The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty ExtravagantHead, Richard
General
The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant
Head, Richard
Rogues and vagabonds -- England -- Fiction
After I had been there awhile, the Cloud of their smoak was somewhat
dissipated, so that I could discern two more in my own condemnation: but
alas poor Sheep, they ne’re considered where they were going, it was
enough for them to be freed from a seven years Apprenticeship, under the
Tyranny of a rigid Master (as they judged it, coming but lately from
sucking the breasts of a too indulgent Mother) and not weighing (as I
know not how they should) the slavery they must undergo for five years,
amongst Brutes in foreign parts, little inferior to that which they
suffer who are _Gally-slaves_. There was little discourse amongst them,
but the pleasantness of the soyl of that Continent we were designed for,
(out of a design to make us swallow their gilded Pills of Ruine) & the
temperature of the Air, the plenty of Fowl and Fish of all sorts; the
little labour that is performed or expected having so little trouble in
it, that it rather may be accounted a pastime than any thing of
punishment; and then to sweeten us on the farther, they insisted on the
pliant loving natures of the Women there; all which they used as baits
to catch us silly Gudgeons. As for my own part, I said but little but
what tended to the approbation of what they said.
* * * * *
For all my aim (as I related before) was to understand the drift of this
Rogue, and then endeavour to get what I could from him. By this time
supper was talkt of by our Masters; so choice they were in their dyet,
that they could not agree what to have. At last one stands up, and
proclaiming silence, said, that a Dish of Bruiss was the most _Princely
Dish_ of any. And to tell you truly, by his looks, I thought he had been
begot just as his Mother had put a Sop into her mouth, of that
Stomach-murdering stuff, the grease running about her chops, which
pleasing her fancy, struck so deep an impression in the imagination upon
her conception, that the face of that thing she brought forth, lookt
much like a _Toast_ soaking in a Cooks _Dripping-pan_.
That he might perswade the rest this way to indulge his appetite, he
added farther, that it was a Dish would not be expensive, and soon
ready. My Landlady to back him on, said, she had some skimmings of the
pot, which she had been collecting these three moneths, some whereof she
questioned not but to procure, and let her alone to order it so, that we
should say we never had a better Dish aboard in our lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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