I shall not blush to own I have been in love, since the wisest men that
ever were yet, have found their philosophy too weak to prevent the
tyranny of the blind boy. However, though they were sensible of the
powers of beauty, yet they were all ignorant of its cause. The painter
that first drew _Cupid_ with a fillet over his eyes, did not mean that
he was blind; but that it was impossible to express their various
motions: sometimes eager desire adds new darts to their sparkling rages:
sometimes chilling fear in a minute overcasts their glittering beams;
joy drowns ’em in an unusual moisture, and irresolution gives ’em a
gentle trembling despair, sinks ’em into their orbits: jealousy
re-ascends the expiring flame: and one kind look from the person we
adore, sweetly sooths ’em up again; and it is easy to remark from their
sudden composedness the new calm and tranquillity of the mind. We may
say as much of love as of beauty, we all knew there is such a thing,
but none of us can tell what it is; ’tis not youth alone that is expos’d
to the fatal tempest of this raging passion: age itself has yielded to
its attacks; and we have seen some look gaily in their love, tho’ they
were stepping into their graves. It laughs at the most ambitious man,
and makes a monarch turn vassal to his own subjects: it makes the miser
lavish of his ador’d dust and the hoarded ore profusely scatter’d at his
charmer’s feet: nay, the poets themselves did not feign _Cupid_ so
extravagant, as many philosophers felt him: however, love is the great
springhead from whence all our felicities flow; and our condition would
be worse than that of the very beasts, if it were exempted from this
darling passion: yet it is as true too, that there is nothing upon the
earth so enormous and detestable, but love has been the occasion of it
at one time or other. That glorious emanation of divinity, the breath of
life which gave us the similitude of our Creator, is often stifled by
this raging passion, reason revolts, and joining partly with love,
proves our ruin, by justifying a thousand absurdities: and there is no
misery to which mankind may be said to be subject to, that is not caused
by love. There would be no sorrow, no fear, no desire, no despair, no
jealousy, no hatred, if there were no love. The soul becomes a restless
sea whose tumultuous waves are continually foaming, every sense is an
inlet to this violent passion: and there are but few objects which can
affect the soul, that do not give it birth: as heat produces some things
and destroys others, so love, not unlike it, is the origin of good and
evil. It may be call’d the school of honour and virtue; and yet not
improperly a theatre of horror and confusion too.
’Tis the powerful and pleasing band of human society; without it there
would be no families, no kingdoms; and yet we read of an _Alexander_
that sacrific’d a whole city to a smile of a mistress. _Anthony_
disputed the world with _Cæsar_, yet chose rather to lose it than be
absent from _Cleopatra_’s arms. _David_ forgot the august character of a
man after God’s own heart, and though so famous for prowess as well as
piety, basely murther’d the injur’d _Uriah_, the more freely to enjoy
the lovely adulteress. Charming _Sempronia_, the fire is pure in itself,
’tis the matter only that sends up all those offensive clouds of smoak;
and if nature were not depraved, love would not cause these disorders:
’twou’d not mix poyson with wine to destroy a rival, and thro’ a sea of
blood and tears wade to its object. Love is the most formidable enemy a
wise man can have, and is the only passion against which he has no
defence. If anger surprise him, it lasts not long, and the same minute
concludes it as commenc’d it: If by a slower fire his choler boils, he
prevents its running over; but love steals so secretly, and so sweetly
withal; into every corner of our hearts, into every faculty of the soul,
that it is absolutely master before we can perceive it. When once we
discover it, we are quite undone: at the same time he triumphs over our
wisdom, and our reason too, and makes them both his vassals to maintain
his tyranny: what else could mean those numerous follies of the
adulterous gods descending in viler forms to commit their rapes?----
The first wound that beauty makes is almost insensible, and though the
deadly poison spreads through every part; we hardly suspect we are in
danger. At first indeed we are only pleas’d with seeing the person or
talking of ’em, affecting an humble complaisance for all they say, or
do, the very thinking on them is charming; and the desires we have as
yet, are so far from impetuosity, that no philosopher could be so rigid
as to condemn us.
Hitherto ’tis well, but ’tis hardly love, for that like a bee, forfeits
its name if it has no sting. But alas! the lurking fire quickly bursts
out, and that pleasing idea which represented itself so sweetly and so
respectfully to the soul one moment before, now insolently obtrudes upon
our most serious thoughts, and makes us impious even at the horns of the
altar; she perfidiously betrays us in our very sleep itself, sometimes
appearing haughty and scornfully, sometimes yielding and kind; and this
too when there is no reason for either. The infant-passion is now become
a cruel father of all other passions; cruel indeed, for he has no sooner
given birth to one, but he stifles it to introduce another; whose
short-liv’d fate is just the same, and destroy’d the next moment it is
born.
Hope and despair, joy and sorrow, courage and fear, continually succeed
each other; anger, jealousy, and revenge, distract the mind; and all
these mingled, their fury is like a storm blowing from every corner of
the heavens: then the lover, like the ocean, agitated by such boisterous
winds, he foams and roars, the swelling waves of his boiling appetite
dash each other to pieces, the foggy clouds of melancholy and
disappointment intercept the glittering rays of reason’s sun; the
rattling thunder of jealous rage breaks thro’ his trembling sphere, when
his understanding returns but for a moment, ’tis like darted lightning
piercing thro’ the obscure of violent passions, and shews nature in
every lover a confusion almost equal to her original chaos.
Whoever was really in love (_charming Sempronia_) will readily confess
the allegory to be just. Tho’ nothing has surprised me more in affairs
of this nature than that most men who have been sensible of this passion
do not care to own it, when once their more indulgent fate has put a
period to it; as if it were a calling their judgment in question to
believe they thought a woman handsom. Your eyes justify our adoration,
and will ever constitute the felicity of
_Corn. Gallus._
_From Bully_ DAWSON _to Bully_ W----
_Confound you for a monumental Sluggard_,
I have been dead and damn’d these seven years, and left your talkative
bulkiness behind me as the only fit person in the town to succeed me in
blustring bravadoes and non-killing skirmishes; and you like a lazy
hulk, whose stupendious magnitude is full big enough to load an elephant
with lubberliness, to sot away your time in _Mongo_’s fumitory, among a
parcel of old smoak-dry’d cadators, and not so much since my departure,
as cut a link-boy over the pate, pink a hackney-coachman, or draw your
sword upon a cripple, to fill the town with new rumours of your wonted
bravery, and make the callow students of the wrangling society wag their
unfledg’d chins over their pennyworths of _Ninny Broth_? adds
fleshly-wounds, in what sheeps-head ordinary have you chew’d away the
meridian altitude of your tygerantick stomach? and where squander’d away
the tiresom minutes of your evening-leisure, over seal’d _Winchesters_
of three-penny guzzle: that in all this time you have never exerted your
hectorian talent, but keep your reputation mustying upon an old
foundation, which is ready to sink, for want of being repair’d by some
new notable atchievements.
Do you think the obsolete renown of cutting off a knight’s thumb in a
duel, and keeping on’t in your pocket three weeks for a tobacco-stopper;
lying with the _French_ king in your travels, and kicking him out of bed
for farting in his sleep; answering the challenge of a life-guardman for
tearing a hole in his stocking with the chape of your sword when his
jack-boots were on; gone where honour calls, behind _Southampton_ walls:
return by five, if alive, _Hen. W----n_. disarming three highwaymen
upon the road with two-pence half-penny in your pocket, and letting them
go upon their parole of honour; wearing a wig for ten years together
without losing the curl or combing out one hair; taking a tyger by the
tooth; and the _Grand seignior_ by his whiskers; bearing an ensign in a
mimick fight upon your atlantick shoulders; knocking a shiting porter
down, when you were drunk, backwards into his own sir-reverence; your
duel with _Johannes in nubibus_, in behalf of a lady you never set eyes
on; your eating five shillings-worth of meat at a nine-penny ordinary,
and at last treated by the man of the house to have no more of your
custom; do you think these, or a hundred like antiquated exploits are
sufficient to maintain the character of a stanch bully without new
enterprizes? no, an old reputation is like an old house, which if not
repaired often, must quickly fall of necessity to decay and will at
last, by little, for want of new application, be totally obliterated.
Therefore, if ever you intend to be my rival in glory, you must fright a
bailiff once a day, stand kick and cuff once a week, challenge some
coward or other once a month, bilk your lodging once a quarter, and
cheat a taylor once a year, crow over every coxcomb you meet with, and
be sure you kick every jilt you bully into an open-legg’d submission and
a compliance of treating you; never till then will the fame of _W----n_
ring like _Dawson_’s in every coffee-house, or be the merry subject of
every tavern tittle-tattle.
[Illustration: _Bully Dawson in the Bilboes._
_Vol. II. p. 189._]
To let you know I am not like a cock or a bull-dog to lose my courage
when I change my climate, I shall proceed to give you a very modest
account of some of my bold undertakings in these diabolical confines,
these damn’d dusky unsavory grottos, where altho’ there are whole rivers
of brimstone for the convenient dipping of card-matches, yet if a man
would give one ounce of immortality for so much of a rush-candle, ’tis
as hard to be purchas’d upon the faith of a christian, as if you were to
buy honey of a bear, or a stallion of a lascivious duchess, that wants
frication more than she does money; so that at my first entrance into
this damn’d dark cavern, I stagger’d about by guess, like some drunken
son of a whore tumbled into a _Newcastle_ cole-pit; and finding myself
in this ugly condition, I could not forbear breathing a few curses out
upon the place, which, by the lord of the territories, were thrown away
as much in vain, as if I had carried lice to _Newgate_, or wish’d the
people mad in _Bedlam_: as I thus blunder’d about like a beetle in a
hollow tree, I happen’d to break my shins against a confounded poker,
upon which I made a damnable swearing for a light, that I might see
whereabouts I was, but to no purpose; I found I might as well have
call’d upon _Jupiter_ to have lent me his hand to have dragg’d me out of
_Pluto_’s dominions. This sort of stumbling entertainment so provok’d my
patience, that tho’ I knew I was under the devil’s jurisdiction, yet I
could not tell, but like a debtor in a prison, or bully in a
bawdy-house, I might fare the better for mutinying, so that I discharg’d
such a volley of new-coin’d oaths, and made such damn’d roaring and
raving, that the devils began to fear I should put hell in an uproar;
upon this a couple of tatterdemalion hobgobblings, that look’d like a
brace of scare-crows just flown out of a pease-field, seiz’d me by the
shoulders and run me into the bilboes; confound you, said I, for a
couple of hell-cats, what’s this for? For, crys one of the grim
potentates, as saucily as a reforming constable, for your tumultuous
noisy behaviour, why sure, you don’t think you are got into a
bear-garden. Wounds, quoth I, thou talk’st as if the devil kept a
conventicle; why hell at this rate is worse than a parliament-house, if
a man mayn’t have the liberty of speech, especially when ’tis to redress
his grievances.
