goes to another house, sits down
again, recollects another engagement, has only time to taste the soup,
makes a short excuse to the company, and continues through another
street his desultory dinner.

But, overwhelmed as he is with business, his chief desire is to have
still more. Every new proposal takes possession of his thoughts; he soon
balances probabilities, engages in the project, brings it almost to
completion, and then forsakes it for another, which he catches with the
same alacrity, urges with the same vehemence, and abandons with the same
coldness.

Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some
peculiar theme of complaint, on which he dwells in his moments of
dejection. Jack's topick of sorrow is the want of time. Many an
excellent design languishes in empty theory for want of time. For the
omission of any civilities, want of time is his plea to others; for the
neglect of any affairs, want of time is his excuse to himself. That he
wants time, he sincerely believes; for he once pined away many months
with a lingering distemper, for want of time to attend to his health.

Thus Jack Whirler lives in perpetual fatigue without proportionate
advantage, because he does not consider that no man can see all with his
own eyes, or do all with his own hands; that whoever is engaged in
multiplicity of business, must transact much by substitution, and leave
something to hazard; and that he who attempts to do all, will waste his
life in doing little.

No. 20. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1758.

There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is
apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each
other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every
man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave, and seek
prey only for himself.

Yet the law of truth, thus sacred and necessary, is broken without
punishment, without censure, in compliance with inveterate prejudice and
prevailing passions. Men are willing to credit what they wish, and
encourage rather those who gratify them with pleasure, than those that
instruct them with fidelity.

For this reason every historian discovers his country; and it is
impossible to read the different accounts of any great event, without a
wish that truth had more power over partiality.

Amidst the joy of my countrymen for the acquisition of Louisbourg, I
could not forbear to consider how differently t