Mr. Boothby's birth, parentage, etc. 3

thought and done. Methinks truth should ever be painted as a naked beautiful female, with such grace in her air and such dignity in her eyes as will breed a sense of modesty in all who behold her. Yet there are who treat her as a wench of whom but only a little of her person may be seen; who, feigning a modesty that is not in nature, set her up in hoop and sacque, and yet leave exposed more to shock a real decency than were she left with no clothing on but her beauty.

To show my contempt for this kind of history, I shall write as freely as if I was a penitent making confession to a priest; and though some actions of mine, which I shall have to recount, may appear odious, yet the ingenious reader will set against my past sins this expiation of confession, by which, if she be judicious, she shall not fail to profit.

My grandfather on the male side was a parson, who held a small living in Northamptonshire, of which the revenues, proving insufficient for his wants, set him upon searching for a wife, possessed of such a fortune as should prove their support. Having been sometimes admitted on occasions when poor relations or mean company were present, to the table of the squire of the

parish, he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Margery Dowler, a decent, grave woman, of no principle, but of good reputation, who, from the vigilance and ability she had manifested as waiting-maid to the squire's third wife, had been raised by her to the dignity of housekeeper.

Parson Boothby having with much pains learnt that she had saved, out of her various plunder, a sufficient fortune to keep them in comfort for some years, writ a private letter in which he confessed his love (which he swore was only for her person and mind), and humbly concluded by entreating her to become his wife.

The many uncommon qualifications she must have concentered in herself to enable her to lay by so great a sum of money, while preserving her reputation for honesty, and in situations of which the rewards were small and subjected to the caprices of her employers, rendered the parson fearful lest she should think herself meat for his betters, and reject his offer with contempt; but finding her agreeable to his request, and not above becoming the wife of a clergyman, he married her in 1715; the witnesses to their union being the butler and a natural son of the squire.

Mr. Boothby's birth, parentage, etc. 5

Mr. Boothby, the only offspring of this union, was born on the seventh day of June, in the year 1719, that being the day on which the great Mr. Addison died; a circumstance which Mr. Boothby would always reflect on with complacence, and mention as a singular instance of the compensations made by nature; though how nature could compensate mankind for the loss of so great a moralist by introducing Mr. Boothby among them, is not readily conjectured. Nor are my sensibilities as a daughter willing to accept the view once expressed by the satyrick Will Gentleman, who protested that the only motive he could witness in this working of nature, was her resolution to prove to mankind that as, like a great poet, she was capable of the highest flights in the sublime, so was she also capable of the meanest strokes in the ridiculous.

my

I have heard of no prognosticks having heralded father's appearance on the stage of this world; though I make no doubt but that soon after his birth, an ingenious mind might have witnessed many prognosticks to herald his future career. My grandfather being resolved to spend his wife's money, that should he die before her, he

might leave her no other charm than her face and person (which were not of the daintiest) with which to tempt another suitor, found that his wife's fortune, even when conjoined to his own revenue, was not sufficient for his habits, which he had bred to luxury by taking no concern in the future; and so suffered his son to go at large, only paying the parish clerk with glasses of strong waters, to impart the alphabet and the forms of figures, and then letting him take as much reading as he might think good. But the boy had a mind fervid with imagination and active with a love of mischief which carried him to a wider extent of knowledge than was thought on at the embarkation; as the falcon in chasing his quarry, oft rises to a great height in the pursuit, whence he may enter, if he will, on a boundless survey of the prospects, plantations, groves, hills, and sinking dales below. He discovered at first, as he has often confessed, a wonderful excitement in robbing orchards, in casting stones at windows, in breaking down fences for the pent-up cattle to escape, in choking up fountains, and in killing ducks with sticks. But hearing from certain playfellows that there were books to be had

Mr. Boothby's birth, parentage, etc.

7

in which exploits of greater variety and of morę daring character were to be read, he made shift to possess them, and was thus insensibly led into a course of reading which, commencing at a foul source, gradually conducted him to a clearer stream, thence to the wide river, and presently to the ocean of knowledge.

The severity of his father's selfishness, Mr. Boothby now entering upon manhood, his parts being good, his imagination brisk, and his opinions intelligent, set him upon resolving to seek his own fortune. He imparted his intention to his father, who, so far from dissuading him from attempting the perilous deeps and shallows of the world, did not even seek to ascertain what scheme of life he had formed; but giving him twenty guineas, bade him know he must expect no more, and so gave him his blessing.

With this narrow fortune, Mr. Boothby started for London, which he reached on the first day of April, in the year 1739.

Of his life at this period I know little, for the accounts are vague and the memorials confused. I believe that he took to the stage, and that he acted the character of Bardolph in the "First Part