humour; he walked a good round pace, and a crook-legged dog trotted at his heels.

"Our delicacies," said Harley to himself, are fantastic; they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, whilst I have lost the most delightful dream in the world, from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe."-The beggar had by this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too:-it was impossible to resist both; and in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth blessings without number; and with a sort of smile on his countenance, said to Harley," that if he wanted to have his fortune told"-Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar: it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the prophet immediately. "I would much rather learn," said Harley," what it is in your power to tell me your trade must be an entertaining one sit down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself."

"Master," replied the beggar, "I like your frankness much. God knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child; but there is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you call it, my profession but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth.

"

"I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I never laid by indeed; for I was reckoned a piece of a wag; and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr Harley."—" So," said Harley," you seem to know me.' Ay, there are few folks in the county that I don't know something of: how should I tell fortunes else?"- "True; but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say, and a wag: your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade; but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your new.

"What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on't but I was brought to my idleness by degrees; first I could not work, and it went against my stomach to work ever after. I was seized with a jail fever at the time of the assizes being in the county where I lived; for I was always curious to get acquainted with the felons, because they are commonly fellows of much mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an esteem for. In the height of this fever, Mr Harley, the house where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground; I was carried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of my illness in a barn. I got the better of my disease, however, but I was so weak that I spit blood whenever I attempted to work. I had no relation living that

I knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week, when I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a settlement in any thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr Harley. I told all my misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a halfpenny as they passed, did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble them with long story. I short, I found that people don't care to give alms without some security for their money. A wooden leg, or a withered arm, is a sort of draft upon heaven for those who chuse to have their money placed to account there; so I changed my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to prophecy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way: folks will always listen when the tale is their own; and of many who say they do not believe in

fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among servants and neighbours; and indeed people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose: they dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they wish to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerable good memory, and some share of cunning; with the help of walking a-nights over heaths and church-yards; with this, and shewing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the serjeant of a marching regiment, (and by the way he can steal too upon occasion,) I make shift to pick up a livelihood. My trade, indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people are not much cheated neither, who give a few halfpence for a prospect of happiness, which I have heard some person say is all a man can arrive at in this world.-But I must bid you good-day, sir; for I have three miles to walk before noon, to inform some boarding-school young ladies, whether their husbands are to be peers of the realm, or captains in the army: a question which I promised to answer them by that time."

Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket; but Virtue bade him consider on whom he was going to bestow it.—Virtue held back his arm:

but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him: his fingers lost their compression; nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground, than the watchful cur (a trick he had been taught,) snapped it up; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master.

CHAP. XIX.

He makes a second Expedition to the Baronet's. The laudable Ambition of a young Man to be thought something by the World.

We have related, in a former chapter, the little success of his first visit to the great man, for whom he had the introductory letter for Mr Walton. To people of equal sensibility, the influence of those trifles we mentioned on his deportment, will not appear surprising; but to his friends in the country, they could not be stated, nor would they have allowed them any place in the account. In some of their letters, therefore, which he received soon after, they expressed their surprise at his not having been more urgent in his application, and again recommended the blushless assiduity of successful merit.

He resolved to make another attempt at the Baronet's; fortified with higher notions of his own dignity, and with less apprehension of repulse. In his way to Grosvenor-square, he began to ruminate on the folly of mankind, who affix those ideas of superiority to riches, which reduce the minds of men, by nature equal with the more fortunate, to that sort of servility which he felt in his own. By the time he had reached the Square, and was walking along the pavement which led to the Baronet's, he had brought his reasoning on the subject to such a point, that the conclusion, by every rule of logic, should have led him to a thorough indifference in his approaches to a fellow-mortal, whether that fellow-mortal was possessed of six, or six thousand pounds a year. It is probable, however, that the premises had been improperly formed; for it is certain, that when he approached the great man's door, he felt his heart agitated by an unusual pulsation.

He had almost reached it, when he observed a young gentleman coming out dressed in a white frock, and a red laced waistcoat, with a small switch in his hand, which he seemed to manage with a particular good grace. As he passed him on the steps, the stranger very politely made him a bow, which Harley returned, though he could not remember ever having seen him before. He asked Harley in the same civil manner, if he was going to wait on his friend the Baronet?" for I was just calling," said he, "and am sorry to find that he is gone for some days into the country." Harley thanked him for his information; and was turning from the door, when the other observed, that it would be proper to leave his name, and very obligingly knocked for that purpose. "Here is a gentleman, Tom, who meant to have waited on your master."-" Your name, if you please, sir?""Harley.”—“You'll remember, Tom, Harley." -The door was shut. "Since we are here,"

said he, "we shall not lose our walk, if we add a little to it by a turn or two in Hyde-park." He accompanied this proposal with a second bow, and Harley accepted of it by another in return.

