Read "The Complete English Tradesman" by Daniel Defoe online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is the judgment of some experienced tradesmen, that no man ought to go from one business to another, and launch out of the trade or employment he was bred to: _Tractent fabrilia fabri_ -- 'Every man to his own business; ' and, they tell us, men never thrive when they do so.
I will not enter into that dispute here. I know some good and encouraging examples of the contrary, and which stand as remarkable instances, or as exceptions to the general rule: but let that be as it will, sometimes providence eminently calls upon men out of one employ into another, out of a shop into a warehouse, out of a warehouse into a shop, out of a single hand into a partnership, and the like; and they trade one time here, another time there, and with very good success too.