Page:The Monastery, Volume 1 - Scott (1820).djvu/17

booth over and over, when any one chose to want a yard of muslin, a mouse-trap, an ounce of carraway, a paper of pins, the Sermons of Mr Peden, or the Life of Jack the Giant-Queller, (not Killer, as usually erroneously written and pronounced.—See my Essay on the true history of this worthy, where real facts have in a peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all in the village were under the necessity of doing something which they would rather have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked every morning in the open street, which formed the high-mall of our village, in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole evening, when he could make up a party. This happy vacuity of all employment appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary hint, which, according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says, determined my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to illustrate.

But who, alas, can form a just estimate of their future prospects in this deceitful world!