the name of tliis illustrious and anonymous
man, it is hardly possible to conceive. When
learned and eminent antiquarians have settled
the question whether Shakspeare's Plays
were written by Shakspeare, and when they
have also found out, for positively the last
time, who Junius actually was, will they be
so obliging as to grapple with the mystery
of B. L.? The writer of these lines
abandons the new voyage of literary discovery
to their superior spirit of enterprise;
and, abstaining from any further digression
about the anonymous author of Twickenham,
returns to the work which B. L. has left behind
him, and to that special part of it which is
devoted to the parallel between the Sponging-houses
of Middlesex, and the Debtors' side of
Newgate Prison, in the year seventeen
hundred and twenty-four.

Will the reader— the gentle and solvent
reader— be so good as to imagine that he was
alive a century and a quarter ago, and that
he was arrested for debt ? Perhaps the
favour is too great to ask; perhaps the
suggestion may give offence. It will be fitter
and better if the writer places himself, purely
for the sake of illustrating the parallel of
B. L., in a position of supposititious
insolvency, and breaks down under pressure of his
tradesman's bills, in the year seventeen
hundred and twenty-four. Very good. I wear,
let us say, a long wig and a short sword;
broad coat-skirts spread out with buckram;
little breeches, hidden at the top by
the ends of my waistcoat, and at the bottom
by my long stockings, pulled up over my
knees. I have had, 'fore Gad, sir! a wild
night of it,— have got drunk, bullied citizens,
frightened their wives, beaten the watch, and
reeled home to bed with my sword broken
and half my embroidery scratched off my
coat-cuffs. After a heavy sleep, I am just
cooling my fevered tongue with a morning
draught of small beer, when, plague take it!
who should come in on the heels of my little
black page bearing my Indian dressing-gown,
but the bailiff with my arrest-warrant.
Resistance is hopeless. I use the necessary
imprecations. The bailiff gives me the necessary
tap on the shoulder, and asks where I
will go to— Newgate or to the sponging-
house ? The treatise of B. L. has unhappily
not attracted my attention. I am
unacquainted with the important truth, divulged
for my benefit by the Debtor's Best Friend,
that Newgate offers me, with the one trifling
exception of liberty, all the charms of home
on the most moderate terms. The very name
of the famous prison terrifies me. I weakly
imagine that the sponging-house is more
genteel, more luxurious, more fit, in every
way, for a man of my condition; and to the
sponging-house I declare that I will go.

On the way to our destination, the bailiff
(B. L. calls him a Crocodile, among other
hard names) insists on stopping at a tavern,
under pretence of waiting to see if I can
procure bail. Here, the Crocodile and his
followers (called Swine by B. L.) " plentifully
swig and carouse" (vide Treatise) at my
expense. When I have paid the whole
reckoning, no matter whether I have taken
any drink myself or not, I am politely carried
on to the sponging-house, and am told, all the
way, what a horrible place Newgate is, and how
grateful I ought to be to my kind Crocodiles
and Swine for saving me from incarceration
in the county gaol. Arrived at the
sponging-house, I am received with the greatest
civility; and my dear friend, the bailiff
(without troubling me with any previous
consultation on the subject) orders, at my
expense, a bottle of wine and half-a-dozen roast
fowls. This banquet prepared, he and all
his crocodile family, together with the whole
herd of unconscionable swine in attendance
on them, sit down to table, leaving me the
lowest and worst place, cutting, carving,
raking, tearing the fowls in the most unmannerly
way, helping everybody before me,
absorbing wings, breasts, merrythoughts and
thighs, and leaving nothing to my share but
the drumsticks and the bones. When the
wine is all drunk, and the fowls are all eaten,
the head of the crocodiles winks at the head
of the swine, and each declares that he has
got the colic. The families on either side
catch the infection of that distressing malady
immediately, and brandy is called for
(medicinally), and again at my expense. After
the sharp pangs of colic have been sufficiently
assuaged, the table is cleared. Pipes, tobacco,
and a bowl of punch (price half-a-guinea in
the sponging-house; price three and sixpence
out of doors) are ordered by the company for
themselves, in my name. While my free
guests are drinking, I, their prisoner-host,
am called on to amuse them by telling the
story of my misfortunes. When the bowl is
empty, I am carried off to my own room, and
am visited there, shortly after, on private
business, by the head crocodile, with his pipe
in his mouth. His present object is to inform
me that my paying the bill for the wine,
fowls, brandy, pipes, tobacco, and punch, has
not by any means freed me from my obligations
to his kindness, and that I must
positively go to Newgate at once, unless I settle
forthwith what I am going to pay him in the
way of Civility-money. My doctor has a fee
for giving me physic; why should my bailiff
not have a fee for treating me kindly ? He
declines to mention any precise amount, but
he laughs in my face if I offer less than a
guinea, and I may consider myself very
lucky if he does not take from me three
times that sum. If I submit to this extortion,
and if I am sufficiently liberal afterwards
in the matter of brandy, I am treated
with a certain consideration. If I object to
be swindled, I am locked up in one small
filthy room; am left without attendance,
whenever I happen to knock or call, by the
hour together; am denied every necessary of