e was
accepted among the number. Our labours went on lightly, we turned
the swath to the wind, I went foremost, and the rest followed in due
succession. I could not avoid, however, observing the assiduity of Mr
Burchell in assisting my daughter Sophia in her part of the task. When
he had finished his own, he would join in her's, and enter into a close
conversation: but I had too good an opinion of Sophia's understanding,
and was too well convinced of her ambition, to be under any uneasiness
from a man of broken fortune. When we were finished for the day, Mr
Burchell was invited as on the night before; but he refused, as he was
to lie that night at a neighbour's, to whose child he was carrying a
whistle. When gone, our conversation at supper turned upon our late
unfortunate guest. 'What a strong instance,' said I, 'is that poor man
of the miseries attending a youth of levity and extravagance. He by no
means wants sense, which only serves to aggravate his former folly. Poor
forlorn creature, where are now the revellers, the flatterers, that
he could once inspire and command! Gone, perhaps, to attend the bagnio
pander, grown rich by his extravagance. They once praised him, and
now they applaud the pander: their former raptures at his wit, are now
converted into sarcasms at his folly: he is poor, and perhaps deserves
poverty; for he has neither the ambition to be independent, nor the
skill to be useful.' Prompted, perhaps, by some secret reasons, I
delivered this observation with too much acrimony, which my Sophia
gently reproved. 'Whatsoever his former conduct may be, pappa, his
circumstances should exempt him from censure now. His present indigence
is a sufficient punishment for former folly; and I have heard my pappa
himself say, that we should never strike our unnecessary blow at a
victim over whom providence holds the scourge of its resentment.'--'You
are right, Sophy,' cried my son Moses, 'and one of the ancients finely
represents so malicious a conduct, by the attempts of a rustic to flay
Marsyas, whose skin, the fable tells us, had been wholly stript off by
another.' Besides, I don't know if this poor man's situation be so bad
as my father would represent it. We are not to judge of the feelings
of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the
habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the
apartment sufficiently lightsome. And to confess a truth, this man's
mind seems fitted to