an will take him for current; with money in his hand, indeed, he
may go to the merchant's warehouse and buy any thing, but no body will
deal with him without it: he may write upon his edged hat, as a certain
tradesman, after having been once broke and set up again, 'I neither
give nor take credit:' and as others set up in their shops, 'No trust by
retail,' so he may say, 'No trust by wholesale.' In short, thus
equipped, he is truly a tradesman in masquerade, and must pass for such
wherever he is known. How long it may be before his dress and he may
suit, it not hard to guess.

Some will have it that this expensive way of living began among the
tradesmen first, that is to say, among the citizens of London; and that
their eager resolved pursuit of that empty and meanest kind of pride,
called imitation, namely, to look like the gentry, and appear above
themselves, drew them into it. It has indeed been a fatal custom, but
it has been too long a city vanity. If men of quality lived like
themselves, men of no quality would strive to live not like themselves:
if those had plenty, these would have profusion; if those had enough,
these would have excess; if those had what was good, these would have
what was rare and exotic; I mean as to season, and consequently dear.
And this is one of the ways that have worn out so many tradesmen before
their time.

This extravagance, wherever it began, had its first rise among those
sorts of tradesmen, who, scorning the society of their shops and
customers, applied themselves to rambling to courts and plays; kept
company above themselves, and spent their hours in such company as lives
always above them; this could not but bring great expense along with it,
and that expense would not be confined to the bare keeping such company
abroad, but soon showed itself in a living like them at home, whether
the tradesmen could support it or no.

Keeping high company abroad certainly brings on visitings and high
treatings at home; and these are attended with costly furniture, rich
clothes, and dainty tables. How these things agree with a tradesman's
income, it is easy to suggest; and that, in short, these measures have
sent so many tradesmen to the Mint and to the Fleet, where I am witness
to it that they have still carried on their expensive living till they
have come at last to starving and misery; but have been so used to it,
they could not abate it, or at least not quite leave it off, though they
wa