Boy, if not a Parish
Foundling, without known Parents, or Relations. He had found a way
to live by Obsequiousness (in _Clement's-Inn_, as I remember) and
courting the Attornies Clerks for Scraps. The extraordinary Observance
and Diligence of the Boy, made the Society willing to do him Good. He
appeared very ambitious to learn to write; and one of the Attornies
got a Board knocked up at a Window on the Top of a Staircase; and that
was his Desk, where he sat and wrote after Copies of Court and other
Hands the Clerks gave him. He made himself so expert a Writer that he
took in Business, and earned some Pence by Hackney-writing. And thus,
by degrees, he pushed his Faculties, and fell to Forms, and, by Books
that were lent him, became an exquisite entering Clerk; and, by the
same course of Improvement of himself, an able Counsel, first in
special Pleading, then, at large. And, after he was called to the Bar,
had Practice, in the _King's Bench_ Court, equal with any there. As to
his Person, he was very corpulent and beastly; a mere Lump of morbid
Flesh. He used to say, _by his Troggs_, (such an humourous Way of
talking he affected) _none could say be wanted Issue of his Body,
for he had nine in his Back_. He was a fetid Mass, that offended his
Neighbours at the Bar in the sharpest Degree. Those, whose ill Fortune
it was to stard near him, were Confessors, and, in Summer-time, almost
Martyrs. This hateful Decay of his Carcase came upon him by continual
Sottishness; for, to say nothing of Brandy, he was seldom without a
Pot of Ale at his Nose, or near him. That Exercise was all he used;
the rest of his Life was sitting at his Desk, or piping at home; and
that _Home_ was a Taylor's House in _Butcher-Row_, called his Lodging,
and the Man's Wife was his Nurse, or worse; but, by virtue of his
Money, of which he made little Account, though he got a great deal,
he soon became Master of the Family; and, being no Changling, he never
removed, but was true to his Friends, and they to him, to the last
Hour of his Life.

So much for his Person and Education. As for his Parts, none had them
more lively than he. Wit and Repartee, in an affected Rusticity, were
natural to him. He was ever ready, and never at a Loss; and none
came so near as he to be a Match for Serjeant _Mainard_. His great
Dexterity was in the Art of special Pleading, and he would lay Snares
that often caught his Superiors who were not aware of his Traps. And
he was so fon