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INTRODUCTION.

THOUGH the world is but little concerned to know in what situation the author of any performance, that is offered to its perusal, may be, yet I believe it is generally solicitous to learn some circumstances relating to him: for my own part, I have always experienced this desire in myself; and read the advertisement at the beginning, and the postscript at the end, of a book, if they contain any information of that sort, with a kind of melancholy inquietude about the fate of him, in whose company, as it were, I have passed some harmless hours, and whose sentiments have been unbosomed to me with the openness of a friend.

The life of him who has had an opportunity of presenting to the eye of the public the following tale, though sufficiently chequered with vicissitude, has been spent in a state of obscurity, the recital of which could but little excite admiration, or gratify curiosity: the manner of his procuring the story contained in the following sheets, is all he thinks himself entitled to

relate.

After some wanderings at that time of life which is most subject to wandering, I had found an opportunity of revisiting the scenes of my earlier attachments, and returned to my native spot with that tender emotion, which the heart, that can be moved at all, will naturally feel on approaching it. The remembrance of my infant days, like the fancied vibration of pleasant sounds in the ear, was still alive in my mind; and I flew to find out the marks by which even inanimate things were to be known, as the friends of my youth, not forgotten, though long unseen, nor lessened in my estimation, from the pride of refinement, or the comparison of experience.

In the shade of an ancient tree, that centered a circle of elms, at the end of the village where I was born, I found my old acquaintance Jack Ryland: he was gathering moss with one hand, while the other held a flannel bag,

VOL. V.

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containing earthworms, to be used as bait in angling. On seeing me, Ryland dropped his moss on the ground, and ran with all the warmth of friendship to embrace me. 'My dear Tom," said he," how happy I am to see long way since we parted. You find me in you! you have travelled, no doubt, a woundy the old way here.-I believe they have but a sorry notion of sport in Italy.-While I think on't, look on this minnow; I'll be hanged if the sharpest-eyed trout in the river can know it from the natural. It was but yesterday nowYou remember the cross-tree pool, just below the parsonage there I hooked him, played him half an hour by the clock, and landed him at last as far down as the churchway ford. As for his size-Lord! how unlucky it is that I have not my landing-net here! for now I recollect that I marked his length on the outside of the pole; but you shall see it some other time."

Let not my reader be impatient at my friend Ryland's harangue. I give it him, because I would have characters develope themselves. To throw, however, some farther light upon Ryland's:

He was first cousin to a gentleman who possessed a considerable estate in our county, born to no fortune, and not much formed by nature for acquiring one. He found pretty early that he should never be rich, but that he might possibly be happy; and happiness to him was obtained without effort, because it was drawn from sources which it required little exertion to supply: trifles were the boundaries of his desire, and their attainment the goal of his felicity. A certain neatness at all those little arts in which the soul has no share, an immoderate love of sport, and a still more immoderate love of reciting its progress, with the addition of one faculty which has some small connection with letters, to wit, a remarkable memory for puzzles and enigmas, made up his

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character; and he enjoyed a privilege uncommon to the happy, that no one envied the means by which he attained what every one pursues. I interrupted his narrative by some inquiries about my former acquaintance in the village; for Ryland was the recorder of the place, and could have told the names, families, relations, and intermarriages of the parish, with much more accuracy than the register.

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Alackaday!" said Jack, "there have been many changes among us since you left this: here has died the old gauger Wilson, as good a cricket-player as ever handled a bat; Rooke, at the Salutation, is gone too; and his wife has left the parish and settled in London, where I am told she keeps a gin-shop, in some street they call Southwark; and the poor parson, whom you were so intimate with, the worthy old Annesly"-He looked piteously towards the church-yard, and a tear trickled down his cheek." I understand you," said I, "the good man is dead!”—“ Ah! there is more than you think about his death," answered Jack; "he died of a broken heart!" I could make no reply but by an ejaculation, and Ryland accompanied it with another tear; for, though he commonly looked but on the surface of things, yet Ryland had a heart to feel.

"In the middle of yon clump of alders," said he, " you may remember a small house, that was once farmer Higgins's; it is now occupied by a gentlewoman of the name of Wistanly, who was formerly a sort of servant companion to Sir Thomas Sindall's mother, the widow of Sir William ; her mistress, who died some years ago, left her an annuity, and that house for life, where she has lived ever since. I am told that she knows more of Annesly's affairs than any other body; but she is so silent and shy, that I could never get a word from her on the subject: she is reckoned a wonderful scholar by the folks of the village; and you, who are a man of reading, might perhaps be a greater favourite with her; if you choose it, I shall introduce you to her immediately." I accepted his offer, and we went to her house toge

ther.

