his own.
The colonel received both, and gave the author a guinea in exchange, which was double the sum mentioned in the receipt; for which the author made a low bow, and very politely took his leave, saying, 'I suppose, gentlemen, you may have some private business together; I heartily wish a speedy end to your confinement, and I congratulate you on the possessing so great, so noble, and so generous a friend.'
Chapter 6
Which Inclines Rather To Satire Than Panegyric
The colonel had the curiosity to ask Booth the name of the gentleman who, in the vulgar language, had struck, or taken him in for a guinea with so much ease and dexterity. Booth answered, he did not know his name; all that he knew of him was, that he was the most impudent and illiterate fellow he had ever seen, and that, by his own account, he was the author of most of the wonderful productions of the age. 'Perhaps,' said he, 'it may look uncharitable in me to blame you for your generosity; but I am convinced the fellow hath not the least merit or capacity, and you have subscribed to the most horrid trash that ever was published.'
'I care not a farthing what he publishes,' cries the colonel. 'Heaven forbid I should be obliged to read half the nonsense I have subscribed to.'
'But don't you think,' said Booth, 'that by such indiscriminate encouragement of authors you do a real mischief to the society? By propagating the subscriptions of such fellows, people are tired out and withhold their contributions to men of real merit; and, at the same time, you are contributing to fill the world, not only with nonsense, but with all the scurrility, indecency, and profaneness with which the age abounds, and with which all bad writers supply the defect of genius.'
'Pugh!' cries the colonel, 'I never consider these matters. Good or bad, it is all one to me; but there's an acquaintance of mine, and a man of great wit too, that thinks the worst the best, as they are the surest to make him laugh.'
'I ask pardon, sir,' says the serjeant; 'but I wish your honour would consider your own affairs a little, for it grows late in the evening.'
'The serjeant says true,' answered the colonel. 'What is it you intend to do?'
'Faith, colonel, I know not what I shall do. My affairs seem so irreparable, that I have been driving them as much as possibly I could from my mind. If I was to suffer alone, I think I could bear them with some philosophy; but when I consider who are to be the sharers in my fortune--the dearest of children, and the best, the worthiest, and the noblest of women---Pardon me, my dear friend, these sensations are above me; they convert me into a woman; they drive me to despair, to madness.'
The colonel advised him to command himself, and told him this was not the way to retrieve his fortune. 'As to me, my dear Booth,' said he, 'you know you may command me as far as is really within my power.'
Booth answered eagerly, that he was so far from expecting any more favours from the colonel, that he had resolved not to let him know anything of his misfortune. 'No, my dear friend,' cries he, 'I am too much obliged to you already;' and then burst into many fervent expressions of gratitude, till the colonel himself stopt him, and begged him to give an account of the debt or debts for which he was detained in that horrid place.
Booth answered, he could not be very exact, but he feared it was upwards of four hundred pounds.
'It is but three hundred pounds, indeed, sir,' cries the serjeant; 'if you can raise three hundred pounds, you are a free man this moment.'
Booth, who did not apprehend the generous meaning of the serjeant as well as, I believe, the reader will, answered he was mistaken; that he had computed his debts, and they amounted to upwards of four hundred pounds; nay, that the bailiff had shewn him writs for above that sum.
'Whether your debts are three or four hundred,' cries the colonel,
