Why Sir, replied the minister, I do remember something of Mr. —— applying to me in your favour, and ’tis probable I might then put you upon my list, but I can never think it is two years since.—I would not, return’d the youth, impose upon your lordship, nor assert a falsity. Pray Sir, rejoined the peer, did you ever apply to me since the first application? My lord, answered the young gentleman, I have attended your lordship’s levee constantly once a month since, and should oftener, but was fearful of being troublesome to your lordship—Do you understand Spanish and the other requisites for such a station, Sir? says the peer—My lord, urged my companion, permit me to say, it is now more than a twelvemonth since your lordship pointed out to me the necessary qualifications, and permit me also to add, my lord, that I have dissipated my small fortune, in attaining those qualifications, and rendering myself equal to the service, so that I might not disgrace your lordship’s choice.—I am sorry, returned his lordship, that it is not in my power to serve you, for all the employments have been disposed of some time ago.—I hope your lordship, replied the astonished youth, will serve me some other way, as a recompence for my loss of time and the injury my fortune has suffered, by your lordship’s unhappily forgetting me.—I don’t remember, says, the absent peer, that I recommended you to lay out your money in any thing about this affair; but if I did, I suppose I then intended to appoint you, but it is now too late Sir, and I wou’d advise you to think of something else.—I should presume, says the unfortunate youth, on your lordship’s knowledge that it has cost me upwards of 200l. in qualifying myself, agreeable to your lordship’s order, your lordship, out of humanity, wou’d favour me with something that might retrieve my shattered fortune—What you understand the Spanish language, Sir? says his lordship.—Perfectly, replied the alarmed youth. Why then, returned the peer, you have the advantage of me, and may receive ample satisfaction, in reading the history of Don Quixote in the original language, and with that piece of wit, he politely took his leave of our thunderstruck youth, who on recollecting himself exclaimed, Æsop’s fable of the boys and frogs is here fatally exemplified, what is sport to him, is death to me—and instantly departed, bending his steps towards the Bird-Cage walk in the Park, where sitting upon a bench he passed two hours in silent meditation, but at length rousing from his melancholy reverie, with a start that put every thread of me to the proof, he took the resolution of entering as a private soldier in the guards, and hoped that while he might be upon duty under the cruel minister’s window, the reflection that he had drove him to that course of life for bread, might if his soul was not callous to every sensation, make him feel the pangs of wantonly ruining a man who had never injured him. Thus resolved, he hastened with me to my old