which serve as well for the conveniences as necessaries of life.  The third is to employ hands for the exportation of the redundance of our own commodities, and to exchange them with the redundances of foreign nations, that thus every soil and every climate may enjoy the fruits of the whole earth.  The gentleman is, by employing hands, likewise to embellish his country with the improvement of art and sciences, with the making and executing good and wholesome laws for the preservation of property and the distribution of justice, and in several other manners to be useful to society.  Now we come to the second part of this division, viz., of those who employ hands for their own use only; and this is that noble and great part who are generally distinguished into conquerors, absolute princes, statesmen, and prigs [Footnote:  Thieves.].  Now all these differ from each other in greatness only—­they employ more or fewer hands.  And Alexander the Great was only greater than a captain of one of the Tartarian or Arabian hordes, as he was at the head of a larger number.  In what then is a single prig inferior to any other great man, but because he employs his own hands only; for he is not on that account to be levelled with the base and vulgar, because he employs his hands for his own use only.  Now, suppose a prig had as many tools as any prime minister ever had, would he not be as great as any prime minister whatsoever?  Undoubtedly he would.  What then have I to do in the pursuit of greatness but to procure a gang, and to make the use of this gang centre in myself?  This gang shall rob for me only, receiving very moderate rewards for their actions; out of this gang I will prefer to my favour the boldest and most iniquitous (as the vulgar express it); the rest I will, from time to time, as I see occasion, transport and hang at my pleasure; and thus (which I take to be the highest excellence of a prig) convert those laws which are made for the benefit and protection of society to my single use.”

Having thus preconceived his scheme, he saw nothing wanting to put it in immediate execution but that which is indeed the beginning as well as the end of all human devices:  I mean money.  Of which commodity he was possessed of no more than sixty-five guineas, being all that remained from the double benefits he had made of Bagshot, and which did not seem sufficient to furnish his house, and every other convenience necessary for so grand an undertaking.  He resolved, therefore, to go immediately to the gaming-house, which was then sitting, not so much with an intention of trusting to fortune as to play the surer card of attacking the winner in his way home.  On his arrival, however, he thought he might as well try his success at the dice, and reserve the other resource as his last expedient.  He accordingly sat down to play; and as Fortune, no more than others of her sex, is observed to distribute her favours with strict regard to great mental endowments, so our hero lost