Nature, which finds herself declining in me, is so greedy of new breath, that I gape as I crawl for the benefit of the fresh air, as if I was jaw-fallen, and those humming insects that are a pestiferous calamity this hot weather to all cooks-shops and sugar-bakers, are so unmannerly, that they fly over those few palisadoes of my breathing-hole that are left, and dung t’other side the pails, as if they took my mouth for a house of office; nay, sometimes in creeping along the length of a street, I have had my tongue so fly-blown, that had I not gone into a tavern and wash’d them off with a pint of canary, I don’t know, but my whole head might have been as full of maggots in a little time, as a sheep’s arse at _Midsummer_. I find the greatest curse of my old age is, my desire surviving my capacity, for I protest, my inclinations are as youthful as ever, tho’ my ability is quite superannuated. I am just now entring into a fit of the gout, which so terrifies me, that I pray one half minute, and curse the other, like a true bred seaman in a storm, therefore am forc’d to break off, blood and wounds, abruptly. _So farewel_, CAVE UNDERHILL. _From Alderman_ BLACKWELL _to Sir_ CHARLES DUNCOMBE. Hearing what a noisy reputation you have acquir’d within the walls of _England_’s metropolis, and what a popular rumble your politick generosity makes over the heads of us, out of whose ruins you have, true citizen like, erected your own welfare, I could no longer forbear putting you in mind of some of your former managements, left some rakehelly rhime-tagger or other, should flatter you to believe you have honesty and integrity enough to qualify you for a bishop; I took you a meer bumkin, and taught you your trade for a basket of turky-eggs, and therefore it highly concerns your prudence to consider the obligation you lie under of carrying yourself to the world with all humility, tho’ aspir’d to the very pinnacle of prosperity, since the first cause of your advancement dropp’d out of the fundament of a turkey: the eggs, as an argument of their being new laid, I remember were besmeared with excrementitious tokens of good luck, which make me fancy, when I received them, they were beshitten omens of your future fortune, in whose behalf they were presented me. Birds have often shew’d their tenderness and compassion to mankind: eagles have preserv’d infants in their nests, who have afterwards become singularly prosperous in the ages they have liv’d in. _Sappho_ rais’d himself to the reputation of a God among the _Persians_ by parrots, and yourself to the grandeur of an alderman by your mother’s hen turkies: for in all wonderful effects the leading cause ought to be reverenc’d and respected.