MR. BORRAGE.

*

THIS gentleman was the son of a farmer, near Taunton; and having lost his father and mother when he was hardly ten years of age, received his education from his grandmother, who took a particular care to infuse in him, what she called the essence of virtue-Economy. Not poor, yet niggardly parsimonious, she found in her pupil a mind naturally apt to imbibe her principles. She sent him to school at Wellington, where he learned, with amazing quickness, the elements of writing, and the multiplication-table. At fifteen he was articled to an attorney at Bridgewater, where the genial turn of his mind apprehended, with uncommon facility, all the tricks and mysteries of chicane. His master, who had been for

Industry and Economy the Parents of Wealth.

many years the land-steward of a dozen of country squires in the neighbourhood, finding in young Borrage a fit person to succeed him in a business so profitable, and from which he intended soon to retire, promised him, as a reward for his assiduity to the desk, and his ability at reckoning and swelling accounts, and at last gave him, his daughter in marriage.

Industry and economy are always sure to produce riches; and, possessing these two qualities in an eminent degree, Mr. Borrage soon perceived that the precious stream of Pactolus had taken its course through his enlarged premises. But the country was not a stage sufficiently extensive to display his talents; he sold his concern to advantage, and, speculating still farther on the means of increasing his fortune, repaired to the metropolis, where his daily and most important correspondence had made him already well known as a most intelligent Attorney,

A Change in his Character.

A Latin poet, well known for the sagacity and justness of his observations, has said, that those who travel may change place, but do not change their temper *; however, this cannot be applied to Mr. Borrage, for as soon as he had made his establishment in one of the first squares of the west end of the town, and opened an office in one of the inns, all his, bent for economy and industry was biassed by the many temptations daily offered to him. He grew proud, and launched, blindfolded, in all sorts of extravagancies. Leaving to his clerks the burthen of business, he would never condescend to take any trouble about his clients, except when they were of the first rate, and nothing short of a coronet could obtain a personal consultation from him.

His wife rushed, on her side, into all

*Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare curruntHORAT,

Effects of plebeian Pride.

the follies and expences of fashion and high life, and, too much addicted to gambling speculations, and revelling parties, worked herself soon to a state of stupidity, which nothing could palliate abroad or remedy at home. They had no children living. She separated from her husband, who treated her with sovereign contempt, and retired to Berkshire, her native county, where she ended in a slow decline a life which had become both indifferent to herself and burthensome to her friends.

In a plebeian mind pride is an exotic, heterogeneous plant; it generally destroys the ground it has fermented upon, or soon dies away and leaves nothing behind but foolish insignificancy; like the Jamaica raven, who; when he courts the hens of the farmer's yard, produces an offspring whose birth causes the death of the mother fowl, its effects are monstrous, and the stifling of all good qualities there im