It was about the year 1740, that Mr. Boyse reduced to the last extremity of human wretchedness, had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel to put on; the sheets in which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker’s, and he was obliged to be confined to bed, with no other covering than a blanket.  He had little support but what he got by writing letters to his friends in the most abject stile.  He was perhaps ashamed to let this instance of distress be known to his friends, which might be the occasion of his remaining six weeks in that situation.  During this time he had some employment in writing verses for the Magazines; and whoever had seen him in his study, must have thought the object singular enough.  He sat up in bed with the blanket wrapt about him, through which he had cut a hole large enough to admit his arm, and placing the paper upon his knee, scribbled in the best manner he could the verses he was obliged to make:  Whatever he got by those, or any of his begging letters, was but just sufficient for the preservation of life.  And perhaps he would have remained much longer in this distressful state, had not a compassionate gentleman, upon hearing this circumstance related, ordered his cloaths to be taken out of pawn, and enabled him to appear again abroad.

This six weeks penance one would imagine sufficient to deter him for the future, from suffering himself to be exposed to such distresses; but by a long habit of want it grew familiar to him, and as he had less delicacy than other men, he was perhaps less afflicted with his exterior meanness.  For the future, whenever his distresses so press’d, as to induce him to dispose of his shirt, he fell upon an artificial method of supplying one.  He cut some white paper in slips, which he tyed round his wrists, and in the same manner supplied his neck.  In this plight he frequently appeared abroad, with the additional inconvenience of want of breeches.

He was once sent for in a hurry, to the house of a printer who had employed him to write a poem for his Magazine:  Boyse then was without breeches, or waistcoat, but was yet possessed of a coat, which he threw upon him, and in this ridiculous manner went to the printer’s house; where he found several women, whom his extraordinary appearance obliged immediately to retire.

He fell upon many strange schemes of raising trifling sums:  He sometimes ordered his wife to inform people that he was just expiring, and by this artifice work upon their compassion; and many of his friends were frequently surprised to meet the man in the street to day, to whom they had yesterday sent relief, as to a person on the verge of death.  At other times he would propose subscriptions for poems, of which only the beginning and conclusion were written; and by this expedient would relieve some present necessity.  But as he seldom was able to put any of his poems to the press, his veracity in this particular suffered a diminution; and indeed in almost every other particular he might justly be suspected; for if he could but gratify an immediate appetite, he cared not at what expence, whether of the reputation, or purse of another.