Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

THESE Stories, which were first published, among a great number of others, in the Cheap Repofitory, under the signature Z, are here presented to the Reader, much enlarged and improved. Such of them as are comprised in this volume being adapted to perfons in a fuperior ftation to those which are contained in the Fifth Volume, it was thought better to separate and class them accordingly. A brief account of the institution here referred to will be given in the fubfequent volume.

THE

HISTORY

OF

MR. FANTOM,

THE NEW FASHIONED PHILOSOPHER,

AND

HIS MAN WILLIAM.

MR. FANTOM was a retail trader in the city of London. As he had no turn to any expensive vices, he was reckoned a fober decent man, but he was covetous and proud, felfifh and conceited. As foon as he got forward in the world, his vanity began to difplay itself, though not in the ordinary method, that of making a figure and living away; but ftill he was tormented

VOL. IV.

B

tormented with a longing defire to draw public notice, and to distinguish himself. He felt a general fenfe of difcontent at what he was, with a general ambition to be fomething which he was not; but this defire had not yet turned itself to any particular object. It was not by his money he could hope to be distinguished, for half his acquaintance had more, and a man must be rich indeed to be noted for his riches in London. Mr. Fantom's mind was a prey to vain imaginations. He despised all those little acts of kindness and charity which every man is called to perform every day; and while he was contriving grand schemes, which lay quite out of his reach, he neglected the ordinary duties of life, which lay directly before him. Selfishness was his governing principle. He fancied he was loft in the mafs of general fociety and the ufual means of attaching importance to infignificance occurred to him; that of getting into clubs and focieties. To be connected with a party

« PreviousContinue »