beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. Shrimp my rival's high-heeled shoes with detestation. These were circumstances which I thought strongly in my favour; so, after resolving, and re-resolving, I had courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal with serenity, seeming at the same time to study the figures of her fan. Out at last it came. There was but one small objection to complete our happiness; which was no more, than that she was married three months before to Mr. Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes!

"Yet still I had friends, numerous friends, and to them I was resolved to apply. O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succour; on thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be ever sure of disappointment! My first application was to a city-scrivener, who had frequently offered to lend me money when he knew I did not want it. I informed him that now was the time to put his friendship to the test; that I wanted to borrow a couple of hundreds for a certain occasion, and was resolved to take it up from him. And pray, sir,' cried my friend, ‘do you want all this money?' Indeed, I never wanted it more,' returned I. 'I am sorry for that,' cries the scrivener, with all my heart; for they who want money when they come to borrow, will always want money when they should come to pay.'

"From him I flew with indignation to one of the best friends I had in the world, and made the same request. Indeed, Mr. Drybone,' cries my friend, 'I always thought it would come to this. You know, sir, I would not advise you but for your own gocd; but your conduct has hitherto been ridiculous in the highest degree, and some of your acquaintance always thought you a very silly fellow. Let me see, you want two hundred pounds. Do you want only two hundred, sir, exactly?' 'To confess a truth,' returned I, 'I shall want three hundred; but then I have another friend, from whom I can borrow the rest.' 'Why, then,' replied my friend, if you would take my advice (and you know I should not presume to advise you but for your own good), I would recommend it to you to borrow the whole sum from that other friend; and then one note will serve for all, you know.'

"Poverty now began to come fast upon me; yet instead of growing more provident or cautious as I grew poor, I became every day more indolent and simple. A friend was arrested for fifty pounds; I was unable to extricate him, except by becoming his bail. When at liberty he fled from his creditors, and left me to take his place. In prison I expected greater satisfactions than I had enjoyed at large. I hoped to converse with men

in this new world, simple and believing like myself; but I found them as cunning and as cautious as those in the world I had left behind. They spunged up my money whilst it lasted, borrowed my coals, and never paid for them, and cheated me when I played at cribbage. All this was done because they believed me to be very good-natured, and knew that I had no harm in

me.

"Upon my first entrance into this mansion, which is to some the abode of despair, I felt no sensations different from those I experienced abroad. I was now on one side the door, and those who were unconfined were on the other: this was all the difference between us. At first, indeed, I felt some uneasiness, in considering how I should be able to provide this week for the wants of the week ensuing; but after some time, if I found myself sure of eating one day, I never troubled my head how I was to supply another. I seized every precarious meal with the utmost good-humour; indulged no rants of spleen at my situation; never called down heaven and all the stars to behold me dining upon an halfpenny-worth of radishes; my very companions were taught to believe that I liked salad better than mutton. I contented myself with thinking, that all my life I should either eat white bread or brown; considered that all that happened was best; laughed when I was not in pain, took the world as it went, and read Tacitus often, for want of more books and company.

"How long I might have continued in this torpid state of simplicity I cannot tell, had I not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, whom I knew to be a prudent blockhead, preferred to a place in the Government. I now found that I had pursued a wrong track, and that the true way of being able to relieve others, was first to aim at independence myself: my immediate care, therefore, was to leave my present habitation, and make an entire reformation in my conduct and behaviour. For a frec, open, undesigning deportment, I put on that of closeness, prudence, and economy. One of the most heroic actions I ever performed, and for which I shall praise myself as long as I live, was the refusing half-a-crown to an old acquaintance, at the time when he wanted it, and I had it to spare: for this alone I deserve to be decreed an ovation.

"I now therefore pursued a course of unin terrupted frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to twenty. I soon began to get the character of a saving hunks that had money, and insensibly grew into esteem. Neigh bours have asked my advice in the disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken care not to give any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman, only by observing, that if we

There is a house with stairs;

And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty at least, in pairs.

Amongst the rest, one pest'lent fine-
His beard no bigger, though, than thine-
Walked on before the rest:

Our landlord looks like nothing to him:

The king, God bless him! 'twould undo him,

Should he go still so drest.

But wot you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing;

The parson for him stayed:
Yet by his leave, for all his haste,
He did not so much wish all past,
Perchance, as did the maid.

Her finger was so small, the ring

Would not stay on which they did bring:

It was too wide a peck:
And, to say truth-for out it must-
It looked like the great collar-just-
About our young colt's neck.

Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light:

But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day

Is half so fine a sight.

Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;

Who sees them is undone;

For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Cath'rine pear,

The side that's next the sun.

Her lips were red; and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.

Her mouth so small, when she does speak,
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,

That they might passage get:

But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,

And are not spent a whit.

Passion, oh me! how I run on!
There's that that would be thought upon,

I trow, besides the bride:

The bus'ness of the kitchen's great,
For it is fit that men should eat;

Nor was it there denied.

Just in the nick, the cook knocked thrice,

And all the waiters in a trice

His summons did obey;

Each serving-man, with dish in hand,
Marched boldly up, like our trained-band,
Presented, and away.

When all the meat was on the table,
What man of knife, or teeth, was able

To stay to be entreated?

And this the very reason was,
Before the parson could say grace,.
The company was seated.