Just as we were thus parlying, who should come by, but _Bob Weden_,
jabbering to him self like a jack-daw in a cherry-tree that had lost his
mate, I knew him by his hoarse voice, which sounded like the lowest note
of a double courtel: who’s there, _Bob_, said I? Captain, says he, I am
heartily glad to see you; yes, yes, I am that very drone of a bag-pipe,
you may know me by my hum; I have got my _quietus_ at last, and I thank
my stars, by the help of rum and hot weather, have bilk’d all my
_English_ creditors. Why where the devil, said I, did you die then, that
you give your creditors, the epithet of _English_? just over our head,
says he, in that damn’d country _Barbadoes_, where my brains us’d to
boil by the heat of the sun like a hasty-pudding in a sauce-pan; have
been in a sweat ever since above seven months before I died; all the
while I liv’d in that damn’d treacly colony, I fancied myself to be just
like a live grig toss’d into a frying-pan; and now death, pox on him for
a raw-head and bloody-bones, has toss’d me out of the frying-pan into
the fire. Indeed, _Bob_, said I, I could wish myself in an ice-house
heartily, for I have been in a kind of hectic fever ever since my
admittance. Zounds, says he, ’tis so hot there’s no enduring on’t; its a
country fit for nothing but a salamander to live in; if _Abednego_’s
oven had been but half so hot, if any of them had come out without
singing their garments, I’d have forsworn brandy to all eternity. Well
but, prithee captain, how came your pedestals to be in this jeopardy? I
told him the truth tho’ I was in a damn’d lying country, only for
cursing and swearing a little. Oh! says he, you must have a great care
of that for here are a parcel of whiggish devils lately climb’d into
authority, who tho’ they were the forwardest of all the infernal host,
in the rebellion against heaven, yet of late they pretend to such
demurity as to form a society for the _Regulation of Manners_, tho’
themselves are a parcel of the wickedest spirits in all hell’s
dominions; but however, have a little patience, I have a justice of
peace hard by of my acquaintance, who tho’ he be one of their kidney as
to matter of religion, yet I know he’ll be as drunk with burn’d brandy
as a sow with hogwash; will bugger a _Succubus_ when his lust’s
predominant; and as for cursing and swearing, he’s more expert at it
than a losing gamester, and if I meet him in a merry humour, I don’t
doubt but to prevail.
Thus _Bob_ left me for a few moments, and indeed had we been in a
brandy-shop where we had had any thing to have paid, I should have much
question’d his return; but being in a strange country, where friends are
always glad to meet one another, and being free from the predicament of
a reckoning, I had some hopes of his being as good as his word, which in
the other world all his acquaintance knew as well as my self, he was
never over careful to preserve.
During his absence, I had little else to do but to curse the country,
and scratch my ears for want of liberty, which were terrified with the
buzzing of a parcel of fanatical souls, who swarm’d as thick as bees at
a _Hampshire_-farmers, some damning of doctor _B----ges_, others
confounding of _Timothy Cr--soe_, some raving against _Me--d_ of
_Stepney_, others cursing of _Salters-Hall_, &c. as if the ready road to
hell was to travel through _Presbytery_.
By this time my friend _Bob_ was as good as his word, which was the
first time I ever knew him so. Well, says he, you may see I am as sure
as a _Robin_, I have got your discharge; but the justice swears, had you
been confin’d for any thing besides whoring, drinking, and swearing, you
should have been shackled and been damn’d before he’d ever have releas’d
you; but however here’s a little _Scribere cum dasho_ will set you at
liberty; upon which we call’d the constable of the ward, who, upon sight
of the discharge, freed my supporters from confinement, which was no
sooner done, but with a reciprocal joy for my happy deliverance, we
began a ramble together thro’ all the neighbouring avenues, in hopes to
meet with something that might give us a little diversion; we had not
travelled above an hundred yards, but who should we meet but the old
snarling rogue that us’d to cry _poor Jack_, with his wife after him; he
no sooner espy’d us, but attack’d us open-mouth’d after the following
manner, _Two sharpers without one penny of money in their pockets; a
couple of bullies, and both cowards, ha, ha. Now for a fool with a full
pocket, a good dinner on free-cost, a whore and a tavern, a belly-full
of wine without paying for’t, ha, ha, ha, a hackney-coach for a bilk, or
a brass-shilling, a long sword, never a shirt_, White-Fryars _i’th’ day
time, a garret at night, ha, ha, ha, ha_. Thus the old rascal run upon
us as we pass’d by him, that we were both as glad when we were out of
his reach, as a hen-peck’d cuckold that has shunn’d the hisses of that
serpent he hugs every night in his bosom.
We had not gone twenty yards farther, scarce out of the reach of the
noisy tongue of this railing peripatetick, but we met _Bowman_ that kept
the _Dog-tavern_ in _Drury-lane_, whose first salutation was, _Pox take
you both for a couple of shammocking rascals, if it had not been for you
and such others of your company, I had been a living man to this day,
for you broke my tavern and that broke my heart. When I went off,
besides book-debts never paid, but cross’d out and forgiven, I had as
much chalk scored up in my bar, upon your account, as would have
whitened the flesh of twenty calves at_ Rumford, _or have cured half the
town of the heart-burn, that never were satisfied to this day, and as
certainly as you are both damn’d, I would arrest you here in the_
Devil’_s name, but that ye know a foreign plea, or the statute of
limitation are pleadable in defiance of me; and that whore my wife too,
that used to open her sluice and let in an inundation of shabroons to
gratify her concupiscence, she lent her helping buttock among ye to
shove on my ruin; but if ever I catch the strumpet in these territories,
I’ll sear up the bung-hole of her filthy firkin, but I’ll reward her for
her bitching_. _Confound you, cries_ Bob, _for a cuckoldy cydermonger;
do not you know damnation pays every man’s scores, and tho’ we tick’d in
the other world for subsistence, it was not with a design to cheat you
or any body else, for we knew we should have the Devil to pay one time
or other, and now you see, like honest men, we have pawned our souls for
the whole reckoning, and so a fart for our creditors; you see we had
rather be damn’d than not to make general satisfaction, and yet you are
not satisfied. Why a man at this rate had better live in_ Newgate _to
eternity, than be thus plagued with creditors after his arse, to put him
in mind of old scores wherever he travels; besides, ’tis against the law
of humanity, for a man to be dunn’d for a domestick debt in a foreign
country. Well, gentlemen_, says he, _I find you have not forgot your old
principles; and so good by to ye_. And thus, as _old Nic_ would have
it, we got rid of our second plague.
As we went from thence, turning down into a steep narrow lane,
irregularly pav’d with rugged flints, like the bottom of a mountain in
_North-Wales_, a damn’d greasy great fellow, with his hair thrust under
a dirty night-cap, in a dimity-wastcoat and buff-breeches, with a hugh
bucks-horn-handle-knife hanging by a silver-chain at his apron-strings,
came puffing and blowing up the hill against us, like a _crampus_ before
a storm, sweating as if he had been doing the drudgery of _Sisyphus_,
and coming near us he makes a halt, and looking me full in my face,
gives a mannerly bow, and cries, _Your servant noble captain: Friend_,
said I, _I don’t know thee. Ah! master_, said he, _time was, when you
condescended to eat many a sop in the pan in my poor kitchin; I kept the
sign of the gridiron in_ Waterlane _for many years together, but have
been damn’d, the lord help me, above these nine months, for only
cozening my customers with slink veal_. I told him I was sorry for his
condition, and hop’d I did not owe him any thing: _No, worthy master_,
says he, _not a farthing, for you never had more at a meal than a
half-penny rowl, and I always, because you were a gentleman, allow’d you
the benefit of my dripping-pan, and every time you came, you paid me for
my bread very honestly_. I did not much approve of the rogue’s memory,
so bid him farewel: but my friend _Weden_, like a bantering dog, did so
terrify my ears about my half-penny ordinary, that I had rather for the
time been flung naked into a tuft of nettles.
As he was thus teazing me, who should we stumble upon but captain
_Swinny_ the _Irishman_; you cannot but imagine a very joyful
congratulation pass’d between us: who had been stanch friends, such old
and intimate acquaintance. No sooner was our salutation over, but we
began to enquire as we us’d to do upon earth, into one another’s
circumstances: upon which, says _Swinny, By my soul and shalvation, I
have got my good old lord here, that I us’d to procure and pimp for in
t’other world; and as he gave me money upon earth to indulge him in his
sins, and provide him whores to cool his lechery, now he’s damn’d for’t,
like a grateful master, he allows me every day a dish of snapdragons to
fetch him water from_ Styx, _to cool his entrails_. I think, says
_Bob_, you were always very careful of your lord’s health, and never
brought any thing to his embraces but unpenetrated maids, or very sound
thorn-backs. _By chriesh and shaint Patrick, ’tis very true_, says he,
_for I always made my self his taster for fear he should be poison’d,
and first took a sip of the cup to try whether the juice was good or no;
and tho’ he was as great a wencher as any was in_ England, _I’ll take my
swear, excepting the gout, he’s come as sound a nobleman into hell, as
has took leave of the other world these fifty years, and was so very
bobborous two days ago, tho’ he’s near seventy, that he bid me look out
for soft-handed she-devil to give him a little frication, and said
nothing vex’d him but that he was damn’d among a parcel of spirits, with
whom he could have no carnal copulation: well, gentlemen, I must loiter
no longer, I am travelling in haste to_ Styx _to fill my lord’s bottle,
but all won’t cool his lechery, tho’ he be turn’d a perfect aquapote so,
my dear joys, farewel_.
We had not parted with him as many minutes a man may beget his likeness
in, but who should we meet but _Mumford_ the player, looking as pale as
a ghost, falling forward as gently as a catterpillar cross a
sicamore-leaf, gaping for a little air, like a sinner just come out of
the powdering tub, crying out as he crept towards us, _Oh my back!
confound ’em for a pack of brimstones: Oh my back!_ how now, Sir
_Courtly_, said I, what the devil makes thee in this pickle? Oh,
_gentlemen_, says he, I am glad to see you, but I am troubled with such
a weakness in my back, that it makes me bend like a superannuated
fornicator: some strain, said I, got in the other world with overheaving
your self. What’s matter how ’twas got, says he, can you tell me any
thing that’s good for’t? yes, said I, get a good warm _Girdle_ and tie
round you, ’tis an excellent corroboratick to strengthen the loins; pox
on you, says he, for a bantering dog how can a single girdle do me good,
when a _Brace_ was my destruction? I think, said I, you did die a martyr
for a pair of penetrable whiskers, fell a bleeding sacrifice to a cloven
tuft, that was glad, I believe, of your going out of the other world, as
old _Nic_ was of your coming into this, for I hear you kept the poor
titmouse under such slavish subjection, that a peer of the realm,
notwithstanding his honour, could not so much as come in to be
brother-starling with you. Nay, some say you put an _Italian_ security
upon’t, purposely to indict any body for felony and burglary that should
break open the lock. Pox confound you, says he, for a lyar, how can that
be, when half the pit knows they had egress and regress when they
pleas’d without any manner of obstruction? but tattling here won’t do my
business, I must seek out _Needham_, _Lower_, or some other famous
physician that may give me ease; so gentlemen, adieu to ye.
