Advice to Young Men Part 1

Advice to Young Men.

by William Cobbett.

INTRODUCTION

1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experience to warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. When sailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck to escape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or barbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the danger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity, having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand, will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without which the dangerous spots are not to be approached?

2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibed in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which must naturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effect which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well known to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived at only forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, or has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a great stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect on our personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which the cheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!

3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, in particular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative to education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law, government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to all these; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to the young which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes too late to be useful.

4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always been my taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progress through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talk of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped from amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on the wide world at a very early age, not more than eleven or twelve years, without money to support, without friends to advise, and without book-learning to a.s.sist me; pa.s.sing a few years dependent solely on my own labour for my subsistence; then becoming a common soldier and leading a military life, chiefly in foreign parts, for eight years; quitting that life after really, for me, high promotion, and with, for me, a large sum of money; marrying at an early age, going at once to France to acquire the French language, thence to America; pa.s.sing eight years there, becoming bookseller and author, and taking a prominent part in all the important discussions of the interesting period from 1793 to 1799, during which there was, in that country, a continued struggle carried on between the English and the French parties; conducting myself, in the ever-active part which I took in that struggle, in such a way as to call forth marks of unequivocal approbation from the government at home; returning to England in 1800, resuming my labours here, suffering, during these twenty-nine years, two years of imprisonment, heavy fines, three years self-banishment to the other side of the Atlantic, and a total breaking of fortune, so as to be left without a bed to lie on, and, during these twenty-nine years of troubles and of punishments, writing and publishing, every week of my life, whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a periodical paper, containing more or less of matter worthy of public attention; writing and publishing, during _the same twenty-nine years_, a grammar of the French and another of the English language, a work on the Economy of the Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an account of America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great and continued sale, and the _last_ unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in the whole world, the Bible only excepted; having, during _these same twenty-nine years_ of troubles and embarra.s.sments without number, introduced into England the manufacture of Straw-plat; also several valuable trees; having introduced, during _the same twenty-nine years_, the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of food; having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not) sustained a shop of some size, in London; having, during the whole of the same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten persons, in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, bookbinders, and others, connected with papers and books; and having, during these twenty-nine years of troubles, embarra.s.sments, prisons, fines, and banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's state.

5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for that task. There may have been natural _genius_: but genius _alone_, not all the genius in the world, could, without _something more_, have conducted me through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I have had for deadly and ever-watchful foes, a government that has the collecting and distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and also every soul who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I have had, for the far greater part of the time, the whole of the press as my deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that there is another man in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends.

For as to the _friends_ of _ministers_ and the _great_, the friendship is towards the _power_, the _influence_; it is, in fact, towards _those taxes_, of which so many thousands are gaping to get at a share. And, if we could, through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should find the subscription, now going on in Dublin for the purpose of erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate the good recently done, or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by the DUKE of WELLINGTON; we should find, that the subscribers have _the taxes_ in view; and that, if the monument shall actually be raised, it ought to have _selfishness_, and not _grat.i.tude_, engraven on its base. Nearly the same may be said with regard to all the praises that we hear bestowed on men in power. The friendship which is felt towards me is pure and disinterested: it is not founded in any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever _profit_ from professing it: it is founded on the grat.i.tude which they entertain for the good that I _have done_ them; and, of this sort of friendship, and friendship so cordial, no man ever possessed a larger portion.

6. Now, mere _genius_ will not acquire this for a man. There must be something more than _genius_: there must be industry: there must be perseverance: there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of extraordinary exertion: people must say to themselves, 'What wise conduct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man!

How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive he must have been!' These are the things, and _not genius_, which have caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful: and, though I do not affect to believe, that _every young man_, who shall read this work, will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, I do pretend, that _every_ young man, who will attend to my advice, will become able to perform a great deal more than men generally do perform, whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too, perform it with greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the advice, be able to perform the smaller portion.

