le feats and daring, who
had been a partisan soldier, a bravo--who, assisted by certain
discontented troopers, nearly succeeded in stealing the crown and regalia
from the Tower of London; who attempted to hang the Duke of Ormond, at
Tyburn; {43b} and whose strange, eventful career did not terminate even
with his life, his dead body, on the circulation of an unfounded report
that he did not come to his death by fair means, having been exhumed by
the mob of his native place, where he had retired to die, and carried in
the coffin through the streets.

Of his life I had inserted an account in the "Newgate Lives and Trials";
it was bare and meagre, and written in the stiff, awkward style of the
seventeenth century; it had, however, strongly captivated my imagination,
and I now thought that out of it something better could be made; that, if
I added to the adventures, and purified the style, I might fashion out of
it a very decent tale or novel. On a sudden, however, the proverb of
mending old garments with new cloth occurred to me. "I am afraid," said
I, "any new adventures which I can invent will not fadge well with the
old tale; one will but spoil the other." I had better have nothing to do
with Colonel B---, thought I, but boldly and independently sit down and
write the "Life of Joseph Sell."

This Joseph Sell, dear reader, was a fictitious personage who had just
come into my head. I had never even heard of the name, but just at that
moment it happened to come into my head; I would write an entirely
fictitious narrative, called the "Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the
Great traveller."

I had better begin at once, thought I; and removing the bread and the
jug, which latter was now empty, I seized pen and paper, and forthwith
essayed to write the "Life of Joseph Sell," but soon discovered that it
is much easier to resolve upon a thing than to achieve it, or even to
commence it; for the life of me I did not know how to begin, and, after
trying in vain to write a line, I thought it would be as well to go to
bed, and defer my projected undertaking till the morrow.

So I went to bed, but not to sleep. During the greater part of the night
I lay awake, musing upon the work which I had determined to execute. For
a long time my brain was dry and unproductive; I could form no plan which
appeared feasible. At length I felt within my brain a kindly glow; it
was the commencement of inspiration; in a few minutes I had form