d, by a long habit of dissimulation, have gained an
absolute dominion over the hasty passions of the heart; so that they
engage with manifest advantage over the impatience and impetuosity of a
warm undesigning temper, like that of our young gentleman, who, when he
was heated with wine, misled by example, invited on one hand, and
defied on the other, forgot all his maxims of caution and sobriety, and,
plunging into the reigning folly of the place, had frequent occasions
to moralize in the morning upon the loss of the preceding night. These
penitential reflections were attended with many laudable resolutions of
profiting by the experience which he had so dearly purchased; but he
was one of those philosophers who always put off till another day the
commencement of their reformation.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

Peregrine receives a letter from Hatchway, in consequence of which he
repairs to the Garrison, and performs the last Offices to his Aunt--He
is visited by Mr. Gauntlet, who invites him to his Marriage.

In this circle of amusements our hero's time was parcelled out, and
few young gentlemen of the age enjoyed life with greater relish,
notwithstanding those intervening checks of reason, which served only
to whet his appetite for a repetition of the pleasures she so prudently
condemned; when he received the following letter, by which he was
determined to visit his estate in the country:

Cousin Pickle,--I hope you are in a better trim than your
aunt, who hath been fast moored to her bed these seven weeks,
by several feet of under-water lodging in her hold and
hollop, whereby I doubt her planks are rotted, so that she
cannot choose but fall to pieces in a short time. I have
done all in my power to keep her tight and easy, and free
from sudden squalls that might overstrain her. And here
have been the doctors, who have scuttled her lower deck, and
let out six gallons of water. For my own part, I wonder how
the devil it came there; for you know as how it was a liquor
she never took in. But as for those fellows the doctors, they
are like unskilful carpenters, that in mending one leak make
a couple; and so she fills again apace. But the worst sign of
all is this here, she won't let a drop of Nantz go between
the combings of her teeth, and has quite lost the rudder of
her understanding, whereby she yaws woundily in her speech
palavering a