.

Mr. FRANCIS.

TOL, III.

R

stand; yet there was somewhat in it that made a very strong impression upon him. And though he endeavoured by winking, nodding, sneering, and grinning, to hide the impression from Jones (for we are as often ashamed of thinking right as of thinking wrong), it is certain he secretly approved as much of his sentiments as he understood, and really felt a very strong impulse of compassion for him. But we may possibly take some other opportunity of commenting upon this, especially if we should happen to meet Mr. Dow ling any more in the course of our history. At present we are obliged to take our leave of that gentleman a little abruptly, in imitation of Mr. Jones; who was no sooner informed, by Par. tridge, that his horses were ready, than he deposited his reckoning, wished his companion a good night, mounted, and set forward towards Coven try, though the night was dark, and it just then began to rain very hard.

CHAP. XI.

The disasters which befel Jones on his departure for Coventry; with the sage remarks of Partridge.

No road can be plainer than that from the place where they now were to Coventry; and though neither Jones, nor Partridge, nor the guide, had ever travelled it before, it would have been almost impossible to have missed their way, had it not been for the two reasons mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter.

These two circumstances, however, happening

both unfortunately to intervene, our travellers deviated into a much less frequented track; and after riding full six miles, instead of arriving at the stately spires of Coventry, they found themselves still in a very dirty lane, where they saw no symptoms of approaching the suburbs of a large city.

Jones now declared that they must certainly have lost their way; but this the guide insisted upon was impossible;-a word which, in common conversation, is often used to signify not only improbable, but often what is really very likely, and, sometimes, what hath certainly happened: an hyperbolical violence, like that which is so fres quently offered to the words infinite and eternal; by the former of which it is usual to express a distance of half a yard, and by the latter, a duration of five minutes. And thus it is as usual to assert the impossibility of losing what is already actually lost. This was, in fact, the case at present; for notwithstanding all the confident assertions of the lad to the contrary, it is certain they were no more in the right road to Coventry, than the fraudulent, griping, cruel, canting, miser is in the right road to Heaven.

It is not, perhaps, easy for the reader, who hath never been in those circumstances, to imagine the horror with which darkness, rain, and wind, fill persons who have lost their way in the night; and who, consequently, have not the pleasant prospect of warm fires, dry clothes, and other refreshments, to support their minds in struggling with the inclemencies of the weather. A very imperfect idea of this horror will, however, serve sufficiently to account for the conceits which now filled the head of Partridge, and which we shall presently be obliged to open.