ines for the purpose
were not invented until 1788.[11]

ALEXANDER and WILLIAM worked together at this, but most of the work was
done by the latter. The sister's part was to attend in the workshop and
lend a hand wherever and whenever it was needed.

. . . "My time was taken up with copying music and practising, besides
attendance on my brother when polishing, since by way of keeping him
alive I was constantly obliged to feed him by putting the victuals by
bits into his mouth. This was once the case when, in order to finish
a seven-foot mirror, he had not taken his hands from it for sixteen
hours together. In general he was never unemployed at meals, but was
always at those times contriving or making drawings of whatever
came in his mind. Generally I was obliged to read to him whilst
he was at the turning-lathe, or polishing mirrors, _Don Quixote_,
_Arabian Nights' Entertainment_, the novels of STERNE, FIELDING,
etc.; serving tea and supper without interrupting the work with
which he was engaged, . . . and sometimes lending a hand. I became,
in time, as useful a member of the workshop as a boy might be to
his master in the first year of his apprenticeship. . . . But as
I was to take a part the next year in the oratorios, I had, for a
whole twelvemonth, two lessons per week from Miss FLEMING, the
celebrated dancing-mistress, to drill me for a gentlewoman (God
knows how she succeeded). So we lived on without interruption.
My brother ALEX. was absent from Bath for some months every summer,
but when at home he took much pleasure in executing some turning or
clockmaker's work for his brother."

News from Hanover put a sudden stop, for a time, to all these labors.
The mother wrote, in the utmost distress, to say that DIETRICH had
disappeared from his home, it was supposed with the intention of going
to India "with a young idler not older than himself." His brother
immediately left the lathe at which he was turning an eye-piece in
cocoa-nut, and started for Holland, whence he proceeded to Hanover,
failing to meet his brother, as he expected. Meanwhile the sister
received a letter to say that DIETRICH was "laid up very ill" at an inn
in Wapping. ALEXANDER posted to town, removed him to a lodging, and,
after a fortnight's nursing, brought him to Bath, where, on his brother
WILLIAM'S return, he found him being well cared for by his sister.

Abo