7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in years also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they have derived from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for my Cottage Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, in short, for every one of my works have I received letters of thanks from numerous persons, of whom I had never heard before. In many cases I have been told, that, if the parties had had my books to read some years before, the gain to them, whether in time or in other things, would have been very great. Many, and a great many, have told me, that, though long at school, and though their parents had paid for their being taught English Grammar, or French, they had, in a short time, learned more from my books, on those subjects, than they had learned, in years, from their teachers. How many gentlemen have thanked me, in the strongest terms, for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as Lord Bacon had observed in his time) that they had before seen no books, on these subjects, that they could _understand_! But, I know not of anything that ever gave me more satisfaction than I derived from the visit of a gentleman of fortune, whom I had never heard of before, and who, about four years ago, came to thank me in person for a complete reformation, which had been worked in his son by the reading of my two SERMONS on _drinking_ and on _gaming_.

8. I have, therefore, done, already, a great deal in this way: but, there is still wanting, in a compact form, a body of ADVICE such as that which I now propose to give: and in the giving of which I shall divide my matter as follows. 1. Advice addressed to a YOUTH; 2. Advice addressed to a BACHELOR; 3. Advice addressed to a LOVER; 4. To a HUSBAND; 5. To a FATHER; 6. To a CITIZEN or SUBJECT.

9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, at the idea of 'Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the affairs of _love_.' Yes, but I was once young, and surely I may say with the poet, I forget which of them,

'Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.'

I forget, indeed, the _names_ of the ladies as completely, pretty nigh, as I do that of the poets; but I remember their influence, and of this influence on the conduct and in the affairs and on the condition of men, I have, and must have, been a witness all my life long. And, when we consider in how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a man's life depends, and always must depend, on his taste and judgment in the character of a lover, this may well be considered as the most important period of the whole term of his existence.

10. In my address to the HUSBAND, I shall, of course, introduce advice relative to the important duties of _masters_ and _servants_; duties of great importance, whether considered as affecting families or as affecting the community. In my address to the CITIZEN or SUBJECT, I shall consider all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the governed, and also the duties which man owes to his neighbour. It would be tedious to attempt to lay down rules for conduct exclusively applicable to every distinct calling, profession, and condition of life; but, under the above-described heads, will be conveyed every species of advice of which I deem the utility to be unquestionable.

11. I have thus fully described the nature of my little work, and, before I enter on the first Letter, I venture to express a hope, that its good effects will be felt long after its author shall have ceased to exist.

LETTER I

TO A YOUTH

12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you sprang.

13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind, that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body and sound mind, you have _no right_ to any earthly existence, without doing _work_ of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the folly of it, to contemplate a _fraud_ at the least, and, under certain circ.u.mstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.

14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your great object, and it is to be found only in _independence_. Turn your back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to the feeble and low-minded; look not for success to favour, to partiality, to friendship, or to what is called _interest_: write it on your heart, that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own exertions. Think not, neither, of any of those situations where gaudy habiliments and sounding t.i.tles poorly disguise from the eyes of good sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of slaves. Answer me not by saying, that these situations '_must be_ filled by _somebody_;' for, if I were to admit the truth of the proposition, which I do not, it would remain for you to show that they are conducive to happiness, the contrary of which has been proved to me by the observation of a now pretty long life.

15. Indeed, reason tells us, that it must be thus: for that which a man owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is constantly liable to take from him. He who lives upon anything except his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals: his grand resource is that servility in which he is always liable to be surpa.s.sed. He is in daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice; and he lives in a state of uncertainty and never-ceasing fear. His is not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness;' but it is worse; for it is 'idleness with _slavery_,' the latter being the just price of the former. Slaves frequently are well _fed_ and well _clad_; but slaves dare not _speak_; they dare not be suspected to _think_ differently from their masters: hate his acts as much as they may; be he tyrant, be he drunkard, be he fool, or be he all three at once, they must be silent, or, nine times out of ten, affect approbation: though possessing a thousand times his knowledge, they must feign a conviction of his superior understanding; though knowing that it is they who, in fact, do all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to them! Far from me be the thought, that any youth who shall read this page would not rather perish than submit to live in a state like this! Such a state is fit only for the refuse of nature; the halt, the half-blind, the unhappy creatures whom nature has marked out for degradation.

16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and even clever youths voluntarily bending their necks to this slavery; nay, pressing forward in eager rivalship to a.s.sume the yoke that ought to be insupportable?

The cause, and the only cause, is, that the deleterious fashion of the day has created so many artificial wants, and has raised the minds of young men so much above their real rank and state of life, that they look scornfully on the employment, the fare, and the dress, that would become them; and, in order to avoid that state in which they might live _free_ and _happy_, they become _showy slaves_.

