my good reception to my kinsman
the farmer, and desired him to depend upon me for the money he had
kindly accommodated me with about the end of February, which promise
I now found myself unable to perform. However, there was no remedy but
patience: I applied to my landlord, who was a very good-natured man,
candidly owned my distress, and begged his advice in laying down some
plan for my subsistence; he readily promised to consult his confessor on
this subject, and, in the meantime, told me, I was welcome to lodge
and board with him until fortune should put it in my power to make
restitution.

"Mr. O'Varnish, being informed of my necessity, offered to introduce me
to the author of a weekly paper, who, he did not doubt, would employ
me in that way, provided he should find me duly qualified; but, upon
inquiry, I understood that this journal was calculated to foment
divisions in the commonwealth, and therefore I desired to be excused
from engaging in it. He then proposed that I should write something in
the poetical way, which I might dispose of to a bookseller for a pretty
sum of ready money, and, perhaps, establish my own character into the
bargain. This event would infallibly procure friends, and my tragedy
would appear next season to the best advantage, by being supported both
by interest and reputation. I was charmed with this prospect, and having
heard what friends Mr. Pope acquired by his pastorals, set about a work
of that kind, and in less than six weeks composed as many eclogues,
which I forthwith offered to an eminent bookseller, who desired me to
leave them for his perusal, and he would give an answer in two days. At
the end of that time, I went to him, when he returned the poems, telling
me, they would not answer his purpose, and sweetened his refusal by
saying there were some good clever lines in them. Not a little dejected
at this rebuff, which, I learned from Mr. O'Varnish, was owing to the
opinion of another author whom this bookseller always consulted on these
occasions, I applied to another person of the same profession, who told
me the town was cloyed with pastorals, and advised me, if I intended to
profit by my talents, to write something satirical or luscious, such as
the Button Hole, Shockey and Towner, The Leaky Vessel, etc, and yet this
was a man in years, who wore a reverend periwig, looked like a
senator, and went regularly to church. Be that as it will, I scorned
to prostitute my pen in the mann