caught the attention of both old and young.--Labour stood still as he
pass'd--the bucket hung suspended in the middle of the well,--the spinning-
wheel forgot its round,--even chuck-farthing and shuffle-cap themselves
stood gaping till he had got out of sight; and as his movement was not of
the quickest, he had generally time enough upon his hands to make his
observations,--to hear the groans of the serious,--and the laughter of the
light-hearted; all which he bore with excellent tranquillity.--His
character was,--he loved a jest in his heart--and as he saw himself in the
true point of ridicule, he would say he could not be angry with others for
seeing him in a light, in which he so strongly saw himself: So that to his
friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money, and who therefore
made the less scruple in bantering the extravagance of his humour,--instead
of giving the true cause,--he chose rather to join in the laugh against
himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own
bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his beast,--he would sometimes
insist upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;--that
they were, centaur-like,--both of a piece. At other times, and in other
moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,--he would
say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with great
gravity, would pretend, he could not bear the sight of a fat horse, without
a dejection of heart, and a sensible alteration in his pulse; and that he
had made choice of the lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself in
countenance, but in spirits.

At different times he would give fifty humorous and apposite reasons for
riding a meek-spirited jade of a broken-winded horse, preferably to one of
mettle;--for on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate as
delightfully de vanitate mundi et fuga faeculi, as with the advantage of a
death's-head before him;--that, in all other exercitations, he could spend
his time, as he rode slowly along,--to as much account as in his study;--