The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. IIBrown, Thomas
General
The works of Mr. Thomas Brown, serious and comical : in prose and verse, with his remains in four volumes compleat; vol. II
Brown, Thomas
English wit and humor -- Early works to 1800; Erotic literature -- Early works to 1800; Latin literature -- Translations into English
Well, says Mr. _Lee_, after he had ended his ditty, what think you now,
Mr. _Dryden_? Think, says he, what should I think? I think there is more
pretty tickling sort of wit in the very _chorus_ of the other, than
there is in all your piece of frantick trumpery. Thus we leave them
squabbling together, which song should have the preference, and so stept
forward.
We had not jogg’d on above a quarter of a mile further, but a parcel of
spirits in the shape of screech-owls came hovering over our heads,
crying out, _Make room, make room, for the chief pastor of the flock
will be here to night_. Think we, here’s some great guest or other a
coming; for my part I thought nothing less than an archbishop of
_C-n----y_: my friend _Bob_ was much of my opinion, and cry’d, there
was some fat priest coming in to pay his garnish, but who should it
prove at last but a dissenting doctor, trick’d up in a band and cloak,
and all the factious ornaments becoming a squeamish conscience, attended
with abundance of bald crowns and gray hairs, who came hobbling after
him like the old men of the _Charter-house_, behind their chaplain to
eleven a-clock prayers. My friend _Bob_ and I having both a curiosity to
know what _Don Prattlebox_ it was, enquir’d of a devil who had a
discerning countenance, if he knew who this new comer was? He answer’d
us ’twas doctor _Ma--th--w T--y--r_ of _Salters-hall_, and those that
attend him were some of his congregation, who were come in order to take
up lodgings for the rest, who would not be long after: Adsheart, says
_Bob_, they are the most faithful flock in the universe, for if their
shepherd comes to the devil, I see they will be sure to follow him,
whilst the churchmen are such a parcel of straying sheep, that tho’
their guides go to heaven themselves, they can perswade but very few of
their congregation to bear them company.
The next person that we met with as we were rambling about, was _Harry
Care_, the whiggish pamphleteer, who was stuff’d all over with papers as
thick as a buttock of beef with parsley, and coming near us, he ask’d
how long we had been in? Sir, said I, we are both but lately come from
the other world: pray gentlemen, says he, can you tell me how my old
friend Sir _Roger l’Estrange_ does, and whether you hear any thing of
his coming into these parts, for I am at a great loss for some body to
exercise my talent with? I left him very well, said I, but when he takes
leave of the upper world, whether he goes up hill or down hill to
eternity I can’t inform you. Sir, says he, your humble servant; and away
he troop’d and left us without further impertinence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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