Unacknowledged, but doubtless by Addison, who took this indirect way of answering Dennis. Addison's hand is further shown by the addition made to the reprint.
| [No. 549] | Saturday, November 29, 1712 | Addison |
Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici,
Laudo tamen—
Juv.
I believe most People begin the World with a Resolution to withdraw from it into a serious kind of Solitude or Retirement, when they have made themselves easie in it. Our Unhappiness is, that we find out some Excuse or other for deferring such our good Resolutions till our intended Retreat is cut off by Death. But among all kinds of People there are none who are so hard to part with the World, as those who are grown old in the heaping up of Riches. Their Minds are so warped with their constant Attention to Gain, that it is very difficult for them to give their Souls another Bent, and convert them towards those Objects, which, though they are proper for every Stage of Life, are so more especially for the last.
Horace
describes an old Usurer as so charmed with the Pleasures of a Country Life, that in order to make a Purchase he called in all his Mony; but what was the Event of it? Why in a very few Days after he put it out again. I am engaged in this Series of Thought by a Discourse which I had last Week with my worthy Friend