and honour, a gentleman by birth and principle, and one every way qualified to make the married state happy. "Hath he lost his understanding," said my friend, "that he takes this method of convening all the prostitutes about the town, or doth he consult his ease so much, as not to trouble himself whether his wife be a modest woman or not?"

• Humph,' cried Ned, what signifies what he said? go on with your story. To make short of it then,' resumed Sparkle, 'my friend grew serious upon the matter, and after a short considering time addressed himself to me as follows: "If I were satisfied your principal is a man, as you describe him, qualified by temper and disposition to make an amiable and vir tuous girl happy, I would say something to you on the subject: but as he chooses to be concealed, and as I cannot think of blindly sacrificing my fair charge to any man, whom she does not know and approve, there is an end of the matter."' And why so?' exclaimed Ned, with more energy than I had ever observed in him: 'I should be glad to see the gentleman and lady both: I should be glad to see them.'

At this instant a servant entered the room, and announced the arrival of a stranger, who wished to speak with the elder Mr. Sparkle.

NUMBER XLI.

My friend Ned Drowsy is a man who hath indeed neglected nature's gifts, but not abused them: he is as void of vice as he is of industry; his temper is serene, and his manners harmless and inoffensive; he is avaricious of nothing but of his ease, and cer

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tainly possesses benevolence, though too indolent to put it into action: he is as sparing of his teeth as he is of his tongue; and whether it be that he is naturally temperate, or that eating and drinking are too troublesome, so it is that he is very abstemious in both particulars; and having received the blessings of a good constitution and a comely person from the hand of Providence, he has not squandered his talent, though he has not put it out to use.

Accordingly when I perceived him interested in the manner I have related upon Mr. Sparkle's discourse, and heard him give orders to his servant to shew the gentleman into the room, which he did in a quicker and more spirited tone than is usual with him, I began to think that nature was about to struggle for her privileges, and suspecting that this stranger might perhaps have some connexion with Sparkle's incognita, I grew impatient for his appearance.

After a while the servant returned, and introduced a little swarthy old man with short gray hair and whimsically dressed; having on a dark brown coat with a tarnished gold edging, black figured velvet waistcoat, and breeches of scarlet cloth with long gold knee bands, dangling down a pair of black silk stockings, which clothed two legs not exactly cast in the mould of the Belvidere Apollo. He made two or three low reverences as he advanced, so that before Mr. Sparkle could announce him by name, I had set him down for an Israelite, all the world to nothing; but as soon as I heard the words, 'Gentlemen, this is my worthy friend Mr. Abraham Abrahams!' I recognized the person of my correspondent, whose humble and ingenious letter I thought fit to publish in No. XXXVII. of this volume, and whom I had once before had a glimpse of, as he walked past my bookseller's door in Cornhill, and was pointed out to me from the shop.

Mr. Abrahams, not being a person to whom nature had affixed her passport, saying, 'Let this man have free ingress and egress upon my authority,' made his first approaches with all those civil assiduities, which some people are constrained to practise, who must turn prejudice out of company, before they can sit down in it. In the present case I flatter myself he fared somewhat better for the whisper I gave my friend Ned in his favour, and silence after a short time having taken place in such a manner as seemed to indicate an expectation in the company, that he was the person who was now to break it, he began, not without some hesitation, to deliver himself in these words:

Before I take the liberty of addressing the gentleman of the house, I wish to know from my friend Mr. Sparkle whether he has opened any hint of what has passed between him and me relative to a certain advertisement; and if he has, I should next be glad to know, whether I have permission of the party concerned to go into the business.'

'Yes, Sir,' cried Ned somewhat eagerly, Mr. Sparkle has told me all that passed, and you have not only my free leave, but my earnest desire, to say every thing you think fit before these friends.'Then Sir,' said Abrahams, I shall tell you a plain tale without varying a single tittle from the truth.

'As I was coming home from my club pretty late in the evening, about five months ago, in turning the corner of a narrow alley, a young woman came hastily out of the door of a house, and, seizing hold of my hand, eagerly besought me for the love of God to follow her. I was startled, and knew not what to think of such a greeting; I could discern that she was young and beautiful, and I was no adventurer in affairs of gallantry; she seemed indeed to be exceedingly agitated and almost beside herself, but I

knew the profligate of that sex can sometimes feign distress for very wicked purposes, and therefore desired to be excused from going into any house with her; if she would however advance a few paces, I would hear what she had to say, and so if it was nothing but my charity she solicited, I was ready to relieve her: we turned the corner of the alley together, and being now in one of the principal streets of the city, I thought I might safely stop and hear the petition she had to make. As we stood together under the eaves of a shop, the night being rainy, she told me that the reason she besought me to go into the house with her was in hopes the spectacle of distress, which would there present itself to my sight, might, if there was any pity in my heart, call it forth, and prevail with me to stop a deed of cruelty, which was then in execution, by saving a wretched object from being thrust into the streets in a dying condition for a small debt to her landlord, whom no entreaties could pacify. "Blessed God!" I exclaimed, 66 can there be such human monsters? who is the woman?"-"My mother," replied she, and burst into an agony of tears; "if I would be what I may have appeared to you, but what I never can be even to save the life of my parent, I had not been driven to this extremity, for it is resentment which actuates the brutal wretch no less than cruelty." Though I confess myself not insensible to fear, being as you see no athletic, I felt such indignation rise within me at these words, that I did not hesitate for another moment about accompanying this unhappy girl to her house, not doubting the truth of what she had been telling me, as well from the manner of her relating it, as from my observation of her countenance, which the light of the lamp under which we were standing, discovered to be of a most affecting, modest, and even dignified character—'

Sir, I honour you for your benevolence,' cried Ned; pray proceed with your story.'

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She led me up two pair of stairs into a back apartment, where a woman was in bed, pleading for mercy to a surly-looking fellow, who was calling out to her to get up and be gone out of his house. "I have found a fellow-creature," said my conductress, "whose pity will redeem us from the clutches of one who has none; be comforted, my dear mother, for this gentleman has some Christian charity in his heart."- "I don't know what charity may be in his heart," cried the fellow, "but he has so little of the Christian in his countenance, that I'll bet ten to one he is a Jew."-"Be that as it may," said I, a Jew may have feeling, and therefore say what these poor women are indebted to you, and I will pay down the money, if my pocket can reach it; if not, I believe my name, though it be a Jew's name, will be good for the sum, let it be what it will."- May God reward you!" cried the mother, "our debt is not great, though it is more than we have present means to pay; we owe but six-and-twenty shillings to our hardened creditor; I believe I am right, Constantia (turning to her daughter), but you know what it is correctly." "That is the amount of it," replied the lovely Constantia, for such she now appeared to me, as she was in the act of supporting her mother on the bolster with her arm under her neck. "Take your money, man," quoth I, "receive what is your own, and let these helpless creatures lodge in peace one night beneath your roof; to-morrow I will remove them, if this infirm woman shall be able to endure it."

"I hope my house is my own," answered the savage, " and I don't desire to be troubled with them one night longer, no, nor even one hour."

'Is this possible?' exclaimed Ned; 'are there such distresses in the world? what then have I been