CHAP. IV.] ESCAPE PEEYENTED.

" incidental expenses of my equipment will amount to 601. 1753.

" or 701 more. The salary is but trifling, namely IQQt per

" annum; but the other advantages, if a person he prudent,

" are considerable. The practice of the place, if I am rightly

li informed, generally amounts to not less than one thousand

" pounds per annum, for which the appointed physician has

" an exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages resulting

" from trade, and the high interest which money bears,

" viz. SO?, per cent, are the inducements which persuade me

" to undergo the fatigues of sea, the dangers of war, and the

"still greater dangers of the climate; which induce me

" to leave a place where I am every day gaining Mends

" and esteem; and where I might enjoy all the conveniences

" of life." *

The same weakness which indulged itself with fine
clothes when the opportunity offered, is that which prompts
these fine words in even such an hour of dire extremity. Of
the "friends and esteem" he was gaining, of the " con-
" veniences of life" that were awaiting him to enjoy, these
pages have told, and have more to tell. But why, in the
confident hope of brighter days, dwell on the darkness of the
past? or show the squalor that still surrounded him? Of
already sufficiently low esteem were wit and intellect in
Ireland, to give purse-fed ignorance another triumph over
them, or again needlessly invite to himself the contempts
and sneers of old. Yet, though the sadness he almost
wholly suppressed while the appointment was but in expec-
tation, there was at this moment less reason to indulge,—•
to seem other than he was, even thus, was an effort
far from successful; and it marked with a somewhat painful
distraction of feeling and phrase this letter to Mr. Hodson.

* Percy Memoir, 46-7.ulation, he should receive any subscriptions,