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
acknowledge, no less than the damnable sin of omission: you must know,
_gentlemen_, the chief of my business was to grave the _Lord’s-Prayer_
within the compass of a silver penny; but to tell you the truth, I never
thought of it but when I was at work, since my eyes were open, and ’tis
chiefly for that neglect I suffer this confinement.
Well, says _Bob Weeden_, for my part, now I have got a bowl of Punch
before me, and such good company, I would not give a nitt out of my
shirt-collar to return back to my old quarters upon earth, for that was
but a life full of extreams, and this can be no other; for there I was
always very drunk or very drowsy, surfeited or very hungry, generally
very poor and very pocky, afraid to walk the streets, and no money to
keep me within doors; thought very witty by fools, and by wise men very
wicked, was every body’s jester that wanted wit, and a blockhead to all
those that had it; dunn’d every where, and trusted no where; car’d not
for any body, and belov’d by no body: and what station on this side
death can be worse than such a miserable life? What signifies a little
hot weather, when a man’s assur’d it can’t endanger his health; nothing
can be subject to sickness but what is liable to death, and that period,
immortality is free from. Come then said I, if it be so, here’s a bumper
in memory of the cellar at the _Still_, and honest _Jack Ni----ls_ the
harper, count _C----ni----s_, captain _Wa-k-er_, and all the jolly
lads of our loving acquaintance, with a huzza. In this manner we spent
the evening as merrily as so many tars under the tropicks, over their
forfeitures, till at last we had the devil to pay with empty pockets:
but _Sam Scott_, who was the undertaker of the treat, having made his
coffin into a bass-viol, gave my landlady a lesson, two or three kisses,
and a few fair words, and prevailed with her to trust him for the
reckoning; so being all saluted with you’re welcome gentlemen, we all
arose like a company of coopers from our tubs and our rundlets, and went
away hooping for more liquor.
These are all the remarkable passages that at present I think worth
transmitting to you: so, hoping you will requite me after the like
manner with something that may be entertaining to a gentleman under my
warm circumstances; if it be an essay upon ice, or a treatise of the
sovereign efficacy of rock-water, it will be a very cooling satisfaction
to your parboil’d friend,
DAWSON.
_Mr._ HENRY W----’_s Answer to Bully_ DAWSON.
_Noble Captain and Commander in Chief of all the Cowards in
Christendom._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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