N° 450.

Wednesday, Auguft 6.

Quærenda pecunia primùm,

Virtus poft nummos.

HOR. Ep. 1. 1. v. 53.

POPE.

Get money, money ftill;

And then let virtue follow if the will,

Mr. SPECTATOR,

ALL men through different paths, make at the

fame common thing, Money; and it is to her we owe the politician,. the merchant, and the lawyer; nay, to be free with you, I believe to that alfo we are beholden for our SPECTATOR. I am apt to think, that could we look into our own hearts, we should fee money engraved in them in more lively and moving characters than felf-prefervation; for who can reflect upon the merchant hoiting fail in a doubtful purfuit of her, and all mankind facrificing their quiet to her, but muft perceive that the characters of selfprefervation (which were doubtlefs originally the brighteft) are fullied, if not wholly defaced; and that thofe of money (which at firft was only valuable as a mean to fecurity) are of late fo brightened, that the characters of felf-prefervation, like a lefs light fet by a greater, are become almost imperceptible? Thus has money got the upper-hand of what all mankind formerly thought mot dear, viz. fecurity; and I with I could fay fhe had here put a stop to her victories; but, alas! common honefty fell a facrifice to her. This is the way fcholaftic men talk of the greateft good in the world: but I, a tradefman, fhall give you another account of this matter in the plain narrative of my own life. I think it proper in the first place to acquaint my readers, that fince my fetting out in the world, which was in the year 1660, I never wanted money; having begun with an indifferent good stock

in the tobacco-trade to which I was bred; and by the continual fucceffes, it has pleafed Providence to ⚫ bless my endeavours with, am at laft arrived to what they call a Plumb. To uphold my difcourfe in the manner of your wits or philofophers, by fpeaking fine things, or drawing inferences, as they pretend, from the nature of the fubject, I account it vain; having never found any thing in the writings of fuch men, that did not favour more of the invention of the brain, or what is ftyled fpeculation, than of found judgment or profitable obfervation. I will readily grant indeed, that there is what the wits call natural in their talk; which is the utmost thofe curious authors can affume to themfelves, and is indeed all they endeavour at, for they are but lamentable teachers And what, I pray, is

natural? That which is pleafing and eafy: and what are pleafing and eafy? Forfooth a new thought or ⚫ conceit dreffed up in fmooth quaint language, to make you finile and wag your head, as being what you never imagined before, and yet wonder why you had not; mere frothy amufements! fit only for boys or filly women to be caught with.

It is not my present intention to inftruct my readers in the methods of acquiring riches; that may be the 'work of another effay: but to exhibit the real and ⚫ folid advantages I have found by them in my long and manifold experience; nor yet all the advantages of fo worthy and valuable a blessing, (for who does not know or imagine the comforts of being warm or living at eafe? and that power and pre-eminence are their infeparable attendants?) but only to inftance the great fupports they afford us under the fevereft calamities ⚫ and misfortunes; to show that the love of them is a fpecial antidote againft immorality and vice, and that the fame does likewife naturally difpofe men to actions ' of piety and devotion: all which I can make out by my own experience, who think myself no ways parti'cular from the reft of mankind, nor better nor worfe by nature than generally other men are.

In the year 1665, when the fickness was, I loft by it my wife and two children, which were all my ftock. Probably I might have had more, confidering

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I was married between four and five years; but finding her to be a teeming woman, I was careful, as having ⚫ then little above a brace of thousand pounds to carry on my trade and maintain a family with. I loved then as ufually men do their wives and children, and therefore could not refift the first impulses of nature on fo wounding a lofs; but I quickly roused myself, and found means to alleviate, and at last conquered my affliction, by reflecting how that the and her children having been no great expence to me, the best of part her fortune was fill let; that my charge being reduced to myself, a journeyman, and a maid, I might live far cheaper than before; and that being now a childless widower, I might perhaps marry a no lefs deferving woman, and with a much better fortune than fhe brought, which was but eight hundred pounds. And to convince my readers that fuch confiderations as these were proper and apt to produce fuch an effect, I remember it was the conftant obfervation at that deplorable time when fo many hundreds were fwept away V daily, that the rich ever bore the lofs of their families and relations far better than the poor; the latter having little or nothing beforehand, and living from hand to mouth, placed the whole comfort and fatif⚫faction of their lives in their wives and children, and were therefore inconfolable.

