387 



taking advantage of every kind of slip of 

 carelessness, and sometimes in a way that 

 the usual licence amongst either gamesters 

 or writers, does not admit of. One very 

 singular instance I remember with respect 

 to gaming, where the person was very far 

 from being low either in rank or fortune : 

 if his neighbours did not keep their heaps 

 of gold pretty close to them, and a guinea 

 happened to stray, lie could not forbear 

 hooking it a little with his finger, till it was 

 near enough for him to claim it. A friend 

 of mine used sometimes to take the expen- 

 sive amusement of baiting him with a stray 

 guinea, and never failed to have sport. It 

 would in one sense be a more ruinous amuse- 

 ment, were an author purposely to scatter 

 a few blunders over his work by way Of 

 baits ; but there are adversaries so greedy, 

 that they would be sure to swallow them 

 hook and all. 



I must add a few more words with respect 

 to the blunder in question, which, I can 

 assure the reader, was made very innocently, 

 and without any insidious purpose. 'In th4 



