 Faults with which you reproach me?
That would be Time and Labour altogether thrown away, as I have not the smallest Hope of bringing you to Confession. You are a Disputant, a Casuist by your Education; you are equally studied and practised in turning any Thing into nothing, or bringing all Things thereout. But don't flatter yourself that I have yet given you the Detail of Half your Faults; you are often paradoxical, and extremely peremptory and desperate in your Assertions. In this very last Page you affirm that the Character of a Gentleman is the most revereable, the highest of all Characters.
I did, Sir, I do affirm it, and will make it good.
I knew it, Sir, I knew it, but don't chuse, at present, to enter into the Discussion. At the next Pause, I shall willingly hear you on this Question.
CHAP. VII.
ON his Return, he ordered a Fire and a Bottle of Wine into his Study, and sent for Mr.
Clement.
Mr.
Clement,
says he, sit down. I assure you, Mr.
Clement,
I am inclined to think very well of you. But, pray, let me have the Narrative of your Life and Manners, without Disguise. An ingenuous Confession and Sense of past Errors, has something in it, to me, full as amiable or more, than if a Man had never strayed.
Sir, says Mr.
Clement,
I have, indeed, been faulty, very faulty, in my Intentions; though
God
has, hitherto, preserv'd me from any very capital Act, and has, by your Hand, wonderfully brought me to this Day.
HISTORY OF THE MAN OF LETTERS.
BAR THOLOMEW CLEMENT, Sir, a Retailer of Hard Ware, on the Strand, is my Father. He was low-bred, and, as I believe, of narrow Capacity; but, proceeding in, what they call, the Dog-Trot of Life, and, having a single Eye to the making of Money, he became vastly rich, and has, now, a large Income, from Houses and Ground Rents in the City of
Westminster,
the Fruits and Acquisition of his own Application.
I remember nothing of my Mother, except her Fondness for me, nor of her Character, except the Tears that I have seen my Father shed, when occasional Circumstances have brought her fresh to his Memory. She died, when I was in my seventh Year. I was their only surviving Child; and my Father transferred all his Tenderness,
