Part 2 — From Bully Dawson to Bully W——

Confound you for a monumental Sluggard,

I HAVE been dead and damn’d these seven years, and left your talkative bulkiness behind me as the only fit person in the town to succeed me in blustring bravadoes and non-killing skirmishes; and you like a lazy hulk, whose stupendious magnitude is full big enough to load an elephant with lubberliness, to sot away your time in Mongo’s fumitory, among a parcel of old smoak-dry’d cadators, and not so much since my departure, as cut a link-boy over the pate, pink a hackney-coachman, or draw your sword upon a cripple, to fill the town with new rumours of your wonted bravery, and make the callow students of the wrangling society wag their unfledg’d chins over their pennyworths of Ninny Broth? adds fleshly-wounds, in what sheeps-head ordinary have you chew’d away the meridian altitude of your tygerantick stomach? and where squander’d away the tiresom minutes of your evening-leisure, over seal’d Winchesters of three-penny guzzle: that in all this time you have never exerted your hectorian talent, but keep your reputation mustying upon an old foundation, which is ready to sink, for want of being repair’d by some new notable atchievements.

Do you think the obsolete renown of cutting off a knight’s thumb in a duel, and keeping on’t in your pocket three weeks for a tobacco-stopper; lying with the French king in your travels, and kicking him out of bed for farting in his sleep; answering the challenge of a life-guardman for tearing a hole in his stocking with the chape of your sword when his jack-boots were on; gone where honour calls, behind Southampton walls: return by five, if alive, Hen. W——n. disarming three highwaymen upon the road with two-pence half-penny in your pocket, and letting them go upon their parole of honour; wearing a wig for ten years together without losing the curl or combing out one hair; taking a tyger by the tooth; and the Grand seignior by his whiskers; bearing an ensign in a mimick fight upon your atlantick shoulders; knocking a shiting porter down, when you were drunk, backwards into his own sir-reverence; your duel with Johannes in nubibus, in behalf of a lady you never set eyes on; your eating five shillings-worth of meat at a nine-penny ordinary, and at last treated by the man of the house to have no more of your custom; do you think these, or a hundred like antiquated exploits are sufficient to maintain the character of a stanch bully without new enterprizes? no, an old reputation is like an old house, which if not repaired often, must quickly fall of necessity to decay and will at last, by little, for want of new application, be totally obliterated.

Therefore, if ever you intend to be my rival in glory, you must fright a bailiff once a day, stand kick and cuff once a week, challenge some coward or other once a month, bilk your lodging once a quarter, and cheat a taylor once a year, crow over every coxcomb you meet with, and be sure you kick every jilt you bully into an open-legg’d submission and a compliance of treating you; never till then will the fame of W——n ring like Dawson’s in every coffee-house, or be the merry subject of every tavern tittle-tattle.

To let you know I am not like a cock or a bull-dog to lose my courage when I change my climate, I shall proceed to give you a very modest account of some of my bold undertakings in these diabolical confines, these damn’d dusky unsavory grottos, where altho’ there are whole rivers of brimstone for the convenient dipping of card-matches, yet if a man would give one ounce of immortality for so much of a rush-candle, ’tis as hard to be purchas’d upon the faith of a christian, as if you were to buy honey of a bear, or a stallion of a lascivious duchess, that wants frication more than she does money; so that at my first entrance into this damn’d dark cavern, I stagger’d about by guess, like some drunken son of a whore tumbled into a Newcastle cole-pit; and finding myself in this ugly condition, I could not forbear breathing a few curses out upon the place, which, by the lord of the territories, were thrown away as much in vain, as if I had carried lice to Newgate, or wish’d the people mad in Bedlam: as I thus blunder’d about like a beetle in a hollow tree, I happen’d to break my shins against a confounded poker, upon which I made a damnable swearing for a light, that I might see whereabouts I was, but to no purpose; I found I might as well have call’d upon Jupiter to have lent me his hand to have dragg’d me out of Pluto’s dominions. This sort of stumbling entertainment so provok’d my patience, that tho’ I knew I was under the devil’s jurisdiction, yet I could not tell, but like a debtor in a prison, or bully in a bawdy-house, I might fare the better for mutinying, so that I discharg’d such a volley of new-coin’d oaths, and made such damn’d roaring and raving, that the devils began to fear I should put hell in an uproar; upon this a couple of tatterdemalion hobgobblings, that look’d like a brace of scare-crows just flown out of a pease-field, seiz’d me by the shoulders and run me into the bilboes; confound you, said I, for a couple of hell-cats, what’s this for? For, crys one of the grim potentates, as saucily as a reforming constable, for your tumultuous noisy behaviour, why sure, you don’t think you are got into a bear-garden. Wounds, quoth I, thou talk’st as if the devil kept a conventicle; why hell at this rate is worse than a parliament-house, if a man mayn’t have the liberty of speech, especially when ’tis to redress his grievances.

