ment to determine me to leave my
retreat. I therefore chose to make the advised tour before I went into
the north. As the pleasure arising from a variety of beautiful objects
is but half enjoyed when we have no one to share it with us, I accepted
the offer Mr Lamont (the son of my old friend) made of accompanying me
in my journey. As this young gentleman has not the good fortune to be
known to you, it may not be amiss, as will appear in the sequel, to let
you into his character.

Mr Lamont is a young man of about twenty-five years of age, of an
agreeable person, and lively understanding; both perhaps have concurred
to render him a coxcomb. The vivacity of his parts soon gained him such
a degree of encouragement as excited his vanity, and raised in him a
high opinion of himself. A very generous father enabled him to partake
of every fashionable amusement, and the natural bent of his mind soon
led him into all the dissipation which the gay world affords. Useful and
improving studies were laid aside for such desultory reading as he found
most proper to furnish him with topics for conversation in the idle
societies he frequented. Thus that vivacity, which, properly qualified,
might have become true wit, degenerated into pertness and impertinence.
A consciousness of an understanding, which he never exerted, rendered
him conceited; those talents which nature kindly bestowed upon him, by
being perverted, gave rise to his greatest faults. His reasoning
faculty, by a partial and superficial use, led him to infidelity, and
the desire of being thought superiorly distinguishing established him an
infidel. Fashion, not reason, has been the guide of all his thoughts and
actions. But with these faults he is good-natured, and not
unentertaining, especially in a tete-a-tete, where he does not desire to
shine, and therefore his vanity lies dormant and suffers the best
qualifications of his mind to break forth. This induced me to accept him
as a fellow traveller.

We proceeded on our journey as far as Cornwall, without meeting with any
other than the usual incidents of the road, till one afternoon, when our
chaise broke down. The worst circumstance attending this accident was
our being several miles from a town, and so ignorant of the country,
that we knew not whether there was any village within a moderate
distance. We sent the postilion on my man's horse to the next town to
fetch a smith, and leaving my servant to guard the chaise, Mr