17. The great source of independence, the French express in a precept of three words, '_Vivre de peu_,' which I have always very much admired.

'_To live upon little_' is the great security against slavery; and this precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. When DOCTOR JOHNSON wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner thus: 'PENSIONER--_A slave of state_.' After this he himself became a _pensioner_! And thus, agreeably to his own definition, he lived and died '_a slave of state_!' What must this man of great genius, and of great industry too, have felt at receiving this pension! Could he be so callous as not to feel a pang upon seeing his own name placed before his own degrading definition? And what could induce him to submit to this?

His wants, his artificial wants, his habit of indulging in the pleasures of the table; his disregard of the precept '_Vivre de peu_.' This was the cause; and, be it observed, that indulgences of this sort, while they tend to make men poor and expose them to commit mean acts, tend also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to cloud and to weaken the mind.

18. When this celebrated author wrote his Dictionary, he had not been debased by luxurious enjoyments; the rich and powerful had not caressed him into a slave; his writings then bore the stamp of truth and independence: but, having been debased by luxury, he who had, while content with plain fare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of the people, became a strenuous advocate for _taxation without representation_; and, in a work under the t.i.tle of '_Taxation no Tyranny_,' defended, and greatly a.s.sisted to produce, that unjust and b.l.o.o.d.y war which finally severed from England that great country the United states of America, now the most powerful and dangerous rival that this kingdom ever had. The statue of Dr. JOHNSON was the first that was put into St. PAUL'S CHURCH! A signal warning to us not to look upon monuments in honour of the dead as a proof of their virtues; for here we see St. PAUL'S CHURCH holding up to the veneration of posterity a man whose own writings, together with the records of the pension list, prove him to have been '_a slave of state_.'

19. Endless are the instances of men of bright parts and high spirit having been, by degrees, rendered powerless and despicable, by their imaginary wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer prospect of accomplishing great things and of acquiring lasting renown, than CHARLES FOX: he had great talents of the most popular sort; the times were singularly favourable to an exertion of them with success; a large part of the nation admired him and were his partisans; he had, as to the great question between him and his rival (PITT), reason and justice clearly on his side: but he had against him his squandering and luxurious habits: these made him dependent on the rich part of his partisans; made his wisdom subservient to opulent folly or selfishness; deprived his country of all the benefit that it might have derived from his talents; and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single sigh from a people, a great part of whom would, in his earlier years, have wept at his death as at a national calamity.

20. Extravagance in _dress_, in the haunting of _play-houses_, in _horses_, in everything else, is to be avoided, and, in youths and young men, extravagance in _dress_ particularly. This sort of extravagance, this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from the notion, that all the people in the street, for instance, will be _looking at you_ as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen to see you, will think nothing at all about you: those who are filled with the same vain notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress should be suited to your rank and station; a surgeon or physician should not dress like a carpenter! but there is no reason why a tradesman, a merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or manufacturer, or even a merchant; no reason at all why any of these should dress in an _expensive_ manner. It is a great mistake to suppose, that they derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are estimated by other _men_ according to their capacity and willingness to be in some way or other _useful_; and though, with the foolish and vain part of _women_, fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater part of the s.e.x are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions solely from the outside show of a man: they look deeper, and find other criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain you a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, _frugality, good sense_, and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting? Natural beauty of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and must have, some weight even with men, and great weight with women. But this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are, in such cases, very sharp: they can discover beauty though half hidden by beard and even by dirt and surrounded by rags: and, take this as a secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain they may be themselves, _despise personal vanity in men_.

21. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without _shabbiness_; think more about the colour of your shirt than about the gloss or texture of your coat; be always as _clean_ as your occupation will, without inconvenience, permit; but never, no, not for one moment, believe, that any human being, with sense in his skull, will love or respect you on account of your fine or costly clothes. A great misfortune of the present day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, _raised above his real state of life_: every one seems to think himself ent.i.tled, if not to t.i.tle and great estate, at least _to live without work_. This mischievous, this most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been produced, like almost all our other evils, by the Acts of our Septennial and Unreformed Parliament. That body, by its Acts, has caused an enormous Debt to be created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these means, a race of loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to arise. These carry on a species of _gaming_, by which some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day, become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like the purchasers of blanks in a lottery, are never heard of; but the fortunate ones become companions for lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, within these few years, seen many of these gamesters get fortunes of a quarter of a million in a few days, and then we have heard them, though notoriously amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, called '_honourable gentlemen_'! In such a state of things, who is to expect patient industry, laborious study, frugality and care; who, in such a state of things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit of that competence which it is the laudable wish of all men to secure? Not long ago a man, who had served his time to a tradesman in London, became, instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gambler; and, in about _two years_, drove his _coach-and-four_, had his town house and country house, and visited, and was visited by, _peers of the highest rank_! A _fellow-apprentice_ of this lucky gambler, though a tradesman in excellent business, seeing no earthly reason why _he_ should not have his coach-and-four also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the 'Change; but, alas! at the end of a few months, instead of being in a coach-and-four, he was in the _Gazette_!

22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thousands; not, indeed, exactly of the same description, but all arising from the same copious source. The words _speculate_ and _speculation_ have been subst.i.tuted for _gamble_ and _gambling_. The hatefulness of the pursuit is thus taken away; and, while taxes to the amount of more than double the whole of the rental of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of idlers, every one of whom calls himself a _gentleman_, and avoids the appearance of working for his bread; while this is the case, who is to wonder, that a great part of the youth of the country, knowing themselves to be as _good_, as _learned_, and as _well-bred_ as these _gentlemen_; who is to wonder, that they think, that they also ought to be considered as _gentlemen_? Then, the late _war_ (also the work of the Septennial Parliament) has left us, amongst its many legacies, such swarms of _t.i.tled_ men and women; such swarms of '_Sirs_' and their '_Ladies_'; men and women who, only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices, fellow-tradesmen's or farmers' sons and daughters, or indeed, the fellow-servants, of those who are now in these several states of life; the late Septennial Parliament war has left us such swarms of these, that it is no wonder that the heads of young people are turned, and that they are ashamed of that state of life to act their part well in which ought to be their delight.

23. But, though the cause of the evil is in Acts of the Septennial Parliament; though this universal desire in people to be thought to be above their station; though this arises from such acts; and, though it is no wonder that young men are thus turned from patient study and labour; though these things be undoubted, they form no reason why I should not _warn you_ against becoming a victim to this national scourge. For, in spite of every art made use of to avoid labour, the taxes will, after all, maintain only _so many_ idlers. We cannot all be '_knights_' and '_gentlemen_': there must be a large part of us, after all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry on trade and commerce, and, in spite of all that we can do, the far greater part of us must actually _work_ at something; for, unless we can get at some of the taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, 'He who will not _work_ shall not _eat_.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought '_gentlemen_'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this formerly laborious and una.s.suming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity; a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '_speculating_' nation, that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of half starvation, not so much because they are too _lazy_ to earn their bread, as because they are too _proud_! And what are the _consequences_?

Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment and of shame. If marriage _befal_ him, it is a real affliction, involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! _Stupid pride_ is one of the symptoms of _madness_. Of the two madmen mentioned in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER.

Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being asked who he is, answers, 'I am a _tailor_ run mad with _pride_.' How many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with _n.o.blemen_ and _kings_; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of G.o.d! To the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the '_county-lunatic asylums_' (things never heard of in England till now), I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous _increase of madness in this country_; and, within these very few years, how many scores of young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them; who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends, admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions, _have put an end to their own existence_!

24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now writing, I refer him to the command of G.o.d, conveyed to the Israelites by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a _glutton_ and a _drunkard_. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards to this; but indulgence short, _far short_, of this gross and really nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many persons who _pride_ themselves on their refined taste in matters connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the _quant.i.ty_ or the _quality_ of the meat, or drink, but the _love of it_ that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.

25. This _love_ of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in _a youth_; and, if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that is the business of those who make and administer _the law_. I am not talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer, and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.

26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very _expensive_. The materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appet.i.te of a man, there must be a person or two _at work every day_! More fuel, culinary implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way!

