Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's Note: This sentence is incomplete, as printed: Wheelwright, hoping that he was the bearer of agreeable tidings from his estates, threw him all but his last quarter, and Thady took his leave with, UPS AND DOWNS IN THE LIFE OF A DISTRESSED GENTLEMAN. BY THE AUTHOR OF "TALES AND SKETCHES, SUCH AS THEY ARE." WILLIAM L. STONE If fortune wrap thee warm, Then friends about thee swarm, Like flies about a honey pot; But if fortune frown, And cast thee down, Thou mayest lie and rot. NEW-YORK: LEAVITT, LORD & CO. 180 BROADWAY. BOSTON:--CROCKER & BREWSTER. 1836. Entered, according to Act of Congress, by LEAVITT, LORD & Co., in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, in the Clerk's office of the southern district of New-York. WEST & TROW, PRS. TO ALL DOATING PARENTS, WHO IMAGINE THAT WISDOM WILL DIE WITH THEIR OWN CHILDREN, THIS LITTLE RECORD OF THE LIFE AND MISFORTUNES OF A GENIUS, IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, BY THEIR FRIEND AND WELL WISHER, THE AUTHOR. BILL OF LADING. INTRODUCTION. How to keep a secret--Unique illustration of the way to do it--Historical truth--Anecdote of a Chinese Emperor 9 CHAPTER I. Wherein the Author discourses of cycles, of which he enumerates a great variety, illustrates the uses of some, and speaks of the genesis of others. As to the intent or application of this chapter, the reader will be kept in the dark for a time 13 CHAPTER II. Of pedigree--Introduction to a beautiful section of country--Birth of the hero--The secret of obtaining the root of all evil 20 CHAPTER III. Genius in its juvenility--Indulgent mothers--Women sure to carry their points--Preparation for the university--How he gets in 27 CHAPTER IV. Intellectual development--Learned societies--The progress of genius--Idleness and incompetency no bar to academic advancement--Literary exercises--A bit of knotty and doubtful metre--The hill of science--The crowning honor 33 CHAPTER V. The learned professions--Why a man should not be a lawyer--Contention respecting the birthplace of Homer--Any body can be a doctor--_Bas bleus_--Medical studies and lectures--A studious genius in New-York--Gallantry--Sad effects of choosing the wrong profession 46 CHAPTER VI. Easy methods of pulpit preparation--Revival of ancient pulpit eloquence--Style of living--The mercantile profession not incompatible with genius--Parallel between Burke and the last man that would be thought of in Rhode-Island--The art of sinking capital--A profitable clerk--A fire--And a mercantile catastrophe 57 CHAPTER VII.