We had not gone much farther, but at the corner of a dirty lane we found
a wondrous throng of attentive scoundrels, serenaded by a couple of
ballad-singers, who stood in the middle of the tatter’d audience, with
their hands under their ears, singing, _With a rub, rub, rub, rub, rub,
rub, in and out, in and out ho_: who should come limping by just in the
interim, but Mr. _Dryden_ the poet: there’s a delicious song for you,
gentlemen, says he, there are luscious words wrapt up in clean linen for
you; tho’ there is a very bawdy mystery in them, yet they are so
intelligibly express’d, that a girl of ten years old may understand the
meaning of them; my lord _Rochester_’s songs are mine arse to it: well
my dear _Love for Love_, thou deservest to be poet laureat, were it only
for the composure of this seraphick ditty, ’tis enough to put musick
into the tail of an old woman of fourscore, and make a girl of fourteen
to be as knowing in her own thoughts, as her parents that got her; oh,
’tis a song of wonderful instruction, of incomparable modesty,
considering its meaning. Who should come puffing into the crowd in
abundance of haste, with a face as red as a new pantile, but _Nat Lee_?
Hark you, _Nat_, says _Dryden_, did you ever here such a feeling ballad
in your life before? egad, the words steal so cunningly into ones veins,
that nature will scarce be pacified till she has dropt some loose corns
into one’s breeches. Foh, you old lecherous beast, says _Nat Lee_,
here’s a song indeed for a poet-bays of your gravity to admire! I have
heard twenty better under _White-Fryars_ gate-way. You’re a mad man,
says _Dryden_, you never understood a song in your life, nor any thing
else, but jumbling the gods about, as if they were so many tapsters in a
lumber-house. I’ll sing you a song, says _Lee_, worth fifty on’t that I
made when I was in _Bedlam_, to be sung in my play, that had five and
twenty acts in’t; now pray observe me, and your self shall be judge.
_The gods on a day when their worships were idle,_
_Met all at the sign of the_ half-moon _and_ fiddle;
_Old_ Bacchus _and_ Venus _did lovingly joyn,_
_And swore there was nothing like women and wine:_
_They drank till they all were as merry as grigs,_
_And wallowed about like a litter of pigs;_
_Till their heads and their tails were so little apart,_
_the breath of a belch, mix’d with that of a fart;_
_But as it fell out, poor unfortunate_ Mars,
_Just nodded his nose into_ Venus’_s arse;_
_Why how now, says_ Mars, _ye old jade, d’y’ suppose,_
_Your arse was design’d as a case for my nose?_
_Then pulling his head from her bumb, fell a swearing,_
_Her honour smelt worse than a stinking red-herring_,
Well, says Mr. _Lee_, after he had ended his ditty, what think you now,
Mr. _Dryden_? Think, says he, what should I think? I think there is more
pretty tickling sort of wit in the very _chorus_ of the other, than
there is in all your piece of frantick trumpery. Thus we leave them
squabbling together, which song should have the preference, and so stept
forward.
We had not jogg’d on above a quarter of a mile further, but a parcel of
spirits in the shape of screech-owls came hovering over our heads,
crying out, _Make room, make room, for the chief pastor of the flock
will be here to night_. Think we, here’s some great guest or other a
coming; for my part I thought nothing less than an archbishop of
_C-n----y_: my friend _Bob_ was much of my opinion, and cry’d, there
was some fat priest coming in to pay his garnish, but who should it
prove at last but a dissenting doctor, trick’d up in a band and cloak,
and all the factious ornaments becoming a squeamish conscience, attended
with abundance of bald crowns and gray hairs, who came hobbling after
him like the old men of the _Charter-house_, behind their chaplain to
eleven a-clock prayers. My friend _Bob_ and I having both a curiosity to
know what _Don Prattlebox_ it was, enquir’d of a devil who had a
discerning countenance, if he knew who this new comer was? He answer’d
us ’twas doctor _Ma--th--w T--y--r_ of _Salters-hall_, and those that
attend him were some of his congregation, who were come in order to take
up lodgings for the rest, who would not be long after: Adsheart, says
_Bob_, they are the most faithful flock in the universe, for if their
shepherd comes to the devil, I see they will be sure to follow him,
whilst the churchmen are such a parcel of straying sheep, that tho’
their guides go to heaven themselves, they can perswade but very few of
their congregation to bear them company.
The next person that we met with as we were rambling about, was _Harry
Care_, the whiggish pamphleteer, who was stuff’d all over with papers as
thick as a buttock of beef with parsley, and coming near us, he ask’d
how long we had been in? Sir, said I, we are both but lately come from
the other world: pray gentlemen, says he, can you tell me how my old
friend Sir _Roger l’Estrange_ does, and whether you hear any thing of
his coming into these parts, for I am at a great loss for some body to
exercise my talent with? I left him very well, said I, but when he takes
leave of the upper world, whether he goes up hill or down hill to
eternity I can’t inform you. Sir, says he, your humble servant; and away
he troop’d and left us without further impertinence.
As we were passing by the door of a little brandy-shop, who should be
sitting upon an old worm-eaten bench, but _Sam Scott_ the Fiddle-seller,
and _Will. Elder_ the graver, each with a huge _Dutch_ pipe of infernal
mundungus in their mouths smoaking for two penny-worth of
anniseed-water. _Sam. Scott_ had one while got the start of him, which
_Will Elder_ perceiving, exercised his lungs so very strenuously, that
he overtook him at the last whiff, which they discharg’d with such
remarkable exactness, that none of the standers by could undertake to
decide the wager: when their pipes were out, we saluted one another with
abundance of friendship, and _Sam. Scott_ having an ascendency over the
house, invited us to take part of a bowl of punch, and just as we were
stepping in, who should come by but _O----n P----ce_ that dy’d drunk
at the _Dog_-tavern in the company of my friend _Weden_: mighty joyful
we were to meet thus fortunately together; and to crown the happy
juncture with an hour’s mirth, we stept into the little conveniency,
every soul seating himself upon an empty rundlet like a godson of
_Bacchus_, in order to receive the promis’d blessing: by that time we
had every one ramm’d a full charge of sot-weed into our infernal guns,
in order to fumify our immortalities, the scull of _Goliah_ was brought
in for a punch-bowl fill’d with such incomparable _Heliconian_ juice,
that six drops of it would make a man a better poet than either
_Shakespear_ or _Ben. Johnson_: by that time a cup or two were gone
about to _Pluto_ and my lady _Proserpine_, we began to fall into a merry
inquisition about one another’s damnation: prithee _Sam. Scott_, said I,
what the devil were you damn’d for? why, I’ll tell you, says _Sam_. I
was found guilty of a couple of indictments, one was for consuming 975
papers of tobacco in six months, without any assistance, to the
poisoning of many a ptisicky citizen about _Temple-bar_; and the other
was smoaking my dog to death without any provocation. Come, _Bob
Weeden_, said I ’tis your turn next, let us go round with it, prithee
what charge did the hellish informers bring against you? To tell you the
truth, says he, they prov’d me guilty of two great crimes too, one was
for dealing by my friends very knavishly: and the other was for living
by my wits very foolishly. Come, captain _Dawson_, says the company,
what sort of conviction are you under? as for my part, _gentlemen_, said
he, the chief thing that condemn’d me, was the sin of forgetfulness;
’twas only for bilking my lodging, and being so careless to leave my
perriwig-come behind me. Well, neighbour _P----ce_, said I, what was it
brought you into these territories? ’twas for living like a rake, says
he, without money, and dying drunk in a tavern with twelve shillings in
my pocket. _Will. Elder_ being the last, we summ’d up our enquiry with
his confession; truly says he, mine was a very great fault I must
acknowledge, no less than the damnable sin of omission: you must know,
_gentlemen_, the chief of my business was to grave the _Lord’s-Prayer_
within the compass of a silver penny; but to tell you the truth, I never
thought of it but when I was at work, since my eyes were open, and ’tis
chiefly for that neglect I suffer this confinement.
Well, says _Bob Weeden_, for my part, now I have got a bowl of Punch
before me, and such good company, I would not give a nitt out of my
shirt-collar to return back to my old quarters upon earth, for that was
but a life full of extreams, and this can be no other; for there I was
always very drunk or very drowsy, surfeited or very hungry, generally
very poor and very pocky, afraid to walk the streets, and no money to
keep me within doors; thought very witty by fools, and by wise men very
wicked, was every body’s jester that wanted wit, and a blockhead to all
those that had it; dunn’d every where, and trusted no where; car’d not
for any body, and belov’d by no body: and what station on this side
death can be worse than such a miserable life? What signifies a little
hot weather, when a man’s assur’d it can’t endanger his health; nothing
can be subject to sickness but what is liable to death, and that period,
immortality is free from. Come then said I, if it be so, here’s a bumper
in memory of the cellar at the _Still_, and honest _Jack Ni----ls_ the
harper, count _C----ni----s_, captain _Wa-k-er_, and all the jolly
lads of our loving acquaintance, with a huzza. In this manner we spent
the evening as merrily as so many tars under the tropicks, over their
forfeitures, till at last we had the devil to pay with empty pockets:
but _Sam Scott_, who was the undertaker of the treat, having made his
coffin into a bass-viol, gave my landlady a lesson, two or three kisses,
and a few fair words, and prevailed with her to trust him for the
reckoning; so being all saluted with you’re welcome gentlemen, we all
arose like a company of coopers from our tubs and our rundlets, and went
away hooping for more liquor.
These are all the remarkable passages that at present I think worth
transmitting to you: so, hoping you will requite me after the like
manner with something that may be entertaining to a gentleman under my
warm circumstances; if it be an essay upon ice, or a treatise of the
sovereign efficacy of rock-water, it will be a very cooling satisfaction
to your parboil’d friend,
DAWSON.
_Mr._ HENRY W----’_s Answer to Bully_ DAWSON.
_Noble Captain and Commander in Chief of all the Cowards in
Christendom._
If being smoak’d-dry’d up a chimney, like a flitch of bacon, thro’ fear
of bayliffs, being kick’d thro’ the whole town by every coxcomb, being
pox’d by every whore, and dunn’d by every scoundrel, starving, lousing,
begging, borrowing, bullying, and all the plagues of human life, would
never mend your manners upon earth, I have little reason to believe the
strict discipline of hell can make any reformation in so incorrigible a
libertine; what reason have I ever given you to affront a poet? A
gentleman of the law, a member of an inn of _Chancery_, an officer in
the trained-bands, a man of invention, known courage, worth and
integrity; a gentleman of my stature, figure, and parts, that am able to
crush a thousand such nitts as thou art under my thumb-nail: ’tis well
known to the world, I have fought many duels with success, writ many
lampoons with applause, manag’d many causes to my clients satisfaction,
told many a pleasant story to the benefit of coffee-houses, flirted out
many a jest to the delight of my companions, march’d out often to the
credit of St. _Clement_’s trained-bands, when I have been the only
wonder of all the little boys that followed us, who, to the pleasure of
my own ears, have cry’d aloud, there goes a tall ensign, there’s a
swanking fellow for you between the two blunderbusses; there’s a
_Goliah_, says the men; there’s a strong-back’d _Sampson_, says the
women: And shall I, because I have been guilty of two or three little
slips, which no man is exempt from, be put in mind of ’em, by such an
arrogant crackfart as thou art: I tell thee, bully, if thou wer’t but to
be found upon earth, I would grind thee in a paper-mill for thy
insolence, till I had made bumfodder of thee: but however, since charity
obliges every good christian to forgive a man when he is dead, I shall
pass by your affront, and take no more notice of it for the future; but
upon the word of a man of honour, had you been living, I would no more
have forgiven you, than I would have gone one day without a dinner if I
had but one book in my library; therefore all things shall be forgotten,
tho’ you have deserv’d the contrary. And since you have obliged me with
a short journal of your transactions on the other side _Styx_, I think
myself oblig’d in honour to make a return of your civility after the
like manner, for the world knows me to be a man of a forgiving temper,
and I scorn by bearing malice, or studying revenge, to forfeit my
character.
