If it be true (which doubtless will be denied by no one) that women are fond of changing their fashions and of pranking themselves continually in some new finery, it is certainly no less true that men—I mean young ones—are for ever changing their follies as well as their fashions. The follies of old men—who ought to be grave, in contemplation of the next world—seem to remain the same: some of them practise gluttony: some love the bottle: some of them the green table: some, even more foolish, pretend to renew their youth and counterfeit a passion for our sex. As for the fashions of the young men, one year it is the cocking of a hat, the next it is the colour of a waistcoat, the cut of a skirt, the dressing of a wig; the ribbon behind must be lengthened or reduced, the foretop must stick up like a horn one year and lie flat the next, the curls must be amplified till a man looks like a monstrous ram, or reduced till he resembles a monkey who has been shaved; the sword must have hilt and scabbard of the fashionable shape which changes every year; it must be worn at a certain angle; the rule about the breadth of the ruffle or the length of the skirt must be observed. So that, even as regards their fashions, the men are even with the women. Where we cannot vie with them is in the fashion of their amusements, in which they change for ever, and more rapidly than we change the colour of a ribbon. One season Ranelagh is the vogue, the next Vauxhall; the men were, for a year or two, bitten by that strange madness of scouring the streets by night, upsetting constables, throwing pence against window-panes, chasing belated and peaceful passengers, shouting and bellowing, waking from sleep timid and helpless women and children. Could one devise a braver and more noble amusement? Another time there was the mischievous practice of man-hunting. It was thought the work of a fine fellow, a lad of spirit, to lie hidden, with other lads of spirit, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or some such quiet place, behind the bushes, until there might pass by some unfortunate wretch, alone and unprotected. Then would they spring to their feet, shouting, “That’s he! that’s he! after him, boys!” and pursue the poor man through the streets with drawn swords and horrid cries, until, half dead, he rushed into some tavern or place of refuge. As for actors, singers, or dancers, they take them up for a season, and then abandon them for no merit or fault in them whatever; one day they are all for Church, and the next they applaud Orator Henley; one day they shout for Nancy Dawson, and the next for Garrick; one day they are Whig, and the next Tory; one year they brandish thick clubs, wear heavy greatcoats with triple capes, swear, drink porter, and go like common coachmen; the next, with amber canes, scented gloves, lace ruffles, flowered silk waistcoats, skirts, extended like a woman’s hooped petticoat, they amble along as if the common air was too coarse for them, mince their words, are shocked at coarse language, and can drink nothing less fine than Rhenish or Champagne, though the latter be seven shillings and sixpence a flask; and as for their walk, they go on tip-toe like a city madam trying to look like a gentlewoman. The next year, again, they are all for Hockley-in-the-Hole and bear-baiting. This year, the fashion was for a short space, and among such as could get taken there, to spend the evenings in the Rules of the Fleet, where, the bloods of the town had discovered, was to be found excellent company for such as liked to pay for it, among those who had been spent and ruined in the service of fashion, gaming, and gallantry.

There are plenty of taverns and houses of call in London where a gentleman may not only call for what he pleases to order, but may also be diverted by the jests and songs of some debauched, idle fellow who lies and lops about all day, doing no work and earning no money, but in the evening is ready to sing and make merriment for a bowl of punch. This rollicking, roaring blade, the lad of mettle, was once a gentleman, perhaps, or a companion to gentlemen. To him nature, intending her worst, hath given a reckless temperament, an improvident brain, a merry laugh, a musical voice, a genius for mimicry, of which gifts he makes such excellent use that they generally lead him to end his days in such a position. Men need not, for certain, go to Fleet Market to find these buffoons.

Yet, within the Rules, there was an extraordinary number of these careless vagabonds always ready to enjoy the present hour could some friend be found to pay the shot. In the morning they roamed the place, leaned against bulkheads, sat in doorways, or hid themselves within doors, dejected, repentant, full of gloomy anticipations; in the evening their old courage came back to them, they were again jocund, light-hearted, the oracle of the tavern, the jester and Jack-pudding of the feast, pouring out songs from the collections of Tom D’Urfey, and jokes from Browne and Ned Ward.

