But be appears to have got out of prison
again. Fifteen years afterwards, we obtain a
momentary glimpse of him, getting a living
by a petty roguery, which tells how much he
had fallen—persuading poor tradesmen of
his power to get them small government
appointments, and inducing them by his bold
talk to give him sums of money: for which
he was committed to Newgate in seventeen
hundred and seventeen. After this he drops
into an obscurity in which we have failed, in
spite of much searching, to track him. It is
not difficult to imagine him, after many visits
to Newgate and Bridewell, condemned for
some petty forgery, and making his last
appearance one morning at Tyburn, or in front
of his old friend Jack Tutchin's lodgings—
slinking out of the world with an alias which
sheltered him from the fierce howlings of the
mob, and concealed his fate for ever.

A COUNTERFEIT PRESENTMENT.

MY name is not unknown to the British
public. When I mention that I am the
author of those powerful letters which appear
occasionally under the signature of
Hydrophobius, I need scarcely add that I am the
celebrated Sweetwort. While writing those
letters I was a happy man. My privacy was
as strictly preserved as that of Junius, and
probably for the same reason, because my
name would then have added nothing to the
force of my fulminations. In a moment of
weakness I allowed the veil to be torn
asunder. My letters were collected and
published; and, not content with that, to show
my versatility, I gave to the world a collection
of poetry, bearing my signature at full
length, under the title of The Rhododendron,
and other poems. For about three mouths
after the publication of these two volumes,
I had the exciting pleasure of seeing myself
torn to pieces by my enemies in the daily
and weekly critical organs; and the stupefying
agony of seeing myself defended by my
friends in the same channels of public
instruction. The result of this contest was
that I became a literary lion. No gathering
of wits was considered perfect without me.
My time, during the week, was divided
between dinner parties, evening parties, and
conversazioni. Occasionally, as I passed
along the streets, I had the satisfaction of
seeing men who were walking together, turn
round as I went by, and hearing them say
to each other hastily: " There he is! That's
Sweetwort! Hydrophobius, you know!"

I had lived in this happy state for about
six months, when it was suddenly found by
photographic artists that a public demand
existed for my portrait. I might have anticipated
this natural result of my exalted
position, but I had purposely closed my eyes to
it for certain reasons of a physical nature.

My face and head are of that peculiar
character, that, under no possible combination
of lights and attitude could they be
agreeable in a photographic portrait, or give
any correct idea of the original. This,
however, availed nothing to stem the tide of
persecution, which set in, gently at first, but
gradually increasing in power, until it broke
down every barrier which the forms and
decencies of society had raised before it.

The attack was commenced with letters,
which came one and two a-day, three and
four, ten, a dozen, even twenty at last, from
photographic artists, soliciting the favour of
a sitting. Some came with bare requests;
others backed by the recommendations of
acquaintances, to whom they were allowed to
refer; others giving a list of what they had
already done in the wide field of literary and
artistic portraits. All these letters required
to be answered according to the rules of
business and politeness.

Not always, however, was the request
conveyed in writing: frequently it gave rise to
personal visits of gentlemanly-looking men,
who, if I was not at home, would not leave
their cards, saying it was no matter, and they
would call again. Some, by great tact and
industry, obtained an interview, and were very
difficult to bow out, they were so mild and
persuasive. A few of the more energetic, when
they called, were thoroughly prepared to
take advantage, if I happened to be in one of
my moments of weakness. Boys were waiting
with the necessary apparatus round the
corner; and sometimes the shadow of the
abominable instrument was cast by the
sunlight across my study blinds, as I was
endeavouring with all the powers at my
command to get rid of its owner. I was as much
attacked by the implements of photographic
art, as ever an unpopular Irish landlord was
by the blunderbusses of insolvent tenants.
My excited imagination saw the detestable
lens pointed at me in the street, levelled at
my dressing-room curtain as I went through
the task of shaving; lurking for me in
bye-lanes, and under cover of the trees in the
open meadows; stationed even in the very
centre of the green-coated German band who
played their operatic selection before my
breakfast-room window.

The real or presumed ties of family and
kindred were raked up to assist in my
persecution.

A full-bearded gentleman of Venetian aspect
waited upon me early one morning, with a
letter from an agriculturist stationed in one
of the most inaccessible parts of Wales,
begging to introduce the bearer to my notice,
he being the grandson of some old lady that
I was supposed to remember, who was the
niece of my mother's aunt by my mother's
marriage with her first husband before she
became the wife of my late father. I read
the letter, and exhibited a decent degree of
cordiality to my visitor. I even invited him
to dinner, when, to my horror, he slowly
explained, over the wine, the object of his