can be enabled to enjoy it,
and frequently to revolve the experiments which he has hitherto made
upon life, that he may gain wisdom from his mistakes, and caution from
his miscarriages.

Though I do not so exactly conform to the precepts of Pythagoras, as to
practise every night this solemn recollection, yet I am not so lost in
dissipation as wholly to omit it; nor can I forbear sometimes to inquire
of myself, in what employment my life has passed away. Much of my time
has sunk into nothing, and left no trace by which it can be
distinguished; and of this I now only know, that it was once in my
power, and might once have been improved.

Of other parts of life, memory can give some account; at some hours I
have been gay, and at others serious; I have sometimes mingled in
conversation, and sometimes meditated in solitude; one day has been
spent in consulting the ancient sages, and another in writing
_Adventurers_.

At the conclusion of any undertaking, it is usual to compute the loss
and profit. As I shall soon cease to write _Adventurers_, I could not
forbear lately to consider what has been the consequence of my labours;
and whether I am to reckon the hours laid out in these compositions, as
applied to a good and laudable purpose, or suffered to fume away in
useless evaporations.

That I have intended well, I have the attestation of my own heart: but
good intentions may be frustrated when they are executed without
suitable skill, or directed to an end unattainable in itself.

Some there are, who leave writers very little room for
self-congratulation; some who affirm, that books have no influence upon
the publick, that no age was ever made better by its authors, and that to
call upon mankind to correct their manners, is, like Xerxes, to scourge
the wind, or shackle the torrent.

This opinion they pretend to support by unfailing experience. The world
is full of fraud and corruption, rapine or malignity; interest is the
ruling motive of mankind, and every one is endeavouring to increase his
own stores of happiness by perpetual accumulation, without reflecting
upon the numbers whom his superfluity condemns to want: in this state of
things a book of morality is published, in which charity and benevolence
are strongly enforced; and it is proved beyond opposition, that men are
happy in proportion as they are virtuous, and rich as they are liberal.
The book is applauded, and the author is preferred; he imagines his
appla