Chapter II: Letter I: To a Youth (1)

12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you sprang.

13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind, that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body and sound mind, you have _no right_ to any earthly existence, without doing _work_ of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the folly of it, to contemplate a _fraud_ at the least, and, under certain circumstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.

14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your great object, and it is to be found only in _independence_. Turn your back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to the feeble and low-minded; look not for success to favour, to partiality, to friendship, or to what is called _interest_: write it on your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy habiliments and sounding titles poorly disguise from the eyes of good sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by saying, that these situations '_must be_ filled by _somebody_;' for, if I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now pretty long life.

15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpassed. He is in daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice; and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness;' but it is worse; for it is 'idleness with _slavery_,' the latter being the just price of the former. Slaves frequently are well _fed_ and well _clad_; but slaves dare not _speak_; they dare not be suspected to _think_ differently from their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent, or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit only for the refuse of nature; the halt, the half-blind, the unhappy creatures whom nature has marked out for degradation.

16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward in eager rivalship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupportable? The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live _free_ and _happy_, they become _showy slaves_.

17. The great source of independence, the French express in a precept of three words, '_Vivre de peu_,' which I have always very much admired. '_To live upon little_' is the great security against slavery; and this precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. When DOCTOR JOHNSON wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner thus: 'PENSIONER--_A slave of state_.' After this he himself became a _pensioner_! And thus, agreeably to his own definition, he lived and died '_a slave of state_!' What must this man of great genius, and of great industry too, have felt at receiving this pension! Could he be so callous as not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed before his own degrading definition? And what could induce him to submit to this? His wants, his artificial wants, his habit of indulging in the pleasures of the table; his disregard of the precept '_Vivre de peu_.' This was the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, while they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts, tend also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to weaken the mind.

18. When this celebrated author wrote his Dictionary, he had not been debased by luxurious enjoyments; the rich and powerful had not caressed him into a slave; his writings then bore the stamp of truth and independence: but, having been debased by luxury, he who had, while content with plain fare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of the people, became a strenuous advocate for _taxation without representation_; and, in a work under the title of '_Taxation no Tyranny_,' defended, and greatly assisted to produce, that unjust and bloody war which finally severed from England that great country the United states of America, now the most powerful and dangerous rival that this kingdom ever had. The statue of Dr. JOHNSON was the first that was put into St. PAUL'S CHURCH! A signal warning to us not to look upon monuments in honour of the dead as a proof of their virtues; for here we see St. PAUL'S CHURCH holding up to the veneration of posterity a man whose own writings, together with the records of the pension list, prove him to have been '_a slave of state_.'

19. Endless are the instances of men of bright parts and high spirit having been, by degrees, rendered powerless and despicable, by their imaginary wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer prospect of accomplishing great things and of acquiring lasting renown, than CHARLES FOX: he had great talents of the most popular sort; the times were singularly favourable to an exertion of them with success; a large part of the nation admired him and were his partisans; he had, as to the great question between him and his rival (PITT), reason and justice clearly on his side: but he had against him his squandering and luxurious habits: these made him dependent on the rich part of his partisans; made his wisdom subservient to opulent folly or selfishness; deprived his country of all the benefit that it might have derived from his talents; and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single sigh from a people, a great part of whom would, in his earlier years, have wept at his death as at a national calamity.

20. Extravagance in _dress_, in the haunting of _play-houses_, in _horses_, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young men, extravagance in _dress_ particularly. This sort of extravagance, this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be _looking at you_ as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen to see you, will think nothing at all about you: those who are filled with the same vain notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress should be suited to your rank and station; a surgeon or physician should not dress like a carpenter! but there is no reason why a tradesman, a merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or manufacturer, or even a merchant; no reason at all why any of these should dress in an _expensive_ manner. It is a great mistake to suppose, that they derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are estimated by other _men_ according to their capacity and willingness to be in some way or other _useful_; and though, with the foolish and vain part of _women_, fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater part of the sex are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions solely from the outside show of a man: they look deeper, and find other criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, _frugality, good sense_, and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and must have, some weight even with men, and great weight with women. But this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are, in such cases, very sharp: they can discover beauty though half hidden by beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags: and, take this as a secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain they may be themselves, _despise personal vanity in men_.

21. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without _shabbiness_; think more about the colour of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of your coat; be always as _clean_ as your occupation will, without inconvenience, permit; but never, no, not for one moment, believe, that any human being, with sense in his skull, will love or respect you on account of your fine or costly clothes. A great misfortune of the present day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, _raised above his real state of life_: every one seems to think himself entitled, if not to title and great estate, at least _to live without work_. This mischievous, this most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been produced, like almost all our other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial and Unreformed Parliament. That body, by its Acts, has caused an enormous Debt to be created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these means, a race of loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of _gaming_, by which some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day, become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks in a lottery, are never heard of; but the fortunate ones become companions for lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, within these few years, seen many of these gamesters get fortunes of a quarter of a million in a few days, and then we have heard them, though notoriously amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, called '_honourable gentlemen_'! In such a state of things, who is to expect patient industry, laborious study, frugality and care; who, in such a state of things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit of that competence which it is the laudable wish of all men to secure? Not long ago a man, who had served his time to a tradesman in London, became, instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; and, in about _two years_, drove his _coach-and-four_, had his town house and country house, and visited, and was visited by, _peers of the highest rank_! A _fellow-apprentice_ of this lucky gambler, though a tradesman in excellent business, seeing no earthly reason why _he_ should not have his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the 'Change; but, alas! at the end of a few months, instead of being in a coach-and-four, he was in the _Gazette_!

22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thousands; not, indeed, exactly of the same description, but all arising from the same copious source. The words _speculate_ and _speculation_ have been substituted for _gamble_ and _gambling_. The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus taken away; and, while taxes to the amount of more than double the whole of the rental of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of idlers, every one of whom calls himself a _gentleman_, and avoids the appearance of working for his bread; while this is the case, who is to wonder, that a great part of the youth of the country, knowing themselves to be as _good_, as _learned_, and as _well-bred_ as these _gentlemen_; who is to wonder, that they think, that they also ought to be considered as _gentlemen_? Then, the late _war_ (also the work of the Septennial Parliament) has left us, amongst its many legacies, such swarms of _titled_ men and women; such swarms of '_Sirs_' and their '_Ladies_'; men and women who, only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices, fellow-tradesmen's or farmers' sons and daughters, or indeed, the fellow-servants, of those who are now in these several states of life; the late Septennial Parliament war has left us such swarms of these, that it is no wonder that the heads of young people are turned, and that they are ashamed of that state of life to act their part well in which ought to be their delight.

23. But, though the cause of the evil is in Acts of the Septennial Parliament; though this universal desire in people to be thought to be above their station; though this arises from such acts; and, though it is no wonder that young men are thus turned from patient study and labour; though these things be undoubted, they form no reason why I should not _warn you_ against becoming a victim to this national scourge. For, in spite of every art made use of to avoid labour, the taxes will, after all, maintain only _so many_ idlers. We cannot all be '_knights_' and '_gentlemen_': there must be a large part of us, after all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry on trade and commerce, and, in spite of all that we can do, the far greater part of us must actually _work_ at something; for, unless we can get at some of the taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, 'He who will not _work_ shall not _eat_.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought '_gentlemen_'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this formerly laborious and unassuming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity; a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '_speculating_' nation, that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of half starvation, not so much because they are too _lazy_ to earn their bread, as because they are too _proud_! And what are the _consequences_? Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment and of shame. If marriage _befal_ him, it is a real affliction, involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! _Stupid pride_ is one of the symptoms of _madness_. Of the two madmen mentioned in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER. Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being asked who he is, answers, 'I am a _tailor_ run mad with _pride_.' How many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with _noblemen_ and _kings_; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of God! To the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the '_county-lunatic asylums_' (things never heard of in England till now), I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous _increase of madness in this country_; and, within these very few years, how many scores of young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them; who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends, admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions, _have put an end to their own existence_!

