cellent hacks, and useful not fhowy horses for his carriage; as he travels little, and vifits not at all. Servants' accounts he fuffers not to perplex him, having contracted with his fteward for eight thousand pounds a year to pay all expences; and keeping four thousand pounds a year more annually in his own hand for occafional purchases, &c. that fo living always within his income, he never may be made uneafy about any thing; for which reafon he will not hear of poverty or mifery, nor will ever exercife either his mind or body to fatigue for any purpofe. Taking care of his books, pictures, &c. is his rational and tranquil amusement; and as thefe were originally bought with the forty thousand pounds which came to him ten years. ago, when his father's death put him in poffeffion of that fum in the ftocks, and a clear not nominal eftate of twelve thousand pounds per annum in land, within fifty miles of the metropolis-he has no care in this world except to enjoy it fufficiently, and keep from him every thing noisome and offenfive; among which no creature can be more unwelcome than one who loves DEBAUCH-and never will our man of true LUXURY endure again in his fight that officious friend, who, from ignorance and mifapprehenfion of his patron's character, brought with him once a fellow fkilled in roaring out obscene catches and other as beastly modes of entertainment, thinking (how vainly!) to divert the mafter of the house-who, after the fecond half-hour,

half-hour, exerted himself beyond his ufual ftrength to turn them both out of it-and told his phyfician next day, the illness he had incurred by the fatigue, was at least more supportable than fuch people's prefence for an af

ternoon.

I am fenfible that in this example I have extended myself beyond the ufual limits; but I wished to fhew my notions on this fubject, and to prove by this trifle how diftant fuch words are from fynonymy: whilft SENSUALITY may refide and triumph in Otaheite, and a Turkish Effendi may riot in DEBAUCH-while true LUXURY must now be fought for in Great Bri tain, leaving softer VOLUPTUOUSNESS to reign at Venice,

-as becomes

Her daughter and her darling without end.

Again, if we look over Suetonius, we fhall find, that when Nero conftructed the cieling of his Golden Houfe, fo as to fhew by mechanism the movements of the heavenly bodies, he was LUXURIOUS; whilft Heliogabalus was a mere VOLUPTUARY, Vitellius a SENSUALIST, and Tiberius an old DEBAUCHEE. Let no one here think it either new or ingenious to inform me that pleasure may be beft fought and fureft found in virtue; and that charming Dr. Goldsmith has an elegant line of

Learn the LUXURY of doing good.

All

All this is fo; but to make an extract of pleafure from virtue prefuppofes long habits in the work, and early knowledge of that most admirable alchymy. 'Tis certainly defirable that we should find them confiftent with and conformable to each other; but in fo doing we must be wiser than Solomon and ftronger than Hercules, for they could never get them to agree; and St. Paul acknowledges a war within between the flesh and fpirit. I take the popular idea of LUXURY to be the true one, and have been careful to banish virtue as completely as I banished vice from the man-who, whatever he may feek or fhun, does it wholly and folely on the narrow principle of mean felf-preference; a quality repugnant to every colour: and deftructive of every fhade of what we call Christian virtue.

LYING, DECEIVING, FEIGNING, DISSEMBLING, IMPOSING ON, CHEATING BY FALSE

TALES OR APPEARANCES INTO

BELIEF, HYPOCRITICAL

DEALING, PIOUS
FRAUDS,

FOR we are here talking of fuch frauds as are meant only to take in the understanding, and are not aimed at the purfe: he who obtains money under a show of pretences in themselves untrue, may be called a trickster, or fwindler,

but

.

but is not better than a direct thief. We are now speaking merely of LIARS that IMPOSE on your mind, and betray your credulity with falfehood:-yet even there, and in that limited fense, the words are not rigid fynonymes. The people who come to you with a FEIGNED flory of your friend's death or marriage, for a joke, as 'tis called, are among this fet; and tell you after all is over, that 'twas nothing but a white

LIE.

But those who aim at ridicule

Should fix upon some certain rule,
Which fairly hints they are in jeft,
Elfe I must enter my protest;
For though a man be ne'er fo wife,
He may be caught by fober LYES,

Befides all this, there is ufually a train of TRICKS in almost every profeffion, meant to give consequence to those who are initiated, by DECEIVING others into a notion of their fuperiority; and although people have been moft fedulously bent on watching and detecting fuch HYPOCRITICAL DEALING in the clergy, yet many of their hearers have the fame artifices ready; masked batteries to play on those they mean to conquer: and as in former times the young fellows who wanted to repair their broken fortunes by marriage, pretended to be pious or prudent, for the fake of DECEIVING parents who had daughters to difpofe of;-so they now FEIGN more vice and indifcretion than they really have, in order to win the girls who are at S. their

their own difpofal-whilft falfe cafes in medicine obtrude themselves, I am told, even among treatifes compofed and written by the learned; CHEATING US in that manner by well-invented tales into BELIEF of facts brought forward for the support of fome new remedy, or peculiar mode of treatment in fome particular complaint. Yet although the prescription or method thus infinuated into, or rather half-forced upon, our attention fhould be the very beft poffible, it would be DISSEMBLING my fentiments grofsly, were I not to condemn the means; because truth is at laft to be preferred to every thing. And St. Auguftine profeffes fuch enmity to what after his death the world was long contented to call PIOUS FRAUDS, that he gives it ex-prefsly as his moft folemn opinion, that if the whole fabrick of our holy Christian religion could be fupported on his part only by a LYE, he would let it fall.

In this day however, when fuch temptations to FALSEHOOD difappear, others more likely to feduce are foon fuggefted by the grand DECEIVER: who folicits the rich merchant to increase his stores by fpeculations concealed from his friends, his family, nay his clerks; hiding the true state of his affairs fo fkilfully from them, that he learns at length to IMPOSE UPON himfelf; and after going forward for years, upon the fuppofed ftrength of nominal and ideal riches, fhoots himfelf at laft for fear of a bankruptcy-perhaps equally imaginary; and, to