hat which was before but natural inclination. I saw
plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it;
and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I
knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it
was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very
well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to
be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in
a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A
storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage;
though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere,
though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat
at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present
subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in
banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from
renewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same
effect:

Well, then, I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c.

And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his
majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately
convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I
might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no
greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary
fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself,
and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the
elegance of it--

Thou neither great at court, nor in the war,
Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar;
Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c.

However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not
quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a
_corpus perditum_, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of
fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: I
met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments,
but with so much sickness--a new misfortune to me--as would have
spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither
repent nor alter my course; _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_.[3]
Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long,
and have now at last married; though she neither has