I happen’d the other night in company with some men of honour, brave
fellows, who were a little nice in their conversation, as well as their
wine, that try’d every word that was spoke by the touch-stone of good
manners, and one of them happening to say he was a lieutenant on board
one of his majesty’s small frigats, when so violent a storm rose upon
the coast of _Ireland_, that a monumental sea washing over the topmast
head, by the very pressure of its weight sunk the vessel to the bottom
of the ocean, which gave such a prodigious knock against the sand with
her keel, that the very rebound, being a tight ship, sent her up again
to the surface, without damage; and that by a watch of _Tompion_’s,
which he had in his pocket, they were three quarters of an hour and some
odd minutes in this dangerous expedition, that is, in going down and
coming up again. Lord Sir, says I, how did you breathe all that while?
Zoons, Sir, says he, ’tis an affront to ask a gentleman such a question,
and I demand satisfaction? am I bound to tell every blockhead how many
times I fetch my breath in three quarters of an hour? Nay, Sir, said I,
if you are for that sport, have at you, I’m a man of honour, and dare
wait upon you any where; with that he whisper’d me to go down stairs,
which we both did accordingly, and drawing at the door, the first pass I
made was a home thrust (for I never love to dally in such cases) and I
run him thro’ the centre of the fifth jubilee button of his coat, and
just scratch’d him in the breast, upon which he dropp’d his sword,
believing I had kill’d him; but I taking up the fallen weapon, stepp’d
to him and unbrac’d him, found he was more afraid than hurt; and that it
was but a small prick that signified nothing: Now, pray Sir, said I, how
did you breathe, I think I may make bold to ask you? I’ll tell you, Sir,
said he, I took in the water at my mouth, just as a fish does, but
having no gills to give it vent, I let it out of my fundament. Upon
which answer, I was well satisfy’d, gave him his sword, and we became as
great friends as the devil and the earl of _Kent_.
Another duel I had since that, (for you must know challenges come thick
and threefold upon me, like actions upon a breaking shop-keeper) which I
hope for its singularity, will prove a little entertaining to you; I
happened lately to be invited to a gentleman’s chamber in _Grays-Inn_,
to drink part of a bowl of punch; accordingly I went, and was very
plentifully entertained among some other gentlemen of my acquaintance,
with a capacious vessel of this most noble _Diapente_, insomuch, that we
were all elevated above the use of our legs, as well as our reason. The
gentleman that gave us the entertainment, by the assistance of his man,
made a shift to get to bed about twelve at night, but the rest lay up
and down in the corners of the room, snoaring like so many gorg’d swine,
and battening in their own snivel, which tobacco had drain’d from their
moist entrails: I guarded the garrison of good liquor the very last man,
and maintain’d my post at the table like a true _English_ hero, till
between _Bacchus_ and _Morpheus_, like the rest of my companions, I was
lull’d into a lethargy, and falling forward in my chair upon the table,
my forehead happen’d to take the edge of the punch bowl, and turn’d it
clear over my head, that it served me for a night-cap, my nose being
drowned in the remains of the punch; every time I drew up my breath, up
went a spoonful, so that in a little time my nostrils were syring’d as
clean as a lady’s honour by noon, that has drank two quarts of _Epsom_
waters for her mornings draught: but after some time being almost
suffocated, nature finding itself oppress’d, gave me a jog, and wak’d me
out of this drunken slumber. I had not scratch’d my ears, and rubb’d my
eyes above three minutes, but awakes another; O lord! says he, that a
man should lead this wicked life, to be married but a fortnight and play
these tricks, my wife will think I am a whoring already, or plague
herself with some damn’d whimsy or other. By this time a third awakes,
starts up like a ghost out of a grave, crying, A little drink for the
Lord’s sake, for I am
[Illustration]
as drowsy as if I had been dry’d in an oven all night, and with that
whips up the punch-bowl to his head, and drinks off the rincings of my
nostrils as heartily as if it had been sherbet made on purpose for a
cooler, and by the way, ever since that time has found such an
alteration in his faculties, that from a very dull fellow he is become
an absolute wit, to the admiration of all that knew him, tho’ I never
durst tell him it was from the dripping of my brains that he deriv’d his
ingenuity. But to be short in my story, when I was thoroughly awak’d, I
began to have a wambling in my stomach, as if I had supp’d over night
with a mountebank’s toad-eater, the chamber-pot being full, I was
unwilling to defile the room, and before I was aware, let fly into my
_lignum-vitæ_ night-cap, and being then pretty well at ease, I open’d
the chamber door, and stagger’d homewards; at the end of _Turnstile_ I
happen’d to make a trip at a drunkard’s enemy, a stump, and down I
tumbled; who should come by before I could get up again, but the
constable going his rounds, who quickly made me the centre of a circle
of jack of lanthorns, and seeing me grovelling on the ground, did not
know but some body had mischiev’d me, upon which they ask’d me if I was
wounded? Yes said I, sadly cut. Where, where, Sir, cries the watchmen? I
reply’d, about the head; they cry’d out, who did it, who did it! punch,
punch, said I; one of the watchmen being a fat short fellow, they us’d
to call him punch, by my soul, Sir, said he to the constable, I never
saw the gentleman all the night before, and with that they haul’d me up,
and perceiving their mistake, two of them, like honest fellows, handed
me home to my chambers, without so much as stealing my hat, or picking
my pockets, which was a wonder: I had not been many hours in bed, but
comes the footman of the gentleman who entertain’d us, to my door with a
challenge, for affronting him for his civility, by spewing into his
punch-bowl. I sent him word I would not fail to meet him at the time and
place appointed, God willing; so put on a clean shirt, and equipp’d
myself for the adventure. But considering I had a man of fortitude to
deal with, and one that would face any thing upon earth, except a cat,
which he hated much more than he did the sight of the devil; I
therefore thought policy beyond strength against such an adversary, so
resolv’d to set my wits to work to prevent bloodshed, and fortunately
having a cat in my chamber that had not kitten’d above a week? I took
the whole progeny out of the nest, which consisted of half a dozen, puts
three into one coat-pocket, and three into t’other, and away I march’d
behind _Southampton-wall_ to meet my antagonist; where I waited but a
few minutes e’er he approach’d the place in a great fury; I argued the
matter reasonably with him, but found nothing would atone for the
affront but downright fighting, so steping a few paces back, he gave me
the word and draws. I instead of applying my hands to my sword, apply’d
them to my safer ammunition the kittens, and fortifies each fist with a
young Mrs. _Evans_; I grip’d ’em hard to make ’em mew, that the onset
might be the more terrible; no sooner did he set his eyes upon his
little squawling adversaries, but away he scower’d, as if a legion of
devils had been in pursuit of him. I after him, tossing now and then one
of my hand-granadoes at him, but took care to pick them up again, lest
my ammunition should be spent. Who should follow me into the fields at a
distance by the scent, but the old one, in quest of her young, who by
this time came up with us, and seeing her hopeful issue thus terribly
abus’d, she flew about like a fury; at first he only travers’d his
ground at a little distance, but when he saw the mother of the family
come cocking her tail, whetting her talons, and staring worse than a
dead pig, he ran outright to _Totnam-Court_, as if vengeance had pursued
him, took sanctuary at _Inman_’s, since which retreat I have not yet
seen him; but for self-preservation, which you know is nature’s law, I
have ever since walk’d arm’d with a brace of kittens in my pocket, for
fear of farther danger.
These are late testimonials of my courage, to let you see I dare yet
meet any body upon the old killing spot, tho’ he be a better man than
myself, and what is wanting in courage, I can supply with policy at any
time: therefore consider how much you wrong me when you accuse me of
idleness, since my prowess is sufficiently shewn in every days
adventure.
So much for my courage, and now for a few certificates of my wit, for
which the world, as well as yourself, knows I am equally famous: I
happen’d the other day to be at _Nando_’s coffee-house in company with a
person, who was exclaiming heavily against a weaver of whores hair for
cheating him in a wig. Sir, said I, next time you have occasion for a
new noddle-case, if you please, I’ll recommend you to the honestest
perriwig maker in _Christendom_; I bought this wig on my head of him, it
cost me but fifteen shillings, and I have wore it _de die in diem_ these
nine years and upwards, and you see it’s not yet dwindled into
scandalous circumstances; and, Sir, if you please I’ll tell you for what
reason he can afford better penny-worths than the rest of the trade; in
the first place, you must know he dwells at _Chelmsford_ in _Essex_, and
the country you are sensible admits of cheap living; in the next place,
he has nineteen daughters in his family, all bred up to his own trade,
who being kept unmarried, that their radical moisture should by no means
be exhausted, their own hair grows so prodigiously fast that it keeps
them all employ’d from the first day of _January_, to the last of
_December_, setting aside holy-days; once in four years he mows the
family round, never failing of a very plentiful crop; much about this
time I reckon his harvest is ripe, and all the neighbouring gentlemen
are flocking in to bespeak their perriwigs; some are fair girls, some
brown, some black, so that he can mix up a colour to suit any
complexion. And is this true, Sir, says the young priest? true, Sir,
said I, I hope you don’t think me so little of a christian to impose
upon a scholar, a gentleman of your function: ’tis so true, Sir, that it
brings a great trade to the town, and every body knows that _Essex_, for
_Chelmsford_ wigs, and _Rumford_ calves, out-does all the counties in
_England_. Say you so, says the _Levite_, I am come up to town about a
little business that will require my attendance about a fortnight, and
having a horse that has nothing else to do, I’ll e’en make a journey
thither to morrow, and try if I can chaffer. Sir, said I, there is not
such hair in the kingdom of _England_, as in his family, for they are
all virtuous girls, and that makes their hair the stronger; besides, all
the clergy round him are his customers, because he makes up his wigs
without any mixture of whores hair; for as contagious fumes we are
sensible will corrupt the body, who knows but the effluvias emitted from
the locks of a polluted woman, hanging so near the noftrils may be
suck’d in, to the strengthning of loose inclinations, and may beget an
appetite to fornication, too rebellious and powerful for reason to curb
into an orderly subjection. Well, says the young doctor, I’ll have one
of the wigs to carry into the country with me and please the pigs; at
_Chelmsford_ you say? yes, Sir, at _Chelmsford_ said I, the least child
in in the town knows him; ask but for the Barber and his nineteen
daughters, and you cannot miss of him.
Having thus laid the scene, I took my leave, and adjourn’d about the
business of the day, and coming from _Montague_’s shop three or four
days afterwards, I stepp’d into the same coffee-house, where I happen’d
to meet with the spiritual pastor just coming to town, who had been
erring and straying like a lost sheep in quest of _Tonsor in nubibus_.
