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/312

 brought up his eight children; and loving all the world, as his son says, fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry children. He kept an open table; round which sate flatterers and poor friends, who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes, and ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who have seen an Irish house in the present day, can fancy that one of Lissoy. The old beggar still has his allotted corner by the kitchen turf; the maimed old soldier still gets his potatoes and butter-milk; the poor cottier still asks his honour's charity, and prays God bless his Reverence for the sixpence: the ragged pensioner still takes his place by right and sufferance. There's still a crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd round the parlour-table, profusion, confusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman comes to London to make his fortune, he has a half dozen of Irish who take a per centage of his earnings. The good Charles Goldsmith left but little provision Errata