double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to
pay. Ashamed to apply again to the king, he turned his back upon London,
its false delights and clinging miseries; and, with poverty for his sole
companion, buried himself in solitude among the hills and lakes of
Cumberland. His wit, his bon mots, the record of his personal attractions,
fascinating manners, and social talents, were long remembered and repeated
from mouth to mouth. Ask where now was this favourite of fashion, this
companion of the noble, this excelling beam, which gilt with alien
splendour the assemblies of the courtly and the gay--you heard that he
was under a cloud, a lost man; not one thought it belonged to him to repay
pleasure by real services, or that his long reign of brilliant wit deserved
a pension on retiring. The king lamented his absence; he loved to repeat
his sayings, relate the adventures they had had together, and exalt his
talents--but here ended his reminiscence.

Meanwhile my father, forgotten, could not forget. He repined for the loss
of what was more necessary to him than air or food--the excitements of
pleasure, the admiration of the noble, the luxurious and polished living of
the great. A nervous fever was the consequence; during which he was nursed
by the daughter of a poor cottager, under whose roof he lodged. She was
lovely, gentle, and, above all, kind to him; nor can it afford
astonishment, that the late idol of high-bred beauty should, even in a
fallen state, appear a being of an elevated and wondrous nature to the
lowly cottage-girl. The attachment between them led to the ill-fated
marriage, of which I was the offspring. Notwithstanding the tenderness and
sweetness of my mother, her husband still deplored his degraded state.
Unaccustomed to industry, he knew not in what way to contribute to the
support of his increasing family. Sometimes he thought of applying to the
king; pride and shame for a while withheld him; and, before his necessities
became so imperious as to compel him to some kind of exertion, he died. For