As soon as ever he set eyes upon me, he attack’d me tooth and nail, with
as much fury as if I had been brother to the _Whore of Baylon_, and told
me I was some _Papist_, or otherwise a _Fanatick_, or else I would have
had more religion in me, than to have made a fool of a man of his
function, for that he had taken a journey on purpose to _Chelmsford_,
and could find no such barber. Pray, Sir, said I, don’t be so angry, for
since I never gave ear to your preaching, why should you listen to my
prating? and since you make fools of a whole parish every sunday, how
can you be so angry with a man to make a fool of you once in his life
time? so turn’d my back, and left the whole company to laugh at him.
You must know I love dearly to put a jest upon a priest, because it was
always my opinion, they put more jests upon the world than any people;
besides, any body may put a trick upon a block-head, but that conduces
but little to a man’s reputation. I love to put my jokes upon men of
parts, that the world may see I can bite the biter; nothing carries the
burthen of another man’s wit with a greater grace, than a sacerdotal
dromedary; therefore to let you see the wonderful regard I bear to
religion, I have one story, or piece of wit more to entertain you with,
that I hope may further divert you.
I chanc’d to be in company with a parcel of grave sermon-hunters, and
among a long catalogue of reverend orators, whose name should bring up
the rear of the eminent _Black-List_, but my honest neighbour the
dean’s? I took not their flattery for my example, but gave my tongue the
liberty to speak as I thought, and said, he was a learned blockhead;
some of my good friends had the civility to report my saying to him.
Upon which, he sent the reader of the parish to admonish me, who came
one morning very solemnly to my chamber, and took upon him to tell me
how dishonourably and unchristian-like I had done, in aspersing the
doctor with the calumny of being a learned blockhead. Truly, Sir, said
I, I am sorry I should be so unmannerly to express my sentiments so
freely: but however, since it is done and can’t be help’d, I desire you
will go back and tell him it’s more than I can say by you, for thou art
a blockhead without any learning at all, and a fit man to be sent upon
such errands. Upon this answer he lugg’d his hat over his eyes, and ran
away as sullen and as silent as the devil pinch’d by the nose did from
St. _Dunstan_, when the old gentleman had loosen’d his barnacles.
Now for a piece of my poetry to let you see my talent is universal, and
then I believe I shall have quitted scores with you. In a hot sunshine
day this summer, when the sun was climb’d to his meridian heighth, and
the progeny of every cow-turd had taken wing, and were buzzing about
streets in search of cooks shops, sugarbakers, and grocers, that a man
cou’d not walk _London_-streets without having his nose persecuted by
gnats, wasps or blue-bottles, my stomach, which is generally as forward
without sustenance at that hour, as a hungry sucking child without the
bubby, would not let me be at rest till I had purchased its pacification
at the expence of nine-pence; in order to gratify the cormorant, I
stepp’d into a cook’s shop where a six-penny slice of veal was brought
me, so garnish’d with fly-blows, that there lay a whole covey of the
little embroys upon every morsel, that I had more picking work than a
surgeon has with a patient whose buttocks are pepper’d with small shot,
which put me in such a poetick fury, by that time I had half swallowed
up my noonings, that I pluck’d out my pen and ink, and whilst my fancy
was warm writ a satire against _Fly-Blows_, wherein perhaps you may
find as much wit and ill nature mix’d artfully together as you may in
that incomparable satire, _The True-born Englishman_; so pray read and
judge favourably.
A Satire against _Fly-Blows_. By Mr. _W_----
_Ye worst of vermin that our isle affords,_
_Spawn of curs’d flies, engender’d first in t--rds_
_Ye nitty off-spring of a winged plague,_
_That swarms in mutton from the rump to th’ craig:_
_Tormentors of our cooks, all_ England’s _foes,_
_From rural gluttons, to our_ London _beaus._
_In ev’ry cloven joint thy mother’s blow,_
_Where if not crush’d, you will to maggots grow,_
_Raise your black heads, and crawl about our food,_
_And poison what was eatable and good;_
_Pollute that flesh which should our lives maintain,_
_To dogs condemn what was design’d for man._
_Ye eggs of mischief that in clusters dwell,_
_Hateful to the eyes and nauseous to the smell,_
_Ill omens of a worse succeeding harm,_
_That makes good housewives blush, the husbands storm._
_For thee the faultless cook-maid bears the blame,_
_More salt, you slattern, crys the angry dame,_
_And then the falchion-ladle goes to work:_
_I’ll teach you, jade, to salt the beef and pork._
_May showers of brine each powdering-tub o’erflow,_
_Pepper and salt in every orchard grow;_
_Then may each hand to seas’ning be employ’d,_
_That thy curs’d race may be at once destroy’d._
I’ll assure you, _Captain_, these verses are highly in esteem among all
dealers in flesh, I have had many a dinner for a copy of them, to be put
into a gilt frame, and hung up in a cook’s shop to give people a
concocting laugh after dinner, that their victuals mayn’t lie heavy upon
their stomachs. By this time I believe I have pretty well tir’d your
patience, so think it full time to conclude myself,
_Your Humble Servant_,
W----
_From_ NELL GWIN _to_ PEG HUGHES.
_Sister Peg_,
Of all the concubines in christendom, that ever were happy in so kind a
keeper, none sure ever squandered away the fruits of her labour so
indiscreetly as yourself; whoring and gaming I acknowledge are two very
serviceable vices in a common-wealth, because they make money circulate;
but for a woman that has enrich’d herself by the one, to impoverish
herself by the other, is so great a fault, that a harlot deserves
correction for. Some people may think copulation a very easy and
delightful way of getting money, but they are much mistaken, for the
pains, you know as well as myself, which we take to please our
benefactors, destroy our own pleasure, and make it become a toil we are
forc’d to sweat at. Then who, but you, that had acquired such plentiful
possessions by the labour of her bum, and sweat of her brows, would have
tossed away thousands in a night upon the chance of a card, or fate of a
die, as if you believed your honour was an _Indian_ mine, which would
furnish you with gold to eternity for the trouble of digging: but now,
Madam, you find yourself mistaken, for those crows-feet that have laid
hold of the corners of your eyes, and wrinkly age, that in spight of
art, supplies the places of your absent charms, fright away the amorous
and the generous from your experienc’d embraces: besides, women, I hear,
are so plentiful upon earth, that a lady of our quality, must be the
true copy of an angel in appearance, whose favours shall be thought
worth meat, drink, washing, lodging, and cloaths; so that a pretty woman
now a-days may make a slave of her bumfiddle for thirty years together,
and not get money enough to keep her out of an hospital, or an
alms-house at the age of fifty. I, you see, thro’ the whole course of my
life, maintain’d my post, and as I was mistress to a king, liv’d as
great as a duchess to my last minute; and you, like an extravagant
concubine, to game away an estate, in few years, large enough to have
maintain’d a score of younger brothers listed into your ladyship’s
service, who would have drudg’d to oblige you as much as you did to
delight the good old gentleman that gave it to you; fie upon’t, I am
asham’d to think, that a woman who had wit enough to tickle a prince out
of so fine an estate, should at last prove such a fool as to be bubbled
of it by a little spotted ivory and painted paper; if that mouth could
have spoke that had labour’d hard to earn the penny, and miser-like was
always gaping for more riches, sure it would have scolded at your
profuse hands, for flinging away that estate so fast which they had but
a small share in getting of, but indeed it is not fit the silent beard
should know how much it has been abus’d by the other parts of the body,
for if it did, it would be enough to put it into a pouting condition,
and make it open its sluice to the drowning of the low-countries in an
inundation of salt-water. I would advise you, Madam, with the small
remains of your squander’d fortune, to go into a nunnery, turn _Roman
Catholick_, which is the best religion in the universe, (for ladies of
your occupation, grow wonderful pious, and make a virtue of necessity)
and there remain till death, as a living testimony of the truth of the
old proverb, (_viz_) _That what is got over the devil’s back, is spent
under his belly_: which is all the consolation you deserve from your
sister in iniquity,
NELL GWIN.
PEG HUGHES’_s Answer to_ NELL GWIN.
_Madam_,
I am sorry a mistress of a king should degenerate so much from that
generosity which was always applauded as a virtue in us ladies, who,
like the industrious beaver, do our business with our tails; for a woman
of my quality to value money, looks mean and mercenary, and is becoming
no body but an unmerciful miser, or a common strumpet; should I have
plac’d an esteem upon the riches that was left me, the world might have
suppos’d it was for the greediness of gain, that made me yield my
favours; and what had I been better than Madam _James_, or Mrs. _Knight_
of _Drury-lane_; had I expos’d my honour for the lucre of base coin, and
sinned on for the sake only of advantage. Beauty’s the reward of great
actions, and I generously bestow’d mine upon a prince that deserv’d it,
abstractly from the thoughts of interest, but rather to shew my
gratitude, in return of his noble passion for me; and since he had made
me the object of his affections, I resolved thro’ the true principle of
love to surrender the ultimate of my charms to make him happy: my
embraces was all he wanted, and the utmost I could give, and if a prince
would submit to take up with a player, I think on my side there was
honour enough, without interest, to induce me to a compliance. I know I
am old and past recovering an impair’d fortune, after the same manner
that I first got it; but then consider what a small matter is sufficient
to keep a superanuated grannum, past the pleasures of this life; warm
cloathing and a few sugar-sops, what else can an old woman want, that is
fit for nothing but to mumble over her prayers, or sit nodding in a
chimney-corner like an old cat, when her company becomes as nauseous to
all that are younger than herself, as a sober divine is to a prophane
libertine? What conversation need she have besides one maid to exercise
her lungs upon, and keep life’s bellows open? I am so far from repenting
the loss of my estate, that I look upon’t my glory, and the only piece
of carelesness I ever committed worth my boasting. It’s a pleasure to me
to behold the vicissitude of fortune, and see her snatch that out of my
hand, which before she had dropped into my mouth; besides, without a
taste of poverty there can be no true repentance, for I always observe,
affliction goes a great way in making a good christian. I have said my
prayers within these few months, as heartily as ever I neglected ’em,
and am often-times pleas’d I am grown poor, because it makes me the more
pious: every fifty guineas I now lose, makes me when I come home, read a
chapter in _Job_, and take his patience for my own example. The gold
that I thus fling away, puts me in mind how sinfully it was got, and to
that cause I ascribe the badness of my fortune. To be rich and godly, I
have found very difficult, but to be needy and religious, is the easiest
thing in the world, which inclines me to believe poverty and piety, are
as great companions as impudence and ignorance, or love and jealousy; so
that when I have lost all, perhaps I may take care to save myself,
which will be much better, than like you to be damn’d with a full
pocket. It often makes me laugh to see hungry quality, craving
courtiers, as insatiate as the barren womb, how industrious they are to
add to their own estates by the ruin of an old fornicatrix, who can part
with her money as freely at one sport as she got it at another, and
therefore desires you will rest but as quietly under your damnation, as
she does under her losses, and she believes you will find yourself much
easier: So,
_Farewel_.
_From_ HUGH PETERS _to_ DANIEL BURGESS _in_ Rogue-lane.
