of El Dorado brings to my recollection another member, Mr.
Goosequill, who came to town with half-a-crown in his pocket, and his
tragedy called the 'Mines of Peru,' by which he of course expected to
make his fortune. For five years he danced attendance on the manager,
in order to hear tidings of its being 'cast,' and four more in trying to
get it back again. During the process he was groaned, laughed, whistled,
and nearly kicked out of the secretary's room, who swore (which he well
might do, considering the exhausted treasury of the concern) that he
knew nothing about nor ever heard of the 'Mines of Peru.' At last Mr.
Goosequill, being shewn into the manager's kitchen, to wait till he was
at leisure, had the singular pleasure of seeing two acts of the 'Mines
of Peru,' daintily fastened round a savory capon on the spit, to
preserve it from the scorching influence of the fire.

"This was foul treatment, I observed, as he concluded his tale, and I
ventured to ask how he had subsisted in the meanwhile? 'Why,' said he,
'I first made an agreement with a printer of ballads, in Seven Dials,
who finding my inclinations led to poetry, expressed his satisfaction,
telling me that one of his poets had lost his senses, and was confined
in Bedlam; and another was become dozed with ~~413~~~ drinking drams.
An agreement was made,' continued he, 'and I think I earned five-pence
halfpenny per week as my share of this speculation with the muses.
But as my profits were not always certain, I had often the pleasure of
supping with Duke Humphrey, and for this reason I turned my thoughts to
prose; and in this walk I was eminently successful, for during a week of
gloomy weather, I published an apparition, on the substance of which I
subsisted very comfortably for a month. I have often made a good meal
upon a monster. A rape has frequently afforded me great satisfaction,
but a murder well-timed was a never-failing resource.'

"But to return to the catastrophe of the Socratics: "By the time that
the philosophical experiments in 'diving without hydraulics' had cleaned
me entirely out, it was suggested that any thing in the shape of a loan
would be desirable; they were not nice--not they; a pair of globes; a
set of catoptric instruments; an electrical apparatus; a few antique
busts; or a collection of books for the library;--any old rum, as
Jack.'said, would do; and all and every of the before-mentioned loans
would be most punctually taken care of.