s were like _disjunctive
conjunctions_, and when we left the place, the "society" did not promise
to live another year.

We could entertain ourselves, at least, with sketches of a few of the
members of this disjointed body; but we must be content with one, and that
shall be the _bookseller_ of the town.

Imagine a man of middle height, rather inclined to obesity, and just
turned of fifty-eight. He had a broad, low forehead, sunken eyes, an
aquiline nose, a heavy, hanging lip, and a chin which buried its
projections in ample and unclassical folds of neckerchief. He was bald,
except a tuft on the _occiput_, or hinder part of his head, and on dress
occasions he wore powder. He was a widower, his wife having been dead
about ten years, leaving him two daughters, the amiability of whose
dispositions was a painful contrast to the uneven temper of their father.
He kept a good table, and had the best cellar of grape wine in the town,
but entertained little company. His guests were usually the valets or
butlers of the gentry in the neighbourhood; but the housekeepers were
never invited by his daughters, a point of propriety in male and female
acquaintanceship which amused us not a little. His business was of a most
multifarious description, and besides the trades of bookseller, stationer,
and druggist, he had a printing-office, and was, moreover, a self-taught
printer, He was post-master and stamp sub-distributor, receiver of bail,
and agent for insurances--little official appointments which would have
made him mayor in a corporate town. Of late years, he seldom meddled with
these matters of business; but tired of their common track, he struck out
a course of life, which was neither public nor private, but made him a
sort of oracle in the town, whose opinions were freely printed and
gratuitously circulated, whilst the author was seldom seen except at
vestry-meetings. In this way he acted as secretary to a benevolent society
established by the gentry, and such was his enthusiasm that he gave his
services and L200. worth of printing during the first year; and the
Committee in return presented him with a handsome piece of plate with a
complimentary inscription, which he had the modesty to keep locked up, and
never to display even to his visiters. This proved him to be a benevolent
man, and he would have been ten times more useful had not his charitable
disposition been over tinged with oddity and caprice. His contact with
the poor