offered me to make me chaplain
to his regiment, which I refused in favor of Sir Oliver Hearty, who
told us he would sacrifice everything to his country; and I believe
he would, except his hunting, which he stuck so close to that in five
years together he went but twice up to Parliament; and one of those
times, I have been told, never was within sight of the House. However,
he was a worthy man, and the best friend I ever had; for, by his
interest with a bishop, he got me replaced into my curacy, and gave me
eight pounds out of his own pocket to buy me a gown and cassock and
furnish my house. He had our interest while he lived, which was not
many years.

"On his death I had fresh applications made to me; for all the world
knew the interest I had in my good nephew, who now was a leading man
in the corporation; and Sir Thomas Booby, buying the estate which had
been Sir Oliver's, proposed himself a candidate. He was then a young
gentleman just come from his travels; and it did me good to hear him
discourse on affairs, which, for my part, I knew nothing of. If I had
been master of a thousand votes he should have had them all.

"I engaged my nephew in his interest, and he was elected; and a very
fine Parliament-man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour
long, and, I have been told, very fine ones; but he could never
persuade the Parliament to be of his opinion. _Non omnia possumus
omnes._ He promised me a living, poor man! and I believe I should have
had it, but an accident happened, which was that my lady had promised
it before, unknown to him. This indeed I never heard till afterward;
for my nephew, who died about a month before the incumbent, always
told me I might be assured of it.

"Since that time, Sir Thomas, poor man! had always so much business
that he never could find leisure to see me. I believe it was partly my
lady's fault, too, who did not think my dress good enough for the
gentry at her table. However, I must do him the justice to say he
never was ungrateful; and I have always found his kitchen, and his
cellar too, open to me: many a time, after service on a Sunday--for I
preached at four churches--have I recruited my spirits with a glass of
his ale. Since my nephew's death, the corporation is in other hands;
and I am not a man of that consequence I was formerly. I have now no
longer any talents to lay out in service of my country; and to whom
nothing is given, of him can nothing be required.

"H