The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Fourth PartHead, Richard
General
The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Fourth Part
Head, Richard
Rogues and vagabonds -- England -- Fiction
legs there was not the least correspondency; for his hands were in a
continual motion being every minute imploy’d in cocking his Beaver upon
one side, but his legs moved so slowly and stately, that they seemed to
be offended at their slavish Office, showing their loathness by their
slowness to be Porters to a burden of so little worth. _Doll_ as she had
been conversant amongst the Gentry, so in her deportment she behaved her
self as well as any of the best education; but for _Jenny_ I could
hardly forbear laughing, to see how the proud _Minks_ would jut it as
she went, her Milking-Pail, and dragled tail, were clean out of her
remembrance, so was her being a _Motly-Wast-coteer_, there being not the
least track of her former condition discoverable, she resolved to make
others esteem of her by the value she did put on her self, not rating
her condition as she was the quondam off-spring of Curds and Cream, but
prizing it as one of Fortunes darlings, whom neither Cloaths nor Money
could make more splendid, and as for an haughty spirit now unmatchable;
I took upon me (as well I thought I might) to check her for giving six
hundred Crowns for a Locket, she smartly took me up, what said she
though I was born in the Ebb of Fortune, will you now intrench and wound
the liberty my better stars have conferred upon me? To be plain I will
not have my desires and pleasures circumscribed and taught me since I
have enough and will enjoy it. Sir if you once begin to be narrow
minded, you will be a Thief both to the esteem and enjoyment you may
have in the world, I will not be limited to please your fancy as for my
delights I will pursue them in what shapes I fancy both at home and
abroad, I will spare no cost that may engage wide mouth’d report to
proclaim the boundlessness of my pleasures and gallantry; all the Wits
of the City I will ingage with Sack and Money to write Panegyricks on my
Gaudy and Witty superfluities, not a _Cavaleero_ in _Naples_, but shall
vail his bonnet at my Balcony, and when I please the splendor of my
habit shall fix my Gazers as Statues in the place they stand. I thought
she was mad till she smilingly took me by the hand, saying you see
_Latroon_ I have a Soul as if Nobility had waited on my Cradle, however,
my will shall alwayes be in subordination to yours.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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