The third and last Letter from Seignior Giusippe Hanesio, High-German Doctor and Astrologer in Brandinopolis, to his Friends at Will’s Coffee-House in Covent-Garden.
By Mr. Tho. Brown.
Gentlemen,
I Was forc’d to break off my last abruptly, by reason of the vast crowds of people, which press’d upon me then for advice, so that I could not present you with a full catalogue of my cures, which you will find at the conclusion of this, or acquaint you with what transactions of moment have lately happen’d in our gloomy regions. But having by miracle a vacant hour or two at present upon my hands, which, by the by, is a blessing I am seldom troubled with, I was resolv’d not to neglect so fair a opportunity of paying my respects to you, and therefore without any more preface or formality, will continue the thread of my narration.
I had no sooner publish’d my bill and catalogue of cures, but my house has been crouded ever since with prodigious shoals of patients, that I can hardly afford myself an hour to pass with my friends: they flock from all corners of this gigantic city, so that sometimes not only my court-yard which is very large and spacious, but even my chamber, my anti-chamber, and if you’ll allow me, gentlemen, to coin a new word, my pro-anti-chamber, or my hall, is full of them: I will only tell you the names of a few customers of quality that resorted to me for advice yesterday morning: to give you an idea of my business, and how considerable ’tis like to prove.
About a month after my setting up, who should rap at my door, but the famous Semiramis? I remembered her royal phiz perfectly well, ever since my friend Nokes carried me to her coffee-house, and treated me there with a glass of Geneva; however, for certain reasons of state I did not think it proper to let her Babylonian majesty know, that I was acquainted either with her name or quality; come good woman, said I to her, what is your business? Oh! replies she, you see the most unfortunate, unhappy creature in the world. Why what calamity has befallen you? Only, says she, too big for words to express; with that she wrung her hands, stamp’d upon the floor, cursing the left-handed planet she was born under, and pouring down such a deluge of tears, that one would have thought it had been the second edition of the Ephesian matron, lamenting the loss of one spouse in order to wheedle on a second. When her grief had pretty well exhausted itself at the sluices of her eyes, she thus continu’d her tragical historietto. Were I minded, doctor, to trouble you with my genealogy, I could perhaps, make it easily appear, that few people are descended of better parents than myself, but let that pass; the scene is alter’d with me at present, and rather than take up with ill courses, or to be troublesom to my relations, I am content to keep a coffee-house. Now as I was sitting in my bar this morning, and footing a pair of stockings for Alexander the great, in came two rascally grenadiers, and ask’d for some juniper; but alas! while I was gone down into the cellar to fetch it, these lubberly rogues plunder’d me of a silver spoon and nutmeg-grater, and made their escape. Come mistress, says I, this loss is not so great but a little diligence may retrieve it. Oh never, says she again, unless you help me by your art, I am utterly undone to all intents and purposes. Finding her so much mortify’d for the loss of her two utensils, I resolv’d to exert the fortune-teller to her, and banter her in the laudable terms of astrology; so putting on a very compos’d countenance, I seem’d very seriously to consult a celestial globe that stood before me; then enquiring the precise time when this horrid theft was committed, I drew several odd figures and strokes upon a piece of paper, and at last the oracle thus open’d: Mistress, it appears I find by the Heliocentric position of the planets, that Jupiter, you understand me, is become stationary to retrogradation in Cancer, and consequently, you observe me, mistress, equivocal to him; but how and why in Trine to Mercury in Scorpio, both posited in watry signs, and at the same time Mars being ascendant of the second house, as you may perceive, ’tis as plain that the culminating aspect of Saturn’s Satellites, do ye mind me, centres full in the foresaid configuration. So then mistress, the hoary question thus resolves itself, viz. That your goods were carry’d away South-East by East of your house, under the sign of a four-footed creature, and if you’ll leave open your parlour windows a-nights, I dare pawn my life and honour, that both your silver spoon and nutmeg-grater will be flung into the house one of the nights. Semiramis was wonderfully pleas’d to hear such news, dropt me a fee, and went about her business.
She was hardly gone, but in came queen Dido, who the last time I saw her call’d Virgil so many rogues and rascals in my hearing, for raising such a malicious story of her and and the pious Æneas; it was a long time before I could get her to tell me what errand she came about: at last, after abundance of blushing, and covering half her face with her hood, Seignior Hanesio, says she, I doubt not but a person of your experience has observ’d in his time but too many instances of female infirmity. To be plain with you, I am one, and tho’ I made as great a splutter about my virtue as the soundest of my sex, yet I was a damn’d recreant all that while. In short, I find by several indications which I have not nam’d to you, doctor, that I am with child,—and being very tender of my reputation,—which, doctor, is all we poor women have to depend upon,—— and loth to have my good name expos’d in ballads and lampoons.—— I beg the favour of you, dear doctor,—— and you shall find I will gratify you nobly for your pains, to help me to something that shall make me,—— but you know my meaning, doctor.—— To miscarry is it not, Madam? You are in the right on’t, dear Sir, reply’d she. Why then, Madam, I must tell you, are come to the wrong house; for whether you know it or no, I carry a tender conscience about me, mind me what I say, I carry a tender conscience about me, and would not be guilty of such a wicked thing as you mention for the world. But there is an Italian son of a whore at the corner of the street, that will poison you and the child in your belly, and half the women in the city for half a crown. You may make your application to him, if you think fit, but for my part, Madam, I’ll be perjur’d for no body; for as I told you before, my conscience is tender: Upon this our famous coquette immediately withdrew in a great deal of confusion, and curs’d me plentifully in her gizzard, I don’t question.
