THE  familiarity  with  which  I  addrefs
you  will,  I  think,  be  fufficiently  juftified,
when  I  inform  you,  that  I  am  an  author
as  well  asyourfelf.  Our  lines  of  bufinefs  differ
indeed.  Your  care  feems  to  be  in  endeavour-
Ing  to  entertain  your  readers  with  produc-
tions of  the  lighter  caft,  while  I  am  engaged
in  graver  duties  ;  troublefome  indeed  to
myfdlf,  but  of  the  utmoft  importance  to
mankind.  You  muft  know,  I  am  the  mouth
from  which  many  of  our  paftors  and  in-
ftruclors  deliver  their  oracles.  In  fhort,  my
office  is  to  write  fermons  for  young  divines  ;
•which  (fuch  is  my  zeal  for  religion)  I  diftri-
bute  at  three  pence  each,  or  2  s.  9  d  per
dozen.  After  the  expences  of  printing,  &c,
are  defrayed,  my  gains,  as  you  may  fuppofe,
are  very  fmall. — Yet,  fmaii  as  they  are,  Sir,  I
am  fatisfied,  while  my  confcience,  without
flattering,  tells  me  I  have  deferved,  if  not
obtained,  a  reputation.  One  of  my  fermons


N°3-      OLLAPODRIDA.        35

(it  was  printed  in  a  type  which  might  be
miftaken  for  hand-writing,  price  only  I  s.)
procured  the  purchaser  of  it  a  leclurefhip  in
the  Borough ;  to  be  fure,  the  gentleman
had  a  main  good  voice,  which  he  did  not
pofiefs  for  nothing.  But  what  is  the  fage
without  the  goofe  ?

Another  gentleman,  a  doctor,  who  wrote
rather  grave  fermons,  being  much  fmitten
with  a  young  lady,  who  objected  to  him  on
account  of  his  gravity,  applied  to  me  for  a
fermon  fuited  to  his  circumftances.  I  took
his  cafe  into  coniideration,  and  provided
him  with  a  difcourfc  fo  lively,  that  he  car-
ried, off  the  lady  in  triumph  in  lefs  than
three  weeks. — Nobody  flept ;  the  people
were  very  attentive,  and  flared  a  good  deal.
