e promises of the wheedling projector, and
to see which are likely to answer, or which not; to examine all his
specious pretences, his calculations and figures, and see whether they
are as likely to answer the end as he takes upon him to say they will;
to make allowances for all his fine flourishes and outsides, and then to
judge for himself. A projector is to a tradesman a kind of incendiary;
he is in a constant plot to blow him up, or set fire to him; for
projects are generally as fatal to a tradesman as fire in a magazine of
gunpowder.

The honest tradesman is always in danger, and cannot be too wary; and
therefore to fortify his judgment, that he may be able to guard against
such people as these, is one of the most necessary things I can do for
him.

In order, then, to direct the tradesman how to furnish himself thus with
a needful stock of trading knowledge, first, I shall propose to him to
converse with tradesmen chiefly: he that will be a tradesman should
confine himself within his own sphere: never was the Gazette so full of
the advertisements of commissions of bankrupt as since our shopkeepers
are so much engaged in parties, formed into clubs to hear news, and read
journals and politics; in short, when tradesmen turn statesmen, they
should either shut up their shops, or hire somebody else to look after
them.

The known story of the upholsterer is very instructive,[10] who, in his
abundant concern for the public, ran himself out of his business into a
jail; and even when he was in prison, could not sleep for the concern he
had for the liberties of his dear country: the man was a good patriot,
but a bad shopkeeper; and, indeed, should rather have shut up his shop,
and got a commission in the army, and then he had served his country in
the way of his calling. But I may speak to this more in its turn.

My present subject is not the negative, what he should not do, but the
affirmative, what he should do; I say, he should take all occasions to
converse within the circuit of his own sphere, that is, dwell upon the
subject of trade in his conversation, and sort with and converse among
tradesmen as much as he can; as writing teaches to write--_scribendo
discis scribere_--so conversing among tradesmen will make him a
tradesman. I need not explain this so critically as to tell you I do not
mean he should confine or restrain himself entirely from all manner of
conversation but among his own class: I shall speak to that