a relation of Mr. Allworthy's, if you are not. Your horses won't be ready this half hour, and as you have sufficient opportunity, I wish you would tell me how all that happened; for I protest it seems very surprising that you should pass for a relation of a gentleman, without being so." Jones, who in the compliance of his disposition (though not in his prudence) a little resembled his lovely Sophia, was easily prevailed on to satisfy Mr. Dowling's curiosity, by relating the history of his birth and education, which he did like Othello, Even from his boyish years, To th' very moment he was bade to tell: the which to hear, Dowling, like Desdemona, did seriously incline: He swore 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful! Mr. Dowling was indeed very greatly affected with this relation; for he had not divested himself of humanity by being an attorney. Indeed, nothing is more unjust than to carry our prejudices against a profession into private life, and to borrow our idea of a man from our opinion of his calling. Habit, it is true, lessens the horror of those actions. which the profession makes necessary, and consequently habitual; but, in all other instances, nature works in men of all professions alike; nay, perhaps, even more strongly with those who give her, as it were, a holiday, when they are following their ordinary business. A butcher, I make no doubt, would feel compunction at the slaughter of a fine horse; and though a surgeon can conceive no pain in cutting off a limb, I have known him compassionate a man in a fit of the gout. The common hangman, who hath stretched the necks of hundreds, is known to have trembled at his first operation on a head; and the very professors of human blood-shedding, who in their trade of war butcher thousands, not only of their fellow professors, but often of women and children, without remorse; even these, I say, in times of peace, when drums and trumpets are laid aside, often lay aside all their ferocity, and become very gentle members of civil society. In the same manner an attorney may feel all the miseries and distresses of his fellow creatures, provided he happens not to be concerned against them. Jones, as the reader knows, was yet unacquainted with the very black colours in which he had been. represented to Mr. Allworthy; and as to other matters, he did not show them in the most disadvantageous light; for though he was unwilling to cast any blame on his former friend and patron; yet he was not very desirous of heaping too much upon himself. Dowling therefore observed, and not without reason, that very ill offices must have. been done him by somebody: For certainly,' cries he, the 'squire would never have disinherited you only for a few faults, which any young gentleman might have committed. Indeed, I cannot properly say disinherited; for to be sure by law you canhot claim as heir. That's certain; that nobody need go to counsel for. Yet when a gentleman had in a manner adopted you thus as his own son, you might reasonably have expected some very considerable part, if not the whole; nay, nay, if you had expected the whole, I should not have blamed you for certainly all men are for getting as much as they can, and they are not to be blamed on that account.' Indeed you wrong me,' said Jones; I should have been contented with very little: I never had any view upon Mr. Allworthy's fortune; nay, I believe, I may truly say, I never once considered what he could or might give me. This I solemnly declare, if he had done a prejudice to his nephew.in my favour, I would have undone it again. I had rather enjoy my own mind than the fortune of another man. What is the poor pride arising from a magnificent house, a numerous equipage, a splen. did table, and from all the other advantages or appearances of fortune, compared to the warm, solid content, the swelling satisfaction, the thrilling transports, and the exulting triumphs, which a goodmind enjoys, in the contemplation of a generous, virtuous, noble, benevolent action? I envy not Blifil in the prospect of his wealth; nor shall. I envy him in the possession of it. I would not think myself a rascal half an hour, to exchange situations. I believe, indeed, Mr. Blifil suspected. me of the views you mention; and I suppose these suspicions, as they arose from the baseness of his own heart, so they occasioned his baseness to me. But, I thank Heaven, I know, I feel-I feel my. innocence, my friend; and I would not part with that feeling for the world. For as long as I know I have never done, nor even designed, an injury to any being whatever, Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis "Pone, sub curru nimium propinqui Place me where never summer breeze Love and the nymph shall charm my toils, The nymph who sweetly speaks, and sweetly smiles. FRANCIS. He then filled a bumper of wine, and drank it off to the health of his dear Lalage; and, filling Dow. ling's glass likewise up to the brim, insisted on his pledging him. Why then, here's Miss Lalage's health with all my heart,' cries Dowling. 'I have heard her toasted often, I protest, though I never saw her; but they say she's extremely handsome.' Though the Latin was not the only part of this speech which Dowling did not perfectly understand; yet there was somewhat in it that made a very strong impression upon him. And though he endeavoured by winking, nodding, sneering, and grinning, to hide the impression from Jones (for we are as often ashamed of thinking right as of thinking wrong), it is certain he secretly approved as much of his sentiments as he understood, and really felt a very strong impulse of compassion for him. But we may possibly take some other opportunity of commenting upon this, especially if we should hap pen to meet Mr. Dowling any more in the course of our history. At present we are obliged to take our leave of that gentleman a little abruptly, in imitation of Mr. Jones; who was no sooner informed, by Partridge, that his horses were ready, than he deposited his reckoning, wished his companion a good night, mounted, and set forwards towards Coventry, though the night was dark, and it just then began to rain very hard. No CHAP. XI. O road can be plainer than that from the place where they now were to Coventry; and though neither Jones, nor Partridge, nor the guide, had ever travelled it before, it would have been almost impossible to have missed their way, had it not been for the two reasons mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter. -Those two circumstances, however, happening both unfortunately to intervene, our travellers deviated into a much less frequented track; and after riding full six miles, instead of arriving at the stately spires of Coventry, they found themselves still in a very dirty lane, where they saw no symp. toms of approaching the suburbs of a large city. Jones now declared that they must certainly have lost their way; but this the guide insisted upon was impossible;a word which, in common conversation, is often used to signify not only improbable, but often what is really very likely, and, sometimes, what hath certainly happened: an hyperbolical violence, like that which is so frequently offered to the words infinite and eternal; by the former of which it is usual to express a distance of half a yard, and by the latter, a duration of five. minutes. And thus it is as usual to assert the im possibility of losing what is already actually lost. This was, in fact, the case at present; for notwithstanding all the confident assertions of the lad to the contrary, it is certain they were no more in the right road to Coventry, than the fraudulent, griping, cruel, canting, miser is in the right road to heaven. It is not, perhaps, easy for the reader, who hath never been in those circumstances, to imagine the |