Her acquaintance with Mr. Cibber began by a present she made him of The Trial of Constancy, a poem of hers, which Mr. Dodsley published. Mr. Cibber, upon this, visited her, and, ever after, with the most unwearied zeal, promoted her interest. The reader cannot expect that we should swell this volume by a minute relation of all the incidents which happened to her, while she continued a poetical mendicant. She has not, without pride, related all the little tattle which passed between her and persons of distinction, who, through the abundance of their idleness, thought proper to trifle an hour with her. Her virtue seems now to have been in a declining state; at least, her behaviour was such, that a man, must have extraordinary faith, who can think her innocent. She has told us, in the second volume of her Memoirs, that she received from a noble person a present of fifty pounds. This, she says, was the ordeal, or fiery trial; youth, beauty, nobility of birth, attacking at once the most desolate person in the world. However, we find her soon after this thrown into great distress, and making various applications to persons of distinction for subscriptions to her poems. Such as favoured her by subscribing, she has repaid with most lavish encomiums, and those that withheld that proof of their bounty, she has sacrificed to her resentment, by exhibiting them in the most hideous light her imagination could form. From the general account of her characters, this observation results, That such as she has stigmatized for want of charity, ought rather to be censured for want of decency. There might be many reasons, why a person benevolent in his nature, might yet refuse to subscribe to her; but, in general, such as refused, did it (as she says) in a rude manner, and she was more piqued at their deficiency in complaisance to her, than their want of generosity. Complaisance is easily shewn; it may be done without expence; it often procures admirers, and can never make an enemy. On the other hand, benevolence itself, accompanied with a bad grace, may lay us under obligations, but can never command our affection. It is said of King Charles I. that he bestowed his bounty with so bad a grace, that he disobliged more by giving, than his son by refusing; and we have heard of a gentleman of great parts, who went to Newgate with a greater satisfaction, as the judge who committed him accompanied the sentence with an apology and a compliment, than he received from his releasment by another, who, in extending the King's mercy to him, allayed the Royal clemency by severe invectives against the gentleman's conduct.