9.  I have suffered several disappointments from taylors and perriwig-makers, who, by neglecting to perform their work, withheld my patrons from court, and once failed of an establishment for life by the delay of a servant, sent to a neighbouring shop to replenish a snuff-box.

10.  At last I thought my solicitude at an end, for an office fell into the gift of Hippodamus’s father, who being then in the country, could not very speedily fill it, and whose fondness would not have suffered him to refuse his son a less reasonable request. Hippodamus therefore set forward with great expedition, and I expected every hour an account of his success.

11.  A long time I waited without any intelligence, but at last received a letter from Newmarket, by which I was informed, that the races were begun, and I knew the vehemence of his passion too well to imagine that he could refuse himself his favourite amusement.

12.  You will not wonder that I was at last weary of the patronage of young men, especially as I found them not generally to promise much greater fidelity as they advanced in life; for I observed that what they gained in steadiness, they lost in benevolence, and grew colder to my interest as they became more diligent to promote their own.

13.  I was convinced that their liberality was only profuseness, that, as chance directed, they were equally generous to vice and virtue, that they were warm, but because they were thoughtless, and counted the support of a friend only amongst other gratifications of passion.

14.  My resolution was now to ingratiate myself with men whose reputation was established, whose high stations enabled them to prefer me, and whose age exempted them from sudden changes of inclination; I was considered as a man of parts, and therefore easily found admission to the table of Hilarius, the celebrated orator, renowned equally for the extent of his knowledge, the elegance of his diction, and the acuteness of his wit.

15. Hilarius received me with an appearance of great satisfaction, produced to me all his friends, and directed to me that part of his discourse in which he most endeavoured to display his imagination.  I had now learned my own interest enough to supply him with opportunities for smart remarks and gay sallies, which I never failed to echo and applaud.

16.  Thus I was gaining every hour on his affections, till, unfortunately, when the assembly was more splendid than usual, his desire of admiration prompted him to turn raillery upon me.  I bore it for some time with great submission, and success encouraged him to redouble his attacks; at last my vanity prevailed over my prudence; I retorted his irony with such spirit, that Hilarius, unaccustomed to resistance, was disconcerted, and soon found means of convincing me, that his purpose was not to encourage a rival, but to foster a parasite.

17.  I was then taken into the familiarity of Argurio, a nobleman eminent for judgment and criticism.  He had contributed to my reputation, by the praises which he had often bestowed upon my writings, in which he owned that there were proofs of a genius that might rise high to degrees of excellence, when time, or information, had reduced its exuberance.