We found her sitting in a little parlour, fitted up in a taste much superior to what might have been expected from the appearance of the house, with some shelves, on which I observed several of the most classical English and French authors. She rose to receive us with something in her manner greatly above her seeming rank: Jack introduced me as an acquaintance of her deceased friend, Mr Annesly. "Then, sir," said she, " you knew a man who had few fellows!" lifting her eyes gently upwards. The

tender solemnity of her look answered the very movement which the remembrance had awaked in my soul, and I made no other reply than by a tear. She seemed to take it in good part, and we met on that ground like old friends, who had much to ask, and much to be answered.

When we were going away, she begged to have a moment's conversation with me alone; Ryland left us together.

"If I am not deceived, sir," said she, "in the opinion I have formed of you, your feelings are very different from those of Mr Ryland, and indeed of most of my neighbours in the village; you seem to have had a peculiar interest in the fate of that worthiest of men, Mr Annesly. The history of that life of purity which he led, of that calamity by which it was shortened, might not be an unpleasing, though a melancholy recital to you; but in this box, which stands on the table by me, is contained a series of letters and papers, which, if you will take the trouble of reading them, will save me the task of recounting his sufferings. You will find many passages which do not indeed relate to it; but, as they are often the entertainment of my leisure hours, I have marked the most interesting parts on the margin. This deposit, sir, though its general importance be small, my affection for my departed friend makes me consider as a compliment; and I commit it to you, as to one in whose favour I have conceived a prepossession from that very

cause."

Those letters and papers were the basis of what I now offer to the public. Had it been my intention to make a Book, I might have published them entire; and I am persuaded, notwithstanding Mrs Wistanly's remark, that no part of them would have been found more foreign to the general drift of this volume, than many that have got admittance into similar collections: but I have chosen rather to throw them into the form of a narrative, and contented myself with transcribing such reflections as naturally arise from the events, and such sentiments as the situations alone appear to have excited. There are indeed many suppletory facts, which could not have been found in this collection of Mrs Wistanly's; these I was at some pains to procure through other channels. How I was enabled to procure them the reader may conceive, if his patience can hold out to the end of the story: to account for that now, would delay its commencent, and anticipate its conclusion; for both which effects this introductory chapter may have already been subject to reprehension.

THE

MAN OF THE WORLD.

CHAP. I.

PART I.

In which are some Particulars previous to the Commencement of the main Story.

RICHARD ANNESLY was the only child of a wealthy tradesman in London, who, from the experience of that profit which his business afforded himself, was anxious it should descend to his son. Unfortunately, the young man had acquired a certain train of ideas, which were totally averse to that line of life which his father had marked out for him. There is a degree of sentiment, which, in the bosom of a man destined to the drudgery of the world, is the source of endless disgust: of this young Annesly was unluckily possessed; and as he foresaw, or thought he foresaw, that it would not only endanger his success, but take from the enjoyment of prosperity, suppose it attained, he declined following that road which his father had smoothed for his progress; and, at the risk of those temporal advantages which the old gentleman's displeasure on this occasion might deny him, entered into the service of the church, and retired to the country on one of the smallest endowments she has to bestow.

That feeling which prevents the acquisition of wealth, is formed for the support of poverty; the contentment of the poor, I had almost said their pride, buoys up the spirit against the depression of adversity, and gives to our very wants the appearance of enjoyment.

Annesly looked on happiness as confined to the sphere of sequestered life. The pomp of greatness, the pleasures of the affluent, he considered as only productive of turbulence, disquiet, and remorse; and thanked heaven for having placed him in his own little shed, which, in his opinion, was the residence of pure and lasting felicity.

With this view of things his father's ideas did by no means coincide. His anger against his son continued till his death; and, when that event happened, with the preposterous revenge of many a parent, he consigned him to misery, as he thought, because he would not be unhappy in that way which he had insisted on his following, and cut him off from the inheritance of his birth, because he had chosen a profession which kept him in poverty without it.

Though Annesly could support the fear of poverty, he could not easily bear the thought of a dying father's displeasure. On receiving intelligence of his being in a dangerous situation, he hastened to London, with the purpose of wringing from him his forgiveness for the only offence with which his son had ever been chargeable; but he arrived too late: his father had breathed his last on the evening of the day preceding that on which he reached the metropolis, and his house was already in the possession of a nephew, to whom his son understood he had left every shilling of his fortune. This man had been bred a haberdasher, at the express desire of old Annesly, and had all that patient dulness which qualifies for getting rich; which, therefore, in the eyes of his uncle, was the most estimable of all qualities. He had seldom seen Richard Annesly before; for indeed this last was not very solicitous of his acquaintance; he recollected his face, however, and, desiring him to sit down, informed him particularly of the settlement which his relentless father had made. "It was unlucky," said the haberdasher," that you should have made choice of such a profession; but a parson, of all trades in the world, he could never endure. It is possible you may be low in cash at this time: if you want a small matter to buy mournings, or so, I shall not scruple to advance you the needful; and I wish you would take them of neighbour Bullock, the woollen-draper, who is as honest a man as any of the trade, and would not impose on a child."