Many of the taverns, the Bishop Blaize, for example, and the Rainbow, kept one or two of these fellows in their regular employ. They gave them dinner, with, as soon as the guests arrived in the evening, liberty to call for what they pleased. If the visitors treated them, so much the better for the house; but there were, however, conditions, unwritten but understood: they were never to be sad, never grave, never to show the least signs of repentance, reflection or shame; and they were not to get drunk early in the evening, or before the better sort of visitors, whose entertainment they were to provide. Shameful condition! shameful servitude, for man (who hath a soul to think of) to obey!

One has to confess with shame that among the tavern buffoons, the Professional Tom Fools of the Fleet, were several of those clergymen whose trade it was to make rash couples wretched for life. This peculiarity, not to be found elsewhere, provided, perhaps, a novelty in vice which for a time made the Rules a favourite resort of men about town: the knowledge that the man who, without a rag left of the gravity belonging to his profession, laughed, sang and acted for the amusement of all comers, should have borne himself as a grave and reverend divine, gave point to his jest and added music to his song. It is not every day that one sees a merry-andrew in full-bottomed wig, bands, and flowing gown; it is not in every tavern that one finds the Reverend James Lands dancing a hornpipe in clogs, or the Reverend William Flood bawling a comic song while he grins through a horse-collar. Nor could the wits find at the coffee-houses of St. James’s or Covent Garden, or at any ordinary place of amusement, a clergyman at the head of the table ruffling it with the best—albeit with tattered gown and shabby wig—ready with jest more profane, wit more irreverent, song and story more profligate, than any of the rest.

As for Doctor Shovel, it must not be supposed that he was to be found in any of these places.

“What!” he was wont to cry, “should a man of reputation, a scholar, whose Latin verses have been the delight of bishops and the pride of his college, a clergyman of dignity and eloquence, condescend to take the pay of a common vintner, make merriment for the company of a mug-house, hobnob with a tradesmen’s club, play buffoon for a troop of Templars, and crack jests for any ragamuffin prentice with half-a-crown to call for a bottle? No, sir! The man who would know Doctor Gregory Shovel must seek him in his own house, where, as a gentleman and a scholar, he receives such as may be properly introduced on every night of the year—Sundays excepted, when he takes his drink, for the most part, alone.”

In fact, his house was the chief attraction of the Rules; but access was only granted to those who were brought by his friends. Once introduced, however, a man was free of the house, and might not only come again as often as he pleased, but bring other friends. Now, as men prize most that which is least easy to procure, whether they want it or not, it became a distinction to have this right of spending the evening in the Fleet Market. A fine distinction, truly!

Those, however, who went there were not unlikely to find themselves among a goodly assemblage of wits and men of fashion. The Doctor played the host with the dignity of a bishop, and the hospitality of a nobleman; chairs were set around the table, in that room where he performed his daily marriages; those who came late could stand or send for a bench from the market; Roger and William, the two clerks, were in attendance to go and fetch the punch which the Doctor or his guests provided for the entertainment of all. Tobacco was on the table; the Doctor was in the chair, his long pipe in his mouth, his great head leaning back, his eyes rolling as he talked, before him his glass of punch. He was no buffoon; he did not cut capers, nor did he dance, nor did he sing Tom D’Urfey’s songs, nor did he quote Ned Ward’s jokes. If the company laughed, it was at one of his own stories, and when he sang, the words were such as might have been heard in any gentlewoman’s parlour, and the music was Arne’s, Bull’s, Lilly’s, or Carey’s. Round him were poets, authors, scholars, lawyers, country gentlemen, and even grave merchants; some of them were out at elbows, threadbare, and sometimes hungry, but they were as welcome as the richer sort who paid for the punch. The younger men came to listen to one who was notorious for his impudent defiance of the law, and was reported to possess excellent gifts of conversation and of manner. The elder men came to look upon a man unabashed in his disgrace, whom they had known the favourite of the town.

