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'best that ever were writ: but indeed there are a pretty moderate number printed already, and not all sold yet.' -Pray, Sir,' said Adams: to what do you think the 'numbers may amount?'' Sir,' answered Barnabas, เ a bookseller told me, he believed five thousand volumes at least.'—' Five thousand!' quoth the surgeon: 'What

can they be writ upon? I remember, when I was a เ boy, I used to read one Tillotson's sermons; and, I am เ sure, if a man practised half so much as is in one of those sermons, he will go to heaven.'-' Doctor,' cried Barnabas, 'you have a profane way of talking, for which 'I must reprove you. A man can never have his duty เ too frequently inculcated into him. And as for Tillotเ son, to be sure he was a good writer, and said things เ very well; but comparisons are odious; another man may write as well as he-I believe there are some of my sermons,' -and then he applied the candle to his pipe. And I believe there are some of my disเ courses,' cries Adams, 'which the bishops would not 'think totally unworthy of being printed; and I have 'been informed, I might procure a very large sum (indeed 'an immense one) on them.'-'I doubt that,' answered Barnabas: however, if you desire to make some money ' of them, perhaps you may sell them by advertising the เ manuscript sermons of a clergyman lately deceased, all 'warranted originals, and never printed. And now I think of it, I should be obliged to you, if there be ever เ a funeral one among them, to lend it me; for I am this very day to preach a funeral sermon, for which I have 'not penned a line, though I am to have a double price.' Adams answered: He had but one, which he feared 'would not serve his purpose, being sacred to the memory ' of a magistrate, who had exerted himself very singularly in the preservation of the morality of his neighbours, 'insomuch that he had neither alehouse nor lewd woman

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in the parish in which he lived.' 'No,' replied Barnabas: that will not do quite so well; for the deceased, upon whose virtues I am to harangue, was a little too 'much addicted to liquor, and publicly kept a mistress.

I believe I must take a common sermon, and trust to my memory to introduce something handsome on 'him.'-To your invention rather,' said the doctor: your memory will be apter to put you out; for no man 'living remembers any thing good of him.'

With such kind of spiritual discourse, they emptied the bowl of punch, paid their reckoning, and separated: Adams and the doctor went up to Joseph, parson Barnabas departed to celebrate the aforesaid deceased, and the exciseman descended into the cellar to gauge the vessels.

Joseph was now ready to sit down to a loin of mutton, and waited for Mr. Adams, when he and the doctor came in. The doctor having felt his pulse, and examined his wounds, declared him much better, which he imputed to that sanative soporiferous draught, a medicine, 'whose virtues,' he said, 'were never to be sufficiently extolled.' And great indeed they must be, if Joseph was so much indebted to them as the doctor imagined; since nothing more than those effluvia, which escaped the cork, could have contributed to his recovery; for the medicine had stood untouched in the window ever since its arrival.

Joseph passed that day, and the three following, with his friend Adams, in which nothing so remarkable happened, as the swift progress of his recovery. As he had an excellent habit of body, his wounds were now almost healed; and his bruises gave him so little uneasiness, that he pressed Mr. Adams to let him depart; told him he should never be able to return sufficient thanks for all his favours, but begged that he might no longer delay his journey to London.

Adams, notwithstanding the ignorance, as he conceived it, of Mr. Tow-wouse, and the envy (for such he thought it) of Mr. Barnabas, had great expectations from his sermons seeing therefore Joseph in so good a way, he told him he would agree to his setting out the next morning in the stage-coach, that he believed he should have sufficient, after the reckoning paid, to procure him one day's conveyance in it, and afterwards he would be able to get on on foot, or might be favoured with a lift in some neighbour's waggon, especially as there was then to be a fair in the town whither the coach would carry him, to which numbers from his parish resorted— And as to himself, he agreed to proceed to the great city.

They were now walking in the inn yard, when a fat, fair, short person rode in, and alighting from his horse, went directly up to Barnabas, who was smoking his pipe on a bench. The parson and the stranger shook one another very lovingly by the hand, and went into a room together.

The evening now coming on, Joseph retired to his chamber, whither the good Adams accompanied him; and took this opportunity to expatiate on the great mercies God had lately shown him, of which he ought not only to have the deepest inward sense, but likewise to express outward thankfulness for them. They therefore fell both on their knees, and spent a considerable time in prayer and thanksgiving.

They had just finished, when Betty came in and told Mr. Adams Mr. Barnabas desired to speak to him on some business of consequence below stairs. Joseph desired, if it was likely to detain him long, he would let him know it, that he might go to bed, which Adams promised, and in that case they wished one another goodnight.

CHAPTER XVII.

A pleasant discourse between the two parsons and the bookseller, which was broke off by an unlucky accident happening in the inn, which produced a dialogue between Mrs. Tow-wouse and her maid of no gentle kind.

As soon as Adams came into the room, Mr. Barnabas introduced him to the stranger, who was, he told him, a bookseller, and would be as likely to deal with him for his sermons as any man whatever. Adams, saluting the stranger, answered Barnabas, that he was very much obliged to him; that nothing could be more convenient, for he had no other business to the great city, and was heartily desirous of returning with the young man, who was just recovered of his misfortune. He then snapped his fingers (as was usual with him) and took two or three turns about the room in an ecstacy. And to induce the bookseller to be as expeditious as possible, as likewise to offer him a better price for his commodity, he assured them their meeting was extremely lucky to himself; for that he had the most pressing occasion for money at that time, his own being almost spent, and having a friend then, in the same inn, who was just recovered from some wounds he had received from robbers, and was in a most indigent condition. 'So that nothing,' says he, could be so opportune, for the supplying both our necessities, as my making an immediate bargain ' with you.'

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As soon as he had seated himself, the stranger began in these words: 'Sir, I do not care absolutely to deny engaging in what my friend Mr. Barnabas recommends; 'but sermons are mere drugs. The trade is so vastly 'stocked with them, that really, unless they come out

with the name of Whitefield or Westley, or some other 'such great man, as a bishop, or those sort of people, I 'don't care to touch; unless now it was a sermon preached on the 30th of January; or we could say in 'the title page, published at the earnest request of the 'congregation, or the inhabitants; but, truly, for a dry piece of sermons, I had rather be excused; especially เ as my hands are so full at present. However, Sir, as 'Mr. Barnabas mentioned them to me, I will, if you please, take the manuscript with me to town, and send เ you my opinion of it in a very short time.'

'Oh!' said Adams, 'if you desire it, I will read two ' or three discourses as a specimen.' This Barnabas, who loved sermons no better than a grocer doth figs, immediately objected to, and advised Adams to let the bookseller have his sermons: telling him, 'If he gave 'him a direction, he might be certain of a speedy answer:' adding, he need not scruple trusting them in his possession.' 'No,' said the bookseller, if it was a 'play that had been acted twenty nights together, I 'believe it would be safe.'

Adams did not at all relish the last expression; he said, he was sorry to hear sermons compared to plays. 'Not by me, I assure you,' cried the bookseller, though 'I don't know whether the licensing act may not shortly 'bring them to the same footing; but I have formerly 'known a hundred guineas given for a play.'—' More shame for those who gave it,' cried Barnabas. 'Why 'so?' said the bookseller, 'for they got hundreds by it.'

But is there no difference between conveying good เ or ill instructions to mankind?' said Adams: Would เ not an honest mind rather lose money by the one, than 'gain it by the other?'-'If you can find any such, I 'will not be their hindrance,' answered the bookseller; 'but I think those persons, who get by preaching ser

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