My next visitant was Lucretia, who brought some of her water in an urinal, and desir’d me to give her my judgment on’t. Finding her ladyship look a little blueish, and so forth, under the eyes; what was more, having been privately inform’d of the correspondence she kept with Æsop the fabulist; Madam, says I bluntly to her, the party to whom this urine belongs, is under none of the most healthful circumstances, but troubled with certain prickings and pains. I’ll swear, doctor, says she, you are a man of skill, for to my certain knowledge the party is troubled with those concerns you were talking of. You need not forestal me, Madam, says I to her, but especially when she makes water; I knew it as soon as ever I cast my eyes upon the urinal: and pray, Sir, what may be the occasion of it? for the party is at a horrid loss, what is the matter with her. Why, Madam, says I, the matter is plain enough, the party has been committing acts of privity with somebody, and has disoblig’d love’s mansion by it: or to express myself in the familiar language of a modern versificator and quack;
How doctor, says she, have you the impudence to say the party is clapt? verily, Madam, and yet I am no more impudent than some of my neighbours. Why you saucy fellow you, continues she, I’d have you to know that I am the party to whome the urine belongs, and my name is Lucretia, that celebrated matron in Roman history, who scorning to out-live her honour, perferr’d a voluntary death to an ignominious life. Yes, Madam, says I, I know your history well enough, and whatever opinion I may have of your chastity, I have yet a greater of your discretion; for, between friends be it said, Madam, before you left the insignificant world, you were resolv’d to taste the sweetness of young Tarquin’s person; and finding what a vast difference there was between vigorous love and phlegmatick duty, you thought it not worth your while to be troubled any longer with the dull embraces of an impotent husband. Oh most abominable scandal, cries our matron, but Heaven be prais’d Livy tells another story of my chastity; and to let thee see how scrupulous and careful I am to preserve my reputation spotless, know, I keep company with none but moralists and philosophers. Lord, Madam, says I, your intrigues are no mysteries to me: I am no stranger to that laudable commerce you keep with that crook-back’d moralist and fable-monger of Phrygia, they call him my lord; Æsop (at which unwelcome words she look’d paler than I have the charity to believe she did when the impetuous Tarquin leapt into bed to her) and as for those sage recommenders of virtue, the philosophers, take my word for it, a clap may be got as soon among them, as any other sort of men whatsoever. Since my coming into these parts, Madam, I am able to give you a true account of the present state of most of these Philosophers’ bodies. Thales, who held that Water was the beginning of all things, is now satisfy’d that Fire is the conclusion of love. Pythagoras that run thro’ so many changes in the other world, has undergone a greater transmutation here in a sweating tub. The divine Plato, and his disciple Aristotle, are at this present writing very lovingly salivating in my garret. Socrates had his shin-bones scrap’d t’other morning by my toad-eater Dr. Connor, by the same token the Hibernian thrash’d him for swearing so inordinately at his dæmon that led him into this mischance. Aristotle told me last night, that nothing in philosophy troubled him so much as pissing of needles. Diogenes has a phiz so merrily collyflower’d, that he protests against planting of men, since these are the effects of it; and the virtuous Seneca has lost all his Roman patience with his nose. But alas, these solemn splaymouth’d gentlemen, Madam, says I, only do it to improve in natural philosophy, with no wicked intentions, I can assure you, no carnal titillation to urge them on, or the like. Well, says she, since ’tis in vain to play the hypocrite any longer, I own myself a downright frail woman, therefore resolve me what is best to be done for my recovery? Look you, Madam, says I, you must take physick, and live sober for a fortnight or so, and I’ll engage to make you as primitively sound as when you first came squaling into the world. Here’s a dose of pills the devil of any Mercury’s in them; take four of them every morning, and to make them operate the better, drink me a quart of honest Phlegethon a little warm’d over the fire, and mix some grated nutmeg with it to correct the crudity. She promis’d to observe my directions, presented me with half a score broad pieces, and as she was going out of the room, Worthy doctor, says she, I conjure you to have a care of my dear dear reputation: And, Madam, answers I, pray have you likewise a care of your dear dear brandy bottle, and your beloved Dr. Steven’s water with the gold in it; and so we parted.
I was thinking with myself, surely it rains nothing but female visitants this morning, when a brace of two handed strapping jades bolted into my closet, and upon a due examination of their faces, I found one of them to be Thalestris the Amazonian, who, as I hinted to you in my last, is become an haberdasheress of small wares; and the other that termagant motly composition of half man half woman, Christiana the late queen of Sweden. So my two chopping Bona Roba’s, says I to ’em and what business has brought you hither? Why you must know, cries Thalestris, that both of us are furiously in love and want a little of your assistance.
The ladies may be always sure of commanding that, answers I, but pray explain yourselves more particularly. For my part, says Thalestris, having formerly been happy in the embraces of Alexander the great, I could never fancy anything but a soldier ever since. Why our military men, says I, have been always famous for attacking and carrying all places before them, but pray tell me the happy person’s name, whom you have singled from the rest of his sex to honour with your affection? With the malicious world, continues she, he passes for a bully, but I call him my lovely charming Capt. Dawson; ’tis true, I am not altogether disagreeable to this cruel insensible; he likes the majesty of my person, my humour and wit well enough; but t’other morning he told me, over a porringer of burnt brandy, when people are apt to unbosom themselves, that he had an unconquerable aversion to red hair, and so I am come to see whether you have any relief for this misfortune, as you promise in your bills. This is no business of mine, says I to her, but my wife’s who’ll soon redress your grievances, and furnish you with a leaden comb and my Anti-Erythræan unguent, which after two or three applications will make you as fair or as brown as you desire. And having said so, address’d myself to her companion, and enquir’d of her what she came for? I am up to the ears in love, says Christiana, with a jolly smock-fac’d duchess’s chaplain lately arriv’d in these parts; I have already signify’d my passion to him, both after the antient and modern way, persecuted him with Latin and French billet-deux, for which I was always famous: but this stubborn Theologue tells me my face is too masculine for him, and particularly quarrels with the irregularity of my forehead and eyebrows. Those will easily be recftify’d by my wife, says I: and now, Madam, will you give me leave to ask you a civil question or two? a hundred, my dear seignior, answers she very obligingly. To be short then, says I, a certain French author, who has writ the memoirs of your life, has been pleas’d positively to assert, that your majesty went thro’ at least one half of the college of cardinals, and that two or three popes were suspected of being familiar with you. I wanted, answers she, no sort of consolation from those noble personages, while I liv’d at Rome; and to convince you how well I am satisfied in their abilities, by my good will, I would have to do with none but ecclesiasticks; for besides that they eat and drink plentifully, and by consequence want no vigour, they possess another no less commendable quality, and that is taciturnity. I applaud your judgment, replies I, for your churchmen are true feeders and thundering performers. No body knows that better than myself, says Christiana, and take my word for it, one robust well-chined priest is worth a hundred of your lean half starv’d captains. I’ll never hear the soldiery blasphem’d, says Thalestris, in a mighty passion, I tell thee, thou insignificant north country trollop, thou foolish affected grammarian-ridden she-pedant, that one soldier is better than a thousand of your stiff-rump’d parsons; and immediately saluted her with a discourteous reprimand a cross the mazzard. The blood of Gustavus Adolphus began to be rous’d in Christiana, and my glasses, globes, and crocodile and all, were infallibly going to rack between these two furious heroines, when my wife luckily stept in to put an end to the fray. In short the matter was amicable made up, and so they follow’d my spouse into her closet, where I’ll leave them.
Thus, gentlemen, you may perceive what sort of customers resort to me, I could tell you a hundred more stories to the same purpose, but why should I pretend to entertain persons of your worth with so mean and unworthy a subject as my self? therefore to diversify the scene, I will endeavour to divert you with some occurences of a more publick importance, which have happen’d in our Acherontic dominions since I writ to you last.
But before I proceed any farther I am to inform you, that we have a spacious noble room in the middle of Brandinopolis, where the virtuosos of former ages as well as of the present, use to resort and entertain one another with learned or facetious conversation, according as it happens. Of late we have had the same controversy debated among us, which so long employ’d monsieur Perault and the famous wits of France, I mean, whether the antients are preferable to the moderns in the learned arts and sciences. The question had been discuss’d one afternoon with a great deal of heat on both sides, when an honest merry gentleman and a new comer among us, whose name I have unluckily forgot, interpos’d in the dispute, and express’d himself to this effect. Gentlemen, says he, I think you may e’en drop this controversy, for I can make it appear, that little England alone affords a set of men at present, that much out-do any of the antients in whatever they pretend to. There’s honest Mr. Edmund Whiteaker, late of the admiralty office, that in the mystery of making up accounts out-does Archimedes; and my lord Puzzlechalk, who told his master’s money over a gridiron, understands numbers better than Archytas or Euclid. Mr. Burgess of Covent-Garden, and indeed most of the dissenting parsons, go infinitely beyond Tully and Demosthenes in point of eloquence; for those old fashion’d orators could only raise joy and sadness successively, whereas the latter so manage matters, that they can make their congregations laugh and weep both at once. The antients were forc’d to drudge and take pains to make themselves masters of any tongue before they pretended to write in it; but here’s your old friend Dr. Case by Ludgate, writ a system of anatomy in Latin, and does not understand a syllable of the language. As for musick you may talk till your heart akes of your Amphions and your Orpheus’s, that drew trees and stones after them by the irresistible force of their harmony; this is so far from being a miracle among us, that the vilest thrummers in England and Wales do it every wake and fair they go to: then as for the various perturbations of mind caus’d by the antient musick, we saw something more wonderful happen upon our own theatre since the late revolution, than antiquity can boast of; for when Harry Purcel’s famous winter song at the Opera of king Arthur, was sung at the play-house, half the gentlemen and ladies in the side boxes and pit got an ague by it, tho’ it was sung in the midst of the dog-days. Lastly, to conclude, for I am afraid I have trespass’d too much upon your patience, we infinitely exceed the antients in quickening of parts: Virgil, one of the topping wits of antiquity, was forc’d to retire out of the noise and hurry of Rome to his country Villa, and bestow’d some ten or twelve years in composing his Æneis: whereas Sir Richard Blackmore, who passes but for a sixth rate versifier among us, was able to write both his Arthurs in two or three years time, and that in the tumult and smoak of Coffee-houses, or in his coach as he was jolting it from one patient to another, amidst the vast multiplicity of his business too, which as the city bard frankly confesses, was never greater than then.
The gentleman delivered his ironies with so good a grace that he set all the company a laughing, and for that time put an end to the dispute. And now since I am upon the chapter of Sir Richard, you must know, that the young wits, inhabiting upon the banks of Phlegethon, have lately pelted his Arthurs with distichs; but I can only call to mind at present three of them. The two first reflect upon the poem’s genealogy, which was partly begot in a coffee-house, and partly in a coach.
I do not wonder now at prince Arthur’s wonderful loquacity, says another, (for as I remember, when he and king Hoel met upon the road, he welcomes him with a simile of forty lines perpendicular) since he was born at a coffee house; nor at the rumbling of the verse, since one half of the book was written in a leathern vehicle; for we find, continues he, that what is bred in the bone, will never out of the flesh; and thus, ’tis no wonder, that according to the observation of a modern virtuoso, the Severn is so mischievous and cholerick a river, and so often ruins the country with sudden inundations, since it rises in Wales, and consequently participates sometimes of the nature of that hasty, iracund people among whom ’tis born. However, cries surly Ben, I must needs commend Sir Richard’s sagacity and politicks in taking care that his muse should be so openly deliver’d; for Epic poems, like the children of sovereign princes, ought to be born in publick.
The other day, as I was taking a solitary turn by myself, ’twas my fortune to meet with a leash of old-fashion’d thread-bare mortals, with very dejected looks, and in the best equipage of those worthy gentlemen, whom you may see every day between the hours of twelve and one, walking in the Middle-Temple and Grays-Inn walks, to get ’em a stomach to their no-dinners. At first I took them for a parcel of fiddlers, when the oldest of them undeceiv’d me, by addressing himself to me as follows. Sir, says he, my name is J. Hopkins, my two companions are the fam’d Sternhold and Wisdom, and understanding that you are lately arrived from England, I have presum’d to ask you a question: we have been inform’d some time ago, that two Hibernian bards, finding fault with our version and language, have endeavour’d to depose myself and my two brethren here out of all parish-churches, where we have reign’d most melodiously so long, and to substitute their own translation in the room of it; I must confess it vexes me to the heart to think that I must be ejected after an hundred years quiet possession and better, which, by the Common as well as Civil law, gives a man a just title, and resign my ecclesiastical dominions to two new fangled usurpers, whom I never injur’d in my days. Now, Sir, pray tell me how my affairs go in your world, and whether I have reputation enough still left me with the people, to make head against those unrighteous innovators? Why truly, Mr. Hopkins, says I to him, when these adversaries first appeared in the world, I was in some pain about you, the conspiracy against your crown and dignity being so speciously laid, that nothing less than an universal defection seem’d to threaten you. ’Tis true indeed, some few churches in and about London, where the people you know are govern’d by a spirit of novelty, have thrown you out, but by what advices I can receive, excepting some few revolters, the generality of the people seem to be heartily engaged in your interests, and as it always happens to other monarchs when they are able to surmount an insurrection form’d against them, I look upon your throne, since you have so happily broke the neck of this rebellion, to be settled upon a surer basis than ever. The Parish-clerks, sextons, and old women, all over the kingdom are in a particular manner devoted to your service, preserving a most entire and unshaken allegiance to you, and on my conscience would sooner part with all magna charta than one syllable of yours. You wonderfully revive my spirits, replies old Hopkins, to tell me such comfortable news, but pray, Sir, one word more with you; This new translation that has made such a noise in the world, is it so much superior to mine, as my enemies here would make me believe? Mr. Hopkins, says I, I flatter no man, ’tis not my way, therefore you must not take amiss what I am going to say to you. For my part I am of opinion, that king David is not oblig’d to any of you, but ought to cudgel you all round; for I can find no other difference between the Jewish monarch in his ancient collar of ekes and ayes, which you and your brethren there have bestow’d upon him, and in his new-fashion’d Irish dress, than there is between an old man of threescore with a long beard hanging down to his waste, and the same individual old man newly come out of a barber’s shop nicely shav’d and powder’d. ’Tis true, he looks somewhat gayer and youth-fuller, but has not a jot more vigour and ability.
I know you gentlemen of Will’s coffee-house, will be glad to hear some news of Mr. Dryden, I must tell you then, that we had the devil all of combustions and quarrels here in hell since that famous bard’s arrival among us. The Grecians, the Romans, the Italians, the Spaniards, the French, but especially the Dutch authors, have been upon his back; Homer was the first that attack’d him for justifying Almanzor’s idle rants and monstrous actions by the precedent of Achilles. The two poets, after a little squabbling, were without much difficulty perswaded to let their two heroes fight out the quarrel for them, but the nimble-heel’d Græcian soon got the whip-hand of the furious Almanzor, and made him beg pardon. Horace too grumbled a little in his gizzard at him for affirming Juvenal to be a better satirist than himself; but upon second thoughts thought it not worth his while to contest the point with him. Once it happen’d, that Mr. Bays came into our room when Petronius Arbiter was diverting us with a very fine nouvelle. Mons. Fontaine, Sir Philip Sidney, Mr. Waller, my late lord Rochester, with Sir Charles Sidley, compos’d part of this illustrious audience; when Mr. Dryden unluckily spoil’d all by asking the latter, what the facetious gentleman’s name was, that talk’d so agreeably? How, says Sir Charles Sidley, hadst thou the impudence, in the preface before thy English Juvenal, to say, that so soon as the pretended Belgrade supplement of Petronius’s fragments came into England, thou couldst tell upon reading but two lines of that edition, whether it was genuine or no; and here hast thou heard the noble author himself talk above an hour by the clock, and could not find him out? Upon this the old bard retired in some disorder; but what happened to him a day or two after was more mortifying.
Chaucer meets him in one of our coffee-houses, and after the usual ceremonies were over between two strangers of their wit and learning, thus accosts him. Sir, cries Chaucer, you have done me a wonderful honour to furbish up some of my old musty tales, and bestow modern garniture upon them, and I look upon myself much obliged to you for so undeserved a favour; however, Sir, I must take the freedom to tell you, that you over-strain’d matters a little, when you liken’d me to Ovid, as to our wit and manner of versification. Why, Sir, says Mr. Dryden, I maintain it, and who then dares be so saucy as to oppose me? But under favour, Sir, cries the other, I think I should know Ovid pretty well, having now convers’d with him almost three hundred years, and the devil’s in it if I don’t know my own talent, and therefore tho’ you pass a mighty compliment upon me in drawing this parallel between us, yet I tell you there is no more resemblance between us, as to our manner of writing, than there is between a jolly well-complexion’d Englishman and a black-hair’d thin-gutted Italian. Lord, Sir, says Dryden to him, I tell you that you’re mistaken, and your two styles are as like one another as two Exchequer tallies. But I, who should know it better, says Chaucer, tell you the contrary. And I, say Mr. Bays, who know these things better than you, and all the men in the world, will stand by what I have affirm’d, and upon that gave him the lye. Rhadamanthus, who is one of Pluto’s oldest judges and a severe regulator of good manners and conversation, immediately sent for our friend John to appear in court; and after he had severely reprimanded him for using such insufferable language upon no provocation; for your punishment, says he, I command you to get Sir Richard Blackmore’s translation of Job by heart, and to repeat ten pages of it to our friend the author of the Rehearsal every morning. Poor Bays desired his lordship to mitigate so rash a sentence, and by way of commutation frankly offer’d to drink so many quarts of liquid sulphur every morning. No, says my lord judge, tho’ they commute penances in Doctors-Commons, yet we are not such rogues to commute them in hell, and so I expect to be obey’d.
Thus Gentlemen, you see we observe a severe justice among us, and indeed to deliver my thoughts impartially, I must needs say, that equity is administer’d after a fairer and more compendious manner in these dominions, than either in your Westminster-Hall, or your palace at Paris, where Astræa pretends to carry all before her, yet has as little to do in either of those two places, as a farrier at Venice. A signal instance of this we have had in a late famous tryal. A foot-soldier of the first regiment of guards, and a Drury-lane whore, were summon’d to appear before judge Minos, who after he had, with a great deal of patience, heard the crimes that were alledg’d against them, asked them what they had to offer in favour of themselves, why sentence of damnation should not pass? the young harlot, either replying upon the merits of her face, which she foolishly imagin’d would bring her off here, as it had often done in your world, or else being naturally furnish’d with a greater stock of impudence than the soldier, broke thro’ the crowd, and thus address’d herself to the court: I hope your lordship, says she, will take no advantage of a poor woman’s ignorance, who ought to have learned counsel to plead for her; however, I depend so much upon the justice of my cause, that I will undertake it my self. The chief argument I insist upon, my lord, is this: I think it highly unreasonable that I should suffer a-new for my crimes in this world, having done sufficient penance for them in the other. By my aunt’s consent and privity, I was sold to an old libidinous lord, and debauch’d by him before I was fourteen; the noble peer kept me some four months; then took occasion to pick a quarrel with me, and set me a drift in the wide world, to steer my course as fortune should direct me. In this exigence I was forc’d to apply my self to a venerable old matron, who finding me young and handsome, took me into her service, shamm’d me upon her customers for a baronet’s daughter of the North, and much I was made of, and courted like a little queen; but, my lord, our profession is directly opposite to all others, for too much custom breaks us. In short, an officer in the army, whom Pluto rewarded for his pains, taught me what Fortune de la guerre meant, so that I was very fairly salivated before fifteen. Having got a little knowledge of the world under this old matron’s directions, who went more than halves with me in every bargain, I thought it high time to trade for my self, and told her one morning, that I was resolved to expose myself no longer in her house. What you please as for that, replies this antient gentlewoman, but first, my dear child, let us come to a fair account to see how the land lies between us. Then stepping into the next room she shew’d me a deal-board all be-scrawl’d with round o’s and cart-wheels in ungodly chalk; then clapping on her spectacles, let me see, cries she, for lodging, diet, washing, cloaths, linen, physick, &c. you owe me ten pounds, (which came up within a few transitory shillings of what I had earned in her house) and this you must pay, sweetheart, before you talk of parting. ’Twas in vain to complain of her extortion, for besides that she pleaded perscription for it, her arithmetick was infallible, and she judg’d for her self en dernier ressort. Thus I was turn’d out of doors, but having in the interim, while I stay’d here, contracted a small acquaintance with a sister of the quill that lodg’d in Covent-Garden, I repaired to her quarters, and continu’d with her. Between us, my lord, we acted the story of Castor and Pollux, that is, we were never visible together, but when she appeared above the horizon, ’twas bed-time with me; and when she kept her bed, ’twas my time to shine at the play-house. When either of us went abroad, we made a fine show enough, but then we gratify’d our backs at the expence of our bellies; cow-heel, tripe, a few eggs, or sprats, were our constant regale at home, and upon holidays a chop of mutton roasted upon a packthread in the chimney; and many a time when my sister and I wore silver-lac’d shoes our stockings wanted feet. I should trespass too much upon your lordship’s patience, to tell you how I have been forc’d to shift my name as well as my quarters, to submit to the nauseous embraces of every drunken tobacco-taking sot, that had half a crown in his pocket to purchase me; and when I have been arrested for a milk-score not exceeding the terrible sum of four shillings, to let an ill-look’d dog of a Moabite enjoy me upon a founder’d chair in a spunging-house to procure my liberty. To this I should add, what unmerciful contributions I was forc’d out of my small revenue to pay to the conniving justices clerks, the constable, the beadle, the tallyman, but especially to those rascals the Reformers, whose business is not to convert, but only lay a heavier tax upon poor sinners, and make iniquity shift its habitation oftener than otherwise it would, I should never have done. In short, our condition, my lord is like a frontier people that live between two mighty monarchies, oppress’d, squeez’d, and plunder’d on all sides. By that time I was one and twenty, I could number more diseases than years, smoak and swear like a grenadier; and last Bartholomew fair, having made a debauch in stumm’d claret and Dr. Stevens’s water, with an attorney’s clerk, a fever seiz’d me next morning, and tript up my heels in three days. How I was buried, that is to say, whether by the contributions of the sister-hood or at the charge of the parish, I cannot tell; but this, my lord, is a short and faithful account of my life, and now I submit myself to the justice of this honourable court. I will not pretend to vindicate my profession, but this I may venture to affirm, that the world cannot live without us, and that a whore in the business of love, is like farthings in the business of trade, which (tho’ they are not the legal coin of the nation) ought to be allow’d and tolerated, if it were only for the conveniency of ready change. Well, says my lord, since ’tis so, and your calling expos’d you to so much suffering, I hope you made your gallants pay for it? That you may be sure I did, answers our damsel, I sold my maidenhead to fifteen several customers, by the same token seven of them were Jews, and it pleases me to think how I cheated those loggerheads in their own Mosaical indications. I never parted with any of my favours, nay, not so much as a clap gratis, except a lieutenant and ensign whom once I admitted upon trust, by the same token they built a sconce, and left me in the lurch. I always took care to secure my money first; tho’ those ungracious vipers of the army would rifle me now and then in spite of all my precaution: for my lord, we whores are like the sea, what we gain in one place we lose in another. Take her away, says my lord Minos, take her away, see her fairly dipt every morning for this twelvemonth over head and ears in good wholesome brimstone: to be both merchant and merchandize, to sell her self for money and yet expect pleasure for it, is worse exaction than was ever practised in Lombard-street or Cornhil.
Our Drury-lane nymph was no sooner carried off, but the soldier advanced forward, and thus told his tale: My lord, you are not to expect a fine speech from me, I am a soldier, and we soldiers are men of action, and not of words. I was a barber’s prentice in the strand, liv’d with him five years, got his maid with child, beat his wife for pretending to reprove me, had run on score at all the painted lattices in the neighbour-hood, and my circumstances being such, was easily persuaded to turn gentleman-soldier. My captain promis’d to make me a serjeant the very moment after I was listed, but he serv’d me just as he did his creditors, whom, to my certain knowledge, he left in the lurch. Well, my lord, I follow’d him to Flanders, where I stood buff to death and damnation four campaigns, sometimes for a groat, sometimes for nothing a-day. Had I more sins to answer for than either the colonel or agent of our regiment, I have bustled thro’ misery enough to wipe out all my scores, curtail’d of my pay to keep a double-chinn’d chaplain, who never preach’d among us, and maintain an hospital, where I could never expect to be admitted without bribery; forc’d for want of subsistence to steal offal, which an hungry dog would piss upon, and if discover’d sure to be rewarded with the wooden-horse, and lest the unweildy beast shou’d throw me, secur’d by a brace of musquets dangling on my heels; to lie up to the chin in water for preventing of rheumatisms, and smoak wholesome dock-leaves to prevent being dunn’d by my stomach; drubb’d and can’d without any provocation, by a smooth-fac’d prig, who t’other day was a pimp, or something worse to a nobleman; never sure of one hour’s rest in the night, never certain of a meal’s meat in the day; harass’d with perpetual marches and counter marches; roasted all the summer, and frozen all the winter; cheated by my officer, cuckolded by my comrades. These, my lord, were the blessings of my life, and if ever I could muster up pence enough to purchase a single pint of Geneva, I thought myself in my kingdom. Last summer I was one of the noble adventurers that went in the expedition to Cadiz, and having secur’d a little linen to myself at Fort St. Mary’s in order to make me a few shirts when I came home, and rubb’d off with two insignificant silver puppets (I think they call them saints) out of a church, the superior commander seiz’d upon them for his own private use, in her majesty’s name, and legally plunder’d me of what I had as legally stolen from the enemy. This and a thousand other disappointments, together with change of climates and other inconveniences, threw such a damp upon my spirits, that within three days after I landed at Portsmouth, I fell ill, and was glad to part with a wretched life, which had given me so much vexation and so little satisfaction. Thus my lord, I have honestly laid all before you, so let the court sentence me as they please. Why really, says the judge, thy case is hard enough, and I must needs say thou dost not want any new weight to be laid upon thee; and so immediately acquitted him, ordering him to be set at liberty without paying of fees.
Finding justice impartially administered in Hell, you may perhaps have the curiosity, gentlemen, to enquire what sort of reception my lord Double of Turn-about-hall found among us upon his arrival into these dominions. I must tell you then, that to the universal admiration of our infernal world, my lord is become Pluto’s great favourite, so that nothing almost is transacted here without his advice and direction. Every body indeed expected, that his lordship who changed his religion on purpose to delude the unhappy prince, whose prime confident he was, and at the same time kept a private correspondence with his enemy in Holland, would have found an entertainment suitable to his deserts, been loaded with chains, and regaled with liquid sulphur; but hitherto he has either had the good luck, or management, to avoid it. A sudden gust of wind had blown away the fan from the top of Pluto’s kitchin, that very afternoon he came here. Our monarch was first in the mind to clap his lordship’s breech upon the iron-spike, and make a weathercock of him (the only thing he was fit for) that with every whiff of brimstone he might tell where damnation sate. Soon after he was of opinion to make a light-match of him to use upon occasion, whenever he had any empire or kingdom to blow up. But at last carefully considering his face, and the majesty of his gate, he made him his taylor, and to say the truth, nobody knows the dimensions of his Luciferian majesty better than his lordship: and as it often happens in your world for noblemen to be govern’d by their taylors or peruke-makers, so my lord in his present capacity of taylor orders every thing at court, puts in and displaces whom he pleases, and possesses Pluto’s ear to that degree, that happening to be in company last week with Aaron Smith, Col. Wildman, Slingsby Bethel, C—rn—sh, and others of the same kidney, who heartily wish the prosperity of old Hell, they gravely shook their heads, and said they were afraid their master Pluto’s government would not long continue, since he had got a viper in his bosom, and a traytor in his cabinet, who would not fail to conjure up some neighbouring prince against him to dispossess him of his antient throne. Indeed ’tis prodigious to consider how this dissembler has wriggled himself into the good opinion not only of our sovereign, but even of queen Proserpine. About a month ago he had interest enough to get my late lord Sh—ft—ry, released out of the dungeon, where he has been confined ever since his coming here, and made him administrator of the Clyster-Pipe to Pluto, for this merry reason, because he had always a good hand at striking at fundamentals. That old libidinous civilian of the Commons, Dr. Littleton, he has made judge admiral of the Stygian lake, and the famous Mr. Alsop, who wished in his address to king James, that the dissenters had casements to their breasts, he has got to be the devil’s glazier; nay, what will more surprize you, he has procur’d the reversion of master of Pluto’s rough game, when it falls, for Dr. Oates; and obtain’d a promise of candle-snuffer-general to all the gaming-houses in these quarters, for honest George Porter the evidence.
TImothy Addlepate, of Cheapside, Milliner, was so wonderfully afflicted with the Zelotypia Italica, that he constantly lock’d up his simpering red-hair’d spouse, when business call’d him abroad, and would hardly trust her with her aunt or grandmother. By rectifying his constitution with my true Covent-Garden Elixir, he is so intirely cured of the Icterus Martialis, or his old yellow distemper that now of his own accord he carries her to the play-house, sends her to all the balls, masquerades, and merry meetings in town; nay, trusts her alone at Epsom-Wells and Richmond, and will let her sit a whole afternoon with a gay smooth-fac’d officer of the guards at the tavern, and is never disturbed at it.
Jethro Lumm, at the sign of the Blue-ball and Spotted-horse, between a Cheesemonger’s and Perfumer’s shops in Ratcliff-high-way, by taking a few doses of my Pulvis Vermifugus, or my Antiverminous Powder, voided above 30000 worms of all sorts, as your Ascarides, Teretes, Hirudines, and so forth, in the space of 12 hours, one of which, by modest computation, was supposed long enough to reach from St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, to Tottenham high cross. I confess my medicine is a little bitter; but what says the learned Arabian philosopher Hamet Ben Hamet Ben Haddu Albumazar, A diadem will not cure the Apoplexy, nor a velvet slipper the Gout: And are not all the Antients as well as Neotorics agreed, that raro corpus sine vermibus. Therefore, my good friends, be advis’d in time.
Ezekiel Driver of Puddle-dock, Carman, having disordered his Pia mater with too plentiful a morning’s draught of three-threads and old Pharaoh, had the misfortune to have his car run over him. The whole street concluded him as good as dead, and the over-forward clerk of the parish had already set him down in the weekly-bills. Two applications of my Unguentum Traumaticum set him immediately to rights, and now he is coachman in ordinary to a Tallyman’s fat widow in Soho. Witness his hand E. D.
Elnathan Ogle, Anabaptist-teacher in Morefields over-against the Grasshopper and Greyhound, for want of being carefully rubb’d down by the pious females after his sudorifick exercise, had got the grease in his heels, and was so violently troubled with rheumatical pains, that he was no longer able to lay out himself for the benefit of his congregation. My Emplastrum Anodynum so effectually reliev’d him by twice using of it, that he has since shifted his profession, teaches the youth of Finsbury-fields to play at back-sword and quarter-staff, and has turn’d his conventicle in-for a fencing-school.
Marmaduke Thummington, at the Red-cow and 3 Travellers in Barbican, was possess’d with an obstreperous ill condition’d devil of a wife, whose everlasting clack incessantly thundering in his ears, had made him as deaf as a drum. His case was so lamentable, that a demiculverin shot over his head affected him no more than it would a man 20 miles off; he was insensible to all the betting and swearing of the loudest cock-match, that ever was fought by two contending counties; nay, at one of Mr. Bays’s fighting plays, would sit you as unconcern’d, as if he had been at a Quakers silent meeting. After all your Elmys, and other pretenders had despair’d of him, I undertook his cure, and with a few of my Otacoustical drops have so intirely recover’d him, that the society of Reformers have made him their chief director, and his hearing is so strangely improved, that at an eaves-dropping at a window, he can hear oaths that were never sworn, and bawdy that was never spoke.
Richard Bentlesworth, superintendent of a small grammar-elaboratory, in the out-skirts of the town, was so monstrously over-run with the Scorbuticum Pedanticum, that he used to dumfound his milk-woman with strange stories of gerunds and participles; would decline you domus in a cellar in the Strand before a parcel of chimney-sweepers, and confute Schioppius and Alvarez to the old wall-ey’d matron, that sold him grey pease. Tho’ this strange distemper, when once it has got full possession of a man, is as hard to be cured as an hereditary-pox, yet I have absolutely recovered him; so that now he troubles the publick no more with any of his Dutch-Latin dissertations; but is as quiet an author as ever was neglected by all the town, or buried in Little-Britain.
Timothy Gimcrack, doctor of the noble cockle-shell-fraternity, whose philosophy and learning lay so much under ground, that he had nothing of either to show above it, used to be troubled with strange unaccountable fits, and during the paroxism, would contrive new worlds, as boys build houses of cards, find a thousand faults with old Moses, make a hasty pudding of the universe, and drown it in a Menstruum of his own inventing, and leave the best patient in the city, for a new gay-coated butterfly. I took out his brains, washed them in my Aqua Intellectualis, and if has since relaps’d, who may he thank, but his cursed East-India correspondent, who addled his understanding a-new, with sending him the furniture of a Chinese barber’s-shop.
Nehemiah Drowsy, grocer and deputy of his ward, was so prodigiously afflicted with a lethargy, that his whole life was little better than a dream. He would sleep even while he was giving the account of his own pedigree, how from leathern breeches and nothing in them, he came to the vast fortune he now possesses. Nay, over the pious spouse of his bosom he has been often found asleep in an exercise which keeps all other mortals awake. By following my sage directions he’s so wonderfully alter’d for the better, that after a full dinner of roast-beef and pudding he can listen to a dull sermon at Salters-Hall, without so much as one yawn; nay, can hear his apprentice read two entire pages of Wesley’s heroic poem, and never makes a nod all the while.