I laboured
with great assiduity, until I made myself perfect in the knowledge of
stones, as well as in the different methods of setting them off to the
best advantage; and having, by dint of industry and address, got
possession of a small parcel, set out for this kingdom, in which I
happily arrived about four months ago; and surely England is the paradise
of artists of our profession.

"One would imagine that nature had created the inhabitants for the
support and enjoyment of adventurers like you and me. Not that these
islanders open the arms of hospitality to all foreigners without
distinction. On the contrary, they inherit from their fathers an
unreasonable prejudice against all nations under the sun; and when an
Englishman happens to quarrel with a stranger, the first term of reproach
he uses is the name of his antagonist's country, characterised by some
opprobrious epithet, such as a chattering Frenchman, an Italian ape, a
German hog, and a beastly Dutchman; nay, their national prepossession is
maintained even against those people with whom they are united under the
same laws and government; for nothing is more common than to hear them
exclaim against their fellow-subjects, in the expressions of a beggarly
Scot, and an impudent Irish bog-trotter. Yet this very prejudice will
never fail to turn to the account of every stranger possessed of ordinary
talents; for he will always find opportunities of conversing with them in
coffee-houses and places of public resort, in spite of their professed
reserve, which, by the bye, is so extraordinary, that I know some people
who have lived twenty years in the same house without exchanging one word
with their next-door neighbours; yet, provided he can talk sensibly, and
preserve the deportment of a sober gentleman, in those occasional
conversations, his behaviour will be the more remarkably pleasing, as it
will agreeably disappoint the expectation of the person who had
entertained notions to his prejudice. When a foreigner has once crossed
this bar, which perpetually occurs, he sails without further difficulty
into the harbour of an Englishman's goodwill; for the pique is neither
personal nor rancorous, but rather contemptuous and national; so that,
while he despises a people in the lump, an individual of that very
community may be one of his chief favourites.

"The English are in general upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting
and credulous. They are too much engrossed