The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars: Containing his Life, a Dictionary of the Cant Language, and many Entertaining Particulars of that Extraordinary ManUnknown
General
The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew, King of the Beggars: Containing his Life, a Dictionary of the Cant Language, and many Entertaining Particulars of that Extraordinary Man
Our lovers began to be at length weary of the same repeated rounds of
pleasure at Bath, for at that time the wit of man had not reached so high
as the invention of that most charming, entertaining, never-cloying
diversion, called E, O, which seems to have been reserved among the
secrets of fate to do honour to the present age; for upon the nicest
scrutiny, we are quite convinced it is entirely new, and cannot find the
least traces of its being borrowed from any nation under the sun; for,
though we have with great pains and labour inquired into all the games
and diversions of the ancients; though we have followed untutored Indians
through all their revels, and though we have accurately examined into the
dull pleasures of the uncouth Hottentots; yet in all these we find either
some marks of ingenuity to exercise and refresh the mind, or something of
labour to invigorate the body;—we therefore could not avoid interrupting
our history, to do honour to this truly interesting and original game.
Our lovers having left Bath, visited next the city of Bristol, where they
stayed some time, and caused more speculation there than they had before
done at Bath, and did as much damage to that city as the famous Lucullus
did at Rome, on his return from his victorious expedition; we have some
reason to think they first introduced the love of dress among those plain
and frugal citizens. After some stay here, they made a tour through
Somerset and Dorset to Hampshire, where they paid a visit to an uncle of
our hero’s living then at Dorchester, near Gosport, who was a clergyman
of distinguished merit and character; here they were received with great
politeness and hospitality, and abode a considerable time.
His uncle took this opportunity of making use of every argument to
persuade him to quit the community of the gipseys; but our hero was so
thoroughly fixed in his principles, that even that argument which
oftentimes convinces patriots in a few hours, that all they said and did
before was wrong, that kings have a divine right to grind the faces of
their subjects, and that power which lays its iron hand on Nabal’s goodly
vineyard, and says, “This is mine, for so I will,” is preferable to
heavenly liberty, which says to every man, “Possess what is thine own,
reap what thou hast sown, gather what thou hast planted, eat, drink, and
lie down secure;” even this powerful argument had no effect upon our
hero; for, though his uncle made him very lucrative offers for the
present, and future promises of making him heir of all his possessions,
yet remembering his engagements with the gipseys, he rejected them all;
and reflecting that he had long lived useless to that community, he began
to prepare for his departure from his uncle’s, in order to make some
incursions on the enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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