s
former opulence, and retaining no marks of its ancient superiority but
the gaol.

Upon entering, we put up at an inn, where we had such refreshments as
could most readily be procured, and I supped with my family with my
usual cheerfulness. After seeing them properly accommodated for that
night, I next attended the sheriff's officers to the prison, which had
formerly been built for the purposes of war, and consisted of one large
apartment, strongly grated, and paved with stone, common to both felons
and debtors at certain hours in the four and twenty. Besides this, every
prisoner had a separate cell, where he was locked in for the night.

I expected upon my entrance to find nothing but lamentations, and
various sounds of misery; but it was very different. The prisoners
seemed all employed in one common design, that of forgetting thought in
merriment or clamour. I was apprized of the usual perquisite required
upon these occasions, and immediately complied with the demand, though
the little money I had was very near being all exhausted. This was
immediately sent away for liquor, and the whole prison soon was filled
with riot, laughter, and prophaneness.

'How,' cried I to myself, 'shall men so very wicked be chearful, and
shall I be melancholy! I feel only the same confinement with them, and I
think I have more reason to be happy.'

With such reflections I laboured to become chearful; but chearfulness
was never yet produced by effort, which is itself painful. As I was
sitting therefore in a corner of the gaol, in a pensive posture, one
of my fellow prisoners came up, and sitting by me, entered into
conversation. It was my constant rule in life never to avoid the
conversation of any man who seemed to desire it: for if good, I might
profit by his instruction; if bad, he might be assisted by mine. I found
this to be a knowing man, of strong unlettered sense; but a thorough
knowledge of the world, as it is called, or, more properly speaking,
of human nature on the wrong side. He asked me if I had taken care to
provide myself with a bed, which was a circumstance I had never once
attended to.

'That's unfortunate,' cried he, 'as you are allowed here nothing but
straw, and your apartment is very large and cold. However you seem to be
something of a gentleman, and as I have been one myself in my time, part
of my bed-cloaths are heartily at your service.'

I thanked him, professing my surprize at finding such humanity in a