And, then, the _loss of time_: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that, the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself to me, on a particular occasion, as an _amanuensis_, for which he appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he, looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said, somewhat hastily, 'I _cannot_ stop _now_, sir, I must go to _dinner_.'

'Oh!' said I, 'you _must_ go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which you _must_ wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in _great distress_ for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes, he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home, except at certain times; he _must_ be near the kitchen at three fixed hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a person to be employed in business.

27. And, as to _friends_ and _acquaintances_; they will _say_ nothing to you; they will _offer_ you indulgences under their roofs; but the more ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better _taste_ you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the _cost_ which you occasion them, people do not like to have _critics_ sitting in judgment on their bottles and dishes. _Water-drinkers_ are universally _laughed at_; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a n.i.g.g.ardly turn. The truth is, they give _no trouble_; they occasion _no anxiety_ to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings _inconveniently long_; and, which is the great thing of all, their example teaches _moderation_ to the rest of the company. Your notorious 'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without _due reflection_: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.

28. But, all other considerations aside, _health_, the most valuable of all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from _excess_ in eating and drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is set before thee, and _devour_ not, lest thou be _hated_. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. _How little is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep_ cometh of a temperate belly. Such a man _riseth up in the morning_, and is _well at ease with himself_. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit have many perished, and he that _dieteth himself prolongeth his life_.

Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for a life contrary to these precepts! And, good G.o.d! what punishment can be too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of _Baccha.n.a.lian songs_; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the black catalogue of human depravity!

29. In the pa.s.sage which I have just quoted from chap. x.x.xi. of ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, _measurably_ taken, and in _season_,' is a _proper thing_. This, and other such pa.s.sages of the Old Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people, to insist, that _G.o.d intended_ that _wine_ should be _commonly_ drunk.

No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only _in countries in which he had given wine_, and to which he had given no cheaper drink except _water_. If it be said, as it truly may, that, by the means of the _sea_ and the _winds_, he has given wine to all _countries_, I answer that this gift is of no use to us _now_, because our government steps in between the sea and the winds and us. _Formerly_, indeed, the case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a piece of _historical knowledge_, which you will not have acquired from HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before that unfortunate event, the _Protestant Reformation_, as it is called, took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was _fourpence a gallon_, Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, _sixpence a gallon_. At the same time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was _fourpence_. Now, when a labouring man could earn _four quarts of good wine in a day_, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for people in the middle rank of life to drink wine _rather commonly_; and, therefore, in those happy days of England, these pa.s.sages of Scripture were applicable enough. But, _now_, when we have got a _Protestant_ government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes the _eighth part of a gallon_ of wine to cost more than the pay of a labouring man for a day; _now_, this pa.s.sage of Scripture is not applicable to us. There is no '_season_' in which we can take wine without ruining ourselves, however '_measurably_' we may take it; and I beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth, all those who cite pa.s.sages like that above cited, in justification of, or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.

30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word of, the pa.s.sage which I have just quoted from the book of ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been in the constant habit of communicating. When one _gives a dinner to a company_, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in _general_, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to drink, provided they have _a sufficiency of wholesome food_; despicable is the _man_, and worse than despicable the _youth_, that would make any sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater quant.i.ty of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much?

Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or _roasted_; second, _cold_; third, _hashed_; then, leg of mutton _boiled_; and so on. When I have been by myself, or nearly so, I have _always_ proceeded thus: given directions for having _every day the same thing_, or alternately as above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the necessity of any _talk_ about the matter. I am certain that, upon an average, I have not, during my life, spent more than _thirty-five minutes a day at table_, including all the meals of the day. I like, and I take care to have, good and clean victuals; but, if wholesome and clean, that is enough. If I find it, by chance, _too coa.r.s.e_ for my appet.i.te, I put the food aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the appet.i.te to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, to eat _little_, and to drink nothing that _intoxicates_. He that eats till he is _full_ is little better than a beast; and he that drinks till he is _drunk_ is quite a beast.

