you have had good success; for one may say of your beard, that it is tendenti gravior. I conjecture,' says Jones, that thou art a very comical 6 fellow. You mistake me widely, sir,' said the barber; I am too much addicted to the study of philosophy; hinc ille lacrymæ, sir; that's my misfortune. Too much learning hath been my ruin.' -Indeed,' says Jones, I confess, friend, you have 'more learning than generally belongs to your 'trade; but I can't see how it can have injured you.' —Alas! sir,' answered the shaver, my father disinherited me for it. He was a dancing-master; and because I could read before I could dance, he took an aversion to me, and left every farthing among his other children.-Will you please to have your temples-O la! I ask your pardon, I fancy there is hiatus in manuscriptis. I heard was going to the wars; but I find it was a mistake.' Why do you conclude so?' says Jones. Sure, sir,' answered the barber, 'you are too wise a man to carry a broken head thither; for that would be carrying coals to Newcastle.'

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Upon my word,' cries Jones, thou art a very odd fellow, and I like thy humour extremely; I 'shall be very glad if thou wilt come to me after dinner, and drink a glass with me; I long to be better acquainted with thee.'

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Odear sir!' said the barber, 'I can do you twenty 'times as great a favour, if you will accept of it.'What is that, my friend,' cries Jones. Why, I will drink a bottle with you if you please; for I ' dearly love good-nature; and as you have found 'me out to be a comical fellow, so I have no skill in physiognomy, if you are not one of the best-na"tured gentlemen in the universe.' Jones now walked down stairs neatly drest, and perhaps the fair Adonis was not a lovelier figure; and yet he had no charms for my landlady: for as that good woman did not resemble Venus at all in her person, so neither

did she in her taste. Happy had it been for Nanny the chambermaid, if she had seen with the eyes of her mistress; for that poor girl fell so violently in love with Jones in five minutes, that her passion afterwards cost her many a sigh. This Nancy was extremely pretty, and altogether as coy; for she had refused a drawer, and one or two young farmers in the neighbourhood, but the bright eyes of our hero thawed all her ice in a moment.

When Jones returned to the kitchen, his cloth was not yet laid; nor indeed was there any occasion it should, his dinner remaining in statu quo, as did the fire which was to dress it. This disappointment might have put many a philosophical temper into a passion; but it had no such effect on Jones. He only gave the landlady a gentle rebuke, saying, Since it was so difficult to get it heated, he would 'eat the beef cold.' But now the good woman, whether moved by compassion, or by shame, or by whatever other motive, I cannot tell, first gave her servants a round scold for disobeying the orders which she had never given, and then bidding the drawer lay a napkin in the Sun, she set about the matter in good earnest, and soon accomplished it.

How

This Sun, into which Jones was now conducted, was truly named, as lucus a non lucendo; for it was an apartment into which the sun had scarce ever looked. It was indeed the worst room in the house; and happy was it for Jones that it was so. ever, he was now too hungry to find any fault; but having once satisfied his appetite, he ordered the drawer to carry a bottle of wine into a better room, and expressed some resentment at having been shown into a dungeon.

The drawer having obeyed his commands, he was, after some time, attended by the barber; who would not indeed have suffered him to wait so long for his company, had he not been listening in the kitchen to the landlady, who was entertaining a circle that

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she had gathered round her with the history of poor Jones, part of which she had extracted from his own lips, and the other part was her own ingenious composition; for she said he was a poor parish boy, taken into the house of squire Allworthy, where 'he was bred up as an apprentice, and now turned 'out of doors for his misdeeds, particularly for making love to his young mistress, and probably for robbing the house; for how else should he come by the little money he hath; and this,' says she, is your gentleman, forsooth.'- A servant of squire Allworthy!' says the barber; what's his name?'Why he told me his name was Jones,' says she: perhaps he goes by a wrong name. Nay, and he ' he told me too, that the squire had maintained him as his own son, thof he had quarrelled with him ' now.'-' And if his name be Jones, he told you the truth,' says the barber; for I have relations who live in that country, nay, and some people say he is his son. Why doth he not go by the name of his father?' I can't tell that,' said the barber; many people's sons don't go by the name of their 'father. Nay,' said the landlady, if I thought he was a gentleman's son, thof he was a bye-blow, I 'should behave to him in another guess manner; for many of these bye-blows come to be great men, ' and, as my poor first husband used to say, never 'affront any customer that's a gentleman.'