Just as we were thus parlying, who should come by, but Bob Weden, jabbering to him self like a jack-daw in a cherry-tree that had lost his mate, I knew him by his hoarse voice, which sounded like the lowest note of a double courtel: who’s there, Bob, said I? Captain, says he, I am heartily glad to see you; yes, yes, I am that very drone of a bag-pipe, you may know me by my hum; I have got my quietus at last, and I thank my stars, by the help of rum and hot weather, have bilk’d all my English creditors. Why where the devil, said I, did you die then, that you give your creditors, the epithet of English? just over our head, says he, in that damn’d country Barbadoes, where my brains us’d to boil by the heat of the sun like a hasty-pudding in a sauce-pan; have been in a sweat ever since above seven months before I died; all the while I liv’d in that damn’d treacly colony, I fancied myself to be just like a live grig toss’d into a frying-pan; and now death, pox on him for a raw-head and bloody-bones, has toss’d me out of the frying-pan into the fire. Indeed, Bob, said I, I could wish myself in an ice-house heartily, for I have been in a kind of hectic fever ever since my admittance. Zounds, says he, ’tis so hot there’s no enduring on’t; its a country fit for nothing but a salamander to live in; if Abednego’s oven had been but half so hot, if any of them had come out without singing their garments, I’d have forsworn brandy to all eternity. Well but, prithee captain, how came your pedestals to be in this jeopardy? I told him the truth tho’ I was in a damn’d lying country, only for cursing and swearing a little. Oh! says he, you must have a great care of that for here are a parcel of whiggish devils lately climb’d into authority, who tho’ they were the forwardest of all the infernal host, in the rebellion against heaven, yet of late they pretend to such demurity as to form a society for the Regulation of Manners, tho’ themselves are a parcel of the wickedest spirits in all hell’s dominions; but however, have a little patience, I have a justice of peace hard by of my acquaintance, who tho’ he be one of their kidney as to matter of religion, yet I know he’ll be as drunk with burn’d brandy as a sow with hogwash; will bugger a Succubus when his lust’s predominant; and as for cursing and swearing, he’s more expert at it than a losing gamester, and if I meet him in a merry humour, I don’t doubt but to prevail.

Thus Bob left me for a few moments, and indeed had we been in a brandy-shop where we had had any thing to have paid, I should have much question’d his return; but being in a strange country, where friends are always glad to meet one another, and being free from the predicament of a reckoning, I had some hopes of his being as good as his word, which in the other world all his acquaintance knew as well as my self, he was never over careful to preserve.

During his absence, I had little else to do but to curse the country, and scratch my ears for want of liberty, which were terrified with the buzzing of a parcel of fanatical souls, who swarm’d as thick as bees at a Hampshire-farmers, some damning of doctor B——ges, others confounding of Timothy Cr—soe, some raving against Me—d of Stepney, others cursing of Salters-Hall, &c. as if the ready road to hell was to travel through Presbytery.

