To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."
Yet there was something so irresistibly ludicrous in his manner, that there was not one of us but laughed at his misfortunes.
Alas, for human nature! even grief must take an attitude before it can hope for sympathy. I now understand on what principles our widows wear weeds, and our judges wigs. The imposing external appearance is every thing in this world.
The Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, however, have taken Gay under their especial patronage; and he lives with them. And now that the day is over, there is one great regret, which is, that, with all my wish to tell you every thing, I can remember so little. But the spirit of conversation cannot be caught and re-corked: moreover, of all our faculties, memory is the one the least under our control. I am sometimes amused, but oftener provoked, at the way in which a thing utterly escapes
