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the law; a sort of supernumeraries in the profession, who are the hackneys of attorneys, and will ride more miles for half a crown than a postboy.

During the time of dinner, the Somersetshire lawyer recollected the face of Jones, which he had seen at Mr. Allworthy's; for he had often visited in that gentleman's kitchen. He therefore took occasion to inquire after the good family there with that familiarity which would have become an intimate friend or acquaintance of Mr. Allworthy; and indeed he did all in his power to insinuate himself to be such, though he had never had the honour of speaking to any person in that family higher than the butler. Jones answered all his questions with much civility, though he never remembered to have seen have seen the pettifogger before; and though he concluded, from the outward appearance and behaviour of the man, that he usurped a freedom with his betters, to which he was by no means entitled.

As the conversation of fellows of this kind is of all others the most detestable to men of any sense, the cloth was no sooner removed than Mr. Jones withdrew, and a little barbarously left poor Mrs. Whitefield to do a penance, which I have often heard Mr. Timothy Harris, and other publicans of good taste, lament, as the severest lot annexed to their calling, namely, that of being obliged to keep company with their guests.

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Jones had no sooner quitted the room, than the pettifogger, in a whispering tone, asked Mrs. Whitefield, "If she knew who that fine spark was?" She answered, "She had never the gentleman before." "The gentleman, indeed!" replied the pettifogger; "a pretty gentleman truly! Why, he's the bastard of a fellow who was hanged for horsestealing. He was dropt at Squire Allworthy's door, where one of the servants found him in a box so full of rainwater, that he would certainly have been drowned, had he not been reserved for another fate."-"Ay, ay, you need not mention it, I protest; we understand what that fate is very well," cries Dowling, with a most facetious grin."Well," continued the other, "the squire ordered him to

be taken in; for he is a timbersome man every body knows, and was afraid of drawing himself into a scrape; and there the bastard was bred up, and fed, and clothified all to the world like any gentleman; and there he got one of the servant-maids with child, and persuaded her to swear it to the squire the squire himself; and afterwards he broke the arm of one Mr. Thwackum a clergyman, only because he reprimanded him for following whores; and afterwards he snapt a pistol at Mr. Blifil behind his back; and once, when Squire Allworthy was sick, he got a drum, and beat it all over the house to prevent him from sleeping; and twenty other pranks he hath played, for all which, about four or five days ago, just before I left the country, the squire stripped him stark naked, and turned him out

of doors."

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"And very justly, too, I protest," cries Dowling; would turn my own son out of doors, if he was guilty of half as much. And pray what is the name of this pretty gentleman?"

"The name o' un?" answered Pettifogger; "why, he is called Thomas Jones."

"Jones!" answered Dowling a little eagerly; "what Mr. Jones that lived at Mr. Allworthy's! was that the gentleman that dined with us!"-"The very same," said the other. “I have heard of the gentleman," cries Dowling, "often; but I never heard any ill character of him."-" And I am sure," says Mrs. Whitefield, "if half what this gentleman hath said be true, Mr. Jones hath the most deceitful countenance I ever saw; for sure his looks promise something very different; and I must say, for the little I have seen of him, he is as civil a well-bred man wish to converse with."

as you would

Pettifogger calling to mind that he had not been sworn, as he usually was, before he gave his evidence, now bound what he had declared with so many oaths and imprecations that the landlady's cars were shocked, and she put a stop to his swearing, by assuring him of her belief. Upon which he said, "I hope, madam, you imagine I would scorn to

tell such things of any man, unless I knew them to be true. What interest have I in taking away the reputation of a man who never injured me? I promise you every syllable of what I have said is fact, and the whole country knows it."

As Mrs. Whitefield had no reason to suspect that the pettifogger had any motive or temptation to abuse Jones, the reader cannot blame her for believing what he SO confidently affirmed with many oaths. She accordingly gave up her skill in physiognomy, and henceforwards conceived so ill an opinion of her guest, that she heartily wished him out of her house.

