in all
probability have bound myself apprentice to a tailor; for I always
envied the comfortable seat which they appeared to enjoy upon the
shopboard, and their elevated position, which enabled them to look down
upon the constant succession of the idle or the busy, who passed in
review before them in the main street of the country town, near to which
I passed the first fourteen years of my existence.

But my father, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, and the
youngest brother of a noble family, had a lucrative living, and a "soul
above buttons," if his son had not. It has been from time immemorial
the heathenish custom to sacrifice the greatest fool of the family to
the prosperity and naval superiority of the country, and, at the age of
fourteen, I was selected as the victim. If the custom be judicious, I
had no reason to complain. There was not one dissentient voice, when it
was proposed before all the varieties of my aunts and cousins, invited
to partake of our new-year's festival. I was selected by general
acclamation. Flattered by such an unanimous acknowledgment of my
qualification, I felt a slight degree of military ardour, and a sort of
vision of future grandeur passed before me, in the distant vista of
which I perceived a coach with four horses, and a service of plate. But
as my story is not a very short one, I must not dwell too long on its
commencement. I shall therefore inform the reader, that my father, who
lived in the north of England, did not think it right to fit me out at
the country town, near to which we resided; but about a fortnight after
the decision which I have referred to, he forwarded me to London, on the
outside of the coach, with my best suit of bottle-green and six shirts.
To prevent mistakes, I was booked in the way-bill, "To be delivered to
Mr Thomas Handycock, Number 14, Saint Clement's Lane--carriage paid."
My parting with the family was very affecting; my mother cried bitterly,
for, like all mothers, she liked the greatest fool which she had
presented to my father, better than all the rest; my sisters cried
because my mother cried; Tom roared for a short time more loudly than
all the rest, having been chastised by my father for breaking his fourth
window in that week.

At last I tore myself away. I had blubbered till my eyes were so red
and swollen, that the pupils were scarcely to be distinguished, and
tears and dirt had veined my cheeks like the marble of the
chim