His the old com Let me feel Show me your Open your the Patten-makers on the 9th of November, was attacked with a violent fit of indigestion. lady sent for the family doctor, a humorist, gentlemen. Ah!' cried Mr. Galen, plaint, a coagulation in the lungs. your pulse. In a high fever! tongue. Ay, as white as a curd. mouth wider, Mr. Deputy-you can open it wide enough sometimes!-wider still. Good heavens ! what do I see here ?-Oh! my stars!' screamed the Deputy's wife, What, my dear doctor, do you whose advantage had all these excesses been committed? Was their position raised? Were their grievances redressed, their wants alleviated? Did their yoke press lighter? Were they nearer the attainment of their (perhaps reasonable) wishes, by nobility and prelates cruelly slaughtered, palaces burned down, and the learning and works of art that humanise and soften rugged natures piled in one vast, indiscriminate ruin? If aught was won by these monstrous disorders, they were not the winners. The little aristocrats of cities, who have thrown their small weight into popular insurrections, may have had their vanity gratified and their maws temporarily crammed; but the masses, who do the rough work of resistance for their more cunning masters, are invariably the sufferers and dupes. Hard knocks and hanging have hitherto been their reward; and when these shall grow out of fashion, doubtless some equally agreeable substitute will be found. "It is not an obvious way (says Wyndham) for making the liquor more clear, to give a shake to the cask, and to bring up as much as possible from the parts nearest to the bottom." see? Why, madam, I see the leg of a turkey, and a tureen of oyster-sauce!'1 Ha ha ha!— gluttons all; gluttons all! "A pise on Benjamin Bosky! the cunning Laureat, having a visitation from sundry relatives of his cousin's wife's uncle's aunt's sister, hath enjoined me the penance, malgré moi-même ! of playing showman to them among the Lions of London. Now I have no antipathy to poor relations—your shabby genteel-provided that, while they eat and drink at my expense, they will not fail to contradict me stoutly when they think I am in the wrong; but your purse-proud, half-and-half, 2 1 When Justice Shallow invited Falstaff to dinner, he issued the following orders :-"Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook." This is a modest bill of fare. What says Massinger of City feasting in the olden time? "Men may talk of Country Christmasses, Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carp's tongue, Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts 2 A friend of Addison's borrowed a thousand pounds of him, which finding it inconvenient to repay, he never upon any occasion ventured to contradict him. One day the Brummagem gentlefolks, shabby, without being genteel!your pettifoggers in small talk and etiquette, that know everything and nothing listening to and retailing everybody's gossip, meddling with everybody's business,—and such are the Fubsys, Muffs, and Flumgartens, provocatives to my splenetic vein.” are sad His spirits rallied when the talk was of Chaucer, whose memory we drank in a cup of sack prepared, as mine host assured us, from a recipe that had belonged to the house as an heir-loom, time out of mind, and of which Dick Tarlton had often tasted. “Dick Tarlton, Uncle Timothy,—was not he one of the types of Merrie England ?” "A mad wag! His diminished nose was a peg upon which hung many an odd jest. His 'whereabouts' were hereabouts at the Bear Garden; but the Bull in Bishopsgate Street; the Bel-Savage, without Ludgate; and his own tavern, the Tabor, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, came in for a share of his drolleries. Marvellous must have been the humour of this allowed fool,' 6 hypocrisy became so offensively palpable, that Addison, losing all patience, exclaimed, "For heaven's sake contradict me, sir, or pay me my thousand pounds!" |