d marry an honest,
virtuous woman. Whereupon, with the advice and consent of his parents,
he married a young woman of a reputable family from Kentish Town, who,
as to fortune, brought him a pretty little addition to his own savings,
so that altogether he had, according to his own account, a very pretty
competency wherewith to begin the world.

For some time after his marriage he indulged himself in living without
employment, but finding such a course wasted his little stock very fast,
he began to apply his thoughts to the consideration of what course was
the most likely to get his bread in. After beating his brains for some
little time on this subject he at last resolved on keeping a
public-house; which agreeing very well with his father's and relations'
notions, he thereupon immediately took the King's Arms, in Red Lion
Street, where for some time he continued to have very good business. In
all, he remained there about five years, and might in that time have got
a very pretty sum of money if he had not been so unhappy as to grow
proud, as soon as he had anything in his pocket. It was not long,
therefore, before he gave way to his own roving disposition, going over
to Ireland, where he remained for a considerable space, living by his
wits as he expresses it, or, in the language of honest people, by
defrauding others.

But Ireland is a country where such sort of people are not likely to
support themselves long; money is far from being plentiful, and though
the common people are credulous in their nature, yet tradesmen and the
folks of middling ranks are as suspicious as any nation in the world.
The county of West Meath was the place where he had fixed his residence
for the greatest part of the time he continued in the island, but at
last it grew too hot for him. The inhabitants became sensible of his way
of living, and gave him such disturbance that he found himself under an
indispensable necessity of quitting that place as soon as possibly he
could; and so having picked up as much money as would pay for his
passage, he came over again into England, out of humour with rambling
while he felt the uneasiness it had brought upon him, but ready to take
it up again as soon as ever his circumstances were made a little easy,
which in his present condition was not likely to happen in haste.

His friends received him very coldly, his parents had it not in their
power to do more for him. In a word, the countenance of the world
f