portion of flour in a penny loaf, and that consequently if he eat this loaf, and drank a pint of water with it, he would derive more strength from it than from a pint of beer. This reasoning, however, did not prevent him from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, and paying every Saturday night a score of four or five shillings a week for this cursed beverage; an expence from which I was wholly exempt. Thus do those poor devils continue all their lives in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty.

At the end of a few weeks, Watts having occasion for me above stairs as a compositor, I quitted the press. The compositors demanded of me garnish-money afresh. This I considered as an imposition, having already paid below. The master was of the same opinion, and desired me not to comply. I thus remained two or three weeks on the fraternity. I was consequently looked upon as excommunicated; and whenever I was absent, no little trick that malice could suggest was left unpracticed upon me. I found my letters mixed, my pages transposed, my matter broken, &c. &c. all which was attributed to the spirit that haunted the chapel,* and tormented those who were not regularly admitted. I was at last obliged to submit to pay, notwithstanding the protection of the master; covinced of the folly of not keeping up a good understanding with those among whom we are destined to live.

After this I lived in the utmost harmony with my fellow-labourers, and soon acquired considerable influence among them. I proposed some alterations in the laws of the chapel, which I carried without opposition. My example prevailed with several of them to renounce their abominable practice of bread and cheese with beer; and they procured, like me, from a neighbouring house, a good bason of warm gruel, in which

Printing-houses in general are thus denominated by the workmen; the spirit they call by the name of Ralphs

F

was a small slice of butter, with toasted bread and nutmeg. This was a much better breakfast, which did not cost more than a pint of beer, namely, three-halfpence, and at the same time preserving the head clearer. Those who continued to gorge themselves with beer, often lost their credit with the publican, from neglecting to pay their score. They had then recourse to me, to become security for them; their light, as they used to call it, being out. I attended at the pay-table every Saturday evening, to take up the little sum of money which I had made myself answerable for; and which sometimes amounted to nearly thirty shillings a week.

This circumstance, added to my reputation of being a tolerable good gabber, or in other words, skilful in the art of burlesque, kept up my importance in the chapel. I had besides, recommended myself to the esteem of my master by my assiduous application to business, never observing Saint Monday. My extraordinary quickness in composing always procured me such work as was most urgent, and which is commonly best paid; and thus my time passed away in a very pleasant man

ner.

My lodging in Little Britain being too far from the printing-house, I took another in Duke-street, opposite the Roman Chapel. It was at the back of an Italian warehouse. The house was kept by a widow who had a daughter, a servant, and a shop-boy; but the latter slept out of the house. After sending to the people with whom I lodged in Little Britain, to enquire into my character, she agreed to take me in at the same price, three-and-sixpence a week; contenting herself, she said, with so little, because of the security she would derive, as they were all women, from having a man lodge in the house.

She was a woman rather advanced in life, the daughter of a clergyman. She had been educated a Protestant; but her husband, whose memory she highly revered, had converted her to the Catholic religion.

She had lived in habits of intimacy with persons of distinction; of whom she knew various anecdotes as far back as the time of Charles II. Being subject to fits of the gout, which often confined her to her room. she was sometimes disposed to see company. Her's was so amusing to me, that I was glad to pass the evening with her as often as she desired it. Our supper consisted only of half an anchovy a-piece, upon a slice of bread and butter, with a half pint of ale between us. But the entertainment was in her conversation.

The early hours I kept, and the little trouble I occasioned the family, made her loath to part with me ; and when I mentioned another lodging I had found, nearer the printing-house, at two shillings a week, which fell in with my plan of saving, she persuaded me to give it up, making herself an abatement of two shillings and thus I continued to lodge with her, during the remainer of my abode in London, at eighteenpence a week.

In a garret of the house there lived, in the most retired manner, a lady seventy years of age, of whom I received the following account from my landlady :--She was a Roman Catholic. In her early years she had been sent to the continent, and entered a convent with the design of becoming a nun; but the climate not agreeing with her constitution, she was obliged to return to England, where, as there were no monas tries, she made a vow to lead a monastic life, in as rigid a manner as circumstances would permit. She accordingly disposed of all her property to be applied to charitable uses, reserving to herself only twelve pounds a year; and of this small pittance she gave a part to the poor, living on water-gruel, and never making use of fire but to boil it. She had lived in this garret a great many years, without paying rent to the successive Catholic inhabitants that had kept the house; who indeed considered her abode with them

as a blessing. A priest came every day to confess her. I have asked her, said my landlady, how, living as she did, she could find so much employment for a confessor? To which she answered, that it was impossible to avoid vain thoughts.

I was once permitted to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and her conversation agreeable. Her apartment was neat ; but the whole furniture consisted of a matrass, a table, on which were a crucifix and a book, a chair, which she gave me to sit on, and over the mantle-piece a picture of St. Veronica, displaying her handkerchief, on which was seen the miraculous impression of the face of Christ, which she explained to me with great gravity. Her countenance was pale, but she had never experienced sickness; and I may adduce her as another proof how little is sufficient to maintain life and health.

He

At the printing-house I contracted an intimacy with a sensible young man of the name of Wygate, who, as his parents were in good circumstances, had received a better education than is common with printers. was a tolerable Latin scholar, spoke French fluently and was fond of reading. I taught him, as well as a friend of his, to swim, by taking him twice only into the river; after which they stood in need of no farther assistance. We one day made a party to go by water to Chelsea, in order to see the College, and Don Soltero's curiosities. On our return, at the request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I undresed myself, and leaped into the river. I swam from near Chelsea the whole way to Blackfriar's Bridge, exhibiting, during my course, a variety of feats of activity and address, both upon the surface of the water, as well as under it. This sight occasioned much astonishment and pleasure to those to whom it was new. In my youth I took great delight in this exercise. I knew, and could execute all the evolutions and positions of Thevenot; and I added to them some

of my own invention, in which I endeavoured to unite gracefulness and utility, I took a pleasure in displaying them all on this occasion, and was highly flattered with the admiration they excited.

Wygate, besides his being desirous of perfecting himself in this art, was the more attached to me from there being in other respects, a conformity in our tastes and studies. He at length proposed to me to make the tour of Europe with him, maintaining ourselves at the same time by working at our profession. I was on the point of consenting, when I mentioned it to my friend Denham, with whom I was glad to pass an hour whenever I had leisure. He dissuaded me from the project, and advised me to return to Philadelphia, which he was about to do himself. I must res late in this place a trait of this worthy man's character.

He had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failing, he compounded with his creditors, and departed for America, where, by assiduous application as a merchant, he acquired in a few years a very consider◄ able fortune. Returning to England in the same vessel with myself, as I have related above, he invited all his old creditors to a feast. When assembled, he thanked them for the readiness with which they had received his small composition; and, while they expected nothing more than a simple entertainment, each found under his plate, when it came to be remov ed, a draft upon a banker for the residue of his debt, with interest.

He told me it was his intention to carry back with him to Philadelphia a great quantity of goods, in order to open a store; and he offered to take me with him in the capacity of clerk, to keep his books, in which he would instruct me, copy letters, and superintend the store. He added, that as soon as I acquired a know ledge of mercantile transactions, he would improve my situation, by sending me with a cargo of corn and Hour to the American islands, and by procuring me