Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/329

Rh been in a very short time enlarged, because he had directed the keeper to inquire after the state of his debts.

However, he took care to enter his name according to the forms of the court, that the creditor might be obliged to make him some allowance, if he was continued a prisoner, and, when on that occasion he appeared in the hall, was treated with very unusual respect.

But the resentment of the city was afterwards raised by some accounts that had been spread of the satire; and he was informed that some of the merchants intended to pay the allowance which the law required, and to detain him a prisoner at their own expence. This he treated as an empty menace; and perhaps might have hastened the publication, only to shew how much he was superiour to their insults, had not all his schemes been suddenly destroyed. When he had been six months in prison, he received from one of his friends, in whose kindness he had the greatest confidence, Rh