was very glad to find his fears disappointed; for he had
really concluded that some life was lost. Perceiving the youth too much
agitated to be treated by him in his usual style, he owned that Sir
Steady was a rascal, and encouraged Pickle with the hope of being one
day able to make reprisals upon him; in the mean time offered him
money for his immediate occasions, exhorted him to exert his own
qualifications in rendering himself independent of such miscreants, and
finally counselled him to represent his wrongs to the nobleman whom he
had formerly obliged, with a view of interesting that peer in his behalf
or at least of obtaining a satisfactory explanation from the minister,
that he might take no premature measures of revenge.

These admonitions were so much milder and more agreeable than our hero
expected from the misanthrope, that they had a very favourable effect
upon his transports, which gradually subsided, until he became so
tractable as to promise that he would conform to his advice; in
consequence of which, he next morning waited upon his lordship, who
received him very politely, as usual, and with great patience heard his
complaint, which, by the bye, he could not repeat without some hasty
ebullitions of passionate resentment. This peer, after having gently
disapproved of the letter of expostulation, which had produced such
unfortunate effects, kindly undertook to recommend his case to the
minister, and actually performed his promise that same day, when Sir
Steady informed him, to his utter astonishment, that the poor young
gentleman was disordered in his brain, so that he could not possibly be
provided for in a place of importance, with any regard to the service;
and it could not be expected that he (Sir Steady) would support his
extravagance from his own private purse; that he had, indeed at the
solicitation of a nobleman deceased, made him a present of three
hundred pounds, in consideration of some loss that he pretended to have
sustained in an election; but, since that time, had perceived in him
such indisputable marks of lunacy, both by his distracted letters and
personal behaviour, as obliged him to give order that he should not be
admitted into the house. To corroborate this assertion, the minister
actually called in the evidence of his own porter, and one of the
gentlemen of his household, who had heard the execrations that escaped
our youth, when he first found himself excluded. In short, the nobleman