By this time my friend Bob was as good as his word, which was the first time I ever knew him so. Well, says he, you may see I am as sure as a Robin, I have got your discharge; but the justice swears, had you been confin’d for any thing besides whoring, drinking, and swearing, you should have been shackled and been damn’d before he’d ever have releas’d you; but however here’s a little Scribere cum dasho will set you at liberty; upon which we call’d the constable of the ward, who, upon sight of the discharge, freed my supporters from confinement, which was no sooner done, but with a reciprocal joy for my happy deliverance, we began a ramble together thro’ all the neighbouring avenues, in hopes to meet with something that might give us a little diversion; we had not travelled above an hundred yards, but who should we meet but the old snarling rogue that us’d to cry poor Jack, with his wife after him; he no sooner espy’d us, but attack’d us open-mouth’d after the following manner, Two sharpers without one penny of money in their pockets; a couple of bullies, and both cowards, ha, ha. Now for a fool with a full pocket, a good dinner on free-cost, a whore and a tavern, a belly-full of wine without paying for’t, ha, ha, ha, a hackney-coach for a bilk, or a brass-shilling, a long sword, never a shirt, White-Fryars i’th’ day time, a garret at night, ha, ha, ha, ha. Thus the old rascal run upon us as we pass’d by him, that we were both as glad when we were out of his reach, as a hen-peck’d cuckold that has shunn’d the hisses of that serpent he hugs every night in his bosom.

We had not gone twenty yards farther, scarce out of the reach of the noisy tongue of this railing peripatetick, but we met Bowman that kept the Dog-tavern in Drury-lane, whose first salutation was, Pox take you both for a couple of shammocking rascals, if it had not been for you and such others of your company, I had been a living man to this day, for you broke my tavern and that broke my heart. When I went off, besides book-debts never paid, but cross’d out and forgiven, I had as much chalk scored up in my bar, upon your account, as would have whitened the flesh of twenty calves at Rumford, or have cured half the town of the heart-burn, that never were satisfied to this day, and as certainly as you are both damn’d, I would arrest you here in the Devil’s name, but that ye know a foreign plea, or the statute of limitation are pleadable in defiance of me; and that whore my wife too, that used to open her sluice and let in an inundation of shabroons to gratify her concupiscence, she lent her helping buttock among ye to shove on my ruin; but if ever I catch the strumpet in these territories, I’ll sear up the bung-hole of her filthy firkin, but I’ll reward her for her bitching. Confound you, cries Bob, for a cuckoldy cydermonger; do not you know damnation pays every man’s scores, and tho’ we tick’d in the other world for subsistence, it was not with a design to cheat you or any body else, for we knew we should have the Devil to pay one time or other, and now you see, like honest men, we have pawned our souls for the whole reckoning, and so a fart for our creditors; you see we had rather be damn’d than not to make general satisfaction, and yet you are not satisfied. Why a man at this rate had better live in Newgate to eternity, than be thus plagued with creditors after his arse, to put him in mind of old scores wherever he travels; besides, ’tis against the law of humanity, for a man to be dunn’d for a domestick debt in a foreign country. Well, gentlemen, says he, I find you have not forgot your old principles; and so good by to ye. And thus, as old Nic would have it, we got rid of our second plague.

As we went from thence, turning down into a steep narrow lane, irregularly pav’d with rugged flints, like the bottom of a mountain in North-Wales, a damn’d greasy great fellow, with his hair thrust under a dirty night-cap, in a dimity-wastcoat and buff-breeches, with a hugh bucks-horn-handle-knife hanging by a silver-chain at his apron-strings, came puffing and blowing up the hill against us, like a crampus before a storm, sweating as if he had been doing the drudgery of Sisyphus, and coming near us he makes a halt, and looking me full in my face, gives a mannerly bow, and cries, Your servant noble captain: Friend, said I, I don’t know thee. Ah! master, said he, time was, when you condescended to eat many a sop in the pan in my poor kitchin; I kept the sign of the gridiron in Waterlane for many years together, but have been damn’d, the lord help me, above these nine months, for only cozening my customers with slink veal. I told him I was sorry for his condition, and hop’d I did not owe him any thing: No, worthy master, says he, not a farthing, for you never had more at a meal than a half-penny rowl, and I always, because you were a gentleman, allow’d you the benefit of my dripping-pan, and every time you came, you paid me for my bread very honestly. I did not much approve of the rogue’s memory, so bid him farewel: but my friend Weden, like a bantering dog, did so terrify my ears about my half-penny ordinary, that I had rather for the time been flung naked into a tuft of nettles.

