there it is sufficiently troublesome, and darkens those moments with
expectation, suspence, uncertainty and resentment, which are set aside
for the softer pleasures of life, and from which we naturally hope for
unmingled enjoyment, and total relaxation. But he that suffers the
slightest breach in his morality, can seldom tell what shall enter it,
or how wide it shall be made; when a passage is opened, the influx of
corruption is every moment wearing down opposition, and by slow degrees
deluges the heart.

9. _Aliger_ entered into the world a youth of lively imagination,
extensive views, and untainted principles. His curiosity incited him to
range from place to place, and try all the varieties of conversation;
his elegance of address and fertility of ideas gained him friends
wherever he appeared; or at least he found the general kindness of
reception always shewn to a young man whose birth and fortune gave him a
claim to notice, and who has neither by vice or folly destroyed his
privileges.

10. _Aliger_ was pleased with this general smile of mankind, and being
naturally gentle and flexible, was industrious to preserve it by
compliance and officiousness, but did not suffer his desire of pleasing
to vitiate his integrity. It was his established maxim, that a promise
is never to be broken; nor was it without long reluctance that he once
suffered himself to be drawn away from a festal engagement by the
importunity of another company.

11. He spent the evening, as is usual in the rudiments of vice, with
perturbation and imperfect enjoyment, and met his disappointed friends
in the morning with confusion and excuses. His companions, not
accustomed to such scrupulous anxiety, laughed at his uneasiness,
compounded the offence for a bottle, gave him courage to break his word
again, and again levied the penalty.

12. He ventured the same experiment upon another society; and found them
equally ready to consider it as a venial fault, always incident to a man
of quickness and gaiety; till by degrees he began to think himself at
liberty to follow the last invitation, and was no longer shocked at the
turpitude of falsehood. He made no difficulty to promise his presence at
distant places, and if listlessness happened to creep upon him, would
sit at home with great tranquillity, and has often, while he sunk to
sleep in a chair, held ten tables in continual expectation of his
entrance.

13. He found it so pleasant to live in perpet