patron, and his
love for the youth he had dandled on his knee in childhood, like the
timorous, yet anxious ally of an invaded nation, endeavoured at every
blunder I made to explain my no-meaning, and to cover my retreat;
manoeuvres which added to my father's pettish displeasure, and brought a
share of it upon my kind advocate, instead of protecting me. I had not,
while residing in the house of Dubourg, absolutely conducted myself like

A clerk condemn'd his father's soul to cross,
Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross;--

but, to say truth, I had frequented the counting-house no more than I had
thought absolutely necessary to secure the good report of the Frenchman,
long a correspondent of our firm, to whom my father had trusted for
initiating me into the mysteries of commerce. In fact, my principal
attention had been dedicated to literature and manly exercises. My father
did not altogether discourage such acquirements, whether mental or
personal. He had too much good sense not to perceive, that they sate
gracefully upon every man, and he was sensible that they relieved and
dignified the character to which he wished me to aspire. But his chief
ambition was, that I should succeed not merely to his fortune, but to the
views and plans by which he imagined he could extend and perpetuate the
wealthy inheritance which he designed for me.

Love of his profession was the motive which he chose should be most
ostensible, when he urged me to tread the same path; but he had others
with which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in his
schemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, when
successful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, for
farther speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitious
conqueror, to push on from achievement to achievement, without stopping
to secure, far less to enjoy, the acquisitions which he made. Accustomed
to see his whole fortune trembling in the scales of chance, and dexterous
at adopting expedients for casting the balance in his favour, his health
and spirits and activity seemed ever to increase with the animating
hazards on which he staked his wealth; and he resembled a sailor,
accustomed to brave the billows and the foe, whose confidence rises on
the eve of tempest or of battle. He was not, however, insensible to the
changes which increasing age or supervening malady might make in his own
constitutio