2.  I was born heir to a very small fortune, and left by my father, whom I cannot remember, to the care of an uncle.  He having no children, always treated me as his son, and finding in me those qualities which old men easily discover in sprightly children when they happen to love them, declared that a genius like mine should never be lost for want of cultivation.

3.  He therefore placed me for the usual time at a great school, and then sent me to the university, with a larger allowance than my own patrimony would have afforded, that I might not keep mean company, but learn to become my dignity when I should be made Lord Chancellor, which he often lamented that the increase of his infirmities was very likely to preclude him from seeing.

4.  This exuberance of money displayed itself in gaiety of appearance, and wantonness of expence, and introduced me to the acquaintance of those whom the same superfluity of fortune had betrayed to the same licence and ostentation:  young heirs who pleased themselves with a remark very frequently in their mouths, that though they were sent by their fathers to the university, they were not under the necessity of living by their learning.

5.  Among men of this class I easily obtained the reputation of a great genius, and was persuaded that, with such liveliness of imagination, and delicacy of sentiment, I should never be able to submit to the drudgery of the law.

6.  I therefore gave myself wholly to the more airy and elegant parts of learning, and was often so much elated with my superiority to the youths with whom I conversed, that I began to listen with great attention, to those who recommended to me a wider and more conspicuous theatre; and was particularly touched with an observation made by one of my friends, that it was not by lingering in the university that Prior became ambassador, or Addison a secretary of state.

7.  This desire was hourly increased by the solicitation of my companions, who removing one by one to London, as the caprice of their relations allowed them, or the legal dismission from the hands of their guardian put it in their power, never failed to send an account of the beauty and felicity of the new world, and to remonstrate how much was lost by every hour’s continuance in a place of retirement and restraint.

8.  My uncle, in the mean time, frequently harrassed me with monitory letters, which I sometimes neglected to open for a week after I received them, and generally read in a tavern, with such comments as I might show how much I was superior to instruction or advice.  I could not but wonder, how a man confined to the country and unacquainted with the present system of things, should imagine himself qualified to instruct a rising genius, born to give laws to the age, refine its state, and multiply its pleasures.

9.  The postman, however, still continued to bring me new remonstrances; for my uncle was very little depressed by the ridicule and reproach which he never heard.  But men of parts have quick resentments; it was impossible to bear his usurpations for ever; and I resolved, once for all, to make him an example to those who imagine themselves wise because they are old, and to teach young men, who are too tame under representation, in what manner grey-bearded insolence ought to be treated.