About the year 1745 Mr. Boyse’s wife died.  He was then at Reading, and pretended much concern when he heard of her death.

It was an affectation in Mr. Boyse to appear very fond of a little lap dog which he always carried about with him in his arms, imagining it gave him the air of a man of taste.  Boyse, whose circumstances were then too mean to put himself in mourning, was yet resolved that some part of his family should.  He step’d into a little shop, purchased half a yard of black ribbon, which he fixed round his dog’s neck by way of mourning for the loss of its mistress.  But this was not the only ridiculous instance of his behaviour on the death of his wife.  Such was the sottishness of this man, that when he was in liquor, he always indulged a dream of his wife’s being still alive, and would talk very spightfully of those by whom he suspected she was entertained.  This he never mentioned however, except in his cups, which was only as often as he had money to spend.  The manner of his becoming intoxicated was very particular.  As he had no spirit to keep good company, so he retired to some obscure ale-house, and regaled himself with hot two-penny, which though he drank in very great quantities, yet he had never more than a pennyworth at a time.—­Such a practice rendered him so compleatly sottish, that even his abilities, as an author, became sensibly impaired.

We have already mentioned his being at Reading.  His business there was to compile a Review of the most material transactions at home and abroad, during the last war; in which he has included a short account of the late rebellion.  For this work by which he got some reputation, he was paid by the sheet, a price sufficient to keep him from starving, and that was all.  To such distress must that man be driven, who is destitute of prudence to direct the efforts of his genius.  In this work Mr. Boyse discovers how capable he was of the most irksome and laborious employment, when he maintained a power over his appetites, and kept himself free from intemperance.

While he remained at Reading, he addressed, by supplicating letters, two Irish noblemen, lord Kenyston, and lord Kingsland, who resided in Berkshire, and received some money from them; he also met with another gentleman there of a benevolent disposition, who, from the knowledge he had of the father, pitied the distresses of the son, and by his interest with some eminent Dissenters in those parts, railed a sufficient sum to cloath him, for the abjectness of his appearance secluded our poet even from the table of his Printer[3].