nto a tavern, order a supper to
be prepared, drink of the richest wines, and spend all the money that
had just been given him in charity, without having any one to
participate the regale with him, and while his wife and child were
starving home? This is an instance of base selfishness, for which no
name is as yet invented, and except by another poet[2], with some
variation of circumstances, was perhaps never practiced by the most
sensual epicure.

He had yet some friends, many of the most eminent dissenters, who from a
regard to the memory of his father, afforded him supplies from time to
time. Mr. Boyse by perpetual applications, at last exhausted their
patience; and they were obliged to abandon a man on whom their
liberality was ill bestowed, as it produced no other advantage to him,
than a few days support, when he returned again with the same
necessities.

The epithet of cold has often been given to charity, perhaps with a
great deal of truth; but if any thing can warrant us to withhold our
charity, it is the consideration that its purposes are prostituted by
those on whom it is bestowed.

We have already taken notice of the infidelity of his wife; and now her
circumstances were reduced, her virtue did not improve. She fell into a
way of life disgraceful to the sex; nor was his behaviour in any degree
more moral. They were frequently covered with ignominy, reproaching one
another for the acquisition of a disease, which both deserved, because
mutually guilty.

It was about the year 1740, that Mr. Boyse reduced to the last extremity
of human wretchedness, had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel
to put on; the sheets in which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker's,
and he was obliged to be confined to bed, with no other covering than a
blanket. He had little support but what he got by writing letters to his
friends in the most abject stile. He was perhaps ashamed to let this
instance of distress be known to his friends, which might be the
occasion of his remaining six weeks in that situation. During this time
he had some employment in writing verses for the Magazines; and whoever
had seen him in his study, must have thought the object singular enough.
He sat up in bed with the blanket wrapt about him, through which he had
cut a hole large enough to admit his arm, and placing the paper upon his
knee, scribbled in the best manner he could the verses he was obliged to
make: Whatever he got by those, or any o