of the
upper part of mankind. He told me, I might judge of the happiness of
this state by one thing, viz. that this was the state of life which all
other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable
consequences of being born to great things, and wish they had been
placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the
great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the just
standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty
nor riches.

He bid me observe it, and I should always find, that the calamities of
life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the
middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many
vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not
subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or
mind, as those were, who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances,
on one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean and
insufficient diet, on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves
by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle
station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of
enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle
fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all
agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings
attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently
and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not
embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to
the life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed with perplexed
circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body of rest; not
enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for
great things; but, in easy circumstances, sliding gently through the
world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter,
feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day's experience to
know it more sensibly.

After this, he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate
manner, not to play the young man, not to precipitate myself into
miseries which nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to
have provided against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my
bread; that he would do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly
into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me; a