In the world within a world, the world of London,
it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can, in the
capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes what
he saw and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it
represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of
a brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is
likewise a scholar. It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and
proves that if he occasionally associates with low characters, he
does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity of a scholar. In his
conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar is
ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the
table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London,
and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably
shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is
contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his
love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive
favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself
from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an
original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have
written his "Rasselas," and Beckford his "Vathek," and tells how,
leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.
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