effects of civility, he bowed down to the counteredge at the entrance and departure of every customer; listened without impatience to the objections of the ignorant, and refused without resentment the offers of the penurious. His only recreation was, to stand at his own door and look into the street. His dinner was sent him from a neighbouring alehouse, and he opened and shut the shop at a certain hour with his own hands.

His reputation soon extended from one end of the street to the other; and Mr. Drugget's exemplary conduct was recommended by every master to his apprentice, and every father to his son. Ned was not only considered as a thriving trader, but as a man of elegance and politeness, for he was remarkably neat in his dress, and would wear his coat threadbare without spotting it; his hat was always brushed, his shoes glossy, his wig nicely curled, and his stockings without a wrinkle. With such qualifications it was not very difficult for him to gain the heart of Miss Comfit, the only daughter of Mr. Comfit, the confectioner.

Ned is one of those whose happiness marriage has increased. His wife had the same disposition with himself; and his method of life was very little changed, except that he dismissed the lodgers from the first floor, and took the whole house into his own hands.

He had already, by his parsimony, accumulated a considerable sum, to which the fortune of his wife was now added. From this time he began to grasp at greater acquisitions, and was always ready with money in his hand to pick up

the refuse of a sale, or to buy the stock of a trader who retired from business. He soon added his parlour to his shop, and was obliged, a few months afterwards, to hire a warehouse.

He had now a shop splendidly and copiously furnished with every thing that time had injured, or fashion had degraded, with fragments of tissues, odd yards of brocade, vast bales of faded silk, and innumerable boxes of antiquated ribbons. His shop was soon celebrated through all quarters of the town, and frequented by every form of ostentatious poverty. Every maid, whose misfortune it was to be taller than her lady, matched her gown at Mr. Drugget's; and many a maiden, who had passed a winter with her aunt in London, dazzled the rustics, at her return, with cheap finery which Drugget had supplied. His shop was often visited in a morning by ladies who left their coaches in the next street, and crept through the alley in linen gowns. Drugget knows the rank of his customers by their bashfulness; and when he finds them unwilling to be seen, invites them up stairs, or retires with them to the back window.

I rejoiced at the increasing prosperity of my friend, and imagined that as he grew rich he was growing happy. His mind has partaken the enlargement. When I stepped in, for the first five years, I was welcomed only with a shake of the hand; in the next period of his life, he beckoned across the way for a pot of beer; but for six years past he invited me to dinner; and if he bespeaks me the day before, never fails to regale me with a fillet of veal.

His riches neither made him uncivil nor negli gent; he rose at the same hour, attended with the same assiduity, and bowed with the same gentleness. But for some years he has been much inclined to talk of the fatigues of business, and the confinement of a shop, and to wish that he had been so happy as to have renewed his uncle's lease of a farm, that he might have lived without noise and hurry, in a pure air, in the artless society of honest villagers, and the contemplation of the works of nature.

I soon discovered the cause of my friend's philosophy. He thought himself grown rich enough to have a lodging in the country, like the mercers on Ludgate Hill, and was resolved to enjoy himself in the decline of life. This was a resolution not to be made suddenly. He talked three years of the pleasures of the country, but passed every night over his own shop. But at last he resolved to be happy, and hired a lodging in the country, that he may steal some hours in the week from business; for, says he, "when a man advances in life, he loves to entertain himself sometimes with his own thoughts."

I was invited to this seat of quiet and contemplation among those whom Mr. Drugget considers as his most reputable friends, and desires to make the first witnesses of his elevation to the highest dignities of a shopkeeper. I found him at Islington, in a room which overlooked the high road, amusing himself with looking through the window, which the clouds of dust would not suffer him to open. He embraced me, told me I was welcome into the country, and asked me if I did

not feel myself refreshed. He then desired that dinner might be hastened, for fresh air always sharpened his appetite, and ordered me a toast and a glass of wine after my walk. He told me much of the pleasure he found in retirement, and wondered what had kept him so long out of the country. After dinner company came in, and Mr. Drugget again repeated the praises of the country, recommended the pleasures of meditation, and told them that he had been all the morning at the window counting the carriages as they passed before him.

JOHNSON.

AN OLD BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT. No man is a sincerer friend to innocent pleasantry, or more desirous of promoting it, than myself. Raillery of every kind, provided it be confined within due bounds, is, in my opinion, an excellent ingredient in conversation; I am never displeased, if I can contribute to the harmless mirth of the company, by being myself the subject of it: but, in good truth, I have neither a fortune, a constitution, nor a temper that will enable me to chuckle and shake my sides, while I suffer more from the festivity of my friends than the spleen or malice of enemies could possibly inflict on me: nor do I see any reason why I should so far move the mirthful indignation of the ladies as to be teased and worried to death in mere sport, for no earthly reason but that I am what the world calls an old bachelor.

The female part of my acquaintance entertain

an odd opinion, that a bachelor is not, in fact, a rational animal; at least, that he has not the sense of feeling in common with the rest of mankind; that a bachelor may be beaten like a stockfish; that you may thrust pins into his legs, and wring him by the nose: in short, that you cannot take too many liberties with a bachelor.

I am at a loss to conceive on what foundation these romping philosophers have grounded their hypothesis, though, at the same time, I am a melancholy proof of its existence, as well as of its absurdity.

A friend of mine, whom I frequently visit, has a wife and three daughters, the youngest of which has persecuted me these ten years. These ingenious young ladies have not only found out the sole end and purpose of my being themselves, but have likewise communicated their discovery to all the girls in the neighbourhood: so that if they happen at any time to be apprized of my coming (which I take all possible care to prevent), they immediately dispatch half a dozen cards to their faithful allies, to beg the favour of their company to drink coffee, and help to tease Mr. Ironside. Upon these occasions, my entry into the room is sometimes obstructed by a cord fastened across the bottom of the doorcase: which as I am a little near-sighted, I seldom discover, till it has brought me upon my knees before them. While I am employed in brushing the dust from my black rollers, or chafing my broken shins, my wig is suddenly conveyed away, and either stuffed behind the looking glass, or tossed from the one to the other so dexterously and with