Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/38

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more unlikely than that he should miss his way. It has been often said, that example is more powerful than precept.—Early in the afternoon the travellers had ordered their Automedon into their presence, and, perhaps, foreseeing the probability of their own condition, had strongly interrogated him concerning his disposition to sobriety; his answers to their questions contained many asseverations in favour of his own temperance.—While he pocketed half a crown, which was given as a retaining fee, for the faithful and careful exertion of his professional skill, and swallowed a large bumper of brandy to the gentlemen's health, he had averred that even his enemies could not say he was predicted to liquor. In this declaration he might perhaps be correct, as the most competent witnesses were not his enemies but his friends. It would be a