I was (amongst friends) as much out of countenance at this saucy proceeding, as when our old friends, _Shore_ and _la Rocha_, refus’d to lend me five paultry guineas, after I had equipp’d them with more than one thousand apiece. I wonder’d at the roughness of their _acueil_, and they burst out a laughing at the impertinency of my astonishment. Well, gentlemen, give me leave to tell you, that if I had but suspected a quarter part of this inhuman and ungentleman-like reception, I would have suspended the honours of my self-sacrifice, and have chosen rather to wait the fatal period of life in a more contracted orb, than thus suddenly have plung’d myself into such a disappointment. After having allotted me my portion for my vanity and foppery, and I had been put into possession of my shop, you cannot conceive how heavy it lay upon my spirits; but suffer it I must; and if it had not been the odiousest and most abominable, most nauseous, and most execrable function I could have laboured under, they would not have been so merciful as to have enjoin’d it me. ’Twas long before I could obtain leave to insinuate thus much to you; for they are no ways here below inclined to grant any the minutest thing imaginable, that may contribute to the benefit of mankind. _Jo. Haines_ came to me, (and his breath had as much augmented its stench, as light is different from darkness: In a word, there was as great disproportion for the worse, as between us and you) and with a displayed pair of chaps, told me, I must not have any correspondency with the upper regions, for it might tend to the dispeopling the _Acherontic_ territories; and that I was a bubble to think they had not as much of self-interest here below, as any merchant, statesman, lawyer, or nobleman in all the dominions above. But seeing my and your old acquaintance, (gentlemen) I took heart a little, and held my nose; and after some usual ceremonies, (to which he made but a scurvy return) I told him, look you Mr _Haines_, you know, as well as I, that those powder’d members of the vain fraternity are all of them incorrigible; present smart and future fear affects them not; they are out of the reach of good advice; reason was never their talent; for if they were ever in election to have a thought, as it would be the first, so would it be the fatalest too. Could any glass but shew them to themselves as really they are, they would all despair like me, and die like me. A sly young whelp of the second class of _Pluto_’s footmen, said, well, Mr. _Haines_, there may be much in what he says, he came last from thence, therefore let him make an end of his epistle, it may turn to better account than we are aware of. I thank’d the gentleman for his civility, and would have administred a half-crown; but you know (my worthy brothers) that the last twelve shillings I had was laid out in three glasses of _Ratifia_, and a bottle of _Essence_; with which, I first