Annesly's eyes had been hitherto fixed on the ground; nor was there wanting a tear in each for his unnatural father; he turned them on this cousin with as contemptuous a look as his nature allowed them to assume, and walked out of the house without uttering a word.

He was now thrown upon the world with the sentence of perpetual poverty for his inheritance. He found himself in the middle of a crowded street in London, surrounded by the buzzing sons of industry, and shrunk back at the sense of his own insignificance. In the faces of those he met he saw no acknowledgment of connexion, and felt himself, like Cain, after his brother's murder, an unsheltered, unfriended outcast. He looked back to his father's door; but his spirit was too mild for reproach-a tear dropped from his eye as he looked!

There was in London one person, whose gentle nature he knew would feel for his misfortunes; yet to that one, of all others, his pride forbade him to resort.

Harriet Wilkins was the daughter of a neighbour of his father's, who had for some time given up business, and lived on the interest of 40004., which he had saved in the course of it. From this circumstance, his acquaintance, old Annesly, entertained no very high opinion of his understanding; and did not cultivate much understanding with a man whom he considered as a drone in the hive of society; but in this opinion, as in many others, his son had the misfortune to differ from him. He used frequently to steal into Wilkins's house of an evening, to enjoy the conversation of one who had passed through life with observation, and had known the labour of business, without that contraction of soul which it often occasions. Harriet was commonly of the party, listening with Annesly to her father's discourse, and with Annesly offering her remarks on it. She was not handsome enough to attract notice; but her look was of that complacent sort which gains on the beholder, and pleases from the acknowledgment that it is beneath admiration.

Nor was her mind ill suited to this "Index of the Soul." Without that brilliancy which excites the general applause, it possessed those inferior sweetnesses which acquire the general esteem; sincere, benevolent, inoffensive, and unassuming. Nobody talked of the sayings of Miss Wilkins; but every one heard her with pleasure, and her smile was the signal of universal complacency.

Annesly found himself insensibly attached to her by a chain, which had been imposed without art, and suffered without consciousness. During his acquaintance with Harriet, he had come to that period of life when men are most apt to be impressed with appearances; in fact, he had looked on many a beauty with rapture, which he thought sincere, till it was interrupted by the reflection that she was not Harriet Wil

kins. There was a certain indefinable attraction which linked him every day closer to her, and artlessness of manner had the effect (which, I presume, from their practice, few young ladies believe it to have) of securing the conquest she had gained.

From the wealth which old Annesly was known to possess, his son was, doubtless, in the phrase of the world, a very advantageous match for Miss Wilkins; but when her father discovered the young man to be serious in his attachment to her, he frequently took occasion to suggest, how unequal the small fortune he could leave his daughter was to the expectations of the son of a man worth 30,000l.; and with a frankness peculiar to himself, gave the father to understand, that his son's visits were rather more frequent than was consistent with that track of prudence which the old gentleman would probably mark out for him. The father, however, took little notice of this intelligence; the truth was, that, judging by himself, he gave very little credit to it, because it came from one, who, according to his conception of things, should, of all others, have concealed it from his knowledge.

But though his son had the most sincere attachment to Miss Wilkins, his present circumstances rendered it, in the language of prudence, impossible for them to marry. They contented themselves, therefore, with the assurance of each other's constancy, and waited for some favour able change of condition which might allow them to be happy.

The first idea which struck Annesly's mind on the disappointment he suffered from his father's settlement, was the effect it would have on his situation with regard to Harriet. There is perhaps nothing more bitter in the lot of poverty, than the distance to which it throws a man from the woman he loves: that pride I have before taken notice of, which in every other circumstance tends to his support, serves but to wound him the deeper in this. That feeling now turned Annesly's feet from his Harriet's door; yet it was now that his Harriet seemed the more worthy of his love, in proportion as his circumstances rendered it hopeless. A train of soft reflections at length banished this rugged guest from his heart-"'Tis but taking a last farewell!" said he to himself, and trod back the steps which he had made.

