contrary, he finds his desire for pleasure often lessen, as he takes pains to be able to improve it; and his capacity of enjoyment diminishes as his fortune happens to increase.

Instead, therefore, of regarding the great with envy, I generally consider them with some share of compassion. I look upon them as a set of good-natured, misguided people, who are indebted to us, and not to themselves, for all the happiness they enjoy. For our pleasure, and not their own, they sweat under a cumbrous heap of finery; for our pleasure the lacquied train, the slow parading pageant, with all the gravity of grandeur, moves in review; a single coat, or a single footman, answers all the purposes of the most indolent refinement as well; and those who have twenty, may be said to keep one for their own pleasure, and the other nineteen merely for ours. So true is the observation of Confucius, that we take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy, than endeavouring to think so ourselves.

But though the desire of being seen, of being made the subject of discourse, and of supporting the dignities of an exalted station, be troublesome enough to the ambitious, yet it is well for society that there are men thus willing to exchange ease and safety for danger and a ribbon. We lose nothing by

their vanity, and it would be unkind to endeavour to deprive a child of its rattle. If a duke or a duchess are willing to carry a long train for our entertainment, so much the worse for themselves; if they choose to exhibit in public with a hundred lacquies and Mamelukes in their equipage for our entertainment, still so much the worse for themselves; it is the spectators alone who give and receive the pleasure; they only the sweating figures that swell the pageant.

A mandarine, who took much pride in appearing with a number of jewels on every part of his robe, was once accosted by an old sly Bonze, who following him through several streets, and bowing often to the ground, thanked him for his jewels. What does he mean?' cried the mandarine. 'Friend, I never gave thee any of my jewels.'-'No,' replied the other; but you have let me look at them, and that is all the use you can make of them yourself; so there is no difference between us, except that you have the trouble of watching them, and that is an employment I don't much desire.'

Adieu.

LETTER LXIV.

FROM THE SAME.

The history of a philosophic cobler.

THOUGH not very fond of seeing a pageant myself, yet I am generally pleased with being in the crowd which sees it; it is amusing to observe the effect which such a spectacle has upon the variety of faces, the pleasure it excites in some, the envy in others, and the wishes it raises in all. With this design I lately went to see the entry of a foreign ambassador, resolved to make one in the mob, to shout as they shouted, to fix with earnest-. ness upon the same frivolous objects, and participate for a while the pleasures and the wishes of the vulgar.

Struggling here for some time, in order to be first to see the cavalcade as it passed, some one of the crowd unluckily happened to tread upon my shoe, and tore it in such a manner, that I was utterly unqualified to march forward with the main body, and obliged to fall back in the rear. Thus rendered incapable of being a spectator of the show myself, I was at least willing to observe the spectators, and limped behind, like one of the invalids which follow the march of an army.

In this plight I was considering the eagerness

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that appeared on every face; how some bustled to get foremost, and others contented themselves with taking a transient peep when they could; how some praised the four black servants that were stuck behind one of the equipages, and some the ribbons that decorated the horses' necks in another; my attention was called off to an object more extraordinary than any that I had yet seen: a poor cobler sat in his stall by the way side, and continued to work while the crowd passed by, without testifying the smallest share of curiosity. I own his want of attention excited mine; and as I stood in need of his assistance, I thought it best to employ a philosophic cobler on this occasion perceiving my business, therefore, he desired me to enter and sit down, took my shoe into his lap, and began to mend it with his usual indifference and taciturnity.

'How, my friend,' said I to him, 'can you continue to work while all those fine things are passing by your door ?'-'Very fine they are, master,' returned the cobler, for those that like them, to be sure; but what are all those fine things to me? You do not know what it is to be a cobler, and so much the better for yourself. Your bread is baked, you may go and see sights the whole day, and eat a warm supper when you come home at night; but for me, if I should run hunting

after all these fine folk, what should I get by my journey but an appetite? and, God help me, I have too much of that at home already, without stirring out for it. Your people who may eat four meals a day, and a supper at night, are but a bad example to such a one as I. No, master, as God has called me into this world in order to mend old shoes, I have no business with fine folk, and they no business with me.' I here interrupted him with a smile. See this last, master,' continues he, ' and this hammer; this last and hammer are the two best friends I have in this world: nobody else will be my friend, because I want a friend. The great folks you saw pass by just now have five hundred friends, because they have no occasion for them; now, while I stick to my good friends here, I am very contented; but when I ever so little run after sights and fine things, I begin to hate my work, I grow sad, and have no heart to mend shoes any longer.'

This discourse only served to raise my curiosity to know more of a man whom nature had thus formed into a philosopher. I therefore insensibly led him into an history of his adventures: 'I have lived,' said he, 'a wandering life now five and fifty years, here today and gone to-morrow; for it was my misfortune, when I was young, to be fond of changing. You have been a traveller then, VOL. II.

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