_Most Reverend Brother in iniquity_,
If you don’t remember of your own knowledge, you can’t but have heard
from some of our grisly historians, that in the late times of confusion,
when the pious scoundrels of _England_ arose with their arses uppermost,
I was not a man inferior in my function to your learned and most
eloquent self, or any other fanatick cackler of the holy law, by the
corruption of which (thro’ the spirit of nonsense, and grace of
blasphemy) our party has always supported the worst of causes in the
best of times; and be it known to you, brother doctor, for so I presume
to greet you, that I had not only the practical knack of moistning the
eyes of my congregation with the dreadful doctrine of predestination,
but could also dry up their tears with a spunge of comfort, and make ’em
laugh as heartily whenever I pleas’d, as a city-audience at a
_Smithfield_-comedy; in which most excellent and renown’d faculties, you
are the only modern chatterist, that I hear has since succeeded me, for
which reason, I am very desirous of corresponding with you after this
manner, till fate shall give us your good company in these territories,
to which (if our subterranean governor changes not his opinion) you need
not doubt of being heartily welcome.
I am sensible news from another world to a man of curiosity, cannot but
be acceptable: I shall therefore proceed to give you some account how
our party (who are very numerous) fare in these sultry dominions,
towards which I hope in a little time, you will set forward on your
journey.
My quondam master _Oliver Cromwell_, of ever famous memory, to whom upon
earth, you must know, I was not only chaplain in ordinary, but as well
jester to his excellency, an honour which I hear most noblemen confer
upon the black robe, now good old house-keeping, and the party-colour’d
coat are quite thrown out of fashion: My master, I say, who in honour to
his _exit_, was fetch’d away out of the upper world in a whirlwind, and
conducted into these parts with all the solemnities of an usurper, was
establish’d in a notable post at his first admittance into _Pluto_’s
court, in which eminent employment (that like a faithful servant
follow’d him) I found him, to my great satisfaction. _Alecto_, one of
the furies, having taken a surfeit with over-flogging _Guido Vaux_
(which is a ceremony perform’d here in publick every fifth of
_November_) for discovering the _Gun-Powder-Treason-Plot_, and defeating
that notable design, which by the indefatigable industry of the most
skilful politicians on this side _Acheron_, was so hopefully projected:
and fearing some disorders should arise in our infernal common-wealth
for want of strict discipline, my old master _Oliver_ was pitch’d on to
be deputy-firker to the sick beldam, and a scorpion-rod was accordingly
presented him, with all the usual ceremonies of so grand an instalment.
This news of his advancement was so terrible a conflict to the cavalier
part, who dreading the severity of his correction, petition’d _Pluto_ to
remove him, but to no purpose; which insolence so inflam’d my cholerick
master, that his nose swell’d as big at the end as an apple-dumpling,
and look’d as fiery red (to the terror of those that came under his
lash) as if his magnificent gigg had been a living salamander, so that
wherever he met with a cavalier, he did so firk and jirk him, that
_Busby_ was never a greater terror to a blockhead, or the _Bridewell_
flog-master to a night-walking strumpet, than he at this day to a
high-flyer or a Jacobite. Great regard has been shewn by his infernal
majesty, to all that in _forty eight_ were members of the high court of
justice; some are made master and wardens of the devil’s mint, for the
coining of new sins; some commissioners of the temptation-office;
others, barons of the diabolical stinkports; and particularly
sollicitor-general _Cook_ is made lord-keeper of hell’s punishments; and
_Bradshaw_ and _Ireton_, two of his imperial smuttiness’s
privy-counsellors: So that all the posts of honour and preferment in
these lower regions are in the hands of our party, hoping those of the
same kidney who live over our heads, enjoy the like advantages, as we
have heard below by a certain courier from _Amsterdam_, you are all
pretty firmly possess’d of.
There lately arriv’d in these parts a certain woolen-draper out of
_Covent-Garden_ parish, who being touch’d with a deep sense of
ingratitude, could not rest quietly in his whigwam, till he had made a
publick confession of a great indignity he had put upon Mrs. _Meg_’s
chaplain, by which he gave us to understand you were the worthy
gentleman he had most sordidly affronted; the manner of which he
declared with as much sorrow and concern for the action, as ever was
beheld in the face of a dying penitent, between the severity of a
halter, and decency of a night-cap, the substance of his report being to
this purpose; after he had fetch’d two or three deep sighs, as loud as
the puffs of a smith’s bellows: alas! says he, to you I speak, good
people, that are here about me, I was bless’d with a wife of such
singular piety in the other world, who rather than not hear that
reverend teacher of the gospel _D. B._ twice every _Sunday_, she would
cackle for a whole week, far worse than an old hen that has drop’d a
benefit to her owner; whilst I, like a true profligate suburbian, us’d
to confound her zeal, stop the current of her devotion, and damn her
hypocrisy; but the good woman was too strict a protestant to be thus
seduc’d, and still persever’d in spight of all restriction in her
accustomary righteousness, till at last I bethought myself the best way
to reclaim her from this disagreeable purity (for so I thought it) and
bring her over, like me her husband, to be a good sociable sinner, was
to keep a close guard over my pocket, and another over my till, well
considering, that if the flock could not live without spiritual
consolation, the shepherd could not spend his lungs without temporal
subsistence: After I had try’d this experiment for about a fortnight
before the time of contribution, when the hearts of the hearers are
usually as open as their teacher’s conscience, I found my wife’s
extraordinary zeal had stirr’d up a tumultuous spirit within her, so
that nothing would pacify her stubborn disposition, but ten times the
price of a fat pig, to gratify the great benefits she had often receiv’d
from her soul-saving physician; but I, looking into the merits of the
cause, and finding other mens wives us’d to be sav’d, (or at least made
believe so) at a much cheaper rate, and therefore for good reasons best
known to myself, would by no means comply with her religious generosity;
upon which the good woman my wife, lest she should be thought an
ungrateful reprobate by her deserving guide, convey’d a present to the
worthy doctor of a whole piece of black cloth, without my knowledge, and
like a true lover of peace and quietness, conjured my apprentice to keep
it secret; but my man’s honesty being equal to my wife’s religion, in a
little time after, he inform’d me of the matter, upon which (forgive me
good people) I waited upon the doctor with a bill, and without any
tenderness to his piety, or regard to his function, gave him such a
tallyman’s dun, that he swore thro’ divinity, and deny’d the matter of
fact as sturdily as if he had been bred a citizen; yet at last, upon
positive proof thereof, paid the money like an honest gentleman, but
huff’d away as if the passion of envy had overcome the patience of the
priest. But since I find (most worthy gentlemen) that fate has doom’d me
to these sulphurous mansions, where the devil rules the roast, and
presbytery flourishes; I here, before the protector of this
commonwealth, and all his infernal host, submit myself to the present
government in hell establish’d, and heartily declare a penitential
sorrow for the indignity offer’d upon earth to that famous and most
spiritual kid-napper, who I cannot but acknowledge has contributed more
toward the peopling of these dominions, than the states of _Holland_
have ever done towards the peopling your neighbouring country the
_East-Indies_.
But now, brother doctor, to make you sensible of the interest you have
in these parts, the audience (notwithstanding the offender’s submission)
were so highly inflam’d that so disgraceful an affront should be put
upon so worthy a benefactor to the _good old cause_, that some cry’d
out with a true spirit of dissention, _Flay, flay the rogue, flay him
for a_ cavalier, _what abuse the Doctor! Others, Scald him, scald him,
he’s a Church Papist: Others, Geld him, geld him, he’s certainly a
Priest_: But the women were against the last sentence, and cry’d the
devil had no law for that severity. So a great hurliburly arose about
the manner of his punishment; but at last the crowd hurry’d him away as
the rabble in your world do a pickpocket, to a pump, or a horse-pond,
and what became of him afterwards I have not yet heard.
We have abundance of souls flock hither daily, that bring us in very
comfortable tidings from _Mincing-lane_, _Salters-hall_,
_Bishopsgate-street_, _Jewen-street_, _Moorfields_, _Bartholomew-close_,
_Fetter-lane_, _Stepney_, _Hackney_, _Bednal-green_, &c. but more
particularly from _Covent-Garden_; among whom, to your credit it be it
spoken, I have always pick’d out the most agreeable conversation: for
you must know, a little before I absented myself from the pleasures of
the upper world, ’twas my fortune to be haul’d before a dozen of damn’d
crabbed _cavaliers_, revengeful fellows, who look’d as if they would
lose a dinner to hang an honest round-head at any time; and as three or
four tun-belly’d lumps of gravity, in blushing formalities, lin’d with
coney-skins, and those twelve unlucky disciples order’d the matter (to
show they were all fire and tow) they told me a dreadful story of
hanging and burning at _Charing-Cross_, in sight of that old palace we
before had plunder’d. About which ugly sort of business, when I came to
find they were in good earnest, I began to grow as, dizzy in my brains,
as a hog troubled with the megrims, and could no more endure the
thoughts on’t than I could of _Popery_; on my dying day, I strove all I
could to make it easy, but I protest it was in vain, for it prov’d still
as hateful to me, as castration to a priest, or barrenness to a young
woman: in short, at last it made me think of nothing but rattling of
chains, and picking of straws, insomuch that when they fagotted up my
thumbs together, and tumbled me into a hell-cart well litter’d with
straw, but the devil a wheel to’t, I did but just shut my eyes, and
fancy’d myself to be in a dark room in _Bedlam_. In this manner they
rumbled me thro’ a long lane of spectators, who star’d at me as if I had
been a _rhinoceros_ with a _Bantam_ queen upon my back; at last they
dragg’d me into an ill-favour’d piece of timber, in the shape of a welch
sign-post, where they tuck’d me up to a beam, and made me keck a little,
as if something had gone the wrong way; upon which I fell into a kind of
a hag-ridden slubber for a quarter of an hour, dreaming I sunk a
thousand leagues into the bowels of the earth, and no sooner awak’d, but
found myself, as I told you before, in company with my old master: my
sleep prov’d much too short for the recovery of my senses, and tho’ I
saw several of my old friends about me, the pain of my neck, and terror
of my fall, made me rave worse than a narrow-scutted punk under the
hands of a mad-midwife; till by the advice of a consult of physicians,
who are here as numerous as _crocodiles_ in the land of _Egypt_; a
vesicatory of devil’s-dung was apply’d to my _costern_, which restor’d
me to my wits in a few minutes, which in the time of adversity, like
ungovernable rebels, had abdicated their master. But that which most
troubled me when I found myself _compos mentis_, was the circular
impression the hempen collar had left about my gullet, by which the
fellow-subjects discover’d I swung into hell the back way, for which
reason some prodigal _jack-a-dandies_ refus’d to keep me company,
despising me as much as a butcher does a bull-dog, that instead of
running fair at the head, catches hold of the tail, and hangs at the
arse of his enemy; for you must know, doctor, the most reputable way of
entring into this sub-terrestial country, is to come in at the
fore-door, thro’ which none are admitted but such as spend their full
time in wickedness in the upper world without flinching: nay be as proud
of a notorious sin, as a jockey is of his riding that has won a
horse-race, and glory more in the invention of a new vice, than a coward
does of a victory, till at last, by the effects of his debaucheries,
pox, gout and rheumatism, he is lifted out of your world into ours,
without one thought of repentance. These are highly rewarded here for
the glorious examples they have left behind them; but he that comes
hither like a dog, with the print of a collar about his neck, is no more
respected than a prophet in his own country; the reason is, because they
who pass gallows-way into these shades, generally at their _exit_, show
a sorrow for their sins; so that if heaven did not take their contrition
for a kind of death-bed repentance the devil would be a great loser;
besides, they soften the hearts of sinners by their sniveling and
howling, and deter others from the like wickedness. These considerations
occasion the tyburnians to be very much slighted by other company: but
I, thro’ good fortune, by that time I had been here a fortnight, met
with a good honest shoemaker, who had cut his throat in a garret in
_Russel-street_, upon the point of _Predestination_, which he had heard
you handling of for three hours together the very same afternoon, before
he could find in his heart to perform the decent execution. Upon serious
examination, I found the fellow talk’d very notably of religion; nay,
much better than he did of a shoe-soal, or an upper-leather; he had such
an assurance of his parts, as to challenge _Bunyan_ the tinker to chop
logick with him; and _Naylor_ the quaker, who was of a principle between
both, was thought the best qualify’d person in all hell for an impartial
moderator; but your nimble chopp’d pupil was as much too cunning for the
_Pilgrim_ author, as a fox is for a badger, that at last the shoemaker
got his ends, and left the poor tinker without one argument in his
budget. By the assistance of this honest cordwainer, (who hearing I had
been a minister of the gospel in the other world, was mighty respectful
to me) I got acquainted with several others, who had been of your
congregation; some old women, who had hang’d themselves in their
garters, thro’ fear the lord had not elected them: others, who had
waited for a call to heaven till their last dram of patience, as well as
their patrimony, were quite exhausted, the first in religious exercises,
and the last in holy offerings to you their teacher; and finding very
little come of either, they resolv’d the king shou’d lose a poor
subject, and yourself a pious communicant; and so by the judicious
application of either knife or halter, convey’d themselves thro’ death
to these infernal shades, which they always liv’d in dread of, but not
finding the climate so terribly hot on this side _Styx_, as you have
often represented it, they rest well satisfy’d in their conditions, and
all heartily present their humble service to you, hoping with myself,
you will always stick close to your old doctrine, and labour hard to
support and infuse into your followers, the true enthusiastick
principles of _Fanaticism_, and you need not question but to wallow in
the pleasures of human life whilst above board, and be doubly damn’d
hereafter among us for the signal services you have done to the sable
protector of these populous territories, which can never want recruits,
whilst there is a _Burgess_ in the upper world, and a _Lucifer_ in the
lower one.
