He attempted to practise at the English bar; but after a short time, told me he found he had not law enough for the King’s Bench, was not dull enough for the Court of Chancery, and that before he could make way at the Old Bailey he must shoot Garrow, which would be extremely disagreeable to him. He therefore recurred to the periodicals; and though an indifferent prose writer, wielded his goose-quill with no small success. He showed me a tariff of his pieces in verse: it was a most pleasant document, and I greatly regret I did not keep a copy of it: he burned it, he told me, to light his candle with. So indifferent was he of the main chance throughout life, that he never adhered long to any pursuit after he found it was really likely to be productive.
In the year 1785, when I was at Temple, he called on me one morning at the Grecian Coffee-house, where I then lodged, and said, with much seeming importance—
“Barrington, put on your hat, and come along with me this moment. I want to show you a lady who has fallen in love with me.”
“In love with you, Ned?” said I.
“Ay, to insanity!” replied he.
“It must indeed be to insanity.”
“Oh!” resumed he, gaily, “she is, I assure you, only considering what death she shall inflict on herself if I do not marry her. Now, you know, I am as poor as a rat, though a gentleman, and her father is as rich as Crœsus, though a blackguard: so we shall be well matched. The blood and the fat duly mixed, as Hogarth says, makes a right sort of pudding. So the thing is settled, and I’ll have the twelve tribes of Israel at my beck in the course of Monday morning.”
I thought he was distracted, and raving; but, however, immediately set out with him upon this singular expedition; and on our way to the Strand, where the papa resided, he disclosed to me all the circumstances of his amour.
“Barrington,” said he, “the lady herself is not, to be sure, the most palatable morsel one might see in a circle of females; yet she is obviously of the human species; has the usual features in her face (such as they are), four fingers and a thumb on each hand, and two distinct feet with a proper number (I suppose) of toes upon each,—and what more need I expect, seeing she has plenty of the shiners?”
“True,” said I: “as for beauty, those English girls, who are handsome, are too frolicksome: she’ll stick the closer to you, because she has none.”