man; with some other particulars which I do not think proper to relate. My friend sir Roger alighted from his horse; and exposing his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, who was older and more sunburnt than the rest, told him that he had a widow in his line of life. Upon which the knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle baggage; and at the same time smiled upon me. The gipsy, finding he was not displeased in his heart, told him, after a further inquiry into his hand, that his true-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night. My old friend cried Pish, and bid her go on. The gipsy told him that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought. The knight still repeated, she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, master! says the gipsy, that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ach; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing. The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse. As we were riding away, sir Roger told me that he knew several sensible people who believed these gipsies now and then foretold very strange things; and for half an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the height of his good-humour, meeting a common beggar upon the road, who was no conjuror, as he went to relieve him he found his pocket was picked; that being a kind of palmistry at which this race of vermin are very dextrous, I might I might here entertain my reader with historical remarks on this idle profligate people, who infest all the countries of Europe, and live in the midst of governments in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But, instead of entering into observations of this nature, I shall fill the remaining part of my Paper with a story which is still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our monthly accounts about twenty years ago. As the trekschuyt, or hackney-boat, which carries passengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy running along the side of the canal desired to be taken in; which the master of the boat refused, because the lad had not quite money enough to pay the usual fare. An eminent merchant being pleased with the looks of the boy, and secretly touched with compassion towards him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily in three or four languages, and learned, upon further examination, that he had been stolen away when he was a child by a gipsy, and had rambled ever since with a gang of those strollers up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the merchant, whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy by a secret kind of instinct, had himself lost a child some years before. The parents, after a long search for him, gave him for drowned in one of the canals with which that country abounds; and the mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only son, that she died for grief of it. Upon laying together all particulars, and examining the several moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the merchant, whose heart had so unaccountably melted melted at the sight of him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, and likely to leave him a good estate the father, on the other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a strength of constitution, sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages.' Here the printed story leaves off: but, if I may give credit to reports, our linguist, having received such extraordinary rudiments towards a good education, was afterwards trained up in every thing that becomes a gentleman, wearing off by little and little all the vicious habits and practices that he had been used to in the course of his peregrinations. Nay, it is said that he has since been employed in foreign courts upon national business, with great reputation to himself, and honour to those who sent him; and that he has visited several countries as a public minister, in which he formerly wandered as a gipsy. ADDISON. JOURNEY IN A STAGE-COACH. No. 132. HAVING notified to my good friend sir Roger that I should set out for London the next day, his horses were ready at the appointed hour in the evening; and, attended by one of his grooms, I arrived at the county town by twilight, in order to be ready for the stagecoach the day following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the servant who waited upon me inquired of the chamberlain, in my hearing, what company he had for the coach? The fellow answered, Mrs. Betty Arable, the great fortune, and the widow her mother; a recruiting VOL. 1. eruiting officer (who took a place because they were to go); young 'squire Quickset, her cousin (that her mother wished her to be married to); Ephraim the quaker, her guardian; and a gentleman that had studied himself dumb from sir Roger de Coverley's. I observed, by what he said of myself, that according to his office he dealt much in intelligence; and doubted not but there was some foundation for his reports of the rest of the company, as well as for the whimsical account he gave of me. The next morning, at day-break, we were all called; and I, who know my own natural shyness, and endeavour to be as little. liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's half-pike was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the mean time the drummer, the captain's equipage, was very loud, that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; upon which his cloke-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach and the captain himself, according to a frequent though invidious behaviour of military men, ordered his man to look sharp that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting to the coach-box. : and We were in some little time fixed in our seats, sate with that dislike which people not too good-natured usually conceive of each other at first sight. The coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity and we had not moved above two miles, when the widow asked the captain what success he had in his recruiting? The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, told her, that indeed he had but very little luck, and had suffered much by desertion; there fore, fore, should be glad to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair daughter. In a word, continued he, I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character: you see me, madam, young, sound, and impudent: take me yourself, widow, or give me to her; I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a soldier of fortune, ha!' This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed. Come, said he, resolve upon it, we will make a wedding at the next town: we will wake this pleasant companion who is fallen asleep, to be the brideman; and (giving the quaker a clap on the knee) he concluded, This sly saint, who I will warrant understands what is what as well as you or I, widow, shall give the bride as father.' The quaker, who happened to be a man of smartness, answered, Friend, I take it in good part that thou hast given me the authority of a father over this comely and virtuous child; and I must assure thee, that if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. Thy mirth, friend, savoureth of folly; thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty. Verily, it is not from thy fullness, but thy emptiness, that thou hast spoken this day. Friend, friend, we have hired this coach in partnership with thee, to carry us to the great city; we cannot go any other way. This worthy mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utter thy follies; we cannot help it, friend, I say if thou wilt, we must hear thee; but if thou wert a man of understanding, thou wouldst not take advantage of thy courageous countenance to abash us children of peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a soldier: give quarter to us, who cannot resist thee. Why didst |