Now, Sir, as I have been making my way for above Forty Years through a Crowd of Cares, (all which, by the Favour of Providence, I have honestly got rid of) is it a time of Day for me to leave off these Fooleries, and to set up a new Character? Can it be worth my while to waste my Spirits, to bake my Blood, with serious Contemplations, and perhaps impair my Health, in the fruitless Study of advancing myself into the better Opinion of those very--very few Wise Men that are as old as I am? No, the Part I have acted in real Life shall be all of a piece,
----_Servetur ad imum, Qualis ab incepto processerit._ Hor.[20]
I will not go out of my Character by straining to be wiser than I _can_ be, or by being more affectedly pensive than I _need_ be; whatever I am, Men of Sense will know me to be, put on what Disguise I will; I can no more put off my Follies than my Skin; I have often try'd, but they stick too close to me; nor am I sure my Friends are displeased with them; for, besides that in this Light I afford them frequent matter of Mirth, they may possibly be less uneasy at their _own_ Foibles when they have so old a Precedent to keep them in Countenance: Nay, there are some frank enough to confess they envy what they laugh at; and when I have seen others, whose Rank and Fortune have laid a sort of Restraint upon their Liberty of pleasing their Company by pleasing themselves, I have said softly to myself,----Well, there is some Advantage in having neither Rank nor Fortune! Not but there are among them a third Sort, who have the particular Happiness of unbending into the very Wantonness of Good-humour without depreciating their Dignity: He that is not Master of that Freedom, let his Condition be never so exalted, must still want something to come up to the Happiness of his Inferiors who enjoy it. If _Socrates_ cou'd take pleasure in playing at _Even or Odd_ with his Children, or _Agesilaus_ divert himself in riding the Hobby-horse with them, am I oblig'd to be as eminent as either of them before I am as frolicksome? If the Emperor _Adrian_, near his death, cou'd play with his very Soul, his _Animula_, &c. and regret that it cou'd be no longer companionable; if Greatness at the same time was not the Delight he was so loth to part with, sure then these chearful Amusements I am contending for must have no inconsiderable share in our Happiness; he that does not chuse to live his own way, suffers others to chuse for him. Give me the Joy I always took in the End of an old Song,