Martinsburg gazette and public advertiser. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1826-1833, 1830-01-07
}, va: THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1880.

| Simpkins was on thorns till she became
acquainted with the author This, by her
brothers Intervention. was soon brought a
bout; an invitation to dinner confirmed the in
tlmacy; the lady, Desdemos,a, loved the Wan
derer "ior the pcrils he had passed." and he,
like OtieliO, "loved her that she did thcm.n
1t has been said, one marriage makes many:
scarcely had his sister embraced the nuptial
state, when Thomas handed TO the same altar
widow lady. whom he had accidentally met
at Margatc, and had mistaken for a person of
quality, bat who had since turned out to be
the leading tragic actress of Sadler's Wells,
at rising salary of eighteen shillings per
week, exclusive of benefits 1t is but justice
to add, that If this young lady brought her
husband no fortune, she brought him what to
a sensitive mind is infinitely preierable--two
nne boys, one oil whom WAS breeched, the
othery yet In petticoats.
| Such accumulated incidents --calamitics he
Iungrateiully called them-occurring to old
Simpkins at period when the mind. having
lost the first elasticity of youth, is not yet
mellowed down into the philosophy Of age,
but stands, restless and unsettled, between the
two, in sort OF crepuscular condition, heaped
"sackcloth and ashes ON his head" He ne
elected his leger, he neglected his house. he
neglected himself, and, worst of all, he ne
| SoAsSSNa CuStDHiCFS. III ldCts tof ufOuttt5
together, he did nothing but sigh and swear
His family, even in this exgcncy, could rem
der him not the slightest assistance His
daughter, who still lived with him, had, by
dlllgent cultivation of the intellect, long since
forgotten the household duties of wife; her
husband, as the old man used often to remark,
"was OF no more use than cargo OF damaged
Coffee" and even Thomas--the inspired
Thomas himself-had dwindied down into
mere mortal and now dwelt in AERIAL scclu-
sion up two pair of stairs at Pentonvie--
Thus widowed in bis age--for his wife,
should observe, had three months since trans
ierred herself from his to Abraham's bosom
the disconsoiate grocer abruptly sold his bu-
| siness, pcnsloncd OIL his daughter and her
"NV anderer," and retired alone, on small an
nuity, to back street in Islington--a memo
| rabie illustration of the March of Mind and
its very peculiar concomitants.
Here twas that first became acquainted
with him, and cleaned the particulars Of the
history have just yenturcd to sketch. Our
intimacy continued upwards OF year, during
which period win do my old friend the JUS
tice to say that heard the anccdote OF the
poetic apprentice who had robbed him, at
least dozen times. Now and then, when /
ventnred to express my astonishment that
radesman ofhis good sense, who held such
proper notions on the score of poetry and
Ipunctuality, should have so far forgotten
himself as to have encouraged the one and a
5andoned the other, to his own manifest ruin,
the venerable sage would answer, se'rrue, Sir,
but ii was ell my wife's doing. She kept per-
petualy telling me that the Spinkses who,
one would have thought must have been good
judges, for they were capital customers, and
always paid their way-had pronounced my
son to be a genius, and that it was shame
TO thwart his abilities, so was oyer-persua-
ded, you see, to send him to college, when,
had he but stuck TO business, who knows but
he might have become Common Council
man; or, perhaps, even in time sheriff But
there's no doing any thing with poets re-
member an apprentice OF mine, once--
But | see yours afiected,n-and here the old
man would pause, shake the ashes from his
pipe, and then revert to some less ungracious
topic. TWAS on one of these occasions when, |
having concluded longer story than ususl, |
he had stopped to take his customary allow
ance OF breath, that on waking from a nap
which MS affecting anecdotes rarely failed to
bring on, found him stretched in an apo-
plehc fit upon the floor With some difficulty
he was brought to his senses; but q relapse
occurring in few days, it became but too
evident that like the late John Wesley, he had
had cail-that, in short, his closing hour
was CONS. | was with him in his last extre-
NIFTY, and have every reason to be satisfied
with the Christian character Of his exit He
ssore most incredibly at all poets, left Tho
mas his blessing and six halfcrowns. hi,
daughter Ms. Essay, by the political econ
omist of Houndsditch; and then, with a CON
vuisive jerk of his left leg, which famed the
bedpost for life, set out on his travels to eter-
nifty, with the story of the apprentice on his lips
OF his three children, Thomas is the sole
survivor. 'sFhe "Wanderer'sn wife was ia
ken OIL, about fortnight since, by dyspepsia,
the consequence of inordinate indulgence in
tripe and toast and water; while her sprightly
sister, Sophy, threw herself headlong into a
mill pond at Holyhead (having previously tied
down her peticoats at the ankies), on being
informed by O'Blarney, in one of those conf
dental moments which brandy and water sell
dom fails to elicit, that he was already the
devoted husband Of three wives and a proper
tomato abundance Of pledges, and had quit
ted London not SO much with view to visit
| any Irish estates--wlich, as a matter Of
course, existed only in his iancy-as to obyi-
ate the personal Inconvenience likely to arise
from the circumstance of his having, in
moment OF forgettulness, appropriated TO his
own use the purse and pocket-book of one
OF his most intimate and valued acauaintan-
css. The poor girls body was fshed up, a
few days afterwards, by WEIGH clergyman,
who was trolling in spectacles for pike, and