en truth and falsehood. But there was
one prepossession which I confess to have parted with, much to my regret:
I mean the opinion of that native honesty and simplicity of manners,
which I had always imagined to be inherent in country-people. I soon
observed it was with them and us, as they say of animals; That every
species at land has one to resemble it at sea; for it was easy to
discover the seeds and principles of every vice and folly that one meets
with in the more known world, though shooting up in different forms. I
took a fancy out of the several inhabitants round, to furnish the camp,
the bar, and the Exchange, and some certain chocolate and coffeehouses,
with exact parallels to what, in many instances, they already produce.
There was a drunken quarrelsome smith, whom I have a hundred times
fancied at the head of a troop of dragoons. A weaver, within two doors of
my kinsman, was perpetually setting neighbours together by the ears. I
lamented to see how his talents were misplaced, and imagined what a
figure he might make in Westminster-Hall. Goodman Crop of Compton Farm,
wants nothing but a plum and a gold chain to qualify him for the
government of the City. My kinsman's stable-boy was a gibing companion
that would always have his jest. He would often put cow-itch in the
maids' beds, pull stools from under folks, and lay a coal upon their
shoes when they were asleep. He was at last turned off for some notable
piece of roguery, and when I came away, was loitering among the
ale-houses. Bless me, thought I, what a prodigious wit would this have
been with us! I could have matched all the sharpers between St. James's
and Covent Garden, with a notable fellow in the same neighbourhood,
(since hanged for picking pockets at fairs) could he have had the
advantages of their education. So nearly are the corruptions of the
country allied to those of the town, with no further difference than what
is made by another turn of thought and method of living!

[Footnote 1: "A reverend aspect, and a countenance formed to command,
have power to restrain some people; while others, who pay no regard to
those, are prevailed upon by the dint of writing, and the authority of a
great name." [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2: _I.e._ 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3: Gilles Menage (1613-1692). The story is given in "Menagiana"
(vol. ii. pp. 49-51, second edition, 1695). C. Sorel, however, in his
"Francion" (1623) tells a similar story of a poet named Salus