To fee God fervde, and Belzebub fuppreft.
You fhulde not truft Lieftenaunts in your Rome
And let them fway the Sceptre of your Charge,
Whiles you, meanwhile, know fcarcely what is done,
Nor yet can yeld an Accompt if you were callde."

The Early Years of The Laft of the Old
Squires, His Education, &c.

"'Tis by Degrees that Men arrive at glad
Profit in Aught; each Day fome Little add
In Time 'twill be a Heap; this is not true
Alone in Money, but in Manners too.
Yet we must more than move ftill, or go on,
We must accomplish; 'tis the last Keye-stone
That makes the Arch; the reft that there were put
Are Nothing till that comes to bind and shut.
Then ftands it a triumphal Mark! then Men

Obferve the Strength, the Height, the why, the where,
It was erected; and still walking under,

Meet fome new Matter to look up, and wonder!
Such Notes are virtuous Men! they live as faft
As they are high; are rooted, and will last."

N the two preceding Chapters, Something has been faid of the OLD SQUIRES in general,—of those highbred Gentlemen of the Old School, as contradiftinguished from thofe, who, "fwearing and

BEN JONSON. Epiftle to Sir Ed

ward Sackvile.

SPENSER, Faerie Queene, B. v. C. viii. St. xxviii.

banning most blafphemously," brought an ill Name upon a Race of Men who never brought an ill Name upon themselves, or upon the Country they loved with a full and devoted Heart. In the Chapters which follow there will likewise be a good deal of Generalities, but, "The History of the Life of THE Last of the OLD SQUIRES" has much that is particular in it,--much that came under the Writer's own Eyes and Ears, 'tis much short of fixty Years fince. At the fame Time, it is not quite a real Life; the Lives of many, dear to the Memory of the Living, must fill up the more perfect Sketch, and many fuch happy England could boast of in the olden Time! This much premised, gentle Reader, I will use MR. RICHARD BRATHWAIT'Ss Words in THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN, and commence the Narrative. "As to speak all that we know, fhoweth Weakness; fo, to impart Nothing of that we know infers too much Closeness; to obferve a Mean in these Extremes, choice Refpect is to be had with

whom we converfe."

Many are still living who were born in the three 777's and there was an Idea of long standing, that to have been born in that Year was fortunate. About this I know Nothing.

I

only call to my Recollection that that merciful Man and brave Officer of the Swift-fure, who manned the Boats to fave the poor Sailors struggling on the Water, after the Blowing-up of the L'ORIENT, at the Battle of the Nile, was born in that Year; and that an Adventurer in the Back-woods of Canada, who had loft himself for Weeks, and was reduced to the last Extremities by Famine, attributed his Prefervation (under God) to the fame lucky Coincidence. Five Weeks was it before the Indians, into whofe Hands he fell, would allow him to look in a Glafs, fo hunger-ftricken and Ugolino-like was his Visage! If a Savage, the Red Indian unperverted by Civilization and Rum is, in his own Woods and on his own Huntinggrounds, effentially a Gentleman!

But, to return from a Digreffion, THE LAST OF THE OLD SQUIRES was not born in the three 777's, but fome fix or feven Years before, and, as he used to say to his Children when preffed, on a MOVEABLE FEAST. From fome Whim or another, he never fpoke of his Birth-day otherwise; but in after Years they had Reason to know that it was Eafter Sunday, on which Day, Health permitting, he never failed to lead his People to the Holy Table. Example, as

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Acti. Sc. ii.

he always told them, was more efficacious than Precept. And, in Truth, he was no great Talker at any Time.

Being the youngest of two Sons, he had not a College-education, as most of the OLD SQUIRES had. His Brother JOHN went to College and distinguished himself, but died young and beloved. He feldom, in after Life, mentioned his Name, but when he did, it was with much Emotion. Men of strong, deep Feeling, fometimes conceal it, left they should show what the World calls a Weakness, and this was THE LAST OF THE OLD SQUIRES' Weakness! But he had a grand Heart, nevertheless, and fuch as were in Need, Sickness, or any other Adverfity, had great Caufe to know it! Perhaps, after all, the " ftudious Universities," as Shakespeare calls them, would not have mended him in this Way. Still he did not,

Dully fluggardized at Home,

Wear out his youth with shapeless Idlenefs;'

On the contrary, having had fuch Instruction as the best Schools in the Country could afford, he reaped as full a Harveft as Obfervation of Life and Manners threw in his Way; and thus

try'd and tutor'd in the World,” few Men furpaffed him in reading Character. No Man