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
immortality, grinning as you walk at the gaiety of youth, and snarling
in thy thoughts at those delights the weakness of thy age has put thee
past enjoying; pursuing only that pleasure, which tho’ thy youth made
vicious, is in age become thy support; that is, the bottle, which in thy
younger days was oft made nauseous by excess; but wise experience now
has taught thee sure to make the darling comfortable by a seasonable
moderation: methinks I see thee use it now with caution, as if you hop’d
by every glass you drank, to strengthen nature’s union, and keep your
soul and body still from separation.
The ghost of a comedian in these shades is but an useless piece of
immortality, for all the entertainments upon the stages of our infernal
theatres are very tragical, no smile, no merry looks, or monky gestures
us’d by your merry-andrews upon earth to provoke your listning audience
to a laughter, are fashionable in these parts. If you intend to come
among us, you must learn to howl, to grin, and gnash your teeth, unless
you can make yourself so compleat a philosopher as to laugh at your own
misery. Horror, darkness, and despair o’erspread the whole dominion, and
our tyrannical prince is never better pleas’d than when he sees his
subjects the most miserable. As for my part, as merry a representative
of some foolish plebeian as I was in the upper world, I cannot in these
melancholy grottos for the heart of me, frame so much as one chearful
conceit to mitigate those torments, which by virtue of our diabolical
laws are perpetually inflicted upon me: therefore those who betake
themselves to these regions ought to arm themselves with abundance of
resolution; for whoever flinches beneath their pains, do but encrease
their punishment, for which reason I advise you to consider what you
have to trust to, if your journey be downwards; and if you find it in
your power, to divert your coming hither with prayers and tears to
heaven, or else I must tell you in good earnest, you may jest on as I
did, till you die and be damn’d like your humble servant,
ANTHONY LEE.
CAVE UNDERHILL’_s Answer to_ TONY LEE.
_Honest Friend_ Tony,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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