never take amiss a husband's plainness in that particular case. But I
reserve this to another place, because I am rather directing my
discourse at this time to the tradesman at his beginning, and, as it may
be supposed, unmarried.

Next to the expensive dressing, I place the expensive keeping company,
as one thing fatal to a tradesman, and which, if he would be a complete
tradesman, he should avoid with the utmost diligence. It is an agreeable
thing to be seen in good company; for a man to see himself courted and
valued, and his company desired by men of fashion and distinction, is
very pleasing to any young tradesman, and it is really a snare which a
young tradesman, if he be a man of sense, can very hardly resist. There
is in itself indeed nothing that can be objected against, or is not very
agreeable to the nature of man, and that not to his vicious part merely,
but even to his best faculties; for who would not value himself upon
being, as above, rendered acceptable to men both in station and figure
above themselves? and it is really a piece of excellent advice which a
learned man gave to his son, always to keep company with men above
himself, not with men below himself.

But take me now to be talking, as I really am, not to the man merely,
but to his circumstances, if he were a man of fortune, and had the view
of great things before him, it would hold good; but if he is a young
tradesman, such as I am now speaking of, who is newly entered into
business, and must depend upon his said business for his subsistence and
support, and hopes to raise himself by it--I say, if I am talking to
such a one, I must say to him, that keeping company as above, with men
superior to himself in knowledge, in figure, and estate, is not his
business; for, first, as such conversation must necessarily take up a
great deal of his time, so it ordinarily must occasion a great expense
of money, and both destructive of his prosperity; nay, sometimes the
first may be as fatal to him as the last, and it is oftentimes true in
that sense of trade, that while by keeping company he is drawn out of
his business, his absence from his shop or warehouse is the most fatal
to him; and while he spends one crown in the tavern, he spends forty
crowns' worth of his time; and with this difference, too, which renders
it the worse to the tradesman, namely, that the money may be recovered,
and gotten up again, but the time cannot. For example--

1. Perhaps in