yet his facts and style were so incongruous that speaking of the “Sketch,” he says, when he -------------“sent it out, Good lack! to know what ’twas about? He might as well have sent it muzzled, For half the folks seem’d really puzzled. Soliciting for patronage, He might have spent near half an age; From all endeavours undertook, He could not get it to a book.” Though the only “historical” part of the first number of his “Fen Journal,” in twenty-four pages, consisted of prosaic fragments of his grandfather’s “poaching,” his mother’s “groaning,” his father’s “fishing,” and his own “conjectures;” yet he tells the public, that “Protected by kind Providence, I mean in less than twelve months hence, Push’d by no very common sense, To give six times as much as here is, And hope there’s none will think it dear is, Consid’ring th’ matter rather queer is.” In prosecution of his intentions, No. 2 shortly followed; and, as it was alike heterogeneous and unintelligible, he says he had “caught the Swiftiania, in running digression on digression,” with as many whimseys as “Peter, Martin, and John had in twisting their father’s will.” He expected that this “gallimaufry” and himself would be consecrated to posterity, for he says, “’Tis not for lucre that I write, But something lasting,--to indite What may redound to purpose good, (If hap’ly can be understood;) And, as time passes o’er his stages Transmit my mind to future ages.” On concluding his second number, he “gratefully acknowledges the liberality of his subscribers, and is apprehensive the _Interlope_ will find a very partial acceptance; but it being so congenial an interlude to the improvement of _Low Fen_ and _Billinghay Dale_ manners, to be hereafter shown, he hopes it will not be considered detrimental, should his work continue.” Such, however, was not the case, for his literary project terminated: unforeseen events reduced his finances, and he had not -----------------------“Pecune Enough, to keep his harp in tune.” The care of a large family of orphan grandchildren, in indigent circumstances, having devolved upon him, he became perplexed with extreme difficulties, and again experienced the truth of his own observation, that “If two steps forward, oft’ three back, Through life had been his constant track.”