One was called 'The Light-house Tragedy, and contained an account of the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake with his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song, on taking the famous Teach, or 'Blackbeard, the Pirate. They were wretched stuff, in street-ballad style; and when they were printed, my brother sent me about the town selling them.

The wondrous mortal, whose flashing eyes had long been fixed on me in the greatest excitement, worked his muscles in the peculiarly fantastic fashion which we are accustomed to associate with a music-making automaton, the mechanism of which has been duly wound up: his lips quivered, his teeth gnashed, his eyes rolled convulsively, until finally there broke forth, in a hoarse oily voice, an uncommonly trivial street-ballad.