He entered the room where Harriet was sitting by her father, with a sort of diffidence of his reception that he was not able to hide; but Wilkins welcomed him in such a manner, as soon dissipated the restraint under which the thoughts of his poverty had laid him. "This visit, my dear Annesly," said he, "flatters me, because it shews you leaning on my friendship. I am not ignorant of your present situation, and I know the effect which prudent men will say it should have on myself; that I differ from

them, may be the consequence of spleen perhaps, rather than generosity; for I have been at war with the world from a boy.-Come hither, Harriet; this is Richard Annesly: his father, it is true, has left him 30,000l. poorer than it was once expected he would; but he is Richard Annesly still! you will therefore look upon him as you did before. I am not stoic enough to deny, that riches afford numberless comforts and conveniences which are denied to the poor; but that riches are not essential to happiness, I know, because I have never yet found myself unhappy ;-nor shall I now sleep unsound, from the consciousness of having added to the pressure of affliction, or wounded merit afresh, because fortune had already wounded it." Liberal minds will delight in extending the empire of virtue; for my own part, I am happy to believe, that it is possible for an attorney to be honest, and a tradesman to think like Wilkins.

CHAP. II.

More introductory Matter.

WILKINS having thus overlooked the want of fortune in his young friend, the lovers found but little hinderance to the completion of their wishes. Harriet became the wife of a poor man, who returned the obligation he owed to her and her father's generosity, by a tenderness and affection rarely found in wedlock; because there are few minds from whom, in reason, they can be expected.

His father-in-law, to whom indeed the sacrifice was but trifling, could not resist the joint request of his daughter and her husband, to leave the town, and make one of their family in the country. In somewhat less than a year he was the grandfather of a boy, and nearly at the same distance of time after, of a girl, both of whom, in his opinion, were cherubs; but even the gossips around them owned they had never seen more promising children. The felicity of their little circle was now, perhaps, as perfect as the lot of humanity admits; nor would it have been easy to have found a group, whose minds were better formed to deserve or attain it. Health, innocence, and good-humour, were of their household; and many an honest neighbour, who never troubled himself to account for it, talked of the goodness of Annesly's ale, and the cheerfulness of his fireside. I have been often admitted of the party, though I was too young for a companion to the seniors, and too old for a playfellow to the children; but no age, and often indeed no condition, excluded from a participation of their happiness; and I have seen little Billy, before he could speak to be well understood, lead in a long-bearded beggar, to sing his

song in his turn, and be rewarded with a cup of that excellent liquor I mentioned.

Their felicity was too perfect to be lastingsuch is the proverbial opinion of mankind. The days of joy, however, are not more winged in their course than the days of sorrow; but we count not the moments of their duration with so scrupulous an exactness.

Three years after the birth of her first daughter, Mrs Annesly was delivered of another; but the birth of the last was fatal to her mother, who did not many days survive it. Annesly's grief on this occasion was immoderate; nor could all the endeavours of his father-in-law, whose mind was able to preserve more composure, prevail upon him, for some days, to remember the common offices of life, or leave the room in which his Harriet had expired. Wilkins's grief, however, though of a more silent sort, was not less deep in its effects; and when the turbulence of the other's sorrow had yielded to the soothings of time, the old man retained all that tender regret due to the death of a child, an only child, whose filial duty had led him down the slope of life without suffering him to perceive the descent. The infant she had left behind her was now doubly endeared to his father and him, from being considered as the last memorial of its dying mother; but of this melancholy kind of comfort they were also deprived in a few months by the small-pox. Wilkins seemed by this second blow to be loosened from the little hold he had struggled to keep of the world, and his resignation was now built upon the hopes, not of overcoming his affliction, but of escaping from its pressure. The serenity which such an idea confers, possesses, beyond all others, the greatest dignity, because it possesses, beyond all others, the best assured confidence, leaning on a basis that is fixed above the rotation of sublunary things. An old man, who has lived in the exercise of virtue, looking back without a blush on the tenor of his past days, and pointing to that better state, where alone he can be perfectly rewarded, is a figure the most venerable that can well be imagined ;--such did Wilkins now exhibit.

"My son," said he to Annesly, “I feel that I shall not be with you long; yet I leave not the world with that peevish disgust, which is sometimes mistaken for the courage that overcomes the dread of death: I lay down my being with gratitude, for having so long possessed it, without having disgraced it by any great violation of the laws of Him by whom it was bestowed. There is something we cannot help feeling, on the fall of those hopes we had been vainly diligent to rear. I had looked forward to some happy days, amidst a race of my Harriet's and yours; but to the good, there can be no reasonable regret from the disappointment of such expectations, because the futurity they

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