If a young man neglects this part, and passes over the season for such
improvement, he very rarely ever recovers it; for this part has its
season, and that more remarkable than in many other cases, and that
season lost, never comes again; a judgment in goods taken in early, is
never lost, and a judgment taken in late is seldom good.

If the youth slips this occasion, and, not minding what is before him,
goes out of his time without obtaining such a skill as this in the goods
he is to deal in, he enters into trade without his most useful tools,
and must use spectacles before his time.

For want of this knowledge of the goods, he is at a loss in the buying
part, and is liable to be cheated and imposed upon in the most notorious
manner by the sharp-sighted world, for his want of judgment is a thing
that cannot be hid; the merchants or manufacturers of whom he buys,
presently discover him; the very boys in the wholesalemen's warehouses,
and in merchant's warehouses, will play upon him, sell him one thing for
another, show him a worse sort when he calls for a better, and, asking a
higher price for it, persuade him it is better; and when they have thus
bubbled him, they triumph over his ignorance when he is gone, and expose
him to the last degree.

Besides, for want of judgment in the goods he is to buy, he often runs a
hazard of being cheated to a very great degree, and perhaps some time or
other a tradesman may be ruined by it, or at least ruin his reputation.

When I lived abroad, I had once a commission sent me from a merchant in
London, to buy a large parcel of brandy: the goods were something out of
my way, having never bought any in that country before. However, it