By these narratives I was fired with the splendour and dignity of
London, and of trade. I therefore devoted myself to a shop, and warmed
my imagination from year to year with inquiries about the privileges of
a freeman, the power of the common council, the dignity of a wholesale
dealer, and the grandeur of mayoralty, to which my mother assured me
that many had arrived who began the world with less than myself.
I was very impatient to enter into a path, which led to such honour and
felicity; but was forced for a time to endure some repression of my
eagerness, for it was my grandfather's maxim, that a _young man seldom
makes much money, who is out of his time before two-and-twenty_. They
thought it necessary, therefore, to keep me at home till the proper age,
without any other employment than that of learning merchants' accounts,
and the art of regulating books; but at length the tedious days elapsed,
I was transplanted to town, and, with great satisfaction to myself,
bound to a haberdasher.
My master, who had no conception of any virtue, merit, or dignity, but
that of being rich, had all the good qualities which naturally arise
from a close and unwearied attention to the main chance; his desire to
gain wealth was so well tempered by the vanity of shewing it, that
without any other principle of action, he lived in the esteem of the
whole commercial world; and was always treated with respect by the only
men whose good opinion he valued or solicited, those who were
universally allowed to be richer than himself.
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