To groan with poverty, when all about him
was opulence, riot, and superfluity, and to find the favours which he
had long been encouraged to hope, and had long endeavoured to deserve,
squandered at last on nameless ignorance, was to thirst with water
flowing before him, and to see the fruits, to which his hunger was
hastening, scattered by the wind. Nor can my correspondent, whatever he
may have suffered, express with more justness or force the vexations of
dependance.
TO THE RAMBLER.
SIR,
I am one of those mortals who have been courted and envied as the
favourites of the great. Having often gained the prize of composition at
the university, I began to hope that I should obtain the same
distinction in every other place, and determined to forsake the
profession to which I was destined by my parents, and in which the
interest of my family would have procured me a very advantageous
settlement. The pride of wit fluttered in my heart, and when I prepared
to leave the college, nothing entered my imagination but honours,
caresses, and rewards, riches without labour, and luxury without
expense.
I however delayed my departure for a time, to finish the performance by
which I was to draw the first notice of mankind upon me.
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