gard for every thing but the playhouse; he
invites, three times a week, one or other to drink claret, and talk of
the drama. His first care in the morning is to read the play-bills; and,
if he remembers any lines of the tragedy which is to be represented,
walks about the shop, repeating them so loud, and with such strange
gestures, that the passengers gather round the door.

His greatest pleasure, when I married him, was to hear the situation of
his shop commended, and to be told how many estates have been got in it
by the same trade; but of late he grows peevish at any mention of
business, and delights in nothing so much as to be told that he speaks
like Mossop.

Among his new associates he has learned another language, and speaks in
such a strain that his neighbours cannot understand him. If a customer
talks longer than he is willing to hear, he will complain that he has
been excruciated with unmeaning verbosity; he laughs at the letters of
his friends for their tameness of expression, and often declares himself
weary of attending to the minutiae of a shop.

It is well for me that I know how to keep a book, for of late he is
scarcely ever in the way. Since one of his friends told him that he had
a genius for tragick poetry, he has locked himself in an upper room six
or seven hours a day; and, when I carry him any paper to be read or
signed, I hear him talking vehemently to himself, sometimes of love and
beauty, sometimes of friendship and virtue, but more frequently of
liberty and his country.

I would gladly, Mr. Idler, be informed what to think of a shopkeeper,
who is incessantly talking about liberty; a word, which, since his
acquaintance with polite life, my husband has always in his mouth: he
is, on all occasions, afraid of our liberty, and declares his resolution
to hazard all for liberty. What can the man mean? I am sure he has
liberty enough; it were better for him and me if his liberty was
lessened.

He has a friend, whom he calls a critick, that comes twice a week to
read what he is writing. This critick tells him that his piece is a
little irregular, but that some detached scenes will shine prodigiously,
and that in the character of Bombulus he is wonderfully great. My
scribbler then squeezes his hand, calls him the best of friends, thanks
him for his sincerity, and tells him that he hates to be flattered. I
have reason to believe that he seldom parts with his dear friend without
lending him two guine