ments: At length, It does not fignify, James, fays fhe, it may as well be done at first as at laft, and I will break my mind to you. Have you any mind to be married, James? If you have, why come along, and don't be affraid of nothing.'

James had not lived in our part of the town; if he had, the good intentions of the lady would have met with a more favourable reception. He was not without inclina- tion either to his miftrefs, or what he might expect to get by her; but the fear of the gallows fupplied the place of honefty, as it has done on many a fimilar occafion with greater men than James; and under pretence of going to get a hackney coach to carry them off, he found means to disclose the whole matter to the father. James had a crown given him by way of reward for his honefty; the lady was locked up for a quarter of a year, and fomebody elfe was always fent of his mafter's errands to this family for the future.

'Caution was never among the number of our young lady's good qualities. She had given no great proof of her referve in declaring me at first fight very like this faithlefs youth; but as the parents knew I could have had no intimation of that affair, and as between their own good leffons and thofe of the governefs, they took it for granted that the lady was now thoroughly cured of fuch mean notions as liking fervants, they were in no fort of care about it. This however, though I then knew nothing of the matter, the reader will find was a circumftance not a little in my favour; and there was another thing which added to the fecurity of the parents on this head. When my mafter had enquired after my character of lady Calm, he had not contented himself with what the lady told him, but like a prudent man, who knew the kitchen was the part of the house where the family-fecrets were moft known, he had defcended thither, and fifted the inhabitants as to my behaviour, and the reafons of my leaving my place. The accounts he received from these people perfectly confirmed the good character the lady had given me, and on pufhing his enquiries farther, he was told by an upper fervant, by way of a profound fecret, that I was always a vaft favourite of my lady's, that my going away was what nobody ever thought of; that it was owing to some difpute which nobody knew any thing of but ourselves; and in fine, that notwithstanding I chose to be difguifed like a fervant

fervant at present, I was a great gentleman, and so the world would fee one day or other.

My master had looked upon this last circumstance as a paltry trick at the time when he heard it, otherwise, in all probability, he would have made fome farther enquiries into it, before he admitted me into his family. Though he had laughed at it then, he took it into his head afterwards to believe it was not without foundation; and on the strength of that opinion he took occafion, one morning when we were in the compting house, to address me in this manner: "1 have all the reafon in the world to be fatisfied with your behaviour, fir, fays he; but I have fomething to name to you, that will give you a better fenfe of the opinion I have of you than a dry compliment: My daughter likes you, fhe has told me fo, and the fays she believes you do not diflike her. You fee I have a fon who has a title to a confiderable thare of what I fhall be worth, but I fhall not turn out the girl-empty: I can at prefent command forty thousand pounds: I employ it in trade that I may get it to fixty, and I can't take much of it out at this time with convenience. I can give her four thousand down, and I will give four more when I die or retire from business: I know you are a gentleman, though you have chofe to be in this difguife; if it fuits you to make a fair fettlement in proportion, and you like the girl, why take her; if not, why be upon honour that you will not take any advantage of what I have told you, and continue with me as you are as long as you find it convenient to yourself."

I was startled at the honeft franknefs and generofity of the propofal: I affured my mafter he had been misinformed as to my affairs, and after thanking him for the favour he had intended me, I told him that as it was not in my power to accept of it on the equal terms under which he offered it, I never would prefume to think of it at all: but that if he could confide in my conduct, I fhould be happy to continue with him in the station I at prefent held. He shook me by the hand with great heartinefs and friendship, told me I was an honeft young man, and he would truft his whole fortune with me: and adding that he wifhed things would have answered for me to be a match for his daughter; and that he knew I fhould have more honour than to think any thing about it, as they did not; he left me with orders for the bufinefs of the remainder of the day, and went to the exchange with a heart as easy as if he had never thought of the disappointment he had met with.

To do juftice to this plain honeft man, I am to confefs that his behaviour did not from this time alter toward me: but with my lady and mistress it was otherwife. She could not bear to have a fervant in the house that knew her daughter was in love with him, and fhe found an easy way to rid herself of the incumbrance, by making my poft very disagreeable to me. I had fallen into a fober turn: I grew not only fatisfied but pleafed with the quiet and retired life I lived among the people of business, and but for the confequences of this incident, I believe I should never have quitted it. How little do we fee into futurity, and on how trivial accidents do the most important things of our lives turn!

