The vilest
inclinations, the basest actions, succeeded my amiable amusements, and
even obliterated the very remembrance of them. I must have had, in
spite of my good education, a great propensity to degenerate, else the
declension could not have followed with such ease and rapidity, for
never did so promising a Caesar so quickly become a Laradon.
The art itself did not displease me. I had a lively taste for
drawing. There was nothing displeasing in the exercise of the
graver; and as it required no very extraordinary abilities to attain
perfection as a watchcase engraver, I hoped to arrive at it. Perhaps I
should have accomplished my design, if unreasonable restraint, added
to the brutality of my master, had not rendered my business
disgusting. I wasted his time, and employed myself in engraving
medals, which served me and my companions as a kind of insignia for
a new invented order of chivalry, and though this differed very little
from my usual employ, I considered it as a relaxation.
Unfortunately, my master caught me at this contraband labor, and a
severe beating was the consequence. He reproached me at the same
time with attempting to make counterfeit money, because our medals
bore the arms of the Republic, though, I can truly aver, I had no
conception of false money, and very little of the true, knowing better
how to make a Roman As than one of our threepenny pieces.
My master's tyranny rendered insupportable that labor I should
otherwise have loved, and drove me to vices I naturally despised, such
as falsehood, idleness, and theft.
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