orm. I have picked up charity boys to serve me: who
soon after have quitted both my kitchen and livery, only that they might
return to their former course of life; and I found one afterwards,
picking mussels out of the sewer for his dinner, whom I could neither by
entreaties nor threats reclaim from the sweetness he found in indigence.
Beggars have their magnificences and delights, as well as the rich, and,
'tis said, their dignities and polities. These are the effects of
custom; she can mould us, not only into what form she pleases (the sages
say we ought to apply ourselves to the best, which she will soon make
easy to us), but also to change and variation, which is the most noble
and most useful instruction of all she teaches us. The best of my bodily
conditions is that I am flexible and not very obstinate: I have
inclinations more my own and ordinary, and more agreeable than others;
but I am diverted from them with very little ado, and easily slip into a
contrary course. A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awaken his
vigour and to keep it from growing faint and rusty; and there is no
course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule
and discipline;

"Ad primum lapidem vectari quum placet, hora
Sumitur ex libro; si prurit frictus ocelli
Angulus, inspecta genesi, collyria quaerit;"

["When he is pleased to have himself carried to the first milestone,
the hour is chosen from the almanac; if he but rub the corner of his
eye, his horoscope having been examined, he seeks the aid of
salves."---Juvenal, vi. 576.]

he shall often throw himself even into excesses, if he will take my
advice; otherwise the least debauch will destroy him, and render him
troublesome and disagreeable in company. The worst quality in a
well-bred man is over-fastidiousness, and an obligation to a certain
particular way; and it is particular, if not pliable and supple. It is a
kind of reproach, not to be able, or not to dare, to do what we see those
about us do; let such as these stop at home. It is in every man
unbecoming, but in a soldier vicious and intolerable: who, as Philopcemen
said, ought to accustom himself to every variety and inequality of life.

Though I have been brought up, as much as was possible, to liberty and
independence, yet so it is that, growing old, and having by indifference
more settled upon certain forms (my age is now past instruction,