From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated for
one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by
Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day--
the club-room, and the snug hand at whist.
To return to my old companions. Some frequented public
assemblies, like the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of
half a century back, thrust aside by tittering youth, and pitied
by those of their own age. In fine, some went into devotion, as
the French term it, and others, I fear, went to the devil; a few
found resources in science and letters; one or two turned
philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became
familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took
to reading, and I was one of them.
Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me--some
painful recollections of early faults and follies--some touch of
displeasure with living mankind--inclined me rather to a study of
antiquities, and particularly those of my own country. The
reader, if I can prevail on myself to continue the present work,
will probably be able to judge in the course of it whether I have
made any useful progress in the study of the olden times.
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