n equally
on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising
spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses
his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life,
without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had
done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will,
as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth's men, preferring
their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their
country."

His lordship added, "That he would not, by any further particulars,
prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in viewing the grand
academy, whither he was resolved I should go." He only desired me to
observe a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about three miles
distant, of which he gave me this account: "That he had a very convenient
mill within half a mile of his house, turned by a current from a large
river, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number of
his tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of those projectors came
to him with proposals to destroy this mill, and build another on the side
of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a long canal must be cut, for
a repository of water, to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to supply
the mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated the water, and
thereby made it fitter for motion, and because the water, descending down
a declivity, would turn the mill with half the current of a river whose
course is more upon a level." He said, "that being then not very well
with the court, and pressed by many of his friends, he complied with the
proposal; and after employing a hundred men for two years, the work
miscarried, the projectors went off, laying the blame entirely upon him,
railing at him ever since, and putting others upon the same experiment,
with equal assurance of success, as well as equal disappointment."

In a few days we came back to town; and his excellency, considering the
bad character he had in the academy, would not go with me himself, but
recommended me to a friend of his, to bear me company thither. My lord
was pleased to represent me as a great admirer of projects, and a person
of much curiosity and easy belief; which, indeed, was not without truth;
for I had myself been a sort of projector in my younger days.

CHAPTER V.

The author permitted to see the grand academy of Lagado. The academy
l