The conversation, as they walked, was brilliant on the side of his companion. The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning beauties of quality, in a manner the most feeling in the world. Harley admired the happiness of his vivacity; and, opposite as it was to the reserve of his own nature, began to be much pleased with its effects.

Though I am not of opinion with some wise men, that the existence of objects depends on idea; yet, I am convinced, that their appearance is not a little influenced by it. The optics of some minds are so unhappily constructed, as to throw a certain shade on every picture that is presented to them; while those of others (of which number was Harley,) like the mirrors of the ladies, have a wonderful effect in bettering their complexions. Through such a medium, perhaps, he was looking on his present companion.

When they had finished their walk, and were returning by the corner of the Park, they observed a board hung out of a window, signifying, "an excellent ORDINARY on Saturdays and Sundays." It happened to be Saturday, and the table was covered. "What if we should go in and dine here, if you happen not to be engaged, sir?" said the young gentleman. "It is not impossible but we shall meet with some original or other; it is a sort of humour I like hugely." Harley made no objection; and the stranger shewed him the way into the parlour.

He was placed, by the courtesy of his introductor, in an arm-chair that stood at one side of the fire. Over against him was seated a man of a grave considering aspect, with that look of sober prudence which indicates what is commonly called a warm man. He wore a pretty large wig, which had once been white, but was now of a brownish yellow; his coat was one of those modest-coloured drabs which mock the injuries of dust and dirt; two jack-boots concealed, in part, the well-mended knees of an old pair of buckskin breeches, while the spotted handkerchief round his neck, preserved at once its owner from catching cold, and his neckcloth from being dirtied. Next him sat another man, with a tankard in his hand, and a quid of tobacco in his cheek, whose eye was rather more vivacious, and whose dress was something smarter.

The first-mentioned gentleman took notice, that the room had been so lately washed as not to have had time to dry; and remarked, that wet lodging was unwholesome for man or beast. He looked round, at the same time, for a poker to stir the fire with, which, he at last observed to the company, the people of the house had removed, in order to save their coals. This

difficulty, however, he overcame, by the help of Harley's stick, saying, "That as they should, no doubt, pay for their fire in some shape or other, he saw no reason why they should not have the use of it while they sat.'

The door was now opened for the admission of dinner. "I don't know how it is with you, gentlemen," said Harley's new acquaintance; but I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this horrid mechanical hour of dining." He sat down, however, and did not shew any want of appetite by his eating. He took upon him the carving of the meat, and criticised on the goodness of the pudding.

When the table-cloth was removed, he proposed calling for some punch, which was readily agreed to; he seemed at first inclined to make it himself, but afterwards changed his mind, and left that province to the waiter, telling him to have it pure West Indian, or he could not taste a drop of it.

When the punch was brought, he undertook to fill the glasses, and call the toasts." The King."-The toast naturally produced politics. It is the privilege of Englishmen to drink the king's health, and to talk of his conduct. The man who sat opposite to Harley (and who by this time, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintance on his left hand, was discovered to be a grazier) observed, "That it was a shame for so many pensioners to be allowed to take the bread out of the mouth of the poor.""Ay, and provisions," said his friend," were never so dear in the memory of man; I wish the king, and his counsellors, would look to that." "As for the matter of provisions, neigh Bour Wrightson," he replied, "I am sure the prices of cattleA dispute would have probably ensued, but it was prevented by the spruce toast-master, who gave a sentiment; and turning to the two politicians, "Pray, gentlemen,' said he, "let us have done with these musty politics I would always leave them to the beer-suckers in Butcher-row.* Come, let us have something of the fine arts. That was a damn'd hard match between the Nailor and Tim Bucket. The knowing ones were cursedly taken in there! I lost a cool hundred myself, faith."

:

At mention of the cool hundred, the grazier threw his eyes aslant, with a mingled look of doubt and surprise; while the man at his elbow looked arch, and gave a short emphatical sort of cough.

Both seemed to be silenced, however, by this intelligence; and, while the remainder of the punch lasted, the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many "immense comical

stories," and "confounded smart things," as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said, that he had an appointment." Is it so late?" said the young gentleman; " then I am afraid I have missed an appointment already; but the truth is, I am cursedly given to missing of appointments."

When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the remaining personage, and asked him, if he knew that young gentleman? “A gentleman!" said he; "ay, he is one of your gentlemen, at the top of an affidavit. I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a footman; and, I believe, he had sometimes the honour to be a pimp. At last, some of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in both capacities, had him made a gauger; in which station he remains, and has the assurance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality. The impudent dog! with a few shillings in his pocket, he will talk you three times as much as my friend Mundy there, who is worth nine thousand, if he's worth a farthing. But I know the rascal, and despise him, as he deserves."

