But my disasters were not directed to an end as soon as they began. It is very seldom that the unfortunate are so but for a day; as the great rise by degrees of greatness to the pitch of glory, in which they shine, so the miserable sink to the depth of their misery by a continued series of disaster, and are long in the tortures and agonies of their distressed circumstances, before a turn of fortune, if ever such a thing happens to them, gives them a prospect of deliverance.
My nurse was as honest to the engagement she had entered into, as could be expected from one of her employment, and particularly as honest as her circumstances would give her leave to be; for she bred me up very carefully with her own son, and with another son of shame like me, who she had taken upon the same terms.
My name was John, as she told me, but neither she or I, knew any thing of a sirname that belonged to me; so I was left to call myself Mr Any-thing, what I pleased, as fortune and better circumstances should give occasion.
It happened that her own son (for she had a little boy of her own, about one year older than I) was called John too; and about two years after she took another son of shame, as I called it above, to keep as she did me, and his name was John too.
As we were all Johns, we were all Jacks, and
