about on the outside; and so he did quite round. Fancy, that in such a case would have destroyed many, had little power over his reason, that told him there was no difficulty nor danger in what he did.

He was so great a lover of building, that St. Paul's, then well advanced, was his ordinary walk: there was scarce a course of stones laid, while we lived together, over which we did not walk. And he would always climb to the uppermost heights. Much time have we spent there in talking of the work, engines, tackle, &c. He showed me the power

of friction in engines; for, when a capstan was at work, he did but gripe the ropes, between the weight and the fulcrum, in his hand, and all was fast; and double the number of men, at the capstan, could not have prevailed against the impediment, to have raised the stone, till he let go.

We usually went there on Saturdays, which were Sir Christopher Wren's days, who was the surveyor; and we commonly got a snatch of discourse with him, who, like a true philosopher, was always obliging and communicative, and, in every matter we inquired about, gave short, but satisfactory answers. When we were upon Bow Steeple, the merchant had a speculation not unlike that of a ship, in the Bay of Smyrna, seen from the mountains. Here the streets appeared like small trenches, in which the coaches glided along without any unevenness as we could observe. "Now this," said he, "is like the world. Who would not be pleased in passing so equably from place to place? It is so when we look upon great men, who, in their courses, at our distance, seem to glide no less smoothly on; and we do not perceive the many rude jolts, tossings, and wallowings they feel; as whoever rides in that coach feels enough to make his bones ache, of which, to our notice, there is no discovery. And farther," said he, "let not the difficulties, that will occur in the way of most transactions, however reasonable, deter men from going on; for here is a coach not for a moment free from one obstruction or other; and yet it goes on, and arrives, at last, as was designed at first.”

He loved travelling, but hated a coach, because it made him a prisoner, and hindered his looking about to survey the country, in which he took a great pleasure; and, for that reason, he loved a horse. I had a grave pad that fitted him, and he always desired the use of that sage animal, that was very sure and easy, but slow. While his wife's mother, the Lady Cann, lived at Bristol, he made annually a visit to her; and, when I had the honour to serve as recorder there, I accompanied him. We joined equipages, and sometimes returned across the country to Wroxton, the residence of the late Lord Guilford. We had the care of affairs there, as trustees for the young Lord Guilford, who was sent abroad to travel; and we thought it no disservice to our trust to reside upon the

spot some time in summer; which we did, and had therein our own convenience, and charged ourselves in the accounts to the full value of ourselves, and the diet for our horses. But, our way of living there being somewhat extraordinary, I think it reasonable to give an account of it. In the first place, the lady had a standing quarrel with us; for we had such a constant employ that she could have none of her husband's company; and when she came to call him to dinner she found him as black as a tinker.

There was an old building, which was formerly hawks' mews. There we instituted a laboratory. One apartment was for wood-works, and the other for iron. His business was hewing and framing, and, being permitted to sit, he would labour very hard; and, in that manner, he hewed the frames for our necessary tables. He put them together only with laps and pins; but so, as served the occasion very well. We got up a table and a bench; but the great difficulty was to get bellows and a forge. He hewed such stones as lay about, and built a hearth with a back, and, by means of water, and an old iron which he knocked right down, he perforated that stone for the wind to come in at the fire. What common tools we wanted, we sent and bought, and also a leatherskin, with which he made a pair of bellows that wrought over-head, and the wind was conveyed by elder-guns let into one another, and so it got to the fire. Upon finding a piece of an old anvil, we went to work, and wrought all the iron that was used in our manufactory. He delighted most in hewing. He allowed me, being a lawyer, as he said, to be the best forger. We followed this trade so constantly and close, and he coming out sometimes with a red short waistcoat, red cap, and black face, the country people began to talk as if we used some unlawful trades there, clipping at least; and it might be, coining of money. Upon this we were forced to call in the blacksmith, and some of the neighbours, that it might be known there was neither damage nor danger to the state by our operations. This was morning's work before dressing; to which duty we were usually summoned by the lady full of admiration what creatures she had in her family. In the afternoons, too, we had employment which was somewhat more refined; and that was turning and planing; for which use we sequestered a low closet. We had our engines from London, and many round implements were made.

In our laboratories, it was not a little strange to see with what earnestness and pains we worked, sweating most immoderately, and scarce allowing ourselves time to eat. At the lighter works, in the afternoon, he hath sat, perhaps, scraping a stick, or turning a piece of wood, and this for many afternoons together, all the while singing like a cobbler, incomparably better pleased than he had been in all the stages

of his life before. And it is a mortifying speculation, that of the different characters of this man's enjoyments, separated one from the other, and exposed to an indifferent choice, there is scarce any one, but this I have here described, really worth taking up. And yet the slavery of our nature is such, that this must be despised, and all the rest, with the attendant evils of vexation, disappointments, dangers, loss of health, disgraces, envy, and what not of torment, be admitted. It was well said of the philosopher to Pyrrhus: "What follows after all your victories? To sit down and make merry. And cannot you do so now ?"

79.-ADVENTURE IN A FOREST.

SMOLLETT.

He departed from the village that same afternoon, under the auspices of his conductor, and found himself benighted in the midst of a forest, far from the habitations of men. The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees that appeared on every side, "stretching their extravagant arms athwart the gloom," conspired, with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss, to disturb his fancy, and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. Although he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to be invaded with an awful horror, that gradually prevailed over all the consolations of reason and philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of assassination. In order to dissipate these disagreeable reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of divers travellers who had been robbed and murdered by ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that very wood.