“All the world,” Sir Miles Lackington told me, “ran after Doctor Shovel when he was a young man and evening lecturer at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields; never was clergyman more popular in the world or in the pulpit; what was to be looked for when such a young man spent his morning with great ladies, who cried, ‘Oh, sweet sir! oh, reverend sir! how eloquent, how gracious are your words!’ but that he should see within reach promise of preferment, and run into debt to maintain a fine appearance and a fine lodging?”

The fine ladies had gone off after other favourite divines; their promises were forgotten; they had listened to other voices as musical, and bowed their heads before other divines as pious. The debts were unpaid—the Doctor in the Rules. He possessed no longer the wonderful comeliness with which he had stolen away the hearts of women, he preached no more in any pulpit; but his old dignity was left, with his eloquence and his wit. He who had charmed women now attracted men.

“Fie!” he would say; “remind me not of that time. I was once the pet and plaything of ladies, a sort of lapdog to be carried in their coaches: a lackey in a cassock, with my little store of compliments, pretty sayings, and polite maxims: my advice on patches, powder, and Eau de Chypre: my family prayers: my grace before meat: my sermons on divine right and the authority of the Church; and my anecdotes to make my lady laugh and take the cross looks out of little miss’s dimpled cheeks. And, gentlemen, withal a needy curate, a poor starveling, a pauper with never a guinea, and a troop of debts which would not disgrace a peer.

“Whereas,” he would continue, “here I live free of duns and debt: the countesses may go hang: I look for no more patrons: I expect no beggarly preferment; I laugh at my ease, while my creditors bark but cannot bite.”

To those who objected that in former times he preached to the flock, and that his eloquence was now as good as lost to the Church, he replied that, as Chaplain of the Fleet, he preached daily, whereas formerly he had preached but once a week, which was a clear gain for righteousness.

“What! would you have me send forth my newly married lambs without a word of exhortation beyond the rubric? Nay, sir; that were to throw away the gift of speech, and to lose a golden occasion. None leave my chapel-of-ease unless fortified and exhorted to virtue by such an admonition as they have never before enjoyed.”

One evening in October, when the summer was over and the autumn already set in, the Doctor sat as usual in his arm-chair. Before him stood his tobacco-box, and beside it lay his pipe. As yet, for it was but eight o’clock, there was no punch. Four great wax candles stood lighted on the table, and in the doorway were the two impudent varlets, whom he called his clerks, leaning against the posts, one on either hand.

There was but one visitor as yet. He was a young Templar, almost a boy, pale and thin because of his late hours and his excesses. And the Doctor was admonishing him, being at the time in a mood of repentance, or rather of virtue.

“Young man,” he said, “I have observed thee, and made inquiry among thy friends regarding thy conduct, which resembles, at present, that of the prodigal son while revelling in his prodigality. Learn from this place and the wretches who are condemned to live in it, the end of profligacy. What the words of Solomon have hitherto been powerless to teach, let the Chaplain of the Fleet enforce. The wellspring of wisdom is as a flowing brook, says the Wise Man. Yet ye drink not of that stream. Also he saith that Wisdom crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city. But ye regard not. He hath told ye how the young man, void of understanding, falls continually into the pit of destruction. But ye heed not. The drunkard and the glutton, he hath declared, shall come to poverty. Ye listen not, but continue to eat and to drink. Wherefore, young man, look around thee and behold this place. We who are here sit among wine-bibbers and spendthrifts: we have not in our comings and goings—but, alas! we never go—any gracious paths of pleasantness: we go never among the meadows to breathe the air of buttercups and to ponder on the divine wisdom: we listen perpetually to the cackle of fools, the braying of asses, whom we could indeed wish to be wild and on their native Asiatic plains; and the merriment of madmen, which is like unto the crackling of thorns beneath the pot: we have—though our sins are multitudinous as the moments—no time nor opportunity for repentance: and even if we did repent, there is no way out for us, no escape at all, but still we must remain among the wicked until we die. Even the Christian priest, who finds himself (through thoughtlessness over money matters, being continually occupied with higher things) brought hither, must leave the ways which are right, and cleave unto those which are wrong. It is only by lying, bullying, and swearing, that money (by which we live) is drawn here out of the purses of silly and unwary people. Granted that we draw it. What boots it if one’s rogues bring in a hundred couples in a month? The guineas melt away like snow in the sunshine, and nothing remains but the evil memory of the sins by which they were gotten.”

