'To Mr. FitzAdam.
'Sir,—I am the widow of a merchant with whom I lived happily and in affluence for many years. We had no children, and when he died he left me all he had; but his affairs were so involved that the balance which I received, after having gone through much expense and trouble, was no more than one thousand pounds. This sum I placed in the hands of a friend of my husband's, who was reckoned a good man in the City, and who allowed me an interest of four per cent, for my capital; and with this forty pounds a year I retired and boarded in a village about a hundred miles from London.
'There was a lady, an old lady, of great fortune in that neighbourhood, who visited often at the house where I lodged; she pretended, after a short acquaintance, to take a great liking to me; she professed friendship for me, and at length persuaded me to come and live with her.
'One day, when her ladyship had treated me with uncommon kindness for my having taken her part in a dispute with one of her relations, I received a letter from London, to inform me that the person in whose hands I had placed my fortune, and who till that time had paid my interest money very exactly, was broke, and had left the kingdom.
'I handed the letter to her ladyship, who immediately read it over with more attention than emotion.
'Whenever Lady Mary spoke to me she had hitherto called me Mrs. Truman; but the very next morning at breakfast she left out Mrs.; and upon no greater provocation than breaking a teacup, she made me thoroughly sensible of her superiority and my dependence. "Lord, Truman! you are so awkward; pray be more careful for the future, or we shall not live long together. Do you think I can afford to have my china broken at this rate, and maintain you into the bargain?"
'From this moment I was obliged to drop the name and character of friend, which I had hitherto maintained with a little dignity, and to take up with that which the French call complaisante, and the English humble companion. But it did not stop here; for in a week I was reduced to be as miserable a toad-eater as any in Great Britain, which in the strictest sense of the word is a servant; except that the toad-eater has the honour of dining with my lady, and the misfortune of receiving no wages.'
No. 46. The 'World.'—Nov. 15, 1753.
'A correspondent who is piqued at not being recognised by the great people to whom he has been but recently presented, is very unreasonable, for he cannot but have observed at the playhouses and other public places, from the number of glasses used by people of fashion, that they are naturally short-sighted.