Harley began to despise him too, and to conceive some indignation at having sat with patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense. But he corrected himself, by reflecting, that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate. And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to that rank where the futility is real, than where it is feigned; to that rank, whose opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only served to rear a fabric of folly, which the untutored hand of affectation, even among the meanest of mankind, can imitate with success.

CHAP. XX.

He visits Bedlam.—The Distresses of a Daughter.

Or those things called Sights in London, which every stranger is supposed desirous to see, Bedlam is one. To that place, therefore, an acquaintance of Harley's, after having ac companied him to several other shows, proposed a visit. Harley objected to it, "because," said he, "I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest misery with which our nature is afflicted, to every idle visitant, who can afford a trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is a distress which the humane must see with

the painful reflection, that it is not in their power to alleviate it." He was overpowered, however, by the solicitations of his friend and the other persons of the party, (amongst whom were several ladies,) and they went in a body to Moorfields.

Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clanking of chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their guide to return: he seemed surprised at their uncasiness, and was with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without showing them some others, who, as he expressed it, in the phrase of those that keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing than any they had passed, being ten times more fierce and unmanageable.

He led them next to that quarter where those reside, who, as they are not dangerous to themselves or others, enjoy a certain degree of freedom, according to the state of their distemper.

Harley had fallen behind his companions, looking at a man who was making pendulums with bits of thread, and little balls of clay. He had delineated a segment of a circle on the wall with chalk, and marked their different vibrations, by intersecting it with cross lines. A decent-looking man came up, and, smiling at the maniac, turned to Harley, and told him, that gentleman had once been a very celebrated mathematician. "He fell a sacrifice," said he, "to the theory of comets; for having, with infinite labour, formed a table on the conjectures of Sir Isaac Newton, he was disappointed in the return of one of those luminaries, and was very soon after obliged to be placed here by his friends. If you please to follow me, sir," continued the stranger, "I believe I shall be able to give a more satisfactory account of the unfortunate people you see here, than the man who attends your companions." Harley bowed, and accepted his offer.

The next person they came up to had scrawled a variety of figures on a piece of slate. Harley had the curiosity to take a nearer view of them. They consisted of different columns, on the top of which were marked South-sea annuities, India-stock, and Three per cent annuities consol. "This," said Harley's instructor," was a gentleman well known in Change-alley. He was once worth fifty thousand pounds, and had actually agreed for the purchase of an estate in the west, in order to realize his money; but he quarrelled with the proprietor about the repairs of the garden-wall, and so returned to town to follow his old trade of stock-jobbing a little longer, when an unlucky fluctuation of stock, in which he was engaged to an immense extent, reduced him at once to poverty and to madness.

VOL. V.

Poor wretch! he told me t other day, that against the next payment of differences, he should be some hundreds above a plum."

"It is a spondee, and I will maintain it," interrupted a voice on his left hand. This assertion was followed by a very rapid recital of some verses from Homer. "That figure," said the gentleman, "whose clothes are so bedaubed with snuff, was a schoolmaster of some reputation: he came hither to be resolved of some doubts he entertained concerning the genuine pronunciation of the Greek vowels. In his highest fits, he makes frequent mention of one Mr Bentley.

"But delusive ideas, sir, are the motives of the greatest part of mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their actions are incited: the world, in the eye of a philosopher, may be said to be a large madhouse.""It is true," answered Harley," the passions of men are temporary madnesses; and sometimes very fatal in their effects,

From Macedonia's madman to the Swede."

"It was, indeed," said the stranger, a very mad thing in Charles, to think of adding so vast a country as Russia to his dominions; that would have been fatal indeed; the balance of the North would then have been lost; but the Sultan and I would never have allowed it."-" Sir!" said Harley, with no small surprise on his countenance.- Why, yes," answered the other, "the Sultan and I;-do you know me? I am the Chan of Tartary."

Harley was a good deal struck by this discovery; he had prudence enough, however, to conceal his amazement, and, bowing as low to the monarch as his dignity required, left him immediately, and joined his companions.

He found them in a quarter of the house set apart for the insane of the other sex, several of whom had gathered about the female visitors, and were examining, with rather more accuracy than might have been expected, the particulars of their dress.

