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
_Our young Extravagant Cheats his Father of more money by receiving
Rent; which being spent, he returned home; and his Mother refusing to
give him what money he desired, she being on Horseback behind him, he
threatens to throw her into the water, and so he obtains it of her.
The Old man dies, and he prosecutes his extravagancies upon Watermen,
Coach-men and a poor Pudding; he also puts a trick upon a Barber; and
plays a fine freack at a Coffee-house; and being Poetical, makes
Verses on Canary._
By this Project our young man escaped the correction his Father intended
him; and not only so, but his Mother now looking on him, as one twice
risen from the dead, was so foolishly fond, as to hug and embrace him;
all this he took in good part, as knowing this fond humour of his
Mothers would turn to his advantage; for he having now put her twice to
this fright, she was fearful that the third time would prove fatal in
earnest; wherefore she now supplied him with Moneys to excess; and he
spent it as Prodigally, as he came by it lightly. But the good old man
keeping her short, her stock was not large enough to supply him in all
his excesses, and then the Old man led a weary life with his wife, till
she procured him to give her Son, who was now fifteen years of age, a
certain allowance: he demanded fifty pound a year, besides his Diet; but
this the old man said was unreasonable; and he alledged, it would be
more to the profit of his Son, and himself both, to put him out to be an
Apprentice to a good Trade; but neither the Mother nor Son would give
any hearing to this Proposition; but in answer to it, the Mother said
what, and have I but one Child, and must he be made a Servant? I scorn
it; sure you intend to make somebody else your Heir, some Bastards that
you have abroad, or else you would not offer to desire or think that
your only Son and Heir should be an Apprentice and make clean Shooes,
and sweep the Stret-doors; have I bred him up to this? Thus did the
Woman answer her Husband, and so put him by from ever making any more
such offers; and she alledging that her Son was now man enough to manage
an Estate of five hundred pound _per annum_; and that therefore his
Father might do well to intrust him with fifty pound _per annum_; but he
still alledging it was too much, and it would spoil him; at last, after
a long contest, forty pound _per annum_ was agreed on: The Old man now
intending thus much for his Son, gave him two Acquittances to go to two
of his Tenants to receive five pound a piece of them, it being their
last Quarters Rent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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