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
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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
Being now near the city of Bath, where he had not long before made so
great a figure with his new married bride, he was resolved to visit it in
a very different shape and character; he therefore tied up one of his
legs behind him, and supplied its place with a wooden one, and putting on
a false beard, assumed the character of a poor old cripple. In this
disguise he had an opportunity of entertaining himself with the different
receptions he met with from every order of men now, from what he had done
before in his fine rich clothes. The rich, who before saluted him with
their hats and compliments, now spurned him out of their way; the
gamesters overlooked him, thinking he was no fish for their net; the
chairmen, instead of Please your honour, d---d him; and the pumpers, who
attentively marked his nod before, now denied him a glass of water. Many
of the clergy, those disciples of humility, looked upon him with a
supercilious brow; the ladies too, who had before strove who should be
his partner at the balls, could not bear the sight of so shocking a
creature: thus despised is poverty and rags, though sometimes the veil of
real merit; and thus caressed and flattered is finery, though perhaps a
covering for shame, poverty of soul, and abandoned profligacy. One
character alone vouchsafed to look upon this contemptible object; the
good man looked upon him with an eye melting into tenderness and soft
compassion, while at the same time the hand which was stretched out to
relieve him, showed the heart felt all the pangs which it supposed him to
feel. But, notwithstanding the almost general contempt, he raised very
considerable contributions; for, as some tossed him money out of pride,
others to get rid of his importunity, and a few, as above, out of a good
heart, it amounted to no small sum by the end of the season.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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