appearance. I tried to make out a little longer by taking the key in my
pocket, but it would not do. I overheard mine hostess one day telling
some of her customers on the stairs that the room was occupied by an
author, who was always in a tantrum if interrupted; and I immediately
perceived, by a slight noise at the door, that they were peeping at me
through the key-hole. By the head of Apollo, but this was quite too
much! with all my eagerness for fame, and my ambition of the stare of
the million, I had no idea of being exhibited by retail, at sixpence a
head, and that through a key-hole. So I bade adieu to Canonbury Castle,
merry Islington, and the haunts of poor Goldsmith, without having
advanced a single line in my labors.

My next quarters were at a small white-washed cottage, which stands not
far from Hempstead, just on the brow of a hill, looking over Chalk
farm, and Camden town, remarkable for the rival houses of Mother Red
Cap and Mother Black Cap; and so across Cruckskull common to the
distant city.

The cottage is in no wise remarkable in itself; but I regarded it with
reverence, for it had been the asylum of a persecuted author. Hither
poor Steele had retreated and lain perdue when persecuted by creditors
and bailiffs; those immemorial plagues of authors and free-spirited
gentlemen; and here he had written many numbers of the Spectator. It
was from hence, too, that he had despatched those little notes to his
lady, so full of affection and whimsicality; in which the fond husband,
the careless gentleman, and the shifting spendthrift, were so oddly
blended. I thought, as I first eyed the window, of his apartment, that
I could sit within it and write volumes.

No such thing! It was haymaking season, and, as ill luck would have it,