HUGH PETERS.
DANIEL BURGESS’_s Answer to_ HUGH PETERS.
I receiv’d your insolent epistle with no small dissatisfaction, and had
you not inform’d me, I should have guess’d it came from hell, and that
none but the devil, besides yourself, could have digitis’d a pen after
so scurrillous a manner: how I came to be your brother, as you are
pleas’d very sawcily to call me, I can’t tell, for thou wer’t no more
than a meer pulpit merry-andrew, fit only to jest poor ignorant wenches
out of their bodkins and thimbles, and I, _Daniel Burgess_ am known
thro’ all _England_ to be a reverend teacher of the good word the
gospel, and a saver of souls by the means of grace, and the help of
mercy.
’Tis true, I cannot but acknowledge that you were a serviceable agent in
the promotion of the _good old cause_; but when you came to die a martyr
for it, the whimsical fear of damnation so disturb’d your fly-blown
brains, that a dog hang’d by a cleanly housewife for dropping a
sirreverence in a room new wash’d, or a cat condemn’d to the same
punishment for licking up the childrens milk, were never certainly such
a scandal to a halter, as thy frantick self. When like a true teacher of
spiritual dissention, thou should’st have glory’d in all the past
actions of thy life, that had the least tendency to the pulling down of
that papistical government, that whore of _Babylon_, monarchy, and
setting up in its stead, that wholesome and inseparable twins,
presbytery and a commonwealth; you hasten’d on your own damnation by
foolish fear and cowardly repentance, and shew’d fifty times more
distraction than a horn-mad cuckold, that had catch’d his wife playing
at flipflap with her tail like a live flownder in a frying-pan.
As for that woolen jack-a-dandy, that fed his family by the product of a
sheeps-back, that unrighteous tell-tail rogue, that us’d to curse his
wife for being godly, if ever you will do me a piece of good service in
your damnable country, I beg you to entreat _Lucifer_ on my behalf, to
freeze him once a day into a cake of ice, and then thaw him without
mercy, in one of his hottest hell-kettles; or let him be flogg’d three
times a day by your old master, worse than _Titus Oates_, or brother
_Johnson_, for he’s as rank a cavalier as ever had the impudence to spit
in a round-head’s face, or speak treason against the rump-parliament;
and tell him, tho’ he made me pay for the cloth, given me as a just
reward of my pastoral care of his wife’s immortality, yet she had the
christian gratitude, to make me doubly amends before a fortnight was
expir’d; but how the donor came by the benefit she bestow’d, I thought
was a little ungrateful for the receiver to enquire into, and unbecoming
a minister of the word, bearing my figure and character.
As for the sorry wretches you mention, who by the virtue and efficacy of
my doctrine, took a by-path into the other world, that happen’d to lead
’em into your territories: I must tell you, they were such a parcel of
scoundrels, whose diminutive souls I look’d upon to be meer trumpery,
damag’d goods, not worthy their freight, fit for nothing but to be
thrown over-board; poor tatter’d scraps of immortality crouded into
skins, each of less value than a hog’s-pudding. _Lucifer_ himself, I’m
sure, should he wage new war with heaven, would not have given
three-pence a-piece to have lifted them into his service, they would not
have been fit for so much as powder-monkeys, to have handed fire and
brimstone after the army; for my part, I wonder now you have got ’em,
how you bestow ’em, or what use the devil can put ’em to; I protest when
they were living upon earth, I found them such needy communicants, I
thought them fitter to be confin’d within the narrow limits of some old
alms-house for subsistance, there to read and practise Mr. _Tryon_’s
water-gruel directory, and enjoy the charitable income of
three-half-pence a day, settled by some old rogue who had cheated the
world of thousands, and hopes to make an atonement by starving perhaps
twenty old women every year in his little row of charity pigeon-holes,
endow’d with nine-pence _per_ week, and a thimbleful of coals; as if
providing a miserable life for one person, was a sufficient recompence
for cheating another: I say, they were fitter to be made close tenants
to some such bountiful nest of drawers, than to come like a parcel of
thread-bare zealots into a meeting, like bullies into a tavern, without
a penny of money in their pockets, and disturb people of good fashion
and credit, zealous benefactors to their guide, in the height of their
devotion, an intolerable grievance to a pious congregation, that pay
well for the assurance of salvation: and if we did not sometimes by the
frightful doctrine of _non-election_ and _damnation_, make these
ragamuffin reprobates take up the knife of dispair, and clear the garden
of the righteous from those rascally poor weeds who are always sucking
juice from the more valuable plants, in a little time the fruitful soil
would be so over-run with docks and nettles, that there would be no
living for the gardner, whose profits must arise from the products of
those trees laden with rich fruit, which for yielding plentifully in due
season, become more worthy of his care.
This is the case, and therefore who can blame me for my doctrine, if it
should be a means of making two or three garetteers, and as many
cellar-divers, by the help of twisted-hemp, or cold iron, forward their
journies to the lord knows whither, the world has the less to provide
for, and those that are gone have, according to the opinion of our
fore-fathers, nothing to care for? So to tell you the truth on’t, I am
never without a score of such communicants to spare, and if they were
all to be with you before night, I should think it a very comfortable
riddance.
I am sorry I have not so much time to abuse you as I could heartily wish
I had, for you cannot but be sensible how much you have deserv’d it, and
how well qualified I am for such an undertaking, if I had but leisure to
exert my talent; and why we of the same function should treat one
another scurvily, would be no wonder, because two of a trade can never
agree; however I shall reserve my fury till another opportunity, being
just now invited to a supper by a devout communicant, whose husband’s in
the country, and I am sure she will have provided something worth my
nibbling at, which I scorn to lose the benefit of for a piece of
revenge: so farewel,
D. BURGESS.
LUDLOW _the_ Regicide _to the_ Calves-Head Club.
_Most diabolical Sons of Darkness_,
Of all the villainies perpetrated upon earth, that the greatest rebel
could be proud of, or _Lucifer_ blush at, I myself hid so large a share
in, that the devil for my hearty sincerity, and trusty management
therein, gives me the right-hand, dignify’d and distinguish’d me with
the superb title of his elder brother: no man ever gloried more in
wickedness than myself, and that which now makes my punishment a
pleasure, is to think how nobly I deserved it. Many I know are the
treasonable plots and contrivances transacted in the upper world, but
never was any magnificent piece of wickedness, or superlative deed of
devilism, ever performed with more ostentation and alacrity, than that
most impious and audacious act, in which I was so highly concerned, and
that the very monarch of hell might have been proud to have had a hand
in; to fire churches, commit sacrilege, ravish virgins, murder infants,
or spit in the faces of our parents, are trifling sins that a man of my
figure in iniquity would be asham’d to be caught in; but to murder the
best of princes, and glory in the deed, is such an infernal evil that
hell can’t blacken, or earth can’t parallel; a sacred piece of villany
becoming only the treachery of a puritan to execute, and the pen and
principles of a _Tutchin_ to endeavour to justify.
_Lucifer_ and all his kingdom of hob-gobblins, drink a health to your
society every thirtieth of _January_, in burnt brandy, and are well
assur’d the interest of these infernal territories can never sink, as
long as there is a _Calves-Head Club_ upon earth, to glory in the
remembrance of the worst of villianies; and a whiggish society of
reformation, for the better establishment of hypocrisy. We, who had the
honour to be his majesty’s judges, or rather as some call us,
_Regicides_, are all mess’d together in an apartment by ourselves, and
the murderers of _Henry_ III. and _Henry_ IV. of _France_ are appointed
to attend us at our table; and Felton that stabb’d the duke of
_Buckingham_, is our lacquey to run of errands.
In all _Lucifer_’s extensive dominions, there is not one society so much
respected as ourselves, and the greatest villains that ever were upon
earth, are by the devil, when they come here, scarce thought wicked
enough to wait upon us in the most servile station; the very jesuits
themselves known by all the world to value royal blood no more than a
_Jew_ does a hog’s-pudding, are not suffer’d to walk within an hundred
yards of us; nay, the very dissenting shepherds of that rebellious
flock, who always follow’d me as their only bell-weather, are not here
thought worthy of our conversation, only now and then a member of our
sanctify’d society the _Calves-Head Club_, drops headlong in among us,
and _Old Nic_ indeed appoints them to grind mustard and scrape horse
radish for us his well-beloved brethren the _Regicides_; for you must
know ’tis the custom in this sweating climate, for people to deal much
in very hot sauces, and that most delicate palate-scorching soop called
pepper-pot, a kind of devil’s broth much eat in the _West-Indies_, is
always the first dish brought to our table.
