atire,
without subjecting himself to a long series of sarcastic hints and
doubtful allusions, which he could not endure. He accordingly took the
first opportunity of telling him that he was absolutely ruined by the
perfidy of his patron, and desired that he would not aggravate his
affliction by those cynical remarks which were peculiar to men of his
misanthropical disposition. Cadwallader listened to this declaration
with internal surprise, which, however, produced no alteration in his
countenance; and, after some pause, observed, that our hero had no
reason to look for any new observation from him upon this event, which
he had long foreseen, and daily expected, and exhorted him, with an
ironical sneer, to console himself with the promise of the minister, who
would doubtless discharge the debts of his deceased bosom friend.

CHAPTER XCIII.

Peregrine commits himself to the Public, and is admitted Member of a
College of Authors.

The bitterness of this explanation being passed, our young gentleman
began to revolve within himself schemes for making up the deficiencies
of his yearly income, which was now so grievously reduced; and
determined to profit, in some shape or other, by those talents which he
owed to nature and education. He had, in his affluence, heard of several
authors, who, without any pretensions to genius or human literature,
earned a very genteel subsistence by undertaking work for booksellers,
in which reputation was not at all concerned. One, for example,
professed all manner of translation, at so much per sheet, and actually
kept five or six amanuenses continually employed, like so many clerks in
a counting-house, by which means he was enabled to live at his ease, and
enjoy his friend and his bottle, ambitious of no other character than
that of an honest man and a good neighbour. Another projected a variety
of plans for new dictionaries, which were executed under his eye by
day-labourers; and the province of a third was history and voyages,
collected or abridged by understrappers of the same class.

Mr. Pickle, in his comparisons, paid such deference to his own
capacity, as banished all doubts of his being able to excel any of those
undertakers in their different branches of profession, if ever he should
be driven to that experiment; but his ambition prompted him to make his
interest and glory coincide, by attempting some performance which
should do him honour with the public, and at the sa