ntres and adventures I
met withall, in presenting my books to those who were likely to accept
of them for their own information, or for that of helping a poor
scholar, or for their own vanity or ostentation.

"Some parsons would hollow to raise the whole house and posse of the
domestics to raise a poor _crown_; at last all that flutter ends in
sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis reckoned
over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out,
which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving,
and so to be received with all the active and passive ceremonial of
mendication and alms-receiving--as if the books, printing and paper,
were worth nothing at all, and as if it were the greatest charity for
them to touch them or let them be in the house; 'For I shall never
read them,' says one of the five-shilling-piece chaps; 'I have no time
to look in them,' says another; ''Tis so much money lost,' says a
grave dean; 'My eyes being so bad,' said a bishop, 'that I can scarce
read at all.' 'What do you want with me?' said another; 'Sir, I
presented you the other day with my _Athenae Britannicae_, being the
last part published.' 'I don't want books, take them again; I don't
understand what they mean.' 'The title is very plain,' said I, 'and
they are writ mostly in English.' 'I'll give you a crown for both the
volumes.' 'They stand me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare
subsistence I present or sell them; how shall I live?' 'I care not a
farthing for that; live or die, 'tis all one to me.' 'Damn my master!'
said Jack, ''twas but last night he was commending your books and your
learning to the skies; and now he would not care if you were starving
before his eyes; nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he
thinks you the greatest scholar in England.'"

Such was the life of a learned mendicant author! The scenes which are
here exhibited appear to have disordered an intellect which had never
been firm; in vain our author attempted to adapt his talents to all
orders of men, still "To the crazy ship all winds are contrary."

FOOTNOTES:

[20] This author, now little known but to the student of our rarer
early poets, was a native of Shrewsbury, and had served in the
army. He wrote a large number of poetical pieces, all now of
the greatest rarity; their names have been preserved by that
industrious antiquary Joseph Ritson, in his _Bi