The Coverley Papers | Page 7

give some account in them of the
several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of
compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do
myself the justice to open the work with my own history.
I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition
of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and
ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has
been delivered down from father to son whole and entire, without the
loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six
hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that when my mother
was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she was
brought to bed of a Judge: Whether this might proceed from a law-suit
which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice
of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it
presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though
that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The
gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and
all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream: For, as
she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months
old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the
bells from it.
As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I

shall pass it over in silence. I find, that, during my nonage, I had the
reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my
schoolmaster, who used to say, _that my parts were solid, and would
wear well_. I had not been long at the university, before I distinguished
myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years,
excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the
quantity of an hundred words; and indeed do not remember that I ever
spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this
learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies,
that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the
modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with.
Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign
countries, and therefore left the university, with the character of an odd
unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but
shew it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the
countries of Europe, in which there was any thing new or strange to be
seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read
the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt,
I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a
pyramid: And, as soon as I had set myself right in that particular,
returned to my native country with great satisfaction.
I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in
most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my
select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a more
particular account. There is no place of general resort, wherein I do not
often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head
into a round of politicians at _Will_'s, and listening with great attention
to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences.
Sometimes I smoke a pipe at _Child_'s, and, whilst I seem attentive to
nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in
the room. I appear on Sunday nights at _St. James_'s coffee-house, and
sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner-room, as one
who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well
known at the Grecian, the _Cocoa-Tree_, and in the theatres both of
_Drury-Lane_ and the _Hay-Market_. I have been taken for a merchant
upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a
Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at _Jonathan_'s: In short,

wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I
never open my lips but in my own club.
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind, than as one of
the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative
statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with
any practical part in life. I am very well versed in