As he was thus teazing me, who should we stumble upon but captain Swinny the Irishman; you cannot but imagine a very joyful congratulation pass’d between us: who had been stanch friends, such old and intimate acquaintance. No sooner was our salutation over, but we began to enquire as we us’d to do upon earth, into one another’s circumstances: upon which, says Swinny, By my soul and shalvation, I have got my good old lord here, that I us’d to procure and pimp for in t’other world; and as he gave me money upon earth to indulge him in his sins, and provide him whores to cool his lechery, now he’s damn’d for’t, like a grateful master, he allows me every day a dish of snapdragons to fetch him water from Styx, to cool his entrails. I think, says Bob, you were always very careful of your lord’s health, and never brought any thing to his embraces but unpenetrated maids, or very sound thorn-backs. By chriesh and shaint Patrick, ’tis very true, says he, for I always made my self his taster for fear he should be poison’d, and first took a sip of the cup to try whether the juice was good or no; and tho’ he was as great a wencher as any was in England, I’ll take my swear, excepting the gout, he’s come as sound a nobleman into hell, as has took leave of the other world these fifty years, and was so very bobborous two days ago, tho’ he’s near seventy, that he bid me look out for soft-handed she-devil to give him a little frication, and said nothing vex’d him but that he was damn’d among a parcel of spirits, with whom he could have no carnal copulation: well, gentlemen, I must loiter no longer, I am travelling in haste to Styx to fill my lord’s bottle, but all won’t cool his lechery, tho’ he be turn’d a perfect aquapote so, my dear joys, farewel.

We had not parted with him as many minutes a man may beget his likeness in, but who should we meet but Mumford the player, looking as pale as a ghost, falling forward as gently as a catterpillar cross a sicamore-leaf, gaping for a little air, like a sinner just come out of the powdering tub, crying out as he crept towards us, Oh my back! confound ’em for a pack of brimstones: Oh my back! how now, Sir Courtly, said I, what the devil makes thee in this pickle? Oh, gentlemen, says he, I am glad to see you, but I am troubled with such a weakness in my back, that it makes me bend like a superannuated fornicator: some strain, said I, got in the other world with overheaving your self. What’s matter how ’twas got, says he, can you tell me any thing that’s good for’t? yes, said I, get a good warm Girdle and tie round you, ’tis an excellent corroboratick to strengthen the loins; pox on you, says he, for a bantering dog how can a single girdle do me good, when a Brace was my destruction? I think, said I, you did die a martyr for a pair of penetrable whiskers, fell a bleeding sacrifice to a cloven tuft, that was glad, I believe, of your going out of the other world, as old Nic was of your coming into this, for I hear you kept the poor titmouse under such slavish subjection, that a peer of the realm, notwithstanding his honour, could not so much as come in to be brother-starling with you. Nay, some say you put an Italian security upon’t, purposely to indict any body for felony and burglary that should break open the lock. Pox confound you, says he, for a lyar, how can that be, when half the pit knows they had egress and regress when they pleas’d without any manner of obstruction? but tattling here won’t do my business, I must seek out Needham, Lower, or some other famous physician that may give me ease; so gentlemen, adieu to ye.

