_For the Table Book._
This eccentric individual, whose fertile pen procured him notoriety, was
the son of a small grocer at March in the Isle of Ely. To use his
favourite expression, he “came forth” on Friday, the 13th of April,
1735, O. S. He received the rudiments of his education under “dame
Hawkins,” from whom he was removed to a most sagacious schoolmaster,
named Wendall; and he “astonished his schoolfellows by the brilliancy of
his genius,” till he was bound to his cousin Coward, of Lynn, to learn
the art and mystery of a “glover and breeches-maker.” He had nearly
passed through his apprenticeship, and attained to the age of twenty,
unconscious of the numerous “ills that flesh is heir to,” when one day
gazing at a small shop-window, nearly blinded by gloves and second-hand
unmentionables, an accidental aperture favoured him with a glimpse of
the too charming Miss Barbara Green, in the act of making wash-leather
gloves. She was a maiden, and though something more than fifty, her
fading beauty rendered her, to Nathan, all that
“Youthful poets fancy when they love.”