‘I am glad,’ said he, ‘to hear it. You are not one of the multitude, neither, I believe, am I. I embraced my profession, I assure you, from very disinterested motives. I considered that, the greater the powers of mischief with which that profession is armed, and, I am sorry to add, the practice of mischief in the generality of its professors, the greater might be the scope of philanthropy, in protecting weakness and counteracting oppression. Thus I have passed my life in an attempt to reconcile philanthropy and law. I had property sufficient to enable me to try the experiment. The natural consequence is, my property has vanished. I do not regret it, for I have done some good. But I can do no more. My power is annulled. I must retire from the stage of life. If I retire alone, I must have servants; I had much rather have friends. If you will accompany me to Westmoreland, we will organise a little republic of our own. Your wife shall be our housekeeper. We will cultivate our garden. We shall want little more, and that my annuity will amply supply. We will select a few books, and we will pronounce eternal banishment on pen and ink.’ I could not help smiling at the earnestness with which he pronounced the last clause. The change of a lawyer into a Roman republican appeared to me as miraculous as any metamorphosis in Ovid. Not to weary you with details, we carried this scheme into effect, and passed three years of natural and healthy occupation, with perfect simplicity and perfect content. They were the happiest of our lives. But at the end of this period our old friend died. His annuity died with him. He left me his heir, but his habitation and its furniture were all he had to leave. I procured a tenant for the house, and we removed to this even yet more humble dwelling. The difference of the rent, a very trifling sum indeed, constituted our only income. The increase of our family, and the consequent pressure of necessity, compelled us to sell the house. From the same necessity we have become strict Pythagoreans. I do not complain that we live hardly: it is almost wonderful that we live at all. The produce of our little garden preserves us from famine: but this is all it does. I consider myself a mere rustic, and very willingly engage in agricultural labour, when the neighbouring farmers think proper to employ me: but they feel no deficiency of abler hands. There are more labourers than means of labour. In the cities it is the same. If all the modes of human occupation in this kingdom, from the highest to the lowest, were to require at once a double number of persons, there would not remain one of them twelve hours unfilled.