The Templar, astonished at such a sermon from such a man, hung his head abashed. He came to drink and be merry, and lo! an exhortation to virtue. While the Doctor was yet speaking, there came a second visitor—no other than Mr. Stallabras, the poet, who came, his head erect, his hand thrust in his bosom, as if fresh from an interview with the Muses. The Doctor regarded him for a moment, as one in a pulpit might regard a late-comer who disturbed his sermon, and went on with his discourse:

“This is a place, young man, where gnashing of teeth may be heard day and night by him who has ears to hear, and who knows that the sound of riot and merriment are but raised to drown despair: to him every song is a throb of agony, every jest rings in his ears like a cry of remorse: we are in a prison, though we seem to be free; we are laid by the heels, though we are said to enjoy the Liberties of the Fleet; we live and breathe like our fellows, but we have no hope for the rest of our lives; we go not forth, though the doors are open; we are living monuments, that foolish youth may learn by our luckless fate to avoid the courses which have brought us hither. Wherefore, young man, beware! Discite justitiam moniti.“

He paused awhile, and then continued:

“Yet we should not be pitied, because, forsooth, we do but lie in the beds that we have chosen. No other paradise save a heaven of gluttony would serve our turn. In the Garden of Eden, should we peradventure and by some singular grace win thither, we should instantly take to wallowing in the mud and enjoying the sunshine: some of us would sit among the pigsties in happy conversation and friendship with the swine: some would creep downstairs and bask among the saucepans before the kitchen fire: some would lie among the bottles and casks in the cellar. Not for such as have come here are the gardens, the streams, the meadows, and the hilltops.”

Then came two more guests, whom he saluted gravely. These were accustomed to the Doctor’s moods, and sat down to the table, waiting in silence. He, too, became silent, sitting with his head upon his hand. Then came others, who also found the Doctor indisposed for mirth. Presently, however, he banged the table with his fist, and cried out in those deep tones which he could use so well:

“Come, life is short. Lamenting lengthens not our days. Brothers, let us drink and sing. Roger, go bring the bowl. Gentlemen all, be welcome to this poor house. Here is tobacco. Punch is coming. The night is young. Let every man be merry.”

The room was half full: there were, besides the residents and lodgers of the place, young lawyers from the Temple, Gray’s Inn, and Lincoln’s Inn; poets not yet in limbo; authors who were still able to pay for their lodgings; young fellows whose creditors were still forbearing; and a few whose rich coats and lace betokened their rank and wealth.

The evening began, the Doctor’s voice loud above all the rest. Half an hour afterwards, when the air of the room was already heavy with tobacco-smoke, Sir Miles Lackington who usually came with the earliest, arrived, bringing with him a young gentleman of twenty-two years or thereabouts, who was bravely dressed in a crimson coat, lined with white silk: he had also a flowered silk waistcoat, and the hilt of his sword was set with jewels. He was, in fact, one of those gentlemen who were curious to see this jovial priest, self-styled Chaplain of the place where there were so many parsons, who set the laws of the country at defiance with an audacity so splendid. He looked surprised, as if he had not expected so large an assembly.

