poem continued to come by every post. In the mean time, Mrs. T...., having on his account lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and used to send for me, and

The transient vestments of these frugal men
Hasten to paper for our mirth again:
Too soon (O merry, melancholy fate!)
They beg in rhyme, and warble thro' a grate;
The man lampoon'd, forgets it at the sight;
The friend thro' pity gives, the foe thro' spite;
And though full conscious of his injur'd purse,
Lintot relents, nor Curll can wish them worse."

"An author, 'tis a venerable name!

How few deserve it and what numbers claim!
Unbless'd with sense, above the peers refin'd,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause?
That sole proprietor of just applause.

"Ye restless men! who pant for letter'd praise,
With whom would you consult to gain the bays?
With those great authors whose fam'd works you read?
'Tis well; go, then, consult the laurel'd shade,
What answer will the laurel'd shade return?
Hear it and tremble, he commands you burn
The noblest works, his envy'd genius writ,
That boasts of naught more excellent than wit.
If this be true, as 'tis a truth most dread,
Wo to the page which has not that to plead!
Fontaine and Chaucer dying, wish'd unwrote
The sprightliest efforts of their wanton thought:
Sidney and Waller, brighest sons of fame,
·Condemn'd the charm of ages to the flame."

"Thus ends your courted fame-does lucre then,
The sacred thirst of gold, betray your pen?
In prose 'tis blameable, in verse 'tis worse,
Provokes the Muse, extorts Apollo's curse;
His sacred influence never should be sold;
'Tis arrant simony to sing for gold;
'Tis immortality should fire your mind,
Scorn a less paymaster than all mankind."

YOUNG, Vol. III. Epist. II. p. 70.

borrow what money I could spare to help to alleviate them. I grew fond of her company, and being at that time under no religious restraint, and taking advantage of my importance to her, I attempted to take some liberties with her, (another erratum) which she repul-ed, with a proper degree of resentment. She wrote to Ralph and acquainted him with my conduct; this occasioned a breach between us; and when he returned to London, he let me know he considered all the obligations he had been under to me as annulled: from which I concluded I was never to expect his repaying me the money I had lent him, or that I had advanced for him. This however was of little consequence, as he was totally unable; and by the loss of his friendship, I found myself relieved from a heavy burden. I now began to think of getting a little beforehand, and expecting better employment, I left Palmer's to work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater printing house: here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.

At my first admission into the printing house I took to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where presswork is mixed with the composing. I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great drinkers of beer. On occasion I carried up and down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands; they wondered to see from this and several instances, that the Water-American as they called me, was stronger than themselves who drank strong beer! We had an alehouse boy, who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner; a pint at dinner; a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer, could only be in proportion to the grain or

flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour m a pennyworth of bread, and therefore if he could eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday night for that vile liquor; an expense I was free from: and thus these poor devils keep themselves always under.

Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing room, I left the pre-smen; a new bien venu for drink, (being five shillings) was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as I had paid one to the pressmen; the master thought so too, and forbad my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private malice practised on me, by mixing my sorts, transposing and breaking my matter, &c. &c., if ever I stept out of the room; and all ascribed to the chapel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not regularly admitted; that notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself obliged to comply and pay the money; convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually. I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired considerable influence. I proposed some reasonable alterations in their chapel laws, and carried them against all opposition. From my example a great many of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, bread and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house, with a large porrin

A printing-house is always called a chapel, by the workmen; the origin of which appears to have been, that printing was first carried on in England in an antient chapel converted into a printing house, and the title has been preserved by tradition. The bien venu among the printers answers to the terms entrance and footing among mechanics; thus a journeyman, on entering a printing house, was accustomed to pay one or more gallons of beer for the good of the chapel: this custom was falling into disuse thirty years ago--it is very properly rejected entirely in the United States.

ger of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer; viz. three halfpence. This was a more comfortable as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued soiting with their beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer, their light, as they phrased it, being out. I watched the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This and my being esteemed a pretty good rig-ite, that is a jocular verbal satyrist, supported my consequence in the society. My constant attendance, (I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put upon work of dispatch, which was generally better paid: so I went on now very agreeably.

My lodgings in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke street, opposite to the Romish chapel. It was up three pair of stairs backwards, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman who attended the warehouse, but lodged abroad. After sending to inquire my character at the house where I last lodged, she agreed to take me in at the same rate, 3s. 6d. per week; cheaper, as she said, from the protection she expected in having a man to lodge in the house. She was a widow, an elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them, as far back as the times of Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout, and therefore seldom stirred out of her room; so sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with ber whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little slice of bread and butter, and VOL. I. H

half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that when I talked of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for 2s. a week, which, intent as I was on saving money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me 2s. a week for the future; so I remained with her at 1s. 6d. as long as I staid in London.

In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account; that she was a Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodged in a nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun; but the country not agreeing with her, she returned to England, where there being no nunnery, she had vowed to lead the life of a nun, as near as might be done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her estate to charitable purposes, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still gave a part in charity, living herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had lived many years in that garret, being permitted to remain there gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her, to confess her every day: from this I asked her," said my landlady, how she, as she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor?” “Oh," said she, "it is impossible to avoid vain thoughts." I was permitted once to visit her: she was cheerful and polite, and conversed pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a mattrass, a table with a crucifix, and a book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of St. Veronica displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it, which she explained to me with great seriousness. She looked pale, but was never sick, and I give it as another instance, on how small an income life and health may be supported.