had with him the allowance of being blameless:
but what was that towards being praiseworthy?
To be only innocent, is not to be virtuous. He
afterwards spoke so much against Mrs. Dipple’s
forehead, Mrs. Prim’s mouth, Mrs. Dentifrice’s
teeth, and Mrs. Fidget’s cheeks, that she grew
downright in love with him: for it is always to
be understood, that a lady takes all you detract from
the rest of her sex to be a gift to her. In a
word, things went so far, that I was dismissed, and
she will remember that evening nine months, from the
6th of April, by a very remarkable token. The
next, as I said, I went to was a common swearer:
never was creature so puzzled as myself when I came
first to view his brain; half of it was worn out, and
filled up with mere expletives, that had nothing to
do with any other parts of the texture; therefore,
when he called for his clothes in a morning, he would
cry, ‘John—?’ John does not answer.
’What a plague! Nobody there? What
the devil, and rot me! John, for a lazy dog as
you are.’ I knew no way to cure him, but
by writing down all he said one morning as he was
dressing, and laying it before him on the toilet when
he came to pick his teeth. The last recital I
gave him of what he said for half an hour before,
was, ’What, a pox rot me! Where is the washball?
Call the chairmen: damn them, I warrant they
are at the ale-house already! Zounds, and confound
them.’ When he came to the glass, he takes
up my note—’Ha! this fellow is worse
than me: what, does he swear with pen and ink?’
But reading on, he found them to be his own words.
The stratagem had so good an effect upon him, that
he grew immediately a new man, and is learning to
speak without an oath, which makes him extremely short
in his phrases; for, as I observed before, a common
swearer has a brain without any idea on the swearing
side; therefore my ward has yet mighty little to say,
and is forced to substitute some other vehicle of
nonsense to supply the defect of his usual expletives.
When I left him, he made use of, ‘Oddsbodikins!’
‘Oh me!’ and, ‘Never stir alive!’
and so forth; which gave me hopes of his recovery.
So I went to the next I told you of, the gamester.
When we first take our place about a man, the receptacles
of the pericranium are immediately searched. In
his, I found no one ordinary trace of thinking; but
strong passion, violent desires, and a continued series
of different changes, had torn it to pieces.
There appeared no middle condition; the triumph of
a prince, or the misery of a beggar, were his alternate
states. I was with him no longer than one day,
which was yesterday. In the morning at twelve,
we were worth four thousand pounds; at three, we were
arrived at six thousand; half an hour after, we were
reduced to one thousand; at four of the clock, we
were down to two hundred; at five, to fifty; at six,
to five; at seven, to one guinea; the next bet, to
nothing: this morning, he borrowed half a crown
of the maid who cleans his shoes; and is now gaming