“Follow me, my lord,” said the baronet, whose jolly face was already flushed, and his voice already thick with wine. “Come, my lord, let us get nearer the Doctor. Gentlemen, by your leave: will you make place for his lordship? Doctor, this gentleman is none other than the young Lord Chudleigh, who hath heard of your eloquence and your learning, and greatly desires your better acquaintance. Rascal Roger, chairs for my lord and myself!”

He pushed his way through the crowd, followed by his guest. The doctor turned his head, half rose; his melancholy mood had passed away: he was in happy vein: he had sung one or two songs in a voice which might have been heard at Temple Bar: he had taken two or three glasses of punch, and smoked a pipe and a half of the best Virginian; he was in the paradise which he loved. Yet when Sir Miles Lackington spoke, when he named his guest, the Doctor’s face became suddenly pale, he seemed to totter, his eyes glared, and he caught at the arm of his chair, as if about to be stricken with some kind of fit. His friends, who had never seen those ample and rubicund cheeks other than of a glowing ruddiness, were greatly terrified at this phenomenon.

“The Doctor is ill,” cried Solomon Stallabras, starting to his feet. “Give air—open the windows—let us carry the Doctor into the street!”

But he recovered.

“It is nothing,” he said. “A sudden faintness. The day has been close. Let no one move.” He drank off his glass of punch: the colour came back to his face and the firmness to his legs. “I am well again. Sir Miles, you are always welcome. Were the Liberties peopled with such as you, we should be well sped indeed. Quick with the chairs, Roger. I rejoice to see your lordship in this poor house of mine. Had other noblemen of your lordship’s rank but kept their word, I should this day have welcomed you in the palace of a bishop. Forget, my lord, that I am not a bishop: be assured that if I cannot bestow the episcopal absolution and benediction which he of London hath ever ready for a nobleman, my welcome is worthy of a prelate, and the punch not to be surpassed even at Lambeth Palace. Sir Miles, you forgot, I think, to make me acquainted with his lordship’s noble name.”

“I am the Lord Chudleigh,” said the young man doubtfully, and with a pleasing blush.

“Again, your lordship is welcome,” said the Doctor. “In the old days when I was young and able to stir abroad in the world, without a creditor in every street and a vindictive dun in every shop (whose revenge in this my confinement has only brought lamentation on every mother’s son, because they remain all unpaid), it was my privilege to be much with your noble father. In truth, I knew not that he was dead.”

“My father died two years ago at his country house.”

“Indeed!” The Doctor gravely gazed in his guest’s face, both still standing. “Is that really so? But we who live in this retirement hear little news. So Lord Chudleigh is dead! I went upon the Grand Tour with him. I was his tutor, his companion, his friend, as he was kind enough to call me; he was two years younger than myself, but our tastes were common, and what he bought I enjoyed and often chose. There came a time when—but your lordship is young—you know not yet how rank and class separate friends, how the man of low birth may trust his noble friend too much, and he of rank may think the decalogue written for the vulgar. Your father is dead! I had hoped to see him if but once more, before he died: it was not to be. I would have written to him upon his deathbed had I known: I owed him much—very much more than I could hope to repay, yet would I have repaid something. Your father died suddenly, my lord, or after painful illness?”

“He died, Doctor Shovel, after a long and very painful illness.”

“Why, there,” cried the Doctor, as if disappointed. “Had I only known there would have been time for half-a-dozen letters. I would I had been with him myself.”

“It is kind of you, sir,” said his lordship, “thus to speak of my father.”

“Did he—but I suppose he had forgotten—did he condescend to speak of me?”

“Never,” replied Lord Chudleigh; “at least not to me.”

“There were certain passages in his life,” the Doctor went on thoughtfully, “of such a kind as recur to the memory of sick and dying men, when the good and evil deeds of our lives stand arrayed before us like ministering spirits and threatening demons. Certain passages, I say, which were intimately associated with myself. Indeed, it cannot be that they entirely perished from his lordship’s memory. Since he spoke not of them, let me not speak. I am sorry, my lord, to have saddened you by thus recalling the thought of your dead father.”

