it into all Shapes, and diligently scanned every Wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, [who [2]] was older and more Sun-burnt than the rest, told him, That he had a Widow in his Line of Life:  Upon which the Knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle Baggage; and at the same time smiled upon me.  The Gypsie finding he was not displeased in his Heart, told him, after a farther Enquiry into his Hand, that his True-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night:  My old Friend cried Pish, and bid her go on.  The Gypsie told him that he was a Batchelour, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to some Body than he thought:  The Knight still repeated, She was an idle Baggage, and bid her go on.  Ah Master, says the Gypsie, that roguish Leer of yours makes a pretty Woman’s Heart ake; you ha’n’t that Simper about the Mouth for Nothing—­The uncouth Gibberish with which all this was uttered like the Darkness of an Oracle, made us the more attentive to it.  To be short, the Knight left the Money with her that he had crossed her Hand with, and got up again on his Horse.

As we were riding away, Sir ROGER told me, that he knew several sensible People who believed these Gypsies now and then foretold very strange things; and for half an Hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary.  In the Height of his good-Humour, meeting a common Beggar upon the Road who was no Conjurer, as he went to relieve him he found his Pocket was picked:  That being a Kind of Palmistry at which this Race of Vermin are very dextrous.

I might here entertain my Reader with Historical Remarks on this idle profligate People, [who [3]] infest all the Countries of Europe, and live in the midst of Governments in a kind of Commonwealth by themselves.  But instead of entering into Observations of this Nature, I shall fill the remaining Part of my Paper with a Story [which [4]] is still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our Monthly Accounts about twenty Years ago.

’As the Trekschuyt, or Hackney-boat, which carries Passengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a Boy running along the [Side [5]] of the Canal desired to be taken in; which the Master of the Boat refused, because the Lad had not quite Money enough to pay the usual Fare.  An eminent Merchant being pleased with the Looks of the Boy, and secretly touched with Compassion towards him, paid the Money for him, [6] and ordered him to be taken on board.  Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily in three or four Languages, and learned upon farther Examination that he had been stoln away when he was a Child by a Gypsie, and had rambled ever since with a Gang of those Strollers up and down several Parts of Europe.  It happened that the Merchant, whose Heart seems to have inclined towards the Boy by a secret kind of Instinct, had himself lost a Child some Years before.  The Parents, after a long Search for him,