CHAP. V.

A dialogue between Mr. Jones and the barber. THIS conversation passed partly while Jones was at dinner in his dungeon, and partly while he was expecting the barber in the parlour. And, as soon as it was ended, Mr. Benjamin, as we have said, attended him, and was very kindly desired to sit down. Jones then filling out a glass of wine, drank his

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health by the appellation of doctissime tonsorum. 'Ago tibi gratias, domine,' said the barber; and then looking very stedfastly at Jones, he said, with great gravity, and with a seeming surprise, as if he had recollected a face he had seen before, Sir, may I 'crave the favour to know if your name is not 'Jones?' To which the other answered, That it ' was.' Pro deum atque hominum fidem!' says the barber; how strangely things come to pass! Mr. 'Jones, I am your most obedient servant. I find you do not know me, which indeed is no wonder, since you never saw me but once, and then you was very young. Pray, sir, how doth the good squire Allworthy? how doth ille optimus omnium patronus?' I find,' said Jones, you do indeed know me; but I have not the like happiness of recollecting you.'-'I do not wonder at that,' cries Benjamin, but I am surprised I did not know you sooner, for you are not in the least altered. Ånd pray, sir, may I without offence inquire whither you are travelling this way?'- Fill the glass, Mr. 'Barber,' said Jones, and ask no more questions.'— Nay, sir,' answered Benjamin, I would not be troublesome; and I hope you don't think me a man of an impertinent curiosity, for that is a vice which nobody can lay to my charge; but I ask pardon; for when a gentleman of your figure tra'vels without his servants, we may suppose him to be, as we say, in casu incognito, and perhaps I ought not to have mentioned your name.'-' I own,' says Jones, I did not expect to have been so "well known in this country as I find I am; yet, for particular reasons, I shall be obliged to you if you will not mention my name to any other per son, till I am gone from hence.'- Pauca verba,' answered the barber; and I wish no other here knew you but myself; for some people have tongues; but I promise you I can keep a secret. My enemies will allow me that virtue.'-' And yet that is

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'not the characteristic of your profession, Mr. Bar'ber,' answered Jones. Alas! sir,' replied Benjamin, Non si male nunc et olim sic erit. I was not born nor bred a barber, I assure you. I have 'spent most of my time among gentlemen, and though I say it, I understand something of gentility. And if you had thought me as worthy of 'your confidence as you have some other people, I should have shown you I could have kept a secret 'better. I should not have degraded your name in a public kitchen; for indeed, sir, some people have 'not used you well; for besides making a public ' proclamation of what you told them of a quarrel 'between yourself and squire Allworthy, they added lies of their own, things which I knew to be lies.' -You surprise me greatly,' cries Jones. Upon my word, sir,' answered Benjamin, I tell the truth, and I need not tell you my landlady was the person. I am sure it moved me to hear the story, and I hope it is all false; for I have a great respect for you, I do assure you I have, and have had ever since the good-nature you showed to 'Black George, which was talked of all over the country, and I received more than one letter about it. Indeed, it made you be loved by every body. You will pardon me, therefore; for it was real concern at what I heard made me ask many questions; for I have no impertinent curiosity about me; but I love good-nature, and thence became amoris abundantia erga te.'

Every profession of friendship easily gains credit with the miserable; it is no wonder, therefore, if Jones, who, besides his being miserable, was extremely open-hearted, very readily believed all the professions of Benjamin, and received him into his bosom. The scraps of Latin, some of which Benjamin applied properly enough, though it did not savour of profound literature, seemed yet to indicate something superior to a common barber; and so