24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a _glutton_ and a _drunkard_. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards to this; but indulgence short, _far short_, of this gross and really nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many persons who _pride_ themselves on their refined taste in matters connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the _quantity_ or the _quality_ of the meat, or drink, but the _love of it_ that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.

25. This _love_ of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in _a youth_; and, if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that is the business of those who make and administer _the law_. I am not talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer, and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.

26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very _expensive_. The materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there must be a person or two _at work every day_! More fuel, culinary implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way! And, then, the _loss of time_: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that, the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself to me, on a particular occasion, as an _amanuensis_, for which he appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he, looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said, somewhat hastily, 'I _cannot_ stop _now_, sir, I must go to _dinner_.' 'Oh!' said I, 'you _must_ go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which you _must_ wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in _great distress_ for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes, he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home, except at certain times; he _must_ be near the kitchen at three fixed hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a person to be employed in business.

27. And, as to _friends_ and _acquaintances_; they will _say_ nothing to you; they will _offer_ you indulgences under their roofs; but the more ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better _taste_ you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the _cost_ which you occasion them, people do not like to have _critics_ sitting in judgment on their bottles and dishes. _Water-drinkers_ are universally _laughed at_; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a niggardly turn. The truth is, they give _no trouble_; they occasion _no anxiety_ to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings _inconveniently long_; and, which is the great thing of all, their example teaches _moderation_ to the rest of the company. Your notorious 'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without _due reflection_: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.

28. But, all other considerations aside, _health_, the most valuable of all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from _excess_ in eating and drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is set before thee, and _devour_ not, lest thou be _hated_. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. _How little is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep_ cometh of a temperate belly. Such a man _riseth up in the morning_, and is _well at ease with himself_. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit have many perished, and he that _dieteth himself prolongeth his life_. Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for a life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! what punishment can be too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of _Bacchanalian songs_; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the black catalogue of human depravity!

29. In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, _measurably_ taken, and in _season_,' is a _proper thing_. This, and other such passages of the Old Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people, to insist, that _God intended_ that _wine_ should be _commonly_ drunk. No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only _in countries in which he had given wine_, and to which he had given no cheaper drink except _water_. If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of the _sea_ and the _winds_, he has given wine to all _countries_, I answer that this gift is of no use to us _now_, because our government steps in between the sea and the winds and us. _Formerly_, indeed, the case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a piece of _historical knowledge_, which you will not have acquired from HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before that unfortunate event, the _Protestant Reformation_, as it is called, took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was _fourpence a gallon_, Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, _sixpence a gallon_. At the same time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was _fourpence_. Now, when a labouring man could earn _four quarts of good wine in a day_, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for people in the middle rank of life to drink wine _rather commonly_; and, therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture were applicable enough. But, _now_, when we have got a _Protestant_ government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes the _eighth part of a gallon_ of wine to cost more than the pay of a labouring man for a day; _now_, this passage of Scripture is not applicable to us. There is no '_season_' in which we can take wine without ruining ourselves, however '_measurably_' we may take it; and I beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth, all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of, or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.

30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been in the constant habit of communicating. When one _gives a dinner to a company_, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in _general_, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to drink, provided they have _a sufficiency of wholesome food_; despicable is the _man_, and worse than despicable the _youth_, that would make any sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater quantity of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much? Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or _roasted_; second, _cold_; third, _hashed_; then, leg of mutton _boiled_; and so on. When I have been by myself, or nearly so, I have _always_ proceeded thus: given directions for having _every day the same thing_, or alternately as above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the necessity of any _talk_ about the matter. I am certain that, upon an average, I have not, during my life, spent more than _thirty-five minutes a day at table_, including all the meals of the day. I like, and I take care to have, good and clean victuals; but, if wholesome and clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, _too coarse_ for my appetite, I put the food aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the appetite to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, to eat _little_, and to drink nothing that _intoxicates_. He that eats till he is _full_ is little better than a beast; and he that drinks till he is _drunk_ is quite a beast.

