Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/287

 glows, and tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace the word L."

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault, but that she bores him, that our philanthropist writes, "Sum fatigatus et ægrotus"—Sum mortaliter in amore with somebody else! That fine flower of love, that polyanthus over which Sterne snivelled so many tears, could not last for a quarter of a century!

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with such a fountain at command, should keep it to arroser one homely old lady, when a score of younger and prettier people might be refreshed from the same gushing source. It was in December, 1767, that the