fixed upon one, which, by fome fecret relation to the events of my life, I thought predeftined to make me happy. Delay in great affairs is often mischievous; the ticket was fold, and its poffeffor could not be found.

I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication, fixed upon another chance, but with lefs confidence. Never did captive, heir, or lover, feel fo much vexation from the flow pace of time, as I fuffered between the purchase of my ticket and the diftribution of the prizes. I folaced my uneafinefs as well as I could, by frequent contemplations of approaching happiness; when the fun rose I knew it would fet, and congratulated myself at night that I was fo much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket appeared, and rewarded all my care and fagacity with a defpicable prize of fifty pounds.

My friends, who honeftly rejoiced upon my fuccefs, were very coldly received; I hid myfelf a fortnight in the country, that my chagrin might fume away without observation, and then returning to my fhop, began to liften after another lottery.

With the news of a lottery I was foon gratified, and having now found the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I refolved to take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not omitting however to divide them between the even and odd numbers, that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclufions did I form, and many experiments did I try to determine from which of thofe tickets I might moft reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable to fatisfy myself by any modes

of

of reafoning, I wrote the numbers upon dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amufement of throwing them in a garret; and examining the event by an exact register, found on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers had been turned up five times more than any of the reft in three hundred and thirty thoufand throws.

This experiment was fallacious; the first day prefented the hopeful ticket, a deteftable blank. The reft came out with different fortune, and in conclufion I loft thirty pounds by this great adventure.

I had now wholly changed the caft of my behaviour and the conduct of my life. The fhop was for the moft part abandoned to my fervants, and if I entered it, my thoughts were fo engroffed by my tickets, that I fcarcely heard or anfwered a question, but confidered every cuftomer as an intruder upon my meditations, whom I was in hafte to dispatch. I miftook the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgot to file my receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. My acquaintances by degrees began to fall away; but I perceived the decline of my bufinefs with little emotion, because whatever deficience there might be in my gains I expected the next lottery to fupply.

Mifcarriage naturally produces diffidence; I began now to feek affiftance against ill luck, by an alliance with those that had been more fuccessful. I enquired diligently at what office any prize had been fold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; folicited those who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me in my new tickets; and whenever I met with one that had in any event of his

life been eminently profperous, I invited him to take a larger share. I had, by this rule of conduct, fo diffufed my intereft, that I had a fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and a fixteenth of ninety.

I waited for the decifion of my fate with my former palpitations, and looked upon the business of my trade with the ufual neglect. The wheel at laft was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long fucceffion of forrows and difappointments. I indeed often partook of a fmall prize, and the lofs of one day was generally balanced by the gain of the next; but my defires yet remained unfatisfied, and when one of my chances had failed, all my expectation was fufpended on those which remained yet undetermined. At laft a prize of five thousand pounds was proclaimed; I caught fire at the cry, and enquiring the number, found it to be one of my own tickets, which I had divided among thofe on whofe luck I depended, and of which I had retained only a fixteenth part.

You will eafily judge with what deteftation of himfelf, a man thus intent upon gain reflected that he had fold a prize which was once in his poffeffio... It was to no purpose, that I reprefented to my mind the impoffibility of recalling the paft, or the folly of condemning an act, which only its event, an event which no human intelligence could forefee, proved to be wrong. The prize which, though put in my hands, had been fuffered to flip from me, filled me with anguish, and knowing that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up filently to grief, and loft by degrees my appetite and my reft. My indifpofition foon became vifible; I was vifited by my friends, and among them by Eumathes, a clerVOL. VII. gyman,

gyman, whofe piety and learning gave him fuch an afcendant over me, that I could not refuse to open my heart. There are, faid he, few minds fufficiently firm to be trufted in the hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate futurity, and exalt poffibility to certainty, fhould avoid every kind of cafual adventure, fince his grief must be always proportionate to his hope. You have long wafted that time, which, by a proper application, would have certainly, though moderately, increafed your fortune, in a laborious and anxious purfuit of a fpecies of gain, which no labour or anxiety, no art or expedient, can fecure or promote. You are now fretting away your life in repentance of an act, against which repentance can give no caution, but to avoid the occafion of committing it. Roufe from this lazy dream of fortuitous riches, which, if obtained, you could scarcely have enjoyed, because they could confer no consciousnefs of defert; return to rational and manly industry, and confider the mere gift of luck as below the care of a wife man.

NUMB. 182. SATURDAY, December 14, 1751.

I

-Dives qui fieri vult,

Et cito vult fieri.

The luft of wealth can never bear delay.

JUVENAL.

T has been obferved in a late paper, that we are unreasonably defirous to separate the goods of life from thofe evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers neceffary to raife a fudden fortune, either by new difcoveries, or by fuperiority of skill, in any neceffary employment; and among lower understandings, many want the firmness and industry requifite to regular gain and gradual acquifitions.

From the hope of enjoying affluence by methods more compendious than those of labour, and more generally practicable than thofe of genius, proceeds the common inclination to experiment and hazard, and that willingness to fnatch all opportunities of growing rich by chance, which, when it has once taken poffeffion of the mind, is feldom driven out either by time or argument, but continues to wate life in perpetual delufion, and generally ends in wretchednefs and want.

The folly of untimely exultation and visionary prosperity, is by no means peculiar to the purchasers of R 2 tickets;