crowd. He attained the desired end: this Fame, this renown; and to vulgarize the allegory, he managed to snatch that comfortable shoulder of mutton which surmounts the greasy pole, and which, although we feign to covet it not, we must have. But he never attempted to conceal the smallness of his beginnings, to assert that his ancestors came over with the Conqueror, or to deny that his father came up to London by the waggon. He sets down in his own black and white, how he fought the battle for bread, how he engraved plates, and painted portraits and conversations and assemblies, in order to obtain the necessary bite and sup; how, with no money, he has often "gone moping into the city," but there receiving "ten guineas for a plate," has come home, jubilant, "put on his sword," and swaggered, I doubt it not, with the most dashing bucks in the coffee-house or on the Mall. I think they are happy traits in the character of this good fellow and honest man, that he should have had the courage to accomplish ten guineas' worth of graver's work, without drawing money on account, and that he should have had a sword at home for the red-letter days and sunshiny hours. You, brave young student and fellow-labourer! draw on your corduroys, shoulder your pick and shovel, be off to the diggings; do your work, get paid; and then come home, put on your sword and be a gentleman. One sees Mr. Beverly or Mr. Telbin slashing away with a large whitewasher's brush in a scene-painting room, fagging away in canvas jackets and over-alls, covered with parti-coloured splashes. Then, the work done, they wash their hands and come forth spruce and radiant, in peg-tops and kid-gloves. When our Prime Minister is at Broadlands, I hear that he stands up writing at a high desk, not seated like a clerk, working away bravely at the affairs of the chose publique, as for a wage of five-and-twenty shillings a week, and afterwards enjoys the relaxation of pruning his trees, or riding over his estate. Keep then your swords at home, and don't wear them in working hours; but, the labour done, come out into the open and claim your rank.
I daresay that for a long time twenty-five shillings a week would have been a very handsome income to William the engraver. He covered many silver salvers and tankards with heraldic devices, but I don't think he had any "argenterie, bagues et bijouxs," or other precious stock of his own on sale. Most probable is it, that his old master gave him work to do after he had left his service. I wonder if Mr. Gamble, in after days, when his apprentice had become a great man, would ever hold forth to tavern coteries on the share he had had in guiding the early efforts of that facile hand! I hope and think so; and seem to hear him saying over his tankard: "Yes, sir, I taught the lad. He was bound to me, sir, by his worthy father, who was as full of book learning as the Cockpit is of Hanover rats. He could not draw a stroke when he came to me, sir. He was good at his graving work, but too quick, too quick, and somewhat rough. Never could manage the delicate tintos or the proper reticulations of scroll-foliage. But he was always drawing. He drew the dog. He drew the cat. He drew Dick, his fellow 'prentice, and Molly the maid,
