for lodging, diet, washing, cloaths, linen, physick, _&c._ you owe me ten pounds, (which came up within a few transitory shillings of what I had earned in her house) and this you must pay, sweetheart, before you talk of parting. ’Twas in vain to complain of her extortion, for besides that she pleaded perscription for it, her arithmetick was infallible, and she judg’d for her self _en dernier ressort_. Thus I was turn’d out of doors, but having in the interim, while I stay’d here, contracted a small acquaintance with a sister of the quill that lodg’d in _Covent-Garden_, I repaired to her quarters, and continu’d with her. Between us, my lord, we acted the story of _Castor_ and _Pollux_, that is, we were never visible together, but when she appeared above the horizon, ’twas bed-time with me; and when she kept her bed, ’twas my time to shine at the play-house. When either of us went abroad, we made a fine show enough, but then we gratify’d our backs at the expence of our bellies; cow-heel, tripe, a few eggs, or sprats, were our constant regale at home, and upon holidays a chop of mutton roasted upon a packthread in the chimney; and many a time when my sister and I wore silver-lac’d shoes our stockings wanted feet. I should trespass too much upon your lordship’s patience, to tell you how I have been forc’d to shift my name as well as my quarters, to submit to the nauseous embraces of every drunken tobacco-taking sot, that had half a crown in his pocket to purchase me; and when I have been arrested for a milk-score not exceeding the terrible sum of four shillings, to let an ill-look’d dog of a _Moabite_ enjoy me upon a founder’d chair in a spunging-house to procure my liberty. To this I should add, what unmerciful contributions I was forc’d out of my small revenue to pay to the conniving justices clerks, the constable, the beadle, the tallyman, but especially to those rascals the _Reformers_, whose business is not to convert, but only lay a heavier tax upon poor sinners, and make iniquity shift its habitation oftener than otherwise it would, I should never have done. In short, our condition, my lord is like a frontier people that live between two mighty monarchies, oppress’d, squeez’d, and plunder’d on all sides. By that time I was one and twenty, I could number more diseases than years, smoak and swear like a grenadier; and last _Bartholomew fair_, having made a debauch in stumm’d claret and Dr. _Stevens_’s water, with an attorney’s clerk, a fever seiz’d me next morning, and tript up my heels in three days. How I was buried, that is to say, whether by the contributions of the sister-hood or at the charge of the parish, I cannot tell; but this, my lord, is a short and faithful account of my life, and now I submit myself to the justice of this honourable court. I will not pretend to vindicate my profession, but this I may venture to affirm, that the world cannot live without us, and that a whore in the