t
remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find that during my
nonage I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always
the favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say that _my parts
were solid and would wear well_. I had not been long at the
university before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence;
for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public
exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an
hundred words; and, indeed, I do not remember that I ever spoke
three sentences together in my whole life....

"I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently
seen in most public places, though there are not more than half a
dozen of my select friends that know me.... There is no place of
general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes
I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's,
and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made
in these little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at
Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_,
overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on
Tuesday night at St. James's Coffee-house; and sometimes join the
little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes to
hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the
Grecian, the 'Cocoa-Tree', and in the theatres both of Drury Lane
and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the
Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in
the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I
see a cluster of people, I mix with them, though I never open my
lips but in my own club.

"Thus I live in the world rather as a '_Spectator_' of mankind than
as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a
speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever
meddling in any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the
theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the
economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who
are engaged in them--as standers-by discover blots which are apt to
escape those who are in the game.... In short, I have acted, in all
the