The following year happened the fire; at which time, by good providence, it was my fortune to have converted the greatest part of my effects into ready money, on the prospect of an extraordinary advantage which I was preparing to lay hold on. This calamity was very terrible and aftonishing, the fury of the flames being fuch, that whole streets, at feveral diftant places, were destroyed at one and the fame time, so that, as it is well known, almost all our citizens were burnt out of what they had. But what did I then do? I did not stand gazing on the ruins of our noble metropolis; I did not thake my head, wring my hands, figh and shed tears; I confidered with myself what could this avail; I fell a plodding what advantages might be made of the ready cash I had, and immediately bethought myself that wonderful pennyworths

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might be bought of the goods that were faved out of the fire. In thort, with about two thousand pounds and a little credit, I bought as much tobacco as raifed my estate to the value of ten thousand pounds. I then looked on the afhes of our city, and the mifery of its late inhabitants, - a - as an effect of the juft wrath ard indignation of heaven towards a finful and perverte people."

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After this I married again, and that wife dying, 'I took another, but both proved to be idle baggages: the first gave me a great deal of plague ard vexation by her extravagancies, and became one of the byewords of the city. I knew it would be to no manner of purpose to go about to curb the fancies and in'clinations of women, which fly out the more for being reftrained; but what I could I did, I watched her narrowly, and by good luck found her in the embraces, for which I had two witnesses with me, of a wealthy fpark of the court-end of the town; of ⚫ whom I recovered fifteen thousand pounds, which • made me amends for what the had idly fquandered,

and put a filence to all my neighbours, taking off my ↑ reproach by the gain they faw I had by it. The latt • died about two years after I inarried her, in labour of three children. I conjecture they were begot by a country kinfman of hers, whom, at her recoinmendation, I took into my family, and gave wages to as a journeyman. What this creature expended in delicacies and high diet with her kinfman, as well as I could compute by the poulterer's, fishmonger's, and grocer's bills, amounted in the faid two years to one hundred eighty fix pounds, four fhillings, and five pence halfpenny. The fine apparel, bracelets, lockets, and treats, ⚫ &c. of the other, according to the beft calculation, came ⚫ in three years and about three quarters, to feven hundred forty-four pounds, feven fhillings and nine pence. • After this I refolved never to marry more, and found I had been a gairer by my marriages, and the damages granted me for the abufes of my bed, all charges deducted, eight thoufand three hundred • pounds within a trifle.

'I come now to fhew the good effects of the love of money on the lives of men towards rendering them honeft, fober and religious. When I was a young man, I had a mind to make the best of my wits, and ' over-reached a country-chap in a parcel of unfound goods; to whom, upon his upbraiding, and threatening to expofe me for it, I returned the equivalent of his lofs; and upon his good advice, wherein he clearly demonftrated the folly of fuch artifices, which can never end but in shame, and the ruin of all correfpondence, I never after tranfgreffed. Can your courtiers, who take bribes, or your lawyers or physicians in their practice, or even the divines who intermeddle in worldly affairs, boast of making but one flip in their lives, and of fuch a thorough and lafting reformation? Since my coming into the world I do not re'member I was ever overtaken in drink, fave nine times, once at the chriftening of my first child, thrice at our city feafts, and five times at driving of bargains. My reformation I can attribute to nothing fo much as the love and efteem of money, for I found myself to be extravagant in my drink, and apt to turn projec'tor, and make rash bargains. As for women, I never knew any except my wives: for my reader must 'know, and it is what he may confide in as an excellent recipe, that the love of bufinefs and money is the greatest mortifier of inordinate defires imaginable, as employing the mind continually in the careful overfight of what one has, in the eager queft after more, in looking after the negligence and deceits of fervants, in the due entering and ftating of accounts, in hunting after chaps, and in the exact knowledge of the state of markets; which things whoever thoroughly attends, ⚫ will find enough and enough to employ his thoughts on every moment of the day; fo that I cannot call to mind, that in all the time I was a husband, which ' off and on, was about twelve years, I ever once thought of my wives but in bed. And lastly, for religion, I have ever been a conftant churchman, both forenoons and afternoons on Sundays, never forgetting to be thankful for any gain or advantage I had had that day; and on Saturday nights, upon cafting up my

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