small as it was, was sufficient to provide a decent lodging, clothes, food, and the luxury of books. For about 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 eccentric Sir John Dinely one of the poor Knights of Windsor, the noted Chevalier D'Eon, and Joseph Ritson 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 prominent 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 feature 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 diu."1

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 popular entertainment "A vessel, well "With liquor seasoned, long retains the smell.”

1 Hor. E. I. 2. 69.

which under this difficult and therefore attractive name, exhibited exquisite scenery by that painter with the various effects of sunshine and gloom, morn, mid-day, night, thunder, lighting, &c.1 Mr. Chapman's imitation presented less of the sublime and more of the miscellaneous; including, as it did, John Britton's monologue, the musical glasses, and a learned dog. This temple of the Muses being destroyed by fire in 1800, others were resorted to, and a large acquaintance was formed in histrionic society of every grade, from writers and actors down to mountebanks and clowns. Many are his anecdotes of these persons. Through the interest of the more distinguished actors, the Kembles, Bannister, Young, and others, he was supplied with orders for the theatre, and at that time believed it was impossible to be tired of reading plays or seeing them represented on the stage. The playhouse seemed the most fascinating place of rational amusement in the world, and he was on the eve of becoming an actor. The fascination fortunately passed away the accounts of struggle and privation endured by friends who had embarked in that line damped his ambition, and he renounced the stage as a profession.

But for what was he fitted? Since emancipation from the Clerkenwell vaults his life had been one of uncertainty; and though fond of reading and eager for information, he had not dared to think of literature as a means of livelihood. Two or three juvenile essays slipped into the letter-box of a Shoe Lane periodical had indeed been printed, and their appearance in type was gratifying. He followed them up with comments on players, clubs and theatricals. For these a place was found in the "Sporting Magazine," published by John Wheble of Warwick Square, who proved a kind friend and was the cause of his becoming, ultimately and for life, an Author. A sixpenny pamphlet called "The Thespian Olio," was the first book of which he was the Editor. Then followed a daring speculation (involving the risk of £15, a sum never hitherto in his possession at one time), the " Odd Fellows' Song Book," price one shilling! Of this 500 copies were printed and actually sold, bringing in a trifling profit. He then became connected with John

1 See a description by W. H. Pyne in "Wine and Walnuts."

4

Fairburn a bookseller in the Minories, and wrote for him "Twelfth Night Characters," to be printed on cards and drawn out of a bag, for the amusement of evening parties on that Festival. The hint was borrowed by others, and afterwards grew to an extensive trade. The next effort was in 1799, "The Life and Adventures of Pizarro," a compilation that gave him his first taste of the difficulties of authorship, and for this, his maiden essay, he received ten pounds. Great was his self-satisfaction at beholding a superior edition, price five shillings!

But the turning point of his career had arrived: and a direction was now given to it from which he never afterwards swerved. As frequently happens, a trifling incident gave the bias. Amongst the articles contributed by him to the pages of Mr. Wheble's Sporting Magazine had been an anecdote of Britton's juvenile days, relating to a fox in his native village of Kington St. Michael. With 15 or 20 couple of the Duke of Beaufort's hounds almost at his brush, the animal had rushed into an open cottage at the foot of a hill in the village street, and jumping into a cradle where a

baby was asleep, crept under the clothes. The mother being in the garden and hearing the hounds in full cry towards her door, ran in

to protect the child; its strange bedfellow was discovered and handed over to the less tender nursing of the huntsman.

The insertion of this Wiltshire anecdote in Mr. Wheble's periodical happened to turn the conversation upon that county, when the Editor told Britton that some years before, when living at Salisbury, he had conceived the idea of publishing a work in two volumes, to be called "The Beauties of Wiltshire," but had been prevented from continuing it. He now suggested the thought to the contributor of the fox story, urged him to undertake it, and offered pecuniary assistance. Being at the time without any sort of tie or profitable occupation, Britton caught eagerly at the suggestion; the more so as it would give him again and again the opportunity of revisiting and exploring his native county. Such was the real beginning of his literary life.

The task was accepted; without any previous qualifications whatever for performing it, other than those of ardour and perseverance. He knew nothing of the labour required for real topography, had never studied works upon the subject, and those he now looked into seemed dry and uninviting. Warner's "Walk through Wales" appeared to be more to the purpose, and taking this for his model he commenced a pedestrian tour. Armed with a few maps and books, a limited wardrobe and an umbrella, he rambled several hundred miles about the Midland Counties, passing through Wiltshire on his return. His whole expenses during several months amounted only to eleven pounds sixteen shillings and ninepence! Of this his first excursion Mr. Britton retained to the last a very vivid and minute recollection; and has devoted no less. than 100 pages of his "Autobiography" to notices of the different places he visited, and the literary or otherwise eminent persons to whom he obtained introduction. One of these notices, presenting at the same time a fair sample of the general style of his book, will be more particularly acceptable to Wiltshire readers. It describes his reception at Bowood.1

"Up to the age of twenty-six, I had never conversed with a nobleman, or scarcely with a gentleman in the higher ranks of

1 Autobiography, vol. i. p. 353.

society, and had never visited any of the wealthy mansions of the great personages of the land. I certainly had been admitted into the studios of a few artists, and also into the wine-cellars of Sir William Chambers, in Berners Street and at Whitton Park; and I had spent two days with Mr. Scrope and his aged mother, at Castle Combe, as will be noticed hereafter; but the last event occurred immediately after my emancipation from the wine-cellar, and before I undertook my Quixotic journey to Plympton, already noticed, or had any notion of literature as a profession. Otherwise my intercourse with aristocracy and intellectual beings was as 'rare as snow in June, or wheat in chaff.' It is true that I was from boyhood ambitious to be in the company of my elders and superiors in knowledge; and a little of the rust and rudeness of village life and menial manners had been rubbed down, if not polished, by partiality for debating societies and private theatricals, which were popular in London at the beginning of the present century. I must frankly acknowledge that I was as unfitted for communion, and unqualified to converse, with princes or nobles of the land, as with utopian autocrats or celestial monarchs. I approached the house, through a lodge and park, which inspired awe and wonder; I rang the bell to the domestic part of the premises with hesitation and doubt; I asked incoherent questions about the Marquis, the house, &c.; the porter was perplexed and called the footman, who consulted the valet, and he appealed to the butler, who goodnaturedly construed my meaning and wishes, and introduced me to his noble master, who was scated in a well-filled and spacious library, and who appeared to my dizzy vision like something superhuman. Without a card, or prospectus of the work which was the ostensible object of my visit, I was requested to explain who I was, and what was the nature of my inquiry and intentions. Unprepared to explain what I had no distinct notion of myself, I related something of my short and uneventful career, and the reasons for attempting to write about my native county; told of my friendless and forlorn circumstances, love of reading, and the arts; desire to acquire knowledge, and qualify myself to accomplish the task I had undertaken with some degree of credit to myself, and not discredit