, I
loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but whether to any
purpose, or whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the
fit immediately went off; and now recovered to his speech and legs, he
returned me thanks with as much emphasis as if I had saved his life.
This naturally engaging a conversation, he acquainted me where he lived,
which was at a considerable distance from where I met him, and where he
had strayed insensibly on the same intention of a morning walk.

He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy which this
little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned of sixty, but
of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five and
forty, having never racked his constitution by permitting his desires to
over-tax his ability.

As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed
mechanics, had, by the best traces he could get of them, left him an
infant orphan on the parish; so that it was from a charity-school, that,
by honesty and industry, he made his way into a merchant's counting
house, from whence, being sent to a house in Cadiz, he there, by his
talents and activity, acquired not only a fortune, but an immense
one, with which he returned to his native country; where he could not,
however, fish out so much as one single relation out of the obscurity
he was born in. Taking then a taste for refinement, and pleased to enjoy
life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his days in all the ease
of opulence, without the least parade of it; and, rather studying
the concealment than the shew of a fortune, looked down on a world he
perfectly knew himself, to his wish, unknown and unmarked by.

But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of
retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever,
to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no
more than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my
history, and to obviate your surprise that one of my blood and relish of
life, should count a gallant of three score such a catch.

Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first, insensibly
changed nature, and run into unplatonic length, as might well be
expected from one of my condition of life, and above all, from that
principle of electricity that scarce ever fails of producing fire when
the sexes meet. I s