His father had been a baker and maltster, but was
ruined in trade and became insane while Britton was yet a child.
The boy received very little schooling, but a great deal of bad
example, which happily did not corrupt him. He was early in life
set to labour with an uncle, a tavern-keeper in Clerkenwell, under
whom he bottled, corked, and binned wine for more than five years.
His health failing him, his uncle turned him adrift in the world,
with only two guineas, the fruits of his five years' service, in
his pocket. During the next seven years of his life he endured
many vicissitudes and hardships. Yet he says, in his
autobiography, "in my poor and obscure lodgings, at eighteenpence a
week, I indulged in study, and often read in bed during the winter
evenings, because I could not afford a fire." Travelling on foot
to Bath, he there obtained an engagement as a cellarman, but
shortly after we find him back in the metropolis again almost
penniless, shoeless, and shirtless. He succeeded, however, in
obtaining employment as a cellarman at the London Tavern, where it
was his duty to be in the cellar from seven in the morning until
eleven at night. His health broke down under this confinement in
the dark, added to the heavy work; and he then engaged himself, at
fifteen shillings a week, to an attorney,--for he had been
diligently cultivating the art of writing during the few spare
minutes that he could call his own.
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