spoken, I take to be made up of the shreds and clippings
of the rest;--not but the planet is well enough, provided a man could
be born in it to a great title or to a great estate; or could any how
contrive to be called up to public charges, and employments of dignity
or power;--but that is not my case;--and therefore every man will speak
of the fair as his own market has gone in it;--for which cause I affirm
it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;--for I
can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this,
that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in scating
against the wind in Flanders;--I have been the continual sport of what
the world calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her by saying, She
has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil;--yet with
all the good temper in the world I affirm it of her, that in every stage
of my life, and at every turn and corner where she could get fairly
at me, the ungracious duchess has pelted me with a set of as pitiful
misadventures and cross accidents as ever small Hero sustained.

Chapter 1.VI.

In the beginning of the last chapter, I informed you exactly when I was
born; but I did not inform you how. No, that particular was reserved
entirely for a chapter by itself;--besides, Sir, as you and I are in a
manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to
have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once.

--You must have a little patience. I have undertaken, you see, to write
not only my life, but my opinions also; hoping and expecting that your
knowledge of my character, and of what kind of a mortal I am, by the
one, would give you a better relish for the other: As you proceed
farther with me, the slight acquaintance, which is now beginning betwixt
us, will grow into familiarity; and that unless one of us is in fault,
will terminate in friendship.--O diem praeclarum!--then nothing which
has touched me will be thought trifling in its nature, or tedious in its
telling. Therefore, my dear friend and companion, if you should think
me somewhat sparing of my narrative on my first setting out--bear with
me,--and let me go on, and tell my story my own way:--Or, if I should
seem now and then to trifle upon the road,--or should sometimes put on
a fool's cap with a bell to it, for a moment or two as we pass
along,--don't fly off,--but rather courteously give me cre