"It is such dealings drives the poor Devils to all the little tricks and shifts imaginable. I went one day into a Tavern near Charing-cross, to enquire after a person whom I knew had once used the house. The Mistress being in the bar, cried out, 'What an unfortunate thing it was, Mr. ---- being that instant gone out of the house, and was surprised I did not meet him at the door, but that he had left word he expected a gentleman to come to him, and would return immediately.' I staid the sipping of two or three half pints, and began to shew some uneasiness that he did not come according to her expectation, when she again wondered at it, saying, 'it was one of his times of coming; for that he was a worthy good gentleman, and constantly whetted four or five times in a morning.' At length being out of all patience, I paid, and went to my friend's house, about twenty doors farther; where his wife informed me, he had been gone about three months before to Jamaica. "The bankruptcies so frequently happening among the sons of Bacchus, are doubtless to be attributed chiefly to such leeches as I have been describing, lying so closely upon them; and then an innocent industrious man is to be called forsworn rogue, villain, and what not: and to be told that he affected a failure, to sink a dozen or fourteen shillings in the pound upon his creditors, when, in reality, he hath not a single shilling left in the world, and shall oftentimes be obliged to become a common waiter to a more fortunate fellow, and one perhaps too that he once had thoughts of circumventing in his business and trade, by no other means than a more humble and tractable behaviour. "A Vintner, who has been looked upon by all mankind to have been a 20,000_l._ man at least, hath died not worth eighteen-pence; and then the poor wretch has been worried to his grave, with the character of a private gamester."