Who does his father's bounded ftores defpife,
And whom his own too never can fuffice:
My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require,
Or rooms that shine with aught but conftant fire.
I well content the avarice of my fight

:

With the fair gildings of reflected light:
Pleasures abroad, the sport of nature yields
Her living fountains, and her fmiling fields;
And then at home, what pleasure is 't to fee
A little, cleanly, chearful, family!
Which if a chafte wife crown, no less in her
Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer.
Too noble, nor too wife, fhe fhould not be,
No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me.
Thus let my life flide filently away,
With fleep all night, and quiet all the day.

IT

T is a hard and nice fubject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to fay any thing of difparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials

for

for that vanity. It is fufficient for my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous or remarkable on the defective fide. But, befides that, I fhall here speak of myfelf only in relation to the fubject of these precedent difcourfes, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, than rife up to the estimation, of most people.

I

As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew, or was capable of gueffing, what the world, or the glories or bufinefs of it, were, the natural affections of my foul gave me a fecret bent of averfion from them, as fome plants are faid to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and infcrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holy-days and playing with my fellows, I was wont to fteal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with fome one companion, if I could find any of the fame temper. was then, too, fo much an enemy to all constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any perfuafions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grammar; in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the ufual exercise out of my own reading and obfervation. That I was then of the fame mind as I am now (which, I confefs, I wonder at myfelf) may appear by the latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verfes. The beginning of it is boyish;

but of this part, which I here fet down (if a very little were corrected) I thould hardly now be much ashamed,

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill known:

Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books fhould, not business, entertain the light,
And fleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.
My houfe a cottage more

Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my ufe, no luxury.

My garden painted o’er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabin field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he, that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought fports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;
But boldly fay each night,

To-morrow let my fun his beams display,

Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-day.

You may fee by it, I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclufion is taken out of Horace *); * 3 Od. xxix, 41.

and

:

and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them, which stampt first, or rather engraved, these characters in me: they were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree ftill grow proportionably. But, how this love came to be produced in me fo early, is a hard question: I believe, I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with fuch chimes of verfe, as have never fince left ringing there for I remember, when I began to read, and to take fome pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for the herself never in her life read any book but of devotion) but there was wont to lie Spenfer's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the ftories of the knights, and giants, and monfters, and brave houses, which I found every where there (though my understanding had little to do with all this); and, by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; so that, I think, I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.

With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly fet upon letters, I went to the university; but was foon torn from thence by that violent public ftorm, which would fuffer nothing to ftand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me the hyffop. Yet, I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in fuch a tempeft; for I was caft by it into the family of one of the best perfons, and into

the

the court of one of the best princeffes, of the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original defign of my life, that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily fight of greatnefs, both militant and triumphant (for that was the state then of the English and French courts); yet all this was fo far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reafon to that which was before but natural inclination. I faw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty, which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me, when I faw that it was adulterate. I met with several great perfons, whom I liked very well; but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or defired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a ftorm, though I faw many fhips which rid fafely and bravely in it: a ftorm would not agree with iny itomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found any where; though I was in business of great and honourable truft; though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for prefent fubfiftence that ought to be defired by a man of my condition in banishment and public diftreffes; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old fchool-boy's wifh, in a copy of verses. to the fame effect:

Well