clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and the Supplement, with such an air o cheerfulness and good-humor, that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his several errands, 5 insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea, till the Knight had got all his conveniences about him.

XXII. SIR ROGER IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night that he had been reading my paper upon West- 10 minster Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me, at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he 15 had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the Knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last com- 20 ing to town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey.

I found the Knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a glass of the Widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always drank before he went 5 abroad. He recommended me to a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the Knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me 10 that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to 15 complain, and I knew what he had done was out of

good-will. Sir Roger told me, further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection; and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness 20 being at Dantzic. When of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it.

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's 25 water, telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who

did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people: to which the Knight added, that she had a very great jointure, 5 and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; "And truly," says Sir Roger, "if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better."

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling 10 him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axletree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the Knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, 15 and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and, upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked: as I was considering what this 20 would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey.

25

As we went up the body of the church, the Knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, "A brave man, I warrant him!" Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung 5 his hand that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very gallant man!" As we stood before Busby's tomb, the Knight uttered himself again after the same "Dr. Busby°. a great man! he whipped my grandfather a very great man! a very great man! I should have 10 gone to him myself if I had not been a blockheadvery great man!"

manner,

a

We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to 15 everything he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil° upon his knees; and, concluding them all to be great men, was 20 conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth, the Knight was very inquisitive into her name and family; and, after having 25 regarded her finger for some time, "I wonder," says

he, "that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle."

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, where my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which 5 was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, sat himself down in the chair; and, looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The fellow, instead of returning 10 him an answer, told him that he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned; but, our guide not insisting upon his demand, the Knight soon recovered his good-humor, and whispered in my ear that if Will 15 Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper out of one or t'other of them.

Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, and, leaning upon the 20 pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; concluding that, in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne.

We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, 25

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