This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

2

frost, I fortified myself with a good dram of brandy at every stage, and the ensuing morning proving delightfully fine, I at length found both my animal and mental spirits revive, and my heart beat high with expectation of the happiness I anticipated. About eight o'clock I was gratified with a sight of Hyde Park Corner; and I leave the reader to imagine what transports I felt at the difference between my then situation and that from which I had so recently and happily emerged. On my ascending the coach at Gosport, I had placed myself on the roof between two men who had the appearance of country farmers, and I maintained that situation throughout the night, by which indeed I was something benefited, for they had both good great-coats, and we sitting rather crowded, I was warmer than I should otherwise have been. On the coach stopping at the Gloucester Coffee-house, Piccadilly, I expressed my intention to alight and walk; the two farmers had the same inclination, and I observed, that if they were going my way, I should be glad of their company. They answered they were strangers in town, and their only object was to find out the inn from which the Yorkshire coach set out, as they were proceeding to that county immediately. I replied, I was myself almost a stranger to those matters, but I fancied the inn lay in the way I was going, and that I would with pleasure conduct them to it. We accordingly set forwards,