The congenial reader has already, I doubt not, anticipated that I am about to introduce that nondescript book bearing the running title--and it never had any other--of _Silver Drops, or Serious Things;_ purporting, in a kind of colophon, to be "written by William Blake, housekeeper to the Ladies' Charity School."[1] The curious in old books knows too, that, apart from its subject, the _Silver Drops_ of W. B. has usually an attractive exterior; most of the _exemplaires_ which have come under my notice being sumptuously bound in old morocco, profusely tooled; with the name of the party to whom it had apparently been presented, stamped in a compartment upon the cover. Its value is farther enhanced by its pictorial and emblematical accompaniments. These are four in number: the first representing a heart, whereon {70} a fanciful picture of Charity supported by angels; second, a view of Highgate Charity Schools (Dorchester House); third, Time with his scythe and hour-glass[2]; and the fourth, in three compartments, the centre containing butterflies; the smaller at top and bottom, sententious allusions to the value of time--"Time drops pearles from his golden wings," &c. These are respectable engravings, but by whom executed I know not. After these, and before coming to the _Silver Drops_, which are perhaps something akin to Master Brooks' _Apples of Gold_, the book begins abruptly: "The Ladies' Charity School-house Roll of Highgate, or a subscription of many noble well-disposed ladies for the easie carrying of it on." "Being well informed," runs the Prospectus, "that there is a pious, good, commendable work for maintaining near forty poor or fatherless children, born all at or near Highgate, Hornsey, or Hamsted: we, whose names are subscribed, do engage or promise, that if the said boys are decently cloathed in blew, lined with yellow; constantly fed all alike with good and wholsom diet; taught to read, write, and cast accompts, and so put out to trades, in order to live another day; then we will give for one year, two or three (if we well like the design, and prudent management of it,) once a year, the sum below mentioned," &c. The projector of this good work was the subject of my present note; and after thus introducing it, the worthy "woollen-draper, at the sign of the Golden Boy, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden," for such he was, goes on to recommend and enforce its importance in a variety of cajolling addresses, or, as he calls them, "charity-school sticks," to the great and wealthy; ostensibly the production of the boys, but in reality the concoctions of Mr. Blake, and in which he pleads earnestly for his _hobby_. In _An Essay, or Humble Guess, how the Noble Ladies may be inclined to give to and encourage their Charity-school at Highgate_, Mr. Blake farther humorously shows up the various dispositions of his fair friends:--"And first," says he, "my lady such-a-one cryed, Come, we will make one purse out of our family;" and "my lady such-an-one