nd being angry with you. You may as well stand naked before company,
as to use such familiarities; and to be careless of what you say, is the
most clownish way of being undressed.

_Sheer Lane, May 24._

When I came home this evening, I found the following letters; and
because I think one a very good answer to the other, as well as that it
is the affair of a young lady, it must be immediately dismissed:

"SIR,

"I have a good fortune, partly paternal and partly acquired. My
younger years I spent in business; but age coming on, and having no
more children than one daughter, I resolved to be a slave no
longer: and accordingly I have disposed of my effects, placed my
money in the funds, bought a pretty seat in a pleasant country; am
making a garden, and have set up a pack of little beagles. I live
in the midst of a good many well-bred neighbours, and several
well-tempered clergymen. Against a rainy day I have a little
library; and against the gout in my stomach a little good claret.
With all this I am the miserablest man in the world; not that I've
lost the relish of any of these pleasures, but am distracted with
such a multiplicity of entertaining objects, that I am lost in the
variety. I am in such a hurry of idleness, that I do not know with
what diversion to begin. Therefore, sir, I must beg the favour of
you, when your more weighty affairs will permit, to put me in some
method of doing nothing; for I find Pliny makes a great difference
betwixt _Nihil agere_ and _Agere nihil_; and I fancy, if you would
explain him, you would do a very great kindness to many in Great
Britain, as well as to

"Your humble Servant,
"J. B."

"SIR,

"The enclosed is written by my father in one of his pleasant
humours. He bids me seal it up, and send you a word or two from
myself, which he won't desire to see till he hears of it from you.
Desire him before he begins his method of doing nothing, to have
nothing to do; that is to say, let him marry off his daughter. I
am,

"Your gentle Reader,
"S. B."

[Footnote 274: Eucrates reminds us in some respects of Steele himself.]

[Footnote 2