ssession. I once began to read it, but I soon grew weary of the task;
for, besides that the hand is intolerably bad, I never could find the
author in one strain for two chapters together. The way I came by it was
this. Some time ago a grave, oddish kind of a man boarded at a farmer's
in this parish. He left soon after I was made curate, and went nobody
knows whither; and in his room was found a bundle of papers, which was
brought to me by his landlord."

"I should be glad to see this medley," said I.

"You shall see it now," answered the curate, "for I always take it along
with me a-shooting. 'Tis excellent wadding."

When I returned to town I had leisure to peruse the acquisition I had
made, and found it a little bundle of episodes, put together without
art, yet with something of nature.

The curate must answer for the omissions.

_II.--The Man of Feeling in Love_

Harley lost his father, the last surviving of his parents, when he was a
boy. His education, therefore, had been but indifferently attended to;
and after being taken from a country school, the young gentleman was
suffered to be his own master in the subsequent branches of literature,
with some assistance from the pastor of the parish in languages and
philosophy, and from the exciseman in arithmetic and book-keeping.

There were two ways of increasing his fortune. One of these was the
prospect of succeeding to an old lady, a distant relation, who was known
to be possessed of a very large sum in the stocks. But the young man was
so untoward in his disposition, and accommodated himself so ill to her
humour, that she died and did not leave him a farthing.

The other method pointed out to him was an endeavour to get a lease of
some crown lands which lay contiguous to his little paternal estate. As
the crown did not draw so much rent as Harley could afford to give, with
very considerable profit to himself, it was imagined this lease might be
easily procured. However, this needed some interest with the great,
which neither Harley nor his father ever possessed.

His neighbour, Mr. Walton, having heard of this affair, generously
offered his assistance to accomplish it, and said he would furnish him
with a letter of introduction to a baronet of his acquaintance who had a
great deal to say with the first lord of the treasury.

Harley, though he had no great relish for the attempt, could not resist
the torrent of motives that assaulted him, and a day was f