Opening the text

The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the AlmanacHone, William

History

The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

Name: The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3): Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac
Author: Hone, William

Hone, William

Days; Great Britain -- Social life and customs

I am like a man
    Finding a table furnish’d to his hand,
    (As mine is still for me), prays for the Founder,
    Bless the Right worshipful, the good Founder’s life:
    I thank him, he[67] has maintain’d my house these ten years;
    Not only keeps my Wife, but he keeps me.
    He gets me all my children, and pays the nurse
    Weekly or monthly, puts me to nothing,
    Rent, nor Church dues, not so much as the Scavenger;
    The happiest state that ever man was born to.
    I walk out in a morning, come to breakfast,
    Find excellent cheer, a good fire in winter;
    Look in my coal-house, about Midsummer eve,
    That’s full, five or six chaldron new laid up;
    Look in my back yard, I shall find a steeple
    Made up with Kentish faggots, which o’erlooks
    The water-house and the windmills. I say nothing,
    But smile, and pin the door. When she lies in,
    (As now she’s even upon the point of grunting),
    A Lady lies not in like her; there’s her imbossings,
    Embroiderings, spanglings, and I know not what,
    As if she lay with all the gaudy shops
    In Gresham’s Burse about her; then her restoratives,
    Able to set up a young ’Pothecary,
    And richly store the Foreman of a Drug shop;
    Her sugars by whole loaves, her wines by rundlets,
    I see these things, but like a happy man
    I pay for none at all, yet fools think it mine;
    I have the name, and in his gold I shine:
    And where some merchants would in soul kiss hell,
    To buy a paradise for their wives, and dye
    Their conscience in the blood of prodigal heirs,
    To deck their Night-piece; yet, all this being done,
    Eaten with jealousy to the inmost bone;
    These torments stand I freed of. I am as clear
    From jealousy of a wife, as from the charge.
    O two miraculous blessings! ’tis the Knight,
    Has ta’en that labour quite out of my hands.
    I may sit still, and play; he’s jealous for me,
    Watches her steps, sets spies. I live at ease.
    He has both the cost and torment; when the string
    Of his heart frets, I feed fat, laugh, or sing.

           *       *       *       *       *

    I’ll go bid Gossips[68] presently myself,
    That’s all the work I’ll do; nor need I stir,
    But that it is my pleasure to walk forth
    And air myself a little; I am tyed
    To nothing in this business; what I do
    Is merely recreation, not constraint.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Rescue from Bailiffs by the Watermen._

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.