67. Three or four roguish scholars walking out one day from the University of Oxford, spied a poor fellow near Abingdon asleep in a ditch, with an ass by him, loaded with earthen ware, holding the bridle in his hand: says one of the scholars to the rest, If you will assist me, I’ll help you to a little money, for you know we are bare at present. No doubt of it they were not long consenting. Why, then, said he, we’ll go and sell this old fellow’s ass at Abingdon; for you know the fair is to-morrow, and we shall meet with chapmen enough: therefore do you take the panniers off, and put them upon my back, and that bridle over my head, and then lead you the ass to market, and let me alone with the old man. This being done accordingly, in a little time after, the poor man awaking, was strangely surprised to see his ass thus metamorphosed. Oh! for God’s sake, said the scholar, take this bridle out of my mouth, and this load from my back. Zoons! how came you here? replied the old man. Why, said he, my father, who is a necromancer, upon an idle thing I did to disoblige him, transformed me into an ass; but now his heart has relented, and I am come to my own shape again, I beg you will let me go home and thank him.―By all means, said the crockery merchant, I do not desire to have any thing to do with conjuration; and so set the scholar at liberty, who went directly to his comrades, that by this time were making merry with the money they had sold the ass for. But the old fellow was forced to go the next day to seek for a new one in the fair; and after having looked on several, his own was shown him for a good one. Oh! said he, what have he and his father quarrelled again already? No, no, I’ll have nothing to say to him. 68. Mr. Congreve going up the water in a boat, one of the watermen told him, as they passed by Peterborough House, that that house had sunk a story. No, friend, said he, I rather believe it is a story raised. 69. The aforesaid house, which is the very last in London, one way, being rebuilt, a gentleman asked another, Who lived in it? His friend told him, Sir Robert Grosvenor. I don’t know, said the first, what estate Sir Robert has, but he ought to have a very good one; for nobody lives beyond him in the whole town. 70. Two gentlemen disputing about religion, in Button’s Coffee-house, said one of them, I wonder, sir, you should talk of religion, when I’ll hold you five guineas you can’t say the Lord’s Prayer. Done, said the other, and Sir Richard Steele shall hold stakes. The money being deposited, the gentleman began with, I believe in God, and so went cleverly through the Creed. Well, said the other, I own I have lost; I did not think he could have done it. 71. A certain author was telling Dr. Sewel, that a passage he found fault with in his poem might be justified, and that he thought it a metaphor: It is such a one, said the doctor, as truly I never met-afore.