198] ANNUAL REGISTER,’ 1795. 
bargain. I believe that my apo-~ 
thecary’s bill will come té a good 
round sum for counteracting the ef- 
fects of the staff of life. 
I do not ascribe this to my wife} 
Hoy sir, she Is the best woman upon 
earth ; but you know it was natu- 
tal that she should try all mixtures. 
So one day we’had wheat and bars 
ley, and that gave us dysentery. 
The next we had a mixture of oat+ 
meal, and that put our blood into 
a fever; on the third we had pota~- 
toe bread, and them we had indi- 
gestion. In short, without know- 
Jng at first the reasony we have all 
been unwell: have all had occasion 
for the apothecary. And we are 
all beginning again, without ven- 
turing, however, to say so, to wish 
for plain old household bread from 
the baker. 
My neighbours have somehow 
or another found this out; and I 
am truly to be pitied. They ask 
mre jeeringly how many hundred 
weight of potatoes go to a quartern- 
loaf ; and the very flour-factor that 
my wife called in said to my face, 
at the Langbourn-Ward Coffee- 
house, that, if this saving plan went 
on, all the flour in the kingdom 
would be wasted ; andy, to tell you 
the truth; § begin to think so. 
CurtstorpHer CAKELING. 
Cranbourne-alle, Deo 23 
Grimaldi ; a true Story ; from Va- 
rieties of Literaturey Vol. 1. 
DRING the civil war of 
Genoa, an Italiany of the 
name ef Grimaldi, fled to Pisa. 
Money was the only thing in the 
Wniverse that could boast of his 
friendship and esteem. He mains 
tained, that fortune ought to be 
pursuedin any way and at any price, 
and that no means were disgraceful 
but such as did not succeed. He 
that has a great store of money, he 
used to say, has but few stings of 
conscience. 
We may readily suppose, that a 
man of such maxims had formed a 
settled plan to become rich. Acé 
cordingly he began very early to 
labour at the edifice of his fortunes 
and even in his youth he merited 
the appellation of an old misers 
With the talent of acquiring riches; 
he united the far more extraordi+ 
nary art of keeping them. He lived 
quite alone. He had neither dog 
nor cat in the house; because he 
must have found them in victuals. 
Neither did he keep a servant; to 
spare himself the necessity of paying 
wages- Moreover, he was in con- 
tinual fear of being robbed; and 
theft was in his estimation a crime 
of blacker dye than parricide. 
He was universally the object of 
hatred and contempt; but when he 
felt himself insulted or abused he 
went straightway home,cast a loukat 
his dear strong box, and was come 
forted. 
The frugality of his meals, and 
the poverty of his dress, were no 
deception to the public on the true 
state of his circumstances, as is 
usually the case with misers, The 
cloak of artifice, under which they 
think to conceal their affluence, fre- 
quently serves but to swell it in the 
eyes of other men; and their avarice 
is only @ sign hung out to invite the 
thief to enter. 
One evening when he had sup- 
ped in company, (it may be easily 
imagined that it was not at home,) 
he was returning to his house cvs! 
ate 
