I have been told by many, that the bane of industry is laziness, and not content; therefore to prove my assertion, which seems a paradox to some, I shall treat of laziness and content separately, and afterwards speak of industry, that the reader may judge which it is of the two former, that is opposite to the latter. Laziness is an aversion to business, generally attended with an unreasonable desire of remaining unactive; and every body is lazy, who, without being hindered by any other warrantable employment, refuses or puts off any business which he ought to do for himself or others. We seldom call any body lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service. Children do not think their parents lazy, nor servants their masters; and if a gentleman indulges his ease and sloth so abominably, that he will not put on his own shoes, though he is young and slender, nobody shall call him lazy for it, if he can keep but a footman, or some body else to do it for him. Mr. Dryden has given us a very good idea of superlative slothfulness, in the person of a luxurious king of Egypt. His majesty having bestowed some considerable gifts on several of his favourites, is attended by some of his chief ministers with a parchment, which he was to sign to confirm those grants. First, he walks a few turns to and fro, with a heavy uneasiness in his looks, then sets himself down like a man that is tired, and, at last, with abundance of reluctancy to what he was going about, he takes up the pen, and falls a complaining very seriously of the length of the word Ptolemy, and expresses a great deal of concern, that he had not some short monosyllable for his name, which he thought would save him a world of trouble. We often reproach others with laziness, because we are guilty of it ourselves. Some days ago, as two young women sat knotting together, says one to the other, there comes a wicked cold through that door; you are the nearest to it, sister, pray shut it. The other, who was the youngest, vouchsafed, indeed, to cast an eye towards the door, but sat still, and said nothing; the eldest spoke again two or three times, and at last the other making her no answer, nor offering to stir, she got up in a pet, and shut the door herself; coming back to sit down again, she gave the younger a very hard look; and said, Lord, sister Betty, I would not be so lazy as you are for all the world; which she spoke so earnestly, that it brought a colour in her face. The youngest should have risen, I own; but if the eldest had not overvalued her labour, she would have shut the door herself, as soon as the cold was offensive to her, without making any words of it. She was not above a step farther from the door than her sister, and as to age, there was not eleven months difference between them, and they were both under twenty. I thought it a hard matter to determine which was the laziest of the two.