a happy serenity of temper, and was distinguished among my friends as the best-humoured fellow in the world.

In the midst of these enjoyments my heart was touched by the amiable qualities of a young lady, who was content to unite her fate with mine, contrary to the inclination and without the consent of her father, who possessed a very large fortune, and resented her marriage with such perseverance of indignation, that he never would admit her into his presence, nor even, at his death, forgive her for the step she had taken. His displeasure, however, affected us the less, as we found happiness in our mutual passion, and knew no wants; for my wife inherited from an aunt a legacy of eighteen hundred pounds, the interest of which, together with my half-pay, was sufficient to answer all our occasions.

We found great satisfaction in contriving plans for living snug upon our income, and enjoyed unspeakable pleasure in executing the scheme to which we had given the preference. Chance presented us with an opportunity to purchase a small, though neat and convenient house, with about twenty acres of land, in an agreeable rural situation; and there our time was parcelled out in a succession of tasks, for improving a large farm that we rented, and cultivating a sweet little garden laid out on a gentle slope, the foot of which was watered by a brawling rivulet of pure, transparent water. Although heaven had not thought proper to indulge us with children, we were favoured with every other substantial blessing; and every circumstance of rural economy proved a source of health and satisfaction.

The labours of the field, the little domestic cares of the barn-yard, the poultry-yard, and the dairy, were productive of such delights as none of your readers will conceive, except those who are enamoured of a country life. I cannot remember those peaceful scenes of innocence and tranquillity without regret; they often haunt my imagination, like the ghosts

of departed happiness. Within the bosom of this charming retreat we lived, in a state of uninterrupted enjoyment, until our felicity was invaded by two unexpected events, at which, I am afraid, we shall always have cause to repine: my nephew, who had succeeded to my father's estate, died of the small-pox, and, a few weeks after this incident, my wife's only brother broke his neck in leaping a five-barred gate: so that we found ourselves, all at once, in possession of a very opulent fortune, and violently transported from that element for which our tempers had been so well adapted.

In the first flutter and agitation of mind, occasioned by this unhoped-for accession, we quitted our romantic solitude, and rushed into all the pageantry of high life. Thus irreresistibly sucked within the vortex of dissipation, we grew giddy in a rapid whirl of unnatural diversion: we became enamoured of tinsel liveries, equipage, and all the frippery of fashion. Instead of tranquillity, health, a continual flow of satisfaction, and a succession of rational delights, which we formerly derived from temperance, exercise, the study of nature, and practice of benevolence, we now tasted no pleasure but what consists in the gratification of idle vanity, tossed for ever on a sea of absurd amusements, by such loud storms of riot and tumult, as drowned the voice of reason and reflection, and overwhelmed all the best faculties of the soul. We deserted nature, sentiment, and true taste, to lead a weary life of affectation, folly, and intemperance ; our senses became so depraved, that our eyes were captivated with glare and glitter, and our ears with noise and clamour; while our fancy dwelt with pleasure on every gewgaw of gothic extravagance. We entertained guests whom we despised, we visited friends whom we did not love, and invited company whom we could not esteem. We drank wines that we could not relish, and ate victuals that we could not digest. We frequented concerts which we did not under

stand, plays that we did not like, and public diversions which we could not enjoy. Our house might have been termed the temple of uproar; card-tables were the shrines, and the votaries seemed agitated by the demons of envy, spite, rage, vexation, and despair. In a word, all was farce and form; all was a phantasma, and a hideous dream of incoherent absurdities.

These pleasures, like brandy to a dram-drinker, have lost their effect: we have waked from the intoxication to a due sense of our miserable condition; for the vigour both of mind and body is quite impaired. With respect to each other, we find ourselves in a state of mutual disgust; and all the enjoyments of life we either taste with indifference, or reject with loathing. For my own part, I am overwhelmed with what the French call Ennui ;-a distemper for which there is no name in the English language; a distemper which may be understood from the following lines of the poet :

"Thee too, my Paridel ! (2) she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair;
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess

The pains and penalties of idleness."

It is not a common vacancy of thought, or an ordinary languor of the nerves, that I labour under, but a confirmed imbecility of mind, and a want of relish, attended with a thousand uneasinesses, which render life almost insupportable. I sleep without refreshment; I am fatigued

(1) ["Ennui is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language :-we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate

That awful yawn which sleep cannot abate."-DON JUAN.]

(2) [Dunciad b. iv. "The name is taken from Spenser, who gives it to a wandering courtly squire, that travelled about for the same reason for which many young squires are now fond of travelling, and especially to Paris."-Pope.]

without labour. I am scarcely risen when I wish the day was done, and when night comes I long for morning. I eat without appetite, drink without exhilaration; exercise affords no spirits, conversation no amusement, reading no entertainment, and diversion no pleasure. It is not from affectation, but an acquired insensibility, that I see Falstaff without a smile, and the Orphan without emotion. I endeavour to kill the time by shifting continually the scene of dissipation; but I am close pursued by disgust all is disappointment, insipid, nauseous, or shocking. My temper is grown so fretful and peevish, that I quarrel by turns with my servants and myself; even she that was once the delight of my eyes and the joy of my heart, is now become the subject of perpetual disquiet. I harbour wishes which I dare not approve; my heart palpitates with passions which I am ashamed to avow. I am tormented by a thousand petty grievances, which rise like angry pimples from the ebullitions of a soured disposition, and incidents that would move the mirth of other men, are to me productive of choler and anxiety. Two days ago I ordered my servants to horse whip a cobbler, who refused to leave off whistling in his stall as he sat at work, opposite to my chamber-window; and if I had then met with your maimed soldier, in all probability I should have chastised him for presuming to be more happy than his betters.

Gentlemen, if you have any recipe for the cure of my disorder, it will be charity to publish it for the benefit of many thousands that labour under the same malady which now afflicts your humble servant,

NOTE.

PICHROMACHUS.

The distemper of our correspondent is endemial among the great, and may be termed a scurvy of the spirits. Ex

ercise is as necessary to the mind as to the body, and mental exercise consists in study and reflection: this being long disused, the powers of reason lose their tone; and a relaxation of the nerves from idleness and surfeit, co-operating with this languor, the whole machine is, as it were, unstrung; all the faculties being thus untwisted and out of tune, the mind jars on every string, and nothing can be produced but discord and disquiet. If Pichromachus and his lady are really determined, if possible, to obtain a radical cure, and retrieve their good-humour, let them make over to the next heirs the great estates which devolved to them so unexpectedly, and return to the farm with the same necessities which their own industry had before so happily supplied. Should this be an effort of self-denial beyond the pitch of their resolution, we would advise them to renounce their fashionable connexions, and endeavour to contract friendships with a few rational creatures; to dismiss their superfluous servants, including the French cook, and every gaudy appurtenance of ostentation; to retire from London, and engage in the avocations of husbandry; to use the cold bath every morning, ride twenty miles every day before dinner, eat moderately of plain English food, go to bed by eleven, rise before eight, and fast one day in the week, until their appetites are perfectly restored.

ESSAY XIII.

ADVENTURES OF A STROLLING PLAYER.

I am fond of amusement in whatever company it is to be found; and wit, though dressed in rags, is ever pleasing to me. I went some days ago to take a walk in St. James's Park, about the hour in which company