All hell applauds you mightily for your zeal and integrity for the _good
old cause_, and your cordial approbation of the great effects thereof,
which you annually show upon every thirtieth of _January_ that
derisionary festival, which you keep like the bold sons of confusion,
that the true spirit of rebellion may never die, and the dreadful
consequences of a damnable reformation may never be forgotten, in which
most notable, audacious and courageous piece of insolence, you not only
declare yourselves the brave defenders of all king-killing principles,
but plainly discover your undaunted souls are ready upon all occasions
of the like nature, to solemnly engage in the most startling mischief
that hell’s most politick _Divan_ are willing to contrive, or a body of
the most resolute infidels in the universe able to perpetrate? this do I
speak to your eternal reputation, that _Lucifer_ and all his sable
legions have publickly acknowledged their pride and malice, are much
out-done by your private assembly, and the expertest devils among all
the infernal host, turn pale with envy, and degenerate from their
blackness to see their impudence outbrazen’d by a club of mortal
puritans? so that I would advise you as a friend, when death, by virtue
of his uncontroulable _Habeas Corpus_, shall remove you to these dusky
confines, you will put on a little modesty, tho’ you play the hypocrite,
least if you behave yourselves here as you do in the upper world, you
shall dash the devil out of countenance.
_So farewel._
_An Answer by the_ Calves-Head Club, _to_ LUDLOW _the_ Regicide.
_Most Noble Colonel_,
We receiv’d your letter, wherein your hatred to kings is discernable in
your stile; you scorn, like ourselves, the flattery of a courtier, and
write to your friends in the rough language of a bold soldier, that did
not only dare to uncrown, but to unhead a monarch, to advance the
authority of the good people of _England_ above sovereign domination,
and free them from the bridle of the laws, which are no more in our
opinion than a politick restraint upon their natural freedom, an act
worthy of so indefatigable a patriot, who would leave no stone unturn’d,
that the wrong side of every thing might be rais’d uppermost, and that
those who had long against their wills been brought under a compulsive
subjection, might once have an opportunity of trampling upon that
ambition to which they were once slaves, and of raising up their
groveling snouts above that aspiring head, which for many ages had
oppress’d millions of mankind by the dint of power eclips’d their native
liberty, and crushed them into a slavish obedience.
What ass in the universe would not kick at his master, if he was sure he
could knock his head off, and shake off that burthen beneath which he
groans, if he was not such a coward to be fearful of a greater?
Rebellion is always sanctifyed if it succeeds well, and the end
propos’d, obtain’d with safety, always gives glory to the atchievement.
Authority is only obey’d, because ’tis fear’d; and if once trodden under
foot, nothing appears so despicable, as he that mounts a resty steed is
counted a good horseman, if he tames the beast; but if the stubborn
courser throws his rider, he falls a laughing stock to the glad
spectators.
You seem to be truly sensible how much we glory in that act, which ought
to be as much your pride, as it is our satisfaction: we reverence the
valiant arm that did the deed, and daily signalize our gratitude to the
pious memory of those illustrious heroes, who by their undaunted
magnanimity brought their unparallell’d undertakings to a hopeful issue,
and left behind them such a glorious example, which we shall never
neglect to imitate when ourselves have opportunity. We have long hoped
for the lucky minute, wherein we might shew the world the strength of
our resolutions, and the constancy of our principles, and make those
cowardly slaves know, who pretend an abhorrence to your past bravery,
that we are the cocks, when we dare crow, that will make the lion
tremble; we have at all times when we meet, an ax hung up in our
club-room, in _pia memoria_ of your sacred action: but had we the true
weapon, as much as we hate popery, we should turn idolaters, and worship
it much more than _Roman Catholicks_ do their pictures. We have every
thirtieth of _January_ a _calves-head feast_, in contempt of that head
which fell a glorious sacrifice to your justice, over which we drink to
the pious memory of _Oliver Cromwell_; confusion to monarchy; to the
downfal of episcopacy; a health to every noble regicide, and to the
universal propagation of all king-killing principles; and if these are
not meritorious formalities, and decent observances, we know not how to
oblige our honest brethren, who are co-habitants with you at such a
distance beneath us.
To be accounted rebels and bold villains, does not in any measure make
us uneasy; for the believing ourselves otherwise, is a compleat
satisfaction to ballance their envy that so think us; besides the
pleasure we find in accounting them fools, slaves and cowards, is really
more to us than a sufficient recompence: so that by our vilifying our
opposites, we deny them opportunity ever to be even with us. The author
of the dialogue between _Vassal_ and _Freeman_, is our secretary; you
guess’d his name very right in your letter, and a notable fellow he is
either in verse or prose, for the justification of our principles; and
is such a desperate tongue-stabbing hero at _pro_ and _con_, that he
clears the house of all people wherever he comes, but those of his own
kidney; he vindicates all the proceedings of the _High Court of
Justice_, with such admirable obstinacy and impudence, that the best
lawyer in _Westminster-hall_ is not able to cope with him, and justifies
the bringing of a king to a scaffold, when the people dislike his
stewardship, with so much insolence and arrogance, and drags him to a
block, as you would a bear to a stake, with so much decency, that had he
liv’d in the happy days when you erected a _High Court of Justice_, he
would have been the fittest man in the universe for two posts under you;
_First_, To have been attorney-general, and then executioner, and would,
I am confident, have so strenuously exerted himself in both offices,
that he would have gained a double reputation with our godly party.
_First_, For the discharge of the one with the utmost malignancy. And,
_Secondly_, For the dispatch of the other without disguise; for I dare
be confident, he has assurance enough to go through-stitch with any
thing that the world calls villainy, if we but think it virtue without
the fear of shame, or dread of punishment: indeed, had our growing
principles at this day but such another champion to defend ’em, I do not
question but in a few years we might bring matters to bear, and by
downright dint of our own weapon, _calumny_, make way to play the old
game over again, to a far better purpose than has been yet effected.
With the great hopes of which we take leave at present, desiring your
brother _Lucifer_ upon all occasions to lend us his assistance. So we
subscribe ourselves both his and your
_Humble Servants_,
J.T. S.B. J.S. _&c._
_From_ J. NAYLOR, _to his_ Friends _at the_ Bull _and_ Mouth.
_Friends and Brethren in the Spirit_,
You who are the true transcript of the people originally call’d
_Quakers_, may perhaps expect, that I _James Naylor_ in the dark, should
commend my hearty love to you my friends in the light, in such like
manner as the spirit us’d to dictate to me upon earth, before I
unhappily fell under this wonderful transfiguration, which I now am
appointed to maintain thro’ the whole course of eternity.
I had no sooner set footing into this deep abyss of midnight, to which
the sun, moon and stars are as great strangers, as frost and snow are to
the country of _Ethiopia_, but a parcel of black spiritual janizaries
saluted me as intimately as if I had been resident in these parts during
the term of an apprenticeship; at last up comes a swindging lusty,
over-grown, austre devil, arm’d with an ugly weapon like a country dung
fork, looking as sharp about the eyes as a _Woodstreet_ officer, and
seem’d to deport himself after such a manner, that discovered he had an
ascendency over the rest of the immortal negroes, and, as I imagin’d, so
’twas quickly evident; for as soon as he espied me leering between the
diminutive slabbering-bib, and the extensive brims of my cony-wool
umbrella, he chucks me under the chin with his ugly toad-colour’d paw,
that stunk as bad of brimstone as a card-match new lighted, crying, How
now, honest _James_, I am glad to see thee on this side the river
_Styx_, prithee hold up thy beard, and don’t be asham’d, thou art not
the first quaker by many thousands that has sworn allegiance to my
government; besides, thou hast been one of my best benefactors upon
earth, and now thou shalt see like a grateful devil, I’ll reward thee
accordingly: I thank your excellency kindly, said I, pray what is it
your infernal protectorship will be pleas’d to confer upon me? To which
his mighty ugliness reply’d, friend _Naylor_, I know thou hast been very
industrious to make many people fools in the upper world, which has
highly conduc’d to my interest. Then turning to a pigmy aërial, who
attended his commands as a running footman; haste, _Numps_, says he,
and fetch me the painted coat, which was no sooner brought, but, by
_Lucifer_’s command, I was shov’d into it neck and shoulders, by half a
dozen smutty _valets de chambre_, and in a minute’s time found my self
trick’d up in a rainbow-colour’d coat, like a merry-andrew. Now, friend,
says the ill-favour’d prince of all the hell-born scoundrels, for the
many fools you have made above, I now ordain you mine below; so all the
reward, truly, of my great services, was to be made _Lucifer_’s jester,
or fool in ordinary to the devil: a pretty post, thought I, for a man of
my principles, that from a quaker in the other world, I should be
metamorphosed into a jack-adams in the lower one. I could not but think
it a strange kind of mutation, and knew no more how to behave myself in
my gaudy-colour’d robes, than if I had been damn’d, and cramm’d into a
tortoise-shell, and must have walk’d about hell upon all fours with a
house upon my back.
In a little time after this new dignity was conferr’d upon me, the devil
happen’d to make a splendid entertainment for all the souls in his
dominion, who in the upper world had been profess’d Quakers, where I,
quoth the fool, was ordered to give my attendance for the diversion of
the company, but found myself so strangely disappointed when I beheld
the guests, that had I been messed in _Noah_’s ark among lyons, bears,
and alligators, I could not have been more amaz’d than I was at the
unexpected appearance and deportment of such a confus’d assembly: my
master _Lucifer_, and _Ramsey_ the jesuit at his right hand, sat at the
upper end of the table, and the rest of the scrambling company were
seated like so many hungry mechanicks at a corporation-feast; but
instead of their conversation being _Yea_ and _Nay_, there never was
heard such swearing and cursing at a publick gaming-table, nor all the
points of copulation more lewdly discuss’d at a bawdy-house; blasphemy
was the modestest of their talk, and there I came in with ’em for a
fool’s share, and exerted my talent to the approbation and applause of
the whole society.
Observing such a wonderful change in these our infernal friends, from
what they appeared to be in the upper world, made my curiosity itch
mightily to know the reason of this surprising alteration; upon which,
said I, prithee _Lucifer_, in plain words, (for we fools you must know
may say any thing to our masters) what is the meaning that these people
who were _quondam_ quakers when upon _terra firma_, should turn such
debauch’d libertines in these lower regions, and from the most religious
and precise of all hypocritical heaven-servers, to become the most
degenerate reprobates in all your damnable dominions? I’ll tell you,
says _Lucifer_, the reason; always those that pretended to the greatest
purity in the other world, put on the cloak of religion, not to save
their souls but to hide their vices, as some women wear masks, not to
preserve their beauty, but to hide their ugliness; and when that veil is
taken away which obscur’d the sinfulness of their natures, or when
opportunity gives them leave to be wicked without damage to their
interest (as they may here) you see how loose and wanton the most
zealous of both sexes will be, notwithstanding all the external promises
of piety and vertue. These words, tho’ they came from the father of
lies, yet their satirical force gave me such a stab in the conscience,
that had my label of mortality been stung by a wasp or a hornet, it
could not have griev’d the outward man more, than this diabolical saying
did the inward; and knowing by experience it savour’d of a little truth,
I thought I could do no more than communicate his answer to you my
friends, who are lovers of verity, from whence you may discern with half
an eye, that _Satan_ understands you as well as he does the college of
_Jesuits_, or a _Dutch_ conventicle, and if you take not timely care,
will certainly prove too cunning for you.
Perhaps you will think me a very imperfect intelligencer, to tell you of
a feast, and give you no account of the provisions, or what sort food
the devil in his sultry dominions entertains his friends withal;
therefore in the next place I shall venture to give you a bill of fare,
that you may know at present what you may expect hereafter, lest
otherwise I should leave your curiosities unsatisfied, and keep you
ignorant of those avernous dainties by which immortality is here
subsisted.