31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the _tea_ and _coffee_ and other _slop-kettle_, if, unhappily, you have been bred up in such slavery. Experience has taught me, that those slops are _injurious to health_: until I left them off (having taken to them at the age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early rising; even these were not, until I left off the slops, sufficient to give me that complete health which I have since had. I pretend not to be a 'doctor;' but, I assert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or two of _warm liquid matter_ down the throat, whether under the name of tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is greatly injurious to health. However, at present, what I have to represent to _you is the great deduction, which the use of these slops makes, from your power of being useful_, and also from your _power to husband your income_, whatever it may be, and from whatever source arising. I am to suppose you to be desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a man to be, if not admired and revered, at least to be _respected_. In order to merit respect beyond that which is due to very common men, you must do something more than very common men; and I am now going to show you how your course _must be impeded_ by the use of the _slops_.

32. If the women exclaim, 'Nonsense! come and take a cup,' take it for that once; but hear what I have to say. In answer to my representation regarding the _waste of time_ which is occasioned by the slops, it has been said, that let what may be the nature of the food, there must _be time_ for taking it. Not _so much_ time, however, to eat a bit of meat or cheese or butter with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten in a shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any _fire_, and even in a carriage on the road. The slops absolutely demand _fire_ and a _congregation_; so that, be your business what it may; be you shopkeeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the _slop-board_ you must come; you must wait for its assembling, or start from home without your breakfast; and, being used to the warm liquid, you feel out of order for the want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; for the food could never be raised. The mechanics are half-ruined by them. Many of them are become poor, enervated creatures; and chiefly from this cause. But is the positive _cost_ nothing? At boarding-schools an _additional price is given_ on account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine o'clock. You get your dinner, perhaps, near to the scene of your work; but how are you to have the _breakfast slops_ without _a servant_? Perhaps you find a lodging just to suit you, but the house is occupied by people who keep no _servants_, and you want a servant to _light a fire_ and get the slop ready. You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than another at the next door; but _there_ they keep a servant, who will '_get_ you your breakfast,' and preserve you, benevolent creature as she is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutting off a slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, toast your bread for you too, and melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in winter, and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing can hardly be expected ever to become a _man_. You are weak; you have delicate health; you are '_bilious_!' Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the _poverty_, the real poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly assists, in more ways than one, in producing your 'delicate health.'

33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress. Next, as to _amusements_. It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight hours of the twenty-four to _labour_, eight to _rest_, and eight to _recreation_. He was, however, _a king_, and could be _thinking_ during the eight hours of recreation. It is certain, that there ought to be hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but, then observe, those hours ought to be _well-chosen_, and the _sort_ of recreation ought to be attended to. It ought to be such as is at once innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to health, because they are enjoyed by _day-light_, and because they demand early rising. The nearer that other amusements approach to these, the better they are. A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing amusements of this description to any very considerable extent; and young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between _books_ on the one hand, or _gaming_ and the _play-house_ on the other. _Dancing_ is at once rational and healthful: it gives animal spirits: it is the natural amusement of young people, and such it has been from the days of Moses: it is enjoyed in numerous companies: it makes the parties to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad modern habits of England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this healthy and innocent pastime, namely, _late hours_, which are at once injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry. In other countries people dance by _day-light_. Here they do not; and, therefore, you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.

34. As to GAMING, it is always _criminal_, either in itself, or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent. No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped being miserable; and, observe, to _game for nothing_ is still gaming, and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in this way are hours _murdered_; precious hours, that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous flatterers, who now declare the army to be _the best school for statesmen_, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot _ruin_ themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart. The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy the translation of which into English resembles the original much about as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him behold HOGARTH'S gambler just when he has made his _last throw_ and when disappointment has bereft him of his senses. If after this sight he remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.

