Dr. Sterne.
When I was last summer on my travels through Yorkshire, I one day met with a person who gave me a very singular history of himself, of the veracity of which I was assured by some gentlemen I might rely upon. I shall repeat his history to you, as nearly as I can recollect, in his own words.
Though I was born of poor parents, said he, I was fortunate enough to pick up a tolerable education in one of those public schools in the country, which are supported by voluntary and charitable contributions.
Nature formed me of an active and lively disposition; and, as I grew up, my vanity began to flatter me, that I was not destitute of genius. I happened one day, accidentally, to take up the tragedy of the Orphan, when I was particularly struck with the following lines, which I seemed inclined never to forget:
"I would be busy in the world, and learn;
Not like a coarse and worthless dunghill weed,
Fix'd to one spot, to rot just where I grow."
As soon as I had reached the age of fourteen, I was discharged from the school, when my parents put me to the farming business; but my ideas soared above that menial profession.
I had frequently heard it mentioned in our village, that the only place for preferment was the great and rich city of London; where a young fellow had only to get himself hired as a porter in some respectable shop, and he would soon rise to be shopman, then clerk, then master, and at last a common-councilman, or an alderman, if not a lord mayor.
I, therefore, soon determined to leave my native village, and hasten up to this centre of preferment and happiness. On my arrival in London, I was advised to apply to a register office, from whence I was sent to a capital grocer in the city, who was then in want of a porter, and where I was accordingly engaged. "How happy am I," said I to myself, "at once to jump into so capital a place? I shall here learn a fine business, and in time, like my master, keep a splendid coach, horses, and livery servants."
However, I was here very sadly mistaken; for I was constantly every day so driven about, from one end of the town to the other, with loads, that I had no opportunity of getting the least insight into the business; and every Sunday morning I almost sunk under a load of various kinds of provisions I was forced to carry to our villa in Kentish-town, from whence I returned in the evening with a still more enormous burden of the produce of the garden, consisting of cabbages, turnips, and potatoes, or whatever happened to be in season, for the use of the townhouse, during the ensuing week. I, therefore, was not much displeased at being obliged to quit this service on my master's becoming a bankrupt.