respect, for I have but one man and one horse, and both are always ready at a moment's warning. : I mounted a phaeton with Attalus and we fet forward in a broiling day: My conductor immediately began to vent his angry humour upon the wrong object, and plied his thong at such a furious rate upon his unoffending horfes, that the high-mettled animals so resented the unjust correction, that after struggling and kicking under the lash for some time, one of them reared across the pole of the chaise and snapped it: This produced a storm of paffion more violent than the first, and though it was evident the servant had put the horses on their proper fides at first, the fault was charged upon him with vehement imprecations, and this produced a fecond halt longer and more disagreeable than our setting out had been: Our purpose however was not to be defeated and we must positively proceed; Attalus was not in a humour to submit with patience to disappointments, so that having ordered two of his servants to dismount, we took their horfes. and set off upon our tour; the beauties of nature were before us, but that ferenity of mind which should ever accompany the contemplation of those beauties, was wanting; Attalus was one, of fortune's spoilt children, and his temper, grown. irritable 1 irritable by indulgence and humoursome by profperity, had loft it's relish for simplicity and was wholly given up to a filly passion for oftentation and parade; he immediately began to harangue upon the many evil qualities of servants, a topic at the best unedifying and commonly most difgufting to the hearers; he bewailed his own ill-fortune in that respect very bitterly, and so much of the way passed off before this philippic was concluded, that I began to think I had been carried out for no better purpose than to hear a declamation in the open air: I brought him at last to a stop by observing he had a paradife about him, and that it was a pity his vexations did not fuffer him to enjoy it-Upon this hint! he seemed to recollect himself and proceeded to expatiate upon his own improvements, pointing. out to me what he had done, and what he had more in mind to do, if his overseer had obeyed his instructions, and proper people had been found to execute his designs. I took notice of a group of neat cottages, which had a very picturesque and pleasing appearance, for they were delicioufly situated, and had all the air, as I observed, of happy habita tions-"No matter for that," replied Attalus, "down they must all come, for they are cruelly "in my eye, and I purpose to throw all that hill " into wilderness with plantations of pine, where "you see the rock and broken ground, which " will be a bold and striking contrast to the or"namented grounds about it-I am surprised," added he, "you can fee any beauty in those " paltry huts."-Before I could make reply, an old peasant had approached us, and humbly enquired of Attalus, when he was to be diflodged from his cottage-" I have ordered the work"men to take it down next week," said he, "the season is favorable for your removal and "you must seek out elsewhere." The decree was heard without an effort to reply; a figh was all the plea the poor man offered, and with that figh he sent a look to heaven, that in its paffage rent my heart: I determined to be gone next morning. We proceeded in our circuit till we were crossed by a high enclosure, which awkwardly enough feparated a pasture of about three acres, in which was a brick-kiln too confpicuoufly placed not to annoy the fight, and at that very moment too furiously employed, in the act of duty, not to be excessively offensive to the smell; we found ourselves involved in columns of thick smoke, which were not of the most grateful odour in the world; I confess I was not a little surprised at the location of this flaming nuisance, and as we were making our way through the smothering cloud, remarked to Attalus that ornament must give place to use" I brought "you hither," says he, "purposely to shew you "how I am treated by a furly obftinate fellow in " my neighbourhood, who has not another foot " of land in the world, but this cursed patch of "ground, and which the rascal keeps on purpose "to spite me, though I have bidden three times "the value of it: indeed it is indispensably ne" cessary to me, as you may well believe by the "annoyance it produces in his hands; I have " tried all means to get it from him, rough and "smooth, and if a profecution would have laid "against it, I would have driven him out of it " by the expences of a fuit; but all to no pur"pose; I am so tormented by the fellow's obfti"nacy, and my comforts are fo facrificed by the "nuisance, that I have no longer any enjoyment "in my place; nay I have stopped most of my " works and difcharged my labourers, for what "fignifies carrying on improvements, when I "can no longer live in my house with that " cursed brick-kiln for ever in my eye, and with "little intermiffion in my nostrils alfo ?" A new theme of discontent was now started, which the unhappy Attalus pursued with heavy complaints as we travelled down a ftream of fmoke, smoke, which seemed as if malicioufly to purfue us, determined not to quit it's execrator, till he left off his execrations; at last they both ceased in the fame moment and parted by confent. As foon as Attalus desisted from his invectives I took up my reflections, and if a wish could have purchased his possessions, encumbered with the vexations of their owner, I would not have taken them at the price. Down funk the vifion of profperity; fwifter than the shifting of a playhouse scene vanished all the enchanting prospect; a naked lodge in a warren with content had been more enviable in my eye than his palace haunted with disguft; I faw Attalus, the veriest darling of fortune, fickening and furfeited with profperity; peevish with his fervants, unsociable to his neighbours, a flave to fashions, which he obeyed and disapproved, unfeeling to the poor, tired with the splendor of a magnificent house, and poffeffing an extensive territory, yet fighing after a small nook of land, the want of which poifoned all his comforts. And what then are riches? faid I within myself. The disturbers of human happiness; the corrupters of human nature. I remember this Attalus in his youth; I knew him intimately at school and college; he was of a joyous, social temper; placid, accommodating, full of resource; always in good humour with VOL. IV. D himfelf |