“Nay, sir,” said Lord Chudleigh, “to have met so old a friend of my father’s is a pleasure I did not expect. I humbly desire, sir, your better acquaintance.”

The company during this long talk were mostly standing. It was no new thing to meet a man of rank at the Doctor’s, but altogether new to have the conversation assume so serious a tone. Every one felt, however, that the dignity of the Doctor was greatly increased by this event.

Then the Doctor waved his hand, and resumed his cheerful expression.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “be seated all, I pray. My lord, your chair is at my right. Enough of the past. We are here to enjoy the present hour, which is always with us and always flying from us. We crown it with flowers and honour it with libations: we sing its presence with us: we welcome its coming, and speed its parting with wine and song. So far are we pagans: join with us in these heathen rites wherein we rejoice in our life and forget our mortality. None but poets are immortal. Solomon—Solomon Stallabras, the modern Apollo, the favourite of the Nine, we drink your health and wish the long deferring of your immortality. Let us drink, let us talk, let us be merry, let us while away the rosy hours.” He banged the table with his fist and set the glasses clinking. Then he filled a glass with punch and handed it to Lord Chudleigh. “As for you, Sir Miles,” he said, “you may help yourself. Ah, tippler! the blush of the bottle is already on thy cheeks and its light is in thy eyes. Wherefore, be moderate at the outset. Roger, thou villain, go order another bowl, and after that more bowls, and still more bowls. I am athirst: I shall drink continually: I shall become this night a mere hogshead of punch. So will all this honourable company; bid the vintner beware the lemon and be sparing of the sugar, but liberal with the clove and the nutmeg. This night shall be such a night as the Rules have never before seen. Run, rogue, run!” Roger vanished. “Let me sing you, my lord, a song of my youth when nymphs and shepherdesses ran in my head more than Hebrew and theology.”

He sang in his rich, full, and musical voice, the following ditty:

“I wrote the song,” said the Doctor, “when it was the fashion to be sighing at the feet of Chloe. Not that my song produced any impression on the fashion. Pray, my lord, is it the custom, nowadays, to woo with a long face and a mournful sigh?”

Lord Chudleigh laughed and put the question by.

“What do women care for lovers’ sighs? I believe, gentlemen, they like to be carried by assault. Who can resist a brave fellow, all fire and passion, who marches to the attack with a confident laugh and a gallant bearing? It is the nature of the sex to admire gallantry. Therefore, gentlemen, put on your best ruffles, cock your hats, tie your wigs, settle the angle of your swords, and on with a hearty countenance.

“I remember, being then in Constantinople, and at a slave-market where Circassians were to be bought, there came into the place as handsome a young Turk as ever you might wish to set eyes upon. Perhaps he was a poet, because when he had the slaves brought out for his inspection, at sight of the prettiest and youngest of them all, he fell to sighing just like an English gentleman in love. Presently there came in an old ruffler of fifty, who, without any sighs or protestations, tugged out his purse and bought the slave, and she went off delighted at having fetched so good a price and pleased so resolute a fellow.”

The Doctor continued to pour forth stories of adventure and experience, interspersed with philosophical maxims. He told of courts and cities as he saw them in the year 1720, which was the year in which he made the Grand Tour with the late Lord Chudleigh. He told old tales of Cambridge life. While he talked the company listened, drank, and smoked; no one interrupted him. Meanwhile he sent the punch about, gave toasts—with every glass a toast, with every toast a full glass—and swore that on such a night no one should pay but himself, wherefore let every man fill up.

“Come, gentlemen, we let the glasses flag. I will sing you another song, written for the good old days of Tom D’Urfey, when men were giants, and such humble topers as ourselves would have met with scant respect.

