that time, I fhall begin to let a small ftory or two of you out of my budget; for I happened to be in the pocket of the grocer's wife, all the time you was telling her, you could not help comparing her breafts to Solomon's description of the church; and, piously taking off the good creature's handkerchief, to try if the defcription answered; then, by degrees, you began to compare other parts, tillO Lord, O Lord! what will this world come to at laft? The parfon's gone, and with a flea in his ear too : I was not fo angry with the canting rogue neither, as I feemed to be: flesh is frail, and nature is nature, whether dreft in a black coat, a red coat, a white coat, a blue coat, or any other colour the wit of man man can invent. The grocer's wife was young and tempting, and her husband a very drunken fellow; a Arong temptation this, even for a churchman, much more for a diffenting rogue: the devil lay close at him, to be fure: but, if he had a mind to fhake hands with the cloven-footed gentleman, for half an hour, or so, he fhould not have introduced him through the church. Could not be have told the good woman, that he had a mind, for variety's fake, to be wicked an hour or fo; then, if she gave her confent, the fin would be half her own but to let her keep praying, and turning up the whites of her eyes all the time, as if she was doing a godly action, whilft he knew the devil was close at both their elbows, is abominable, and double the fin on his fide; fide, but let him anfwer for it, reader; you and I have nothing to fay to it; we shall have fins in plenty of our own to answer, for, if we live long enough. What between this canting knave, and the grocer's wife, who is a handfome charming piece of flesh and blood, I am in no cue for telling fo affecting a story as Mifs Jefferfon's; befides, it does not come in turn, for, by the Yorkshire clothier, I was paid to a wool-ftapler; he paid me to a long-legg'd hofier; the hofier paid me to a Nottingham weaver; the weaver changed me with the landlord, at the Bull in Bishopfgate-ftreet; the Fandlord paid me to the one-eyed Norwich warehoufe-keeper; from him I went to a gingerbread-baker, for for gingerbread fent by the waggon into the country. By Timothy Treaclebeard the gingerbread-baker, I was paid to Mrs. Coppernofe, a rich brazier's widow, for rent: all this was performed in lefs than three hours. The duce fetch thefe men of bufiness, fays I to myself, they give very little reft, either to money or banknotes. I now no longer wonder at the fmooth faces of guineas, or the ragged coats of my brethren. If I am not as much jaded with following myself through this confounded three-hours jaunt, as an Hounslow poft-horse when he reaches Hydepark-Corner, I'll give you leave to call me a rhinoceros; but, if I end the the chapter, I shall have time to take a little breath, before I begin another:fo here endeth the feventeenth chapter. · CHA P. XVIII. Edifying converfation. MRS. RS. Coppernofe, in order to live genteel, and keep good company, has forfaken the city, and taken a house in the back fettlements about Portman fquare, where the found a fet of widows that had left the city on the fame plan: fo, to complete their scheme of keeping genteel company, they herd together. There is Mrs. Remnant, the rich taylor's widow; Mrs. Vallon, the upholdsterer's widow; Mrs. Flambeau, the |