I found the intention of my lady and mistress; and I found it would be neceffary to obey it. I told my mafter of it with all that frankness and tranquility I had learnt from him on the former occafion: he faid he was heartily forry, but he could not deny but I was in the right: and promised to enquire after a better place for me among his acquaintance. He was as good as his word: I was engaged by a man of vaft dealings and fortune as the second in his compting-houfe, and only waited my prefent mafter's providing himself with another to go to my new place. In this interval I had been late on a meffage of civility into the farther part of Bishopfgate-fireet, and was returning with an appointment for a country expedition for the next day, when a great noise called me across the way to a confiderable cluster of people who were furrounding an old gentleman and two young fellows in naval uniforms. The old man was bleeding from a wound on his head; one of the young fellows was threatening him with farther refentment, and the other, whofe back was towards these two faced the mob, and with his sword drawn in his hand kept them all at bay. On enquiry into the caufe of the difturbance, I found it arofe from the old gentleman's not getting out of their way as they were rccling along, which a lameness from the gout had rendered impoffible for him to do with fufficient expedition, and which they were pleafed to call taking the wall of gentlemen who bore the king's commiffion.

The mob were instant with the constable to knock them down: the hero who stood on the defensive threatened immediate death to any that offered to lift up a staff, or but to ftir one step nearer them, and the unhappy victim to their refentment was at once receiving more blows and in

treating

per

treating pardon. I flipped between the wall and the back of the hero who was infulting the weak and inoffenfive fon, and fnatching at the hilt of his fword, got it out of the fcabbard before he was aware of the attempt, the mob huzza'd and drew back: I placed myfelf in a pofture be fore the hero who had the other fword, and told him if he did not inftantly furrender to the officer of juftice I would kill him. His answer was, thruft at me, I parried it, and seeing there was nothing elfe for it, ran him through juft below the fhoulder. He fell with the wound, which was a very painful, though not a dangerous one; his companion in the confufion efcaped; the old gentleman was conducted home, and the wounded perfon to the round-house.

Incidents of this kind are fo uncommon in the city that every part of the neighbourhood was in the morning full of the praifes of the perfon who had occafioned the taking the villain: I had no ambition to be known about it; but a fervant of my master's banker having been one of the mob, told every body who it was that had done it. I had even had the moderation to fay nothing of this at home, fo that the surprise of my master on seeing me receive a handfome present in a bank-note from the gentleman whose life I had probably faved, was what it would not be easy to exprefs. I received the congratulations of all the people about us on the occafion; and my mafter, who loved me heartily and honestly, charmed with the fine things that were faid of my courage and generofity on this occafion, fhrugged up his fhoulders, and told them he did not at all wonder at it, nor may be would they, if they knew all that I was a gentleman, a lord for any thing he knew, in disguise: that every body knew it very well where I came from, and that he had offered me his daughter for a wife, and I had refused her.

'I dare believe this worthy and generous man intended nothing but my fervice in all that he had faid; and the reader will probably be of opinion that the incident, and all its circumftances, ought to have recommended me to the people among whom I was: but different persons. fee the fame object under different lights: my new master fent me an excufe about the place, and a fmall present by way of making me amends for the difappointment: and I found it was univerfally whispered about, that I had better go back to the part of the town I came from, for they did not want any disguised gentleman or fighting clerks in the city.

I 4

* I

I have often, on the recollecting the several paffages of my life, thought that I have a right to complain; as many of the most distressful scenes of it have been fuch as I neither had expected nor could be fairly faid to deferve. The confequence of my libertinifm in the fervice of lady Revell I do not rank among that number of unmerited misfortunes, but this new one furely I have a right to clafs with them. At a time when I had reduced my expectations to what I faw before me; when I had found the way, by my honeft industry, to fupport myfelf in a manner that I was fatisfied with, to have then, while under engagements that feemed to fecure it to me, an accident which it would have been base to have avoided, under which it was virtuous to act as I did, and from which I had a right to expect favour and advantages, misunderstood and mifrepresented in fuch a manner as to turn me once more again a drift in the world, expofed to ruin, and divested of every hope of what appeared juft before a certainty of happiness to me; all this furely is a juft reafon of complaint. I had learned the art of fubmitting to what it was impoffible to avoid. I tried to reconcile my intended mafter to my conduct and character, but in vain: my prefent one was much my friend, he told me I deceived myself if I imagined I fhould ever be able to fet myself upon any footing again in the city; and adding, that he thought me excellently qualified for making my fortune at the other end of the town, by obtaining a poft in fome of the offices, as a reward to my service in a nobleman's family, he recommended it to me to throw my felf into the way of it.

I used all the neceffary means to find a place at the polite end of the town, but long in vain. It was an ill time of the year, most of the families worth ferving were in the country, and the reft had no changes in them, as the fervants did not think it worth while to leave even bad places, till the time of getting into good ones fhould come. My mafter had a new fervant in my poft, but he generously gave me the protection of his houfe till I fhould be provided for.

One day as the family were at dinner, a violent ringing of the bell fummoned me, who was the only idle perfon in the houfe, to the gate. I had no fooner opened it than a very elegant female figure appeared rifing out of a chair; but in an inftant the mixed fmell of the fhoe-cleaner's implements, and the occafional deluges at the doorpofts ftruck her down again. She held her nose as she sunk

hastily