31. Before I dismiss this affair of eating and drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free yourselves from the slavery of the _tea_ and _coffee_ and other _slop-kettle_, if, unhappily, you have been bred up in such slavery. Experience has taught me, that those slops are _injurious to health_: until I left them off (having taken to them at the age of 26), even my habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early rising; even these were not, until I left off the slops, sufficient to give me that complete health which I have since had. I pretend not to be a 'doctor;' but, I a.s.sert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or two of _warm liquid matter_ down the throat, whether under the name of tea, coffee, soup, grog, or whatever else, is greatly injurious to health. However, at present, what I have to represent to _you is the great deduction, which the use of these slops makes, from your power of being useful_, and also from your _power to husband your income_, whatever it may be, and from whatever source arising. I am to suppose you to be desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a man to be, if not admired and revered, at least to be _respected_. In order to merit respect beyond that which is due to very common men, you must do something more than very common men; and I am now going to show you how your course _must be impeded_ by the use of the _slops_.

32. If the women exclaim, 'Nonsense! come and take a cup,' take it for that once; but hear what I have to say. In answer to my representation regarding the _waste of time_ which is occasioned by the slops, it has been said, that let what may be the nature of the food, there must _be time_ for taking it. Not _so much_ time, however, to eat a bit of meat or cheese or b.u.t.ter with a bit of bread. But, these may be eaten in a shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any _fire_, and even in a carriage on the road. The slops absolutely demand _fire_ and a _congregation_; so that, be your business what it may; be you shopkeeper, farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the _slop-board_ you must come; you must wait for its a.s.sembling, or start from home without your breakfast; and, being used to the warm liquid, you feel out of order for the want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; for the food could never be raised. The mechanics are half-ruined by them. Many of them are become poor, enervated creatures; and chiefly from this cause. But is the positive _cost_ nothing? At boarding-schools an _additional price is given_ on account of the tea slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine o'clock. You get your dinner, perhaps, near to the scene of your work; but how are you to have the _breakfast slops_ without _a servant_? Perhaps you find a lodging just to suit you, but the house is occupied by people who keep no _servants_, and you want a servant to _light a fire_ and get the slop ready. You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than another at the next door; but _there_ they keep a servant, who will '_get_ you your breakfast,' and preserve you, benevolent creature as she is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutting off a slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She will, most likely, toast your bread for you too, and melt your b.u.t.ter; and then m.u.f.fle you up, in winter, and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing can hardly be expected ever to become a _man_. You are weak; you have delicate health; you are '_bilious_!' Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the _poverty_, the real poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly a.s.sists, in more ways than one, in producing your 'delicate health.'

33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress. Next, as to _amus.e.m.e.nts_. It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight hours of the twenty-four to _labour_, eight to _rest_, and eight to _recreation_. He was, however, _a king_, and could be _thinking_ during the eight hours of recreation. It is certain, that there ought to be hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but, then observe, those hours ought to be _well-chosen_, and the _sort_ of recreation ought to be attended to. It ought to be such as is at once innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to health, because they are enjoyed by _day-light_, and because they demand early rising. The nearer that other amus.e.m.e.nts approach to these, the better they are. A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing amus.e.m.e.nts of this description to any very considerable extent; and young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between _books_ on the one hand, or _gaming_ and the _play-house_ on the other.

_Dancing_ is at once rational and healthful: it gives animal spirits: it is the natural amus.e.m.e.nt of young people, and such it has been from the days of Moses: it is enjoyed in numerous companies: it makes the parties to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad modern habits of England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this healthy and innocent pastime, namely, _late hours_, which are at once injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry. In other countries people dance by _day-light_. Here they do not; and, therefore, you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.

34. As to GAMING, it is always _criminal_, either in itself, or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.

No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped being miserable; and, observe, to _game for nothing_ is still gaming, and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in this way are hours _murdered_; precious hours, that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous flatterers, who now declare the army to be _the best school for statesmen_, it is certainly a school in which to learn experimentally many useful lessons; and, in this school I learned, that men, fond of gaming, are very rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a clever man rejected in the way of promotion only because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot _ruin_ themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say, that I never in my whole life knew a man, fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, a person unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable pa.s.sion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart. The gambler, as pourtrayed by REGNARD, in a comedy the translation of which into English resembles the original much about as nearly as Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S plagiarisms resembled the Registers on which they had been committed, is a fine instance of the contempt and scorn to which gaming at last reduces its votaries; but, if any young man be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly lost, let him behold HOGARTH'S gambler just when he has made his _last throw_ and when disappointment has bereft him of his senses. If after this sight he remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his name.