Thus did the Doctor stimulate his guests to drink. As the night wore on, one by one dropped away: some, among whom were Sir Miles, dropped asleep; a few lay upon the floor. As for Lord Chudleigh, the fiery liquor and the fumes of the tobacco were mounting to his brain, but he was not, like the rest, overpowered. He would have got up and gone away, but that the Doctor’s voice, or his eyes, held him to his place.

“I am thinking,” said the Doctor with a strange smile, “how your father at one time might have rejoiced to think that you should come here. The recollection of his services to me must have soothed his last moments. Would that I could repay them!”

Lord Chudleigh assured him that, so far as he knew, there was nothing to repay, and that, if there had been, his father’s wish would certainly have been to forgive the debt.

“He could not forgive the debt,” said the Doctor, laughing. “It was not in his power. He would have owned the debt. It was not money, however, but a kindness of quite another sort.”

“Then,” said Lord Chudleigh, prettily bowing, “let me thank you beforehand, and assure you that I shall be proud to receive any kindness in return that you may have an opportunity to show me.”

“Believe me, my lord,” said the Doctor, “I have the will if not the power: and I shall not forget the will, at least.”

“It is strange,” he continued, “that he never spoke about his younger days. Lord Chudleigh attracted to himself, between the age of five-and-twenty and thirty, the friendship and respect of many men, like myself, of scholarship and taste, without fortune. He with his friends was going to supply that defect, a promise which circumstances prevented him from fulfilling. The earthen vessel swims merrily, in smooth water, beside the vessel of brass; when a storm rises it breaks to atoms. We were the earthen vessels, he the brazen; we are all broken to atoms and ground beneath the heel. I, who almost alone survive, though sunk as low as any, am yet not the least miserable, and can yet enjoy the three great blessings of humanity in this age—I mean tobacco, punch, and the Protestant religion. Yet one or two of the earthenware pots survive: Judge Tester, for instance, a fellow whose impudence has carried him upwards. He began by being a clown born and bred. First he was sent to the Inns of Court, where he fell into a red waistcoat and velvet breeches, and so into vanity. Impudence, I take it, is the daughter of vanity. As for the rest, a few found their way to this classic region, on which Queen Elizabeth from the Gate of Lud looks down with royal benignity; but these are gone and dead. One, I know, took to the road, and is now engaged in healthful work upon a Plantation of Maryland; two were said to have joined the Waltham Blacks, and lived like Robin Hood, on venison shot in the forest, and other luxuries demanded of wayfarers pistol in hand; one I saw not long ago equipped as a smallcoal man in blue surplice, his shoulder laden with his wooden tinder, and his measure twisted into the mouth of his sack; another, a light-weight and a younger son, became a jockey, and wore the leathern cap, the cut bob, the buff breeches, and the fustian frock, till he was thrown and broke his neck. I laugh when I think of what an end hath come to all the greatness of those days. To be sure, my lord paid for all and promised future favours; but we were fine gentlemen on nothing, connoisseurs with never a guinea, dilettanti who could not pay for the very eye-glasses we carried. In the province of love and gallantry every man, beggar as he was, thought himself a perfect Oroondates. We sang with taste; we were charming men, nonpareils. We had the tastes of men of fortune; we talked as if the things we loved were within our reach; we dreamed of pictures, bronzes, busts, intaglios, old china, or Etruscan paterÆ. And we had the vices of the great as well as their tastes. Like them we drank; like them we diced; like them we played all night at brag, all-fours, teetotum, hussle-cup, chuck-farthing, hazard, lansquenet. So we lived, and so we presently found the fate of earthen vessels. Heaven hath been kinder to some of us than we deserve. Wherefore, gentlemen, drink about.” Here the Doctor looked round him. “Gentlemen, I perceive that I have been for some time talking to a sleeping audience. Roger, pour me out another glass. Swine of Circe, I drink to your headaches in the morning. Now, lads, turn all out.”