Separate from the rest stood one, whose appearance had something of superior dignity. Her face, though pale and wasted, was less squalid than those of the others, and showed a dejection of that decent kind, which moves our pity unmixed with horror: upon her, therefore, the eyes of all were immediately turned. The keeper, who accompanied them, observed it :"This," said he, "is a young lady, who was born to ride in her coach and six. She was beloved, if the story I have heard be true, by a young gentleman, her equal in birth, though by by no means her match in fortune: but love, they say, is blind, and so she fancied him as much as he did her. Her father, it seems, would not hear of their marriage, and threatened to turn her out of doors, if ever she saw him

2 B

again. Upon this, the young gentleman took a voyage to the West Indies, in hopes of bettering his fortune, and obtaining his mistress; but he was scarce landed, when he was seized with one of the fevers which are common in those islands, and died in a few days, lamented by every one that knew him. This news soon reached his mistress, who was at the same time pressed by her father to marry a rich miserly fellow, who was old enough to be her grandfather. The death of her lover had no effect on her inhuman parent he was only the more earnest for her marriage with the man he had provided for her; and what between her despair at the death of the one, and her aversion to the other, the poor young lady was reduced to the condition you see her in. But God would not prosper such cruelty her father's affairs soon after went to wreck, and he died almost a beggar."

:

Though this story was told in very plain language, it had particularly attracted Harley's notice; he had given it the tribute of some tears. The unfortunate young lady had, till now, seemed entranced in thought, with her eyes fixed on a little garnet ring she wore on her finger; she turned them now upon Harley. "My Billy is no more!" said she; "Do you weep for my Billy? Blessings on your tears! I would weep too, but my brain is dry; and it burns, it burns, it burns!" She drew nearer to Harley. "Be comforted, young lady," said he, " your Billy is in Heaven." "Is he indeed? and shall we meet again? and shall that frightful man (pointing to the keeper) not be there? Alas! I am grown naughty of late; I have almost forgotten to think of Heaven; yet I pray sometimes; when I can, I pray; and sometimes I sing; when I am saddest I sing. You shall hear me-hush!

Light be the earth on Billy's breast,

And green the sod that wraps his grave!"

There was a plaintive wildness in the air not to be withstood; and, except the keeper's, there was not an unmoistened eye around her.

"Do you weep again?" said she; " I would not have you weep. You are like my Billy; you are, believe me; just so he looked, when he gave me this ring-Poor Billy! 'twas the last

time ever we met!

'Twas when the seas were roaring

I love you for resembling my Billy; but I shall never love any man like him." She stretched out her hand to Harley; he pressed it between both of his, and bathed it with his tears. "Nay, that is Billy's ring," said she, "you cannot have it, indeed; but here is another, look here, which I plated to-day, of some gold-thread from this bit of stuff; will you keep it for my sake? I am a strange girl; but my heart is harmless;

my poor heart! it will burst some day; feel how it beats !"-She pressed his hand to her bosom, then holding her head in the attitude of listening," Hark! one, two, three ! Be quiet, thou little trembler; my Billy's is cold !-But I had forgotten the ring." She put it on his finger. "Farewell! I must leave you now." She would have withdrawn her hand; Harley held it to his lips. "I dare not stay longer; my head throbs sadly; farewell!" She walked with a hurried step to a little apartment at some distance.Harley stood fixed in astonishment and pity; his friend gave money to the keeper. Harley looked on his ring. He put a couple of guineas into the man's hand :-" Be kind to that unfortunate." He burst into tears, and left them.

CHAP. XXI.

The Misanthrope.

THE friend, who had conducted him to Moorfields, called upon him again the next evening. After some talk on the adventures of the preceding day, "I carried you yesterday," said he to Harley," to visit the mad; let me introduce you to-night, at supper, to one of the wise; but you must not look for any thing of the Socratic pleasantry about him; on the contrary, I warn you to expect the spirit of a Diogenes. That you may be a little prepared for his extraordinary manner, I will let you into some particu lars of his history:—

"He is the elder of the two sons of a gentleman of considerable estate in the country. Their father died when they were young: both were remarkable at school for quickness of parts, and extent of genius; this had been bred to no profession, because his father's fortune, which descended to him, was thought sufficient to set him above it; the other was put an apprentice to an eminent attorney. In this the expectations of his friends were more consulted than his own inclination; for both his brother and he had feel ings of that warm kind, that could ill brook a study so dry as the law, especially in that department of it which was allotted to him. But the difference of their tempers made the characteristical distinction between them. The younger, from the gentleness of his nature, bore, with patience, a situation entirely discordant to his genius and disposition. At times, indeed, his pride would suggest of how little importance those talents were, which the partiality of his friends had often extolled; they were now incumbrances in a walk of life where the dull and the ignorant passed him at every turn; his faney and his feeling were invincible obstacles to eminence, in a situation where his fancy had no room for exertion, and his feeling experi enced perpetual disgust. But these murmurings he never suffered to be heard ; and that he