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
his good cousin Betty, and also passed the night very merrily with her.
The next day he restored his borrowed accoutrements to cousin Betty, and,
calling for a pen and ink, wrote a petition in the character of a poor
unfortunate soap-boiler, whose house was set on fire by the carelessness
of an apprentice, in the parish of Monksilver, not forgetting to sign it
with the names of several neighbouring gentlemen. With this fictitious
petition he went to Justice Taylor’s, at Dembury, where he was handsomely
relieved: thence he went to Justice Neil’s, and finding upon inquiry the
justice himself was at home, he did not venture to deliver his petition,
but begged as an unfortunate man, and was relieved with a cup of cider,
and some bread and cheese. At Darlington he assumed the character of a
rat-catcher, and sold a receipt to a gentleman’s steward for a crown: and
under this character he travelled forward to Plymouth. Here, learning
that there was to be a great cock-match, he laid aside his rat-catcher’s
habit, and put on that of a gentleman, and not the habit only, as too
many do, but the manners and behaviour likewise. At the cock-match, he
betted several wagers with Sir Coventry Carew, and his own brother Mr.
Henry Carew, the minister of Saltash, which he had the good fortune to
win, and left the cock-pit undiscovered by any one. Thus great is the
power of dress, which transforms and metamorphoses the beggar into a
gentleman, and the cinder wench into a fine lady; therefore let not the
little great (I mean those who have nothing to recommend them but their
equipage) pride themselves as though they had something superior in them
to the poor wretch they spurn with so much contempt; for, let me tell
them, if we are apt to pay them respect, they are solely indebted for it
to the mercer and tailor; strip them of their gaudy plumes, and we shall
not be able to distinguish them from the lowest order of mumpers. This
puts us in mind of a remarkable adventure of our hero’s life, which he
always told with a great deal of pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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