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as public obligations were hereditary, and ought never to be forgotten; and, where there is a propinquity of blood, it should not be suffered to rest lingering in the veins for want of that physical assistance, gratitude.Surely no one will say that there is any thing unchristian-like in this mode of arguing; I am convinced there is justice in it, and there is much justice in religion; they are engrafted and grow from the same stock. In respect to myself, I may have by and by to say, like Cardinal Wolsey, that

"I am weary and old, left to the mercy

"Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me;"

yet, at the day of retribution, the gates of mercy may be as freely thrown aside to me as those that are cano

pied, stalled, and pampered up, in a golden litter, battening on the fattest fodder, or harnessed in all the costly trappings of a priest, who now and then may stay his impatient hour, and saddle the state with an incumbency of fourteen or fifteen hundred pounds per annum for sitting dummy in a Cathedral

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I am convinced, had my plea been fairly stated at a great and good man's house, I should have had a princely answer; but his doors perhaps, like Jaffier's, might have been "damm'd up," not with "starving creditors," but clamorous petitioners, backed with such irresistible influence, that there was nothing to be done for me; such as great men's butlers, valets, footmen, and coach

men,

men, and an infinity of waiting and chamber maids, with whom their noble masters and mistresses had run in debt from year to year, to a considerable amount, therefore were under the necessity of throwing them on the public by thrusting them into the treasury, the war-office, the customs, &c. many of whom, doubtless, had been for some time at their evening-schools from lack of education, or so long at cross purposes and the habit of making a mark, that it was found necessary in order that they might be endowed with the ability of signing their names, and when they had the honor of being ushered into a place of four or five hundred a year, they might do it legibly. Nay, even pimps and panders might have been on the list, who had followed their libidinous

libidinous lords through every scene of debauchery and extravagance, from the days of puberty to those of listless imbecility.

But the greatest and the best of men have played at blindman's buff ere now, and, like fortune, indiscri minately held out their hands to every lout that chance has pushed into their

way.

On returning from Windsor through Colnbrook to town, reflecting on my disappointment, and feeling at what a distance little men like me are apt to be thrown by the great, and judging by comparison what little cause there was for it, I was rouzed from my reverie by a poor girl almost bare footed, singing cheerfully, with her basket on her arm, on her way to Lon

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don; the morning was frosty, the air keen, and she was thinly clad: I was on horseback, wrapped up warm in my great coat, making my way to Cranford-bridge, in order to break the journey, case my horse, and take a comfortable breakfast; this brought me to a reflection that began to reconcile me to my condition; I asked the poor girl what she sold; she told me, "Water

Cresses, and that she had been to the springs at Langley-broom, in order to get some, was carrying them to London, where she was going to sell them." This is a harder lot than mine, said I; and, buying some of her cresses, put them in my handkerchief, and had them washed, and ate them with my breakfast, where I wrote the following song. This song has been pirated by a manufacturer of songs, who writes them by

contract

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