114 Kington Si. Michael. \_John Britton. 



small as it was, was sufficient to provide a decent lodging, clothes, 

 food, and the luxury of hooks. For ahout ninepence a day during 

 these three years, he dined at an eating-house in Great Turnstile, 

 Holborn : where, amongst other characters, he met with the eccen- 

 tric Sir John Dinely one of the poor Knights of Windsor, the noted 

 Chevalier D'Eon, and Joseph Eitson the Antiquary. 



His employer, the Gray's Inn Attorney, dying in 1798, a fresh 

 engagement was made with Messrs. Parker and Wix, Solicitors, of 

 Greville street, Hatton Garden, where he obtained twenty shillings 

 a week, an augmentation of income peculiarly cheering, the new 

 connexion being in other respects also very satisfactory. He now 

 became member of a Debating Society in Coachmakers' Hall, and 

 at the Shakesperian Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, not as a pro- 

 minent orator, but as prompter and occasional helper in scenes. 

 But at another club, the Jacob's Well, he rose to be a leading star 

 by recitation of comic tales, prologues, and characters written by 

 Peter Pindar, George Colman the younger, and others. These 

 always amused and were often received with vociferous applause. 

 Debating clubs at the close of the last century were a marked fea- 

 ture in London life ; the excitement produced by the French 

 Revolution was at its height, and the young men of the day hung 

 upon the lips of the professors of democracy. Many of these were 

 mere mob-orators, some were Government spies, some earnest 

 politicians of ability ; and of this class Mr. Britton has preserved 

 some interesting reminiscences. In such a school no wonder that 

 he contracted a propensity to express himself rather too strongly of 

 those whose taste or views might not always be the same as his own: 

 a habit that tinges now and then the writings even of his latest 

 years. But 



" Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem 

 Testa «?»«."! 



His taste fixed on the drama, and in the winter of 1799 he was 



engaged by a Mr. Chapman at three guineas a week to write and 



sing at a theatre in Panton street, Haymarket, on the plan of the 



"Eidophusikon" of De Loutherbourg, a very popidar entertainment 



1 Hor. E. I. 2. 69. "A vessel, well 



" With liquor seasoned, long retains the smell." 



