Imagine a man of middle height, rather inclined to obesity, and just
turned of fifty-eight. He had a broad, low forehead, sunken eyes, an
aquiline nose, a heavy, hanging lip, and a chin which buried its
projections in ample and unclassical folds of neckerchief. He was bald,
except a tuft on the _occiput_, or hinder part of his head, and on dress
occasions he wore powder. He was a widower, his wife having been dead
about ten years, leaving him two daughters, the amiability of whose
dispositions was a painful contrast to the uneven temper of their father.
He kept a good table, and had the best cellar of grape wine in the town,
but entertained little company. His guests were usually the valets or
butlers of the gentry in the neighbourhood; but the housekeepers were
never invited by his daughters, a point of propriety in male and female
acquaintanceship which amused us not a little. His business was of a most
multifarious description, and besides the trades of bookseller, stationer,
and druggist, he had a printing-office, and was, moreover, a self-taught
printer, He was post-master and stamp sub-distributor, receiver of bail,
and agent for insurances--little official appointments which would have
made him mayor in a corporate town. Of late years, he seldom meddled with
these matters of business; but tired of their common track, he struck out
a course of life, which was neither public nor private, but made him a
sort of oracle in the town, whose opinions were freely printed and
gratuitously circulated, whilst the author was seldom seen except at
vestry-meetings.
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