When I was last summer on my travels through Yorkshire, I one day met with a person who gave me a very singular history of himself, of the of which I was assured by some gentlemen I might rely upon. I shall repeat his history to you, as nearly as I can , in his own words.  
Though I was born of poor parents, said he, I was fortunate enough to pick up a tolerable education in one of those public schools in the country, which are supported by voluntary and charitable contributions.
 
Nature formed me of an active and lively ; and, as I grew up, my vanity began to flatter me, that I was not of genius. I happened one day, accidentally, to take up the tragedy of the , when I was particularly struck with the following lines, which I seemed inclined never to forget:
 
"I would be busy in the world, and learn;
Not like a coarse and worthless dunghill weed,
Fix'd to one spot, to rot just where I grow."
As soon as I had reached the age of fourteen, I was discharged from the school, when my parents put me to the farming business; but my ideas soared above that menial profession.
 
I had frequently heard it mentioned in our village, that the only place for preferment was the great and rich city of London; where a young fellow had only to get himself hired as a porter in some respectable shop, and he would soon rise to be shopman, then clerk, then master, and at last a common-councilman, or an alderman, if not a lord mayor.
 
 
I, therefore, soon to leave my native village, and hasten up to this centre of preferment and happiness. On my arrival in London, I was advised to apply to a register office, from whence I was sent to a capital grocer in the city, who was then in want of a porter, and where I was accordingly engaged. "How happy am I," said I to myself, "at once to jump into so capital a place? I shall here learn a fine business, and in time, like my master, keep a splendid coach, horses, and livery servants."
 
However, I was here very sadly mistaken; for I was constantly every day so driven about, from one end of the town to the other, with loads, that I had no opportunity of getting the least insight into the business; and every Sunday morning I almost sunk under a load of various kinds of provisions I was forced to carry to our in Kentish-town, from whence I returned in the evening with a still more enormous burden of the produce of the garden, consisting of cabbages, , and potatoes, or whatever h............