ut for
their walk home till it was too late; and had drank so deep that they
lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried
him off. The parish still talk of the drunken Dean."

* * * * *

A PRETTY COMPLIMENT.

Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified
contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs.
Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at
Bolt Court, and his servant Frank could not immediately furnish her with
a chair, the doctor said, "You see, madam, that wherever you go there
are _no seats to be got_."

* * * * *

THOMAS DAY, AND HIS MODEL WIFE.

Day, the author of _Sandford and Merton_, was an eccentric but amiable
man; he retired into the country "to exclude himself," as he said, "from
the vanity, vice, and deceptive character of man," but he appears to
have been strangely jilted by women. When about the age of twenty-one,
and after his suit had been rejected by a young lady to whom he had paid
his addresses, Mr. Day formed the singular project of educating a wife
for himself. This was based upon the notion of Rousseau, that "all the
genuine worth of the human species is perverted by society; and that
children should be educated apart from the world, in order that their
minds should be kept untainted with, and ignorant of, its vices,
prejudices, and artificial manners."

Day set about his project by selecting two girls from an establishment
at Shrewsbury, connected with the Foundling Hospital; previously to
which he entered into a written engagement, guaranteed by a friend,
Mr. Bicknell, that within twelve months he would resign one of them
to a respectable mistress, as an apprentice, with a fee of one hundred
pounds; and, on her marriage, or commencing business for herself, he
would give her the additional sum of four hundred pounds; and he further
engaged that he would act honourably to the one he should retain, in
order to marry her at a proper age; or, if he should change his mind, he
would allow her a competent support until she married, and then give her
five hundred pounds as a dowry.

The objects of Day's speculation were both twelve years of age. One of
them, whom he called Lucretia, had a fair complexion, with light hair
and eyes; the other was a brunette, with chesnut tresses, who was styled
Sabrina. He took these girls