coloured, cudgel-playing oaf that my Lady Bellaston led about with
her--as maids lead apes in hell, though he more of an ape than she
of a maid--'tis a year gone? This brawny-beefed chairman hath
married a fortune and a delicious girl, you dog, Miss Sophia
Western, of Somerset, and is now in train, I doubt not, to beget as
goodly a tribe of chuckle-headed boys and whey-faced wenches as you
shall see round an old squire's tomb in a parish church. Wherefore
does he not abide at this his appointed lawful husbandry, I marvel;
but not a whit!

Our cursed adventure hath spread from the flippanti of both sexes
down to the heathenish parts of Somerset; where it hath reached
Madam Jones's ears, and inflamed this pretty vixen with a desire to
avenge Miss Harlowe on me, and by the cudgel of Mr. Jones, his
Sophia having sent him up to town for no other purpose. De la
Tour, my man, came to me yesterday morning with the tidings that
the New Giant, as he supposes, waits on me to solicit the favour of
my patronage. I am in the powdering closet, being bound for a
rout, and cry, "Let the Giant in!" Then a heavy tread: and,
looking up, what do I see but a shoulder-of-mutton fist at my nose,
and lo! a Somerset tongue cries, "Lovelace, thou villain, thou
shalt taste of this!" A man in a powdering closet cannot fight,
even if he be a boxing glutton like your Figs and other gladiators
of the Artillery Ground. Needs must I parley. "What," says I,
"what, the happy Mr. Jones from the West! What brings him here
among the wicked, and how can the possessor of the beauteous Sophia
be a moment from her charms?"

"Take not her name," cries my clod-hopper, "into thy perjured
mouth. 'Tis herself sends me here to avenge the best, the most