CHAP. CONTENTS I. The description of the family of Wakefield, in which a kindred likeness prevails as well of minds as of II. Family misfortunes. The loss of fortune only serves to encrease the pride of the worthy III. A migration. The fortunate circumstances of our 187 192 197 € 205 . 210 215 VII. A town wit described. The dullest fellows may learn to be comical for a night or two 236 IX. Two ladies of great distinction introduced. Superior finery ever seems to confer superior breeding X. The family endeavours to cope with their betters. XI. The family still resolve to hold up their heads 246 XII, Fortune seems resolved to humble the family of XIII. Mr. Burchell is found to be an enemy; for he has the confidence to give disagreeable advice 263 276 XIX. The description of a person discontented with the 308 XXI. The short continuance of friendship amongst the vicious, which is coeval only with mutual satisfac- tion 324 XXVII. The same subject continued XXVIII. Happiness and misery rather the result of prudence than of virtue in this life. Temporal evils or felici- ties being regarded by heaven as things merely in themselves trifling and unworthy its care in the XXIX. The equal dealings of Providence demonstrated with regard to the happy and the miserable here below. That from the nature of pleasure and pain, XXX. Happier prospects begin to appear. Let us be 395 412 -and chose my wife, as she did her wedding-gown.-PAGE 187. CHAPTER I The description of the family of Wakefield, in which a kindred likeness prevails as well of minds as of persons. I WAS ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife, as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well. To do her justice, she was a good-natured notable woman; and as for breeding, there were few country ladies who could shew more. She could read any English book without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery none could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent contriver in housekeeping; though I could never find that we grew richer with all her contrivances. However, we loved each other tenderly, and our fondness encreased as we grew old. There was, in fact, nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had an elegant house, situated in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was spent in a moral or rural amusement, in visiting our rich neighbours, and relieving such as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown. As we lived near the road, we often had the traveller or stranger visit us to taste our gooseberry-wine, for which we had great reputation; and I profess with the veracity of an historian, that I never knew one of them find fault with it. Our cousins too, even to the fortieth remove, all remembered their affinity, without any help from the Herald's office, and came very frequently to see us. Some of them did us no great honour by these claims of kindred; as we had the blind, the maimed, and the halt amongst the number. However, my wife always insisted that as they were the same flesh and blood, they should sit with us at the same table. So that if we had not very rich, we generally had very happy friends about us; for this remark will hold good through life, that the poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated: and as some men gaze with admiration at the colours of a tulip, or the wing of a butterfly, so I was by nature an admirer of happy human faces. However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad |