If any pragmatic, to shew himself witty or eloquent, begin to talk high, presently the further tables are abandoned; and all the rest flock round, like smaller birds, to admire the gravity of the madge-howlet. They listen to him awhile with their mouths, and let their pipes go out, and coffee grow cold, for pure zeal of attention; but, on the sudden, fall all a yelping at once with more noise, but not half so much harmony, as a pack of beagles on the full cry. To still this bawling, up starts Capt. All-man-sir, the man of mouth, with a face as blustering as that of Æolus and his four sons, in painting; and in a voice louder than the speaking trumpet, he begins you the story of a sea-fight: and though he never were further, by water, than the Bear-garden, or Cuckold's-haven, yet, having pirated the names of ships and captains, he persuades you himself was present, and performed miracles; that he waded knee-deep in blood on the upper deck, and never thought to serenade his mistress so pleasant as the bullets whistling; how he stopped a vice-admiral of the enemy's under full sail, till she was boarded, with his single arm, instead of grappling-irons; and puffed out, with his breath, a fire-ship that fell foul on them. All this he relates, sitting in a cloud of smoke, and belching so many common oaths to vouch it, you can scarcely guess whether the real engagement, or his romancing account of it, be the more dreadful. However, he concludes with railing at the conduct of some eminent officers (that, perhaps, he never saw,) and protests, had they taken his advice at the council of war, not a sail had escaped us. * * * * * Next, signior Poll takes up the cudgels, that speaks nothing but designs, projects, intrigues, and experiments.... All the councils of the German diet, the Romish conclave, and Turkish divan, are well known to him. He kens all the cabals of the court to a hair's breadth, and (more than a hundred of us do) which lady is not painted: you would take his mouth for a lembeck,[6] it distils words so niggardly, as if he was loth to enrich you with lies, of which he has yet more plenty than Fox, Stowe, and Hollingshed bound up together. He tells you of a plot to let the lions loose in the Tower, and then blow it up with white powder; of five hundred and fifty Jesuits all mounted on dromedaries, seen by moonshine on Hampstead-heath; and a terrible design hatched by the College of Doway,[7] to drain the narrow seas, and bring popery over dry shod: besides, he had a thousand inventions dancing in his brain-pan; an advice-boat on the stocks, that shall go to the East Indies and come back again in a fortnight; a trick to march under water, and bore holes through the Dutch ships' keels with augres, and sink them, as they ride at anchor; and a most excellent pursuit to catch sun-beams, for making the ladies new-fashioned towers, that poets may no more be damned for telling lies about their curls and tresses.