35. The _Theatre may be_ a source not only of amusement but also of instruction; but, as things now are in this country, what, that is not bad, is to be learned in this school? In the first place not a word is allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has not been previously approved of by the Lord Chamberlain; that is to say, by a person appointed by the Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or disallows, of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his inspection. In short, those who go to play-houses _pay their money to hear uttered such words as the government approve of, and no others_. It is now just twenty-six years since I first well understood how this matter was managed; and, from that moment to this, I have never been in an English play-house. Besides this, the meanness, the abject servility, of the players, and the slavish conduct of the audience, are sufficient to corrupt and debase the heart of any young man who is a frequent beholder of them. Homage is here paid to every one clothed with power, be he who or what he may; real virtue and public-spirit are subjects of ridicule; and mock-sentiment and mock-liberality and mock-loyalty are applauded to the skies.

36. 'Show me a man's _companions_' says the proverb, 'and I will tell you _what the man_ is;' and this is, and must be true; because all men seek the society of those who think and act somewhat like themselves: sober men will not associate with drunkards, frugal men will not like spendthrifts, and the orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly, and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd together as singers, ringers, and smokers; but, there is a class rather higher still more blamable; I mean the tavern-haunters, the gay companions, who herd together to do little but _talk_, and who are so fond of talk that they go from home to get at it. The conversation amongst such persons has nothing of instruction in it, and is generally of a vicious tendency. Young people naturally and commendably seek the society of those of their own age; but, be careful in choosing your companions; and lay this down as a rule never to be departed from, that no youth, nor man, ought to be called your _friend_, who is addicted to _indecent talk_, or who is fond of the _society of prostitutes_. Either of these argues a depraved taste, and even a depraved heart; an absence of all principle and of all trust-worthiness; and, I have remarked it all my life long, that young men, addicted to these vices, never succeed in the end, whatever advantages they may have, whether in fortune or in talent. Fond mothers and fathers are but too apt to be over-lenient to such offenders; and, as long as youth lasts and fortune smiles, the punishment is deferred; but, it comes at last; it is sure to come; and the gay and dissolute youth is a dejected and miserable man. After the early part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man is _unworthy_ of being the husband of a virtuous woman; and, if he have anything like justice in him, how is he to reprove, in his children, vices in which he himself so long indulged? These vices of youth are varnished over by the saying, that there must be time for 'sowing the _wild oats_,' and that '_wildest colts_ make the _best horses_.' These figurative oats are, however, generally like the literal ones; they are _never to be eradicated from the soil_; and as to the _colts_, wildness in them is an indication of _high animal spirit_, having nothing at all to do with the _mind_, which is invariably debilitated and debased by profligate indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophistry, the offspring of parental weakness, is in constant use, to the incalculable injury of the rising generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy boy? He is of _real use_ at an early age: he can be trusted far out of the sight of parent or employer, while the 'pickle,' as the poor fond parents call the profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because there must be some one to see that he does no harm. If you have to choose, choose companions of _your own rank in life_ as nearly as may be; but, at any rate, none to whom you acknowledge _inferiority_; for, slavery is too soon learned; and, if the mind be bowed down in the youth, it will seldom rise up in the man. In the schools of those best of teachers the JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore, take the most effectual means to prevent it. Hence, amongst other causes, it is, that their scholars have, ever since the existence of their Order, been the most celebrated for learning of any men in the world.

37. In your _manners_ be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could see those of the United States of America; always _civil_, never _servile_. Be _obedient_, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. In this respect England has been, and I hope always will be, an example to the whole world. To this habit of willing and prompt obedience in apprentices, in servants, in all inferiors in station, she owes, in a great measure, her multitudes of matchless merchants, tradesmen, and workmen of every description, and also the achievements of her armies and navies. It is no disgrace, but the contrary, to obey, cheerfully, lawful and just commands. None are so saucy and disobedient as slaves; and, when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as nations have been _free_ has been their reverence for the laws. But, there is a wide difference between lawful and cheerful obedience and that servility which represents people as laying petitions 'at the _king's feet_,' which makes us imagine that we behold the supplicants actually crawling upon their bellies. There is something so abject in this expression; there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do hope that every youth, who shall read this, will hold in detestation the reptiles who make use of it. In all other countries, the lowest individual can put a petition into the _hands_ of the chief magistrate, be he king or emperor: let us hope, that the time will yet come when Englishmen will be able to do the same. In the meanwhile I beg you to despise these worse than pagan parasites.