This dislike was now farther increased by a report which Mr. Whitefield made from the kitchen, where Partridge had informed the company, "That though he carried the knapsack, and contented himself with staying among servants, while Tom Jones" (as he called him) "was regaling in the parlour, he was not his servant, but only a friend and companion and as good a gentleman as Mr. Jones himself."

Dowling sat all this while silent, biting his fingers, making faces, grinning, and looking wondefully arch; at last he opened his lips, and protested that the gentleman looked like another sort of man. He then called for his bill with the utmost haste, declared he must be at Hereford that evening, lamented his great hurry of business, and wished he could divide himself into twenty pieces, in order to be at once in twenty places.

The pettifogger now likewise departed, and then Jones desired the favour of Mrs. Whitefield's company to drink tea with him; but she refused, and with a manner so different from that with which she had received him at dinner, that it a little surprised him. And now he soon perceived her behaviour totally changed; for instead, of of that natural affability which we have before celebrated, she wore a constrained severity on her countenance, which disagreeable to Mr. Jones, that he resolved, however late, to quit the house that evening.

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Не did indeed account somewhat unfairly for this

sudden change; for besides some hard and unjust surmises concerning female fickleness and mutability, he began to suspect that he owed this want of civility to his want of horses; a sort of animals which, as they dirty no sheets, are thought in inns to pay better for their beds than their riders, and are therefore considered as the more desirable company; but Mrs. Whitefield, to do her justice, had a much more liberal way of thinking. She was perfectly wellbred, and could be very civil to a gentleman, though he walked on foot. In reality, she looked on our hero as a sorry scoundrel, and therefore treated him as such, for which not even Jones himself, had he known as much as the reader, could have blamed her; nay, on the contrary, he must have approved her conduct, and have esteemed her the more for the disrespect shown towards himself. This is indeed a most aggravating circumstance which attends depriving men unjustly of their reputation; for a man who is conscious of having an ill character, cannot justly be angry with those who neglect and slight him; but ought rather to despise such as affect his conversation, unless where a perfect intimacy must have convinced them that their friend's character hath been falsely and injuriously aspersed.

This was not, however, the case of Jones; for as he was a perfect stranger to the truth, so he was with good reason offended at the treatment he received. He therefore paid his reckoning and departed, highly against the will of Mr. Partridge, who having remonstrated much against it to no purpose, at last condescended to take up his knapsack, and to attend his friend.

CHAPTER IX.

CONTAINING SEVERAL DIALOGUES BETWEEN JONES AND PARTRIDGE, CONCERNING LOVE, COLD, HUNGER, AND OTHER MATTERS; WITH THE LUCKY AND NARROW ESCAPE OF PARTRIDGE, AS HE WAS ON THE VERY BRINK OF MAKING A FATAL DISCOVERY ΤΟ HIS FRIEND.

THE shadows began now to descend larger from the high mountains; the feathered creation had betaken themselves to their rest. Now the highest order of mortals were sitting down to their dinners, and the lowest order to their suppers. In a word, the clock struck five just as Mr. Jones took his leave of Gloucester; an hour at which (as it was now midwinter) the dirty fingers of Night would have drawn her sable curtains over the universe, had not the moon forbid her, who now, with a face as broad and as red as those of some jolly mortals, who, like her, turn night into day, began to rise from her bed, where she had slumbered away the day, in order to sit up all night. Jones had not travelled far before he paid his compliments to that beautiful planet, and, turning to his companion, asked him if he had ever beheld so delicious an evening? Partridge making no ready answer to his question, he proceeded to comment on the beauty of the moon, and repeated some passages from Milton, who hath certainly excelled all other poets in his description of the heavenly luminaries. He then told Partridge the story from the Spectator, of two lovers who had agreed to entertain themselves when they were at a great distance from each other, by repairing, at a certain fixed hour, to look at the moon; thus pleasing themselves with the thought that they were both employed in contemplating the same object at the same time. "Those lovers," added he, "must have had souls truly capable of feeling all the tenderness of the sublimest of all human passions."—"Very probably," cries Partridge: "but I envy

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