In the midst of this communication, which did not at all tend to the elevation of our hero's spirits, the conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while our traveller jogged on in expectation of being joined again by him in a few minutes. He was, however, disappointed in that hope; the sound of the other horse's feet by degrees grew more and more faint, and at last altogether died away. Alarmed at this circumstance, Fathom halted in the middle of the road, and listened with the most fearful attention; but his sense of hearing was saluted with nought but the dismal sighings of the trees, that seemed to foretell an approaching storm. Accordingly, the heavens contracted a more dreary aspect, the lightning began to gleam, the thunder to roll, and the tempest, raising its voice to a tremendous roar, descended in a torrent of rain. In this emergency, the fortitude of our hero was almost quite overSo many concurring circumstances of danger and distress might have appalled the most undaunted breast; what impression, then, must they have made upon the mind of Ferdinand, who was by no means a

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man to set fear at defiance! Indeed, he had well-nigh lost the use of his reflection, and was actually invaded to the skin, before he could recollect himself so far as to quit the road, and seek for shelter among the thickets that surrounded him. Having rode some furlongs into the forest, he took his station under a tuft of tall trees that screened him from the storm, and in that situation called a council within himself, to deliberate upon his next excursion. He persuaded himself that his guide had deserted him for the present, in order to give intelligence of a traveller to some gang of robbers with whom he was connected; and that he must of necessity fall a prey to those banditti, unless he should have the good fortune to elude their search, and disentangle himself from the mazes of the wood.

Harrowed with these apprehensions, he resolved to commit himself to the mercy of the hurricane, as of two evils the least, and penetrate straight forward through some devious opening, until he should be delivered from the forest. For this purpose he turned his horse's head in a line quite contrary to the direction of the high road which he had left, on the supposition that the robbers would pursue that track in quest of him, and that they would never dream of his deserting the highway, to traverse an unknown forest, amidst the darkness of such a boisterous night. After he had continued in this progress through a succession of groves, and bogs, and thorns, and brakes, by which not only his clothes, but also his skin, suffered in a grievous manner, while every nerve quivered with eagerness and dismay, he at length reached an open plain, and pursuing his course, in full hope of arriving at some village where his life would be safe, he descried a rush-light at a distance, which he looked upon as the star of his good fortune, and, riding towards it at full speed, arrived at the door of a lone cottage, into which he was admitted by an old woman, who, understanding he was a bewildered traveller, received him with great hospitality.

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When he learned from his hostess that there was not another house within three leagues, that she could accommodate him with a tolerable bed, and his horse with lodging and oats, he thanked. Heaven for his good fortune, in stumbling upon this homely habitation, and determined the night under the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to understand that her husband, who was a faggot-maker, had gone to the next town to dispose of his merchandise; and that, in all probability, he would not return till next morning, on account of the tempestuous night. Ferdinand sounded the beldame with a thousand artful interrogations, and she answered with such appearance of truth and simplicity, that he concluded his person was quite secure, and, after having been regaled with a dish of eggs and bacon, desired she would conduct him into the chamber where she proposed he should take his repose. He was accordingly ushered up by a sort of ladder into an apartment

furnished with a standing bed, and almost half filled with trusses of straw. He seemed extremely well pleased with his lodging, which in reality exceeded his expectation: and his kind landlady, cautioning him against letting the candle approach the combustibles, took her leave, and locked the door on the outside.

Fathom, whose own principles taught him to be suspicious, and ever upon his guard against the treachery of his fellow-creatures, could have dispensed with this instance of her care, in confining her guest to her chamber, and began to be seized with strange fancies, when he observed that there was no bolt on the inside of the door, by which he might secure himself from intrusion. In consequence of these suggestions, he proposed to take an accurate survey of every object in the apartment, and, in the course of his inquiry, had the mortification to find the dead body of a man, still warm, who had been lately stabbed, and concealed beneath several bundles of straw.

Such a discovery could not fail to fill the breast of our hero with unspeakable horror; for he concluded that he himself would undergo the same fate before morning, without the interposition of a miracle in his favour. In the first transports of his dread, he ran to the window, with a view to escape by that outlet, and found his flight effectually obstructed by divers strong bars of iron. Then his heart began to palpitate, his hair to bristle up, and his knees to totter; his thoughts teemed with passages of death and destruction; his conscience rose up in judgment against him, and he underwent a severe paroxysm of dismay and distraction. His spirits were agitated into a state of fermentation, that produced a species of resolution akin to that which is inspired by brandy or other strong liquors, and, by an impulse that seemed supernatural, he was immediately hurried into measures for his own preservation.

What upon a less interesting occasion his imagination durst not propose, he now executed without scruple or remorse. He undressed the corpse that lay bleeding among the straw, and, conveying it to the bed in his arms, deposited it in the attitude of a person who sleeps at his ease; then he extinguished the light, took possession of the place from whence the body had been removed, and, holding a pistol ready cocked in each hand, waited for the sequel with that determined purpose which is often the immediate production of despair. About midnight he heard the sound of feet ascending the ladder; the door was softly opened; he saw the shadow of two men stalking towards the bed, a dark lanthorn being unshrouded, directed their aim to the supposed sleeper, and he that held it thrust a poniard to his heart; the force of the blow made a compression on the chest, and a sort of groan issued from the windpipe of the defunct; the stroke was repeated, without producing a repetition of the note, so that the assassins concluded the work was effectually