eldest of those girls, whose name is Amelia, is his favourite; she is the picture of her mother, and it is thought the Doctor hath distinguished her in his will; for he hath declared, that he will leave his whole fortune, except some few charities, among Amelia's children.

As to Booth and Amelia, Fortune seems to have made them large amends for the tricks she played them in their youth. They have, ever since the above period of this history, enjoyed an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London, and paid all his debts of honour; after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned into the country, and hath never since been thirty miles from home. He hath two boys and four girls; the eldest of the boys, he who hath made his appearance in this history, is just come from the university, and is one of the finest gentlemen and best scholars of his age. The second is just

going from school, and is intended for the church, that being his own choice. His eldest daughter is a woman grown, but we must not mention her age. A marriage was proposed to her the other day with a young fellow of a good estate, but she never would see him more than once; " for Dr Harrison," says she, " told me he was illiterate, and I am sure he is ill-natured." The second girl is three years younger than her sister, and the others are yet children.

Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age. Booth himself often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Amelia declared to me the other day, that she did not remember to have seen her husband out of humour these ten years; and upon my insinuating to her, that he had the best of wives, she answered with a smile, that she ought to be so, for that he had made her the happiest of women.

CHAP. I.

Shewing the wholesome uses drawn from recording the achievements of those wonderful productions of nature, called GREAT MEN.

As it is necessary that all great and surprising events, the designs of which are laid, conducted, and brought to perfection by the utmost force of human invention and art, should be produced by great and eminent men, so the lives of such may be justly and properly styled the quintes sence of history. În these, when delivered to us by sensible writers, we are not only most agreeably entertained, but most usefully instructed; for besides the attaining hence a consummate knowledge of human nature in general, of its secret springs, various windings, and perplexed mazes; we have here before our eyes lively examples of whatever is amiable or detestable, worthy of admiration or abhorrence, and are consequently taught, in a manner infinitely more effectual than by precept, what we are eagerly to imitate or carefully to avoid.

But besides the two obvious advantages of surveying, as it were in a picture, the true beauty of virtue, and deformity of vice, we may more over learn from Plutarch, Nepos, Suetonius, and other biographers, this useful lesson, not too hastily, nor in the gross, to bestow either our praise or censure; since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment

VOL. I.

and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns; for though we sometimes meet with an Aristides or a Brutus, a Lysander or a Nero, yet far the greater number are of the mixed kind, neither totally good nor bad; their greatest virtues being obscured and allayed by their vices, and those again softened and coloured over by their virtues.

Of this kind was the illustrious person whose history we now undertake; to whom, though nature had given the greatest and most shining endowments, she had not given them absolutely pure and without alloy. Though he had much of the admirable in his character, as much, perhaps, as is usually to be found in a hero, I will not yet venture to affirm that he was entirely free from all defects; or that the sharp eyes of censure could not spy out some little blemishes lurking among his many great perfections.

We would not, therefore, be understood to affect giving the reader a perfect or consummate pattern of human excellence; but rather, by faithfully recording some little imperfections, which shadowed over the lustre of those great qualities which we shall here record, to teach the lesson we have above mentioned; to induce our reader with us to lament the frailty of human nature, and to convince him that no mortal, after a thorough scrutiny, can be a proper object of our adoration.

But before we enter on this great work, we must endeavour to remove some errors of opinion which mankind have, by the disingenuity of writers, contracted; for these, from their fear of contradicting the obsolete and absurd doc

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trines of a set of simple fellows, called, in derision, sages or philosophers, have endeavoured, as much as possible, to confound the ideas of greatness and goodness; whereas no two things can possibly be more distinct from each other; for greatness consists in bringing all manner of mischief on mankind, and goodness in removing it from them. It seems, therefore, very unlikely that the same person should possess them both; and yet nothing is more usual with writers, who may find instances of greatness in their favourite hero, than to make him a compliment of goodness into the bargain; and this, without considering that by such means they destroy the great perfection called uniformity of character. In the histories of Alexander and Cæsar, we are frequently, and indeed impertinently, reminded of their benevolence and generosity, of their clemency and kindness. When the former had with fire and sword overrun a vast empire, had destroyed the lives of an immense number of innocent wretches, had scattered ruin and desolation like a whirlwind, we are told, as an example of his clemency, that he did not cut the throat of an old woman, and ravish her daughters, but was content with only undoing them. And when the mighty Cæsar, with wonderful greatness of mind, had destroyed the liberties of his country, and with all the means of fraud and force, had placed himself at the head of his equals, had corrupted and enslaved the greatest people whom the sun ever saw, we are reminded, as an evidence of his generosity, of his largesses to his followers and tools, by whose means he had accomplished his purpose, and by whose assistance he was to establish it.

Now, who doth not see that such sneaking qualities as these are rather to be bewailed as imperfections, than admired as ornaments, in these great men; rather obscuring their glory, and holding them back in their race to greatness; indeed, unworthy the end for which they seem to have come into the world, viz. of perpetrating vast and mighty mischief?

We hope our reader will have reason justly to acquit us of any such confounding ideas in the following pages; in which, as we are to record the actions of a great man, so we have no where mentioned any spark of goodness which had discovered itself either faintly in him, or more glaringly in any other person, but as a meanness and imperfection, disqualifying them for undertakings which lead to honour and esteem

among men.

As our hero had as little as perhaps is to be found of that meanness, indeed only enough to make him partaker of the imperfection of humanity, instead of the perfection of diabolism, we have ventured to call him the THE GREAT; nor do we doubt but our reader, when he hath perused his story, will concur with us in allowing him that title.

CHAP. II.

Giving an account of as many of our hero's Ancestors as can be gathered out of the rubbish of antiquity, which hath been carefully sifted for that purpose.

It is the custom of all biographers, at their entrance into their work, to step a little backwards, (as far, indeed, generally, as they are able,) and to trace up their hero, as the ancients did the river Nile, till an incapacity of proceed ing higher puts an end to their search.

What first gave rise to this method, is somewhat difficult to determine. Sometimes I have thought that the hero's ancestors have been introduced as foils to himself. Again I have imagined it might be to obviate a suspicion that such extraordinary personages were not produced in the ordinary course of nature; and may have proceeded from the author's fear, that if we were not told who their fathers were, they might be in danger, like Prince Prettyman, of being supposed to have had none. Lastly, and perhaps more truly, I have conjectured that the design of the biographer hath been no more than to shew his great learning and knowledge of antiquity. A design to which the world hath pro bably owed many notable discoveries, and, indeed, most of the labours of our antiquarians.

But whatever original this custom had, it is now too well established to be disputed. I shall therefore conform to it in the strictest manner.

Mr Jonathan Wild, or Wyld, then, (for he himself did not always agree in one method of spelling his name), was descended from the great Wolfstan Wild, who came over with Hengist, and distinguished himself very eminently at that famous festival, where the Britons were so treacherously murdered by the Saxons; for when the word was given, Nemet eour sares, i. e. Take out your swords, this gentleman, being a little hard of hearing, mistook the sound for Nemet her sacs, Take out their purses; instead, therefore, of applying to the throat, he immediately applied to the pocket of his guest, and contented himself with taking all that he had, without attempting his life.

The next ancestor of our hero who was remarkably eminent, was Wild, surnamed Langfanger, or Longfinger. He flourished in the reign of Henry III., and was strictly attached to Hubert de Burgh, whose friendship he was recommended to by his great excellence in an art of which Hubert was himself the inventor. He could, without the knowledge of the proprietor, with great ease and dexterity, draw forth a man's purse from any part of his garment where it was deposited, and hence he derived his surname. This gentleman was the