house is occupied by people who keep no servants, and you want a servant to light a fire and get the slop ready.  You could get this lodging for several shillings a week less than another at the next door; but there they keep a servant, who will ‘get you your breakfast,’ and preserve you, benevolent creature as she is, from the cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutting off a slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread.  She will, most likely, toast your bread for you too, and melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in winter, and send you out almost swaddled.  Really such a thing can hardly be expected ever to become a man.  You are weak; you have delicate health; you are ‘bilious!’ Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops that make you weak and bilious; And, indeed, the poverty, the real poverty, that they and their concomitants bring on you, greatly assists, in more ways than one, in producing your ‘delicate health.’

33.  So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, and dress.  Next, as to amusements.  It is recorded of the famous ALFRED, that he devoted eight hours of the twenty-four to labour, eight to rest, and eight to recreation.  He was, however, a king, and could be thinking during the eight hours of recreation.  It is certain, that there ought to be hours of recreation, and I do not know that eight are too many; but, then observe, those hours ought to be well-chosen, and the sort of recreation ought to be attended to.  It ought to be such as is at once innocent in itself and in its tendency, and not injurious to health.  The sports of the field are the best of all, because they are conducive to health, because they are enjoyed by day-light, and because they demand early rising.  The nearer that other amusements approach to these, the better they are.  A town-life, which many persons are compelled, by the nature of their calling, to lead, precludes the possibility of pursuing amusements of this description to any very considerable extent; and young men in towns are, generally speaking, compelled to choose between books on the one hand, or gaming and the play-house on the other. Dancing is at once rational and healthful:  it gives animal spirits:  it is the natural amusement of young people, and such it has been from the days of Moses:  it is enjoyed in numerous companies:  it makes the parties to be pleased with themselves and with all about them; it has no tendency to excite base and malignant feelings; and none but the most grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it.  The bad modern habits of England have created one inconvenience attending the enjoyment of this healthy and innocent pastime, namely, late hours, which are at once injurious to health and destructive of order and of industry.  In other countries people dance by day-light.  Here they do not; and, therefore, you must, in this respect, submit to the custom, though not without robbing the dancing night of as many hours as you can.