anionship could give me, and where was I to look for it?
Among the scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends of
yore? Alas!

"Many a lad I loved was dead,
And many a lass grown old."

Besides, all community of ties between us had ceased to exist, and
such of former friends as were still in the world held their life in a
different tenor from what I did.

Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving sixpence as ever
they had been in spending a guinea. Some had turned agriculturists;
their talk was of oxen, and they were only fit companions for graziers.
Some stuck to cards, and though no longer deep gamblers, rather played
small game than sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong
impulse of gaming, alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it
is criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can conceive
how it should become a passion with strong and powerful minds. But to
dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round a green
table for the piddling concern of a few shillings, can only be excused
in folly or superannuation. It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where
your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward; it is a kind of
mental treadmill, where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise
an inch. From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated
for one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by
Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day--the
club-room, and the snug hand at whist.

To return to my old companions. Some frequented public assemblies, like
the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of half a century back, thrust
aside by tittering youth, and pitied by those of their own age. In fine,
some went into devotion, as the French term it, and others, I fear, went
to the devil; a few found resources in science and letters; one or two
turned philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became
familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took to
reading, and I was one of them.

Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me--some painful
recollections of early faults and follies--some touch of displeasure
with living mankind--inclined me rather to a study of antiquities, and
particularly those of my own country. The reader, if I can prevail on
myself to continue the present work, will probably be able to judge in
the course of it whether I have