Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived
much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far
back as the times of Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout,
and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted company;
and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to spend an evening with her
whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little
strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment
was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in
the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, when I talk’d of a lodging
I had heard of, nearer my business, for two shillings a week, which, intent as I now
was on saving money, made some dierence, she bid me not think of it, for she
would abate me two shillings a week for the future; so I remained with her at one
shilling and sixpence as long as I staid in London.
In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the most
retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: that she was a Roman
Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodg’d in a nunnery with an
intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not agreeing with her, she returned to
England, where, there being no nunnery, she had vow’d to lead the life of a nun, as
near as might be done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her
estate to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on, and out of
this sum she still gave a great deal in charity, living herself on water-gruel only, and
using no re but to boil it. She had lived many years in that garret, being permitted
to remain there gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they
deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to confess her every day.
“I have ask’d her,” says my landlady, “how she, as she liv’d, could possibly nd
so much employment for a confessor?” “Oh,” said she, “it is impossible to avoid
vain thoughts.” I was permitted once to visit her. She was chearful and polite,
and convers’d pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a
matras, a table with a crucix and book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and
a picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica displaying her handkerchief, with
the miraculous gure of Christ’s bleeding face on it, which she explained to me
with great seriousness. She look’d pale, but was never sick; and I give it as another
instance on how small an income life and health may be supported.
At Watts’s printing-house I contracted an acquaintance with an ingenious
young man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy relations, had been better educated
than most printers; was a tolerable Latinist, spoke French, and lov’d reading. I
taught him and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the river, and they soon
became good swimmers. They introduc’d me to some gentlemen from the country,
who went to Chelsea by water to see the College and Don Saltero’s curiosities. In
our return, at the request of the company, whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I
stripped and leaped into the river, and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfryar’s,
performing on the way many feats of activity, both upon and under water, that
surpris’d and pleas’d those to whom they were novelties.
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