s birth was so obscure, that he scarce knew his father's name;
his education suitable to the dignity of his descent; his character
publicly branded with homicide, profligacy, and breach of trust; yet
this man, by the happy inheritance of impregnable effrontery, and a
lucky prostitution of all principle in rendering himself subservient to
the appetites of the great, had attained to an independency of fortune,
as well as to such a particular share of favour among the quality, that,
although he was well known to have pimped for three generations of the
nobility, there was not a lady of fashion in the kingdom who scrupled to
admit him to her toilette, or even to be squired by him in any place of
public entertainment. Not but that this sage was occasionally useful to
his fellow-creatures, by these connections with people of fortune; for
he often undertook to solicit charity in behalf of distressed objects,
with a view of embezzling one-half of the benefactions. It was an errand
of this kind that now brought him to the house of her grace.

After having sat a few minutes, he told the company that he would favour
them with a very proper opportunity to extend their benevolence, for the
relief of a poor gentlewoman, who was reduced to the most abject misery,
by the death of her husband, and just delivered of a couple of fine
boys: they, moreover, understood from his information, that this object
was daughter of a good family, who had renounced her in consequence
of her marrying an ensign without a fortune; and even obstructed
his promotion with all their influence and power; a circumstance of
barbarity which had made such an impression upon his mind, as disordered
his brain, and drove him to despair, in a fit of which he had made away
with himself, leaving his wife, then big with child, to all the horrors
of indigence and grief.

Various were the criticisms on this pathetic picture, which the old man
drew with great expression. My lady duchess concluded that she must be
a creature void of all feeling and reflection, who could survive such
aggravated misery, therefore did not deserve to be relieved, except in
the character of a common beggar; and was generous enough to offer a
recommendation, by which she would be admitted into an infirmary,
to which her grace was a subscriber; at the same time advising the
solicitor to send the twins to the Foundling Hospital, where they could
be carefully nursed and brought up, so as to become u