once a week, so whimsically treated by some of them, that I am resolved to speak out, and spare not.

"There are many young ladies, and, what is worse, many old ladies, within the bills of mortality, that every Saturday, while their houses are cleaning, take a fancy to have business with me, for no other reason in the world but because they cannot tell how else to dispose of themselves. For you must know that I am a mercer. They swim into my shop by shoals, not with the least intention to buy, but only to hear my silks rustle, and fill up their own leisure by putting me into full employment. So they tumble over my goods, and deafen me with a round of questions; till, having found nothing in my shop to their fancy, as they call it, they toss themselves again into their coaches, and drive on the persecution, to the terror and disturbance of most of the honest shopkeepers from one end of the town to the other.

"Last Saturday, at two in the afternoon, I sent out my servant to watch a couple of these silken strollers, and keep, if possible within ken of them. They undressed about a dozen shops, without stripping themselves of a single shilling; and at six my man returned, out of breath, and told me, that he had left them cheapening sugars beyond Norton-falgate. But presently they came back, and saw my next neighbour, a linendraper, at his door. They pulled their coachman by the thumb, and broke in upon him, having bethought themselves that they must see some cambrics. My neighbour knew them; for they were his customers of five years' standing, during all which time he had never taken any of their money. But they had done him the honour to lean over his counter, find fault with everything he could show them, exclaim at his frightful prices, and make it a rule with them, to bid nothing. He

turned over his whole variety of cambrics, and had the unexpected good fortune, after the prettiest doubtings and hesitations in the world, to fix their determination; for they pitched upon a particular piece, and ordered him to cut off enough for a tucker.

“The worst of all is, that these unprofitable wayward visitors frequently keep buying customers out of our shops. Pray, Mr. Plaindealer reprimand them for the good of trade and the ease and deliverance of

Yours, &c."

CHAP. IX.

Other reasons for the tradesman's disasters; and first, of innocent diversions, as they are called: how fatal to the tradesman, especially to the younger sort.

TRADE is a straight and direct road, but there are many turnings and openings in it, both to the right hand and to the left, in which, if a tradesman but once ventures to step awry, it is ten thousand to one but he loses himself, and very rarely finds his way back again; at least, if he does, it is like a man that has been lost in a wood, he comes out with a scratched face and torn clothes, tired and spent, and does not recover himself in a long while after.

In a word, one steady motion carries him up, but many things assist to pull him down; there are many ways open to his ruin, but few to his rising;

C. E. T. I.

F

and though employment is said to be the best fence against temptations, and he that is busy heartily in his business, temptations to idleness and negligence will not be so busy about him, yet tradesmen are as often drawn from their business as other men; and when they are so, it is more fatal to them a great deal, than it is to gentlemen and persons whose employments do not call for their personal attendance so much as a shop does.

Among the many turnings and by-lanes which are to be met with in the straight road of trade, there are two as dangerous and fatal to the tradesman's prosperity as the worst, though they both carry an appearance of good, and promise contrary to what they perform; these are,

1. Pleasures and diversions, especially such as they will have us call innocent diversions.

2. Projects and adventures, and especially such as promise mountains of profit, and are therefore the more likely to ensnare the avaricious tradesman. Of this last I have already spoken in my fourth chapter.

I am, therefore, now to speak of the first, viz. pleasures and diversions. I cannot allow any pleasures to be innocent when they turn away either the body or the mind of a tradesman from the one needful thing, which his calling makes necessary; I mean, the application both of his hands and head to his business; those pleasures and diversions may be innocent in themselves, which are not so to him.

When I see young shopkeepers keep horses, ride a hunting, learn dog-language, and keep the sportsmen's brogue upon their tongues, I am always afraid for them, especially when I know that either their fortunes and beginnings are below it, or that their trades are such as in a particular manner require their constant attendance; as to see a barber abroad

on a Saturday, a cornfactor on a Wednesday and Friday, or a Blackwell-hall man on a Thursday; you may as well say a country shopkeeper should go a hunting on a market-day, or go a feasting at the fair day of the town where he lives; and yet riding and hunting are otherwise lawful diversions, and, in their kind, very good for exercise and health.

I am not for making a galley-slave of a shopkeeper, and have him chained down to the oar; but if he be a wise, a prudent, and a diligent tradesman, he will allow himself as few excursions as possible.

Business neglected is business lost; it is true, there are some businesses which require less attendance than others, and give a man less occasion of application; but in general that tradesman who can satisfy himself to be absent from his business, must not expect success; if he is above the character of a diligent tradesman, he must then be above the business too, and should leave it to somebody that will think it worth his while to mind it better.

Nor, indeed, is it possible a tradesman should be master of any of the qualifications which I have set down to denominate him complete, if he neglects his shop and his time, following his pleasures and diversions.

For a tradesman to follow his pleasures, which indeed is generally attended with a slighting his business, leaving his shop to servants or others, it is evident that his heart is not in his business; that he does not delight in it or look on it with pleasure. To a complete tradesman there is no pleasure equal to that of being in his business, no delight equal to that of seeing trade flow in upon him, and to be satisfied that he goes on prosperously. He will never thrive that cares not whether he thrives or no; as trade is the chief employment of his life, and

is therefore called, by way of eminence, his business, so it should be made the chief delight of his life; the tradesman that does not love his business will never give it due attendance.

Pleasure is a bait to the mind, and the mind will attract the body; where the heart is, that object shall always have the body's company. The great objection I meet with from some young tradesmen against this argument is, they follow no unlawful pleasures; they do not spend their time in taverns and drinking to excess; they do not spend their money in gaming, and so stock-starve their business, and rob the shop to supply the extravagant losses of play; or they do not spend their hours in ill company and debaucheries; all they do is a little innocent diversion, in riding abroad now and then for the air and for their health, and to ease their thoughts of the throng of other affairs, which are too heavy upon them, &c.

These, I say, are the excuses of young tradesmen; and, indeed, they are young excuses; and I may say truly, have nothing in them. It is perhaps true, or I may grant it so for the present purpose, that the pleasures which such a tradesman takes are, as he says, not unlawful in themselves; but the case is quite altered by the extent of the thing; and the innocence lies not in the nature of the thing, nor in the diversion or pleasure that is taken, but in the time it takes; for if the man spends the time in it which should be spent in his shop or warehouse, and his business suffers by his absence, as it must do if the absence is long at a time, or often practised, the diversion so taken becomes criminal to him, though the same diversion might be innocent in another.

Thus I have heard a young tradesman, who loved his bottle, excuse himself, and say, 'Tis true I