We had not gone much farther, but at the corner of a dirty lane we found a wondrous throng of attentive scoundrels, serenaded by a couple of ballad-singers, who stood in the middle of the tatter’d audience, with their hands under their ears, singing, With a rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, in and out, in and out ho: who should come limping by just in the interim, but Mr. Dryden the poet: there’s a delicious song for you, gentlemen, says he, there are luscious words wrapt up in clean linen for you; tho’ there is a very bawdy mystery in them, yet they are so intelligibly express’d, that a girl of ten years old may understand the meaning of them; my lord Rochester’s songs are mine arse to it: well my dear Love for Love, thou deservest to be poet laureat, were it only for the composure of this seraphick ditty, ’tis enough to put musick into the tail of an old woman of fourscore, and make a girl of fourteen to be as knowing in her own thoughts, as her parents that got her; oh, ’tis a song of wonderful instruction, of incomparable modesty, considering its meaning. Who should come puffing into the crowd in abundance of haste, with a face as red as a new pantile, but Nat Lee? Hark you, Nat, says Dryden, did you ever here such a feeling ballad in your life before? egad, the words steal so cunningly into ones veins, that nature will scarce be pacified till she has dropt some loose corns into one’s breeches. Foh, you old lecherous beast, says Nat Lee, here’s a song indeed for a poet-bays of your gravity to admire! I have heard twenty better under White-Fryars gate-way. You’re a mad man, says Dryden, you never understood a song in your life, nor any thing else, but jumbling the gods about, as if they were so many tapsters in a lumber-house. I’ll sing you a song, says Lee, worth fifty on’t that I made when I was in Bedlam, to be sung in my play, that had five and twenty acts in’t; now pray observe me, and your self shall be judge.

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.

As we were passing by the door of a little brandy-shop, who should be sitting upon an old worm-eaten bench, but Sam Scott the Fiddle-seller, and Will. Elder the graver, each with a huge Dutch pipe of infernal mundungus in their mouths smoaking for two penny-worth of anniseed-water. Sam. Scott had one while got the start of him, which Will Elder perceiving, exercised his lungs so very strenuously, that he overtook him at the last whiff, which they discharg’d with such remarkable exactness, that none of the standers by could undertake to decide the wager: when their pipes were out, we saluted one another with abundance of friendship, and Sam. Scott having an ascendency over the house, invited us to take part of a bowl of punch, and just as we were stepping in, who should come by but O——n P——ce that dy’d drunk at the Dog-tavern in the company of my friend Weden: mighty joyful we were to meet thus fortunately together; and to crown the happy juncture with an hour’s mirth, we stept into the little conveniency, every soul seating himself upon an empty rundlet like a godson of Bacchus, in order to receive the promis’d blessing: by that time we had every one ramm’d a full charge of sot-weed into our infernal guns, in order to fumify our immortalities, the scull of Goliah was brought in for a punch-bowl fill’d with such incomparable Heliconian juice, that six drops of it would make a man a better poet than either Shakespear or Ben. Johnson: by that time a cup or two were gone about to Pluto and my lady Proserpine, we began to fall into a merry inquisition about one another’s damnation: prithee Sam. Scott, said I, what the devil were you damn’d for? why, I’ll tell you, says Sam. I was found guilty of a couple of indictments, one was for consuming 975 papers of tobacco in six months, without any assistance, to the poisoning of many a ptisicky citizen about Temple-bar; and the other was smoaking my dog to death without any provocation. Come, Bob Weeden, said I ’tis your turn next, let us go round with it, prithee what charge did the hellish informers bring against you? To tell you the truth, says he, they prov’d me guilty of two great crimes too, one was for dealing by my friends very knavishly: and the other was for living by my wits very foolishly. Come, captain Dawson, says the company, what sort of conviction are you under? as for my part, gentlemen, said he, the chief thing that condemn’d me, was the sin of forgetfulness; ’twas only for bilking my lodging, and being so careless to leave my perriwig-come behind me. Well, neighbour P——ce, said I, what was it brought you into these territories? ’twas for living like a rake, says he, without money, and dying drunk in a tavern with twelve shillings in my pocket. Will. Elder being the last, we summ’d up our enquiry with his confession; truly says he, mine was a very great fault I must 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.