Part 29

The third rank, quainter than the former, presents us with the race of lusty vaulting gallants, that, instead of a French horse, practise upon their mistresses all the nimble tricks of vaulting, and are worthy to be made dukes for doing the somerset so lively. This nest of gallants, for the natural parts that are in them, are maintained by their drawn-work dames and their embroidered mistresses, and can dispend their two thousand a-year out of other men’s coffers; keep at every heel a man, beside a French lacquey (a great boy with a beard), and an English page, which fills up the place of an ingle:[612] they have their city-horse, which I may well term their stone-horse, or their horse upon the stones; for indeed the city being the lusty dame and mistress of the land, lays all her foundation upon good stone-work, and somebody pays well for’t where’er it lights, and might with less cost keep London Bridge in reparations every fall than mistress Bridget his wife; for women and bridges always lack mending, and what the advantage of one tide performs comes another tide presently and washes away. Those are your gentlemen gallants that seeth uppermost, and never lin[613] gallopping till they run over into the fire; so gloriously accoutred that they ravish the eyes of all wantons, and take them prisoners in their shops with a brisk suit of apparel; they strangle and choke more velvet in a deep-gathered hose[614] than would serve to line through my lord What-call-ye-him’s coach.

What need I infer[615] more of their prodigal glisterings and their spangled damnations, when these are arguments sufficient to shew the wealth of sin, and how rich the sons and heirs of Tartary[616] are? And are these so glorious, so flourishing, so brimful of golden Lucifers or light angels[617] and thou a pander and poor? a bawd and empty, apparelled in villanous packthread, in a wicked suit of coarse hop-bags, the wings[618] and skirts faced with the ruins of dishclouts? Fie, I shame to see thee dressed up so abominable scurvy! Complainest thou of bad doings, when there are harlots of all trades; and knaves of all languages? Knowest thou not that sin may be committed either in French, Dutch, Italian, or Spanish, and all after the English fashion? But thou excusest the negligence of thy practice by the last summer’s pestilence: alas, poor shark-gull[619] that put-off is idle! for sergeant Carbuncle, one of the plague’s chief officers, dares not venture within three yards of an harlot, because monsieur Drybone, the Frenchman, is a leiger[620] before him. At which speech the slave burst into a melancholy laugh, which shewed for all the world like a sad tragedy with a clown in’t; and thus began to reply:—I know not whether it be [a] cross or a curse, noble Philip of Phlegethon, or whether both, that I am forced to pink four ells of bag to make me a summer-suit; but I protest, what with this long vacation, and the fidging of gallants to Norfolk and up and down countries, Pierce was never so pennyless as poor lieutenant Prigbeard.

With those words he put me in mind of him for whom I chiefly changed myself into an officious constable, poor Pierce Pennyless: when presently I demanded of this lieutenant the place of his abode, and when he last heard of him (though I knew well enough both where to hear of him and find him); to which he made answer: Who, Pierce? honest Pennyless? he that writ the madcap’s _Supplication_? why, my very next neighbour, lying within three lean houses of me, at old mistress Silverpin’s, the only door-keeper[621] in Europe: why, we meet one another every term-time, and shake hands when the Exchequer opens; but when we open our hands, the devil of penny we can see.

With that I cheered up the drooping slave with the aqua-vitæ[622] of villany, and put him in excellent comfort of my damnable legacy; saying I would stuff him with so many wealthy instructions that he should excel even Pandarus himself, and go nine mile beyond him in pandarism, and from thenceforward he should never know a true rascal go under his red velvet slops,[623] and a gallant bawd indeed below her loose-bodied[624] satin.

This said, the slave hugged himself, and bussed the bawd for joy: when presently I left them in the midst of their wicked smack, and descended to my bill-men[625] that waited in the pernicious alley for me, their master constable. And marching forward to the third garden-house, there we knocked up the ghost of mistress Silverpin, who suddenly risse[626] out of two white sheets, and acted out of her tiring-house[627] window: but having understood who we were, and the authority of our office, she presently, even in her ghost’s apparel, unfolded the doors and gave me my free entrance; when in policy I charged the rest to stay and watch the house below, whilst I stumbled up two pair of stairs in the dark, but at last caught in mine eyes the sullen blaze of a melancholy lamp that burnt very tragically upon the narrow desk of a half bedstead, which descried[628] all the pitiful ruins throughout the whole chamber. The bare privities of the stone-walls were hid with two pieces of painted cloth,[629] but so ragged and tottered,[630] that one might have seen all nevertheless, hanging for all the world like the two men in chains between Mile-end and Hackney. The testern, or the shadow over the bed, was made of four ells of cobwebs, and a number of small spinner’s-ropes hung down for curtains: the spindle-shank spiders, which shew like great lechers with little legs, went stalking over his head as if they had been conning of _Tamburlaine_.[631] To conclude, there was many such sights to be seen, and all under a penny, beside the lamentable prospect of his hose[632] and doublet, which, being of old Kendal-green, fitly resembled a pitched field, upon which trampled many a lusty corporal. In this unfortunate tiring-house lay poor Pierce upon a pillow stuffed with horse-meat; the sheets smudged so dirtily, as if they had been stolen by night out of Saint Pulcher’s[633] churchyard when the sexton had left a grave open, and so laid the dead bodies wool-ward:[634] the coverlet was made of pieces a’ black cloth clapt together, such as was snatched off the rails in King’s-street at the queen’s funeral. Upon this miserable bed’s-head lay the old copy of his _Supplication_, in foul-written hand, which my black Knight of the Post conveyed to hell; which no sooner I entertained in my hand, but with the rattling and blabbing of the papers poor Pierce began to stretch and grate his nose against the hard pillow; when after a rouse or two, he muttered these reeling words between drunk and sober, that is, between sleeping and waking:—I should laugh, i’faith, if for all this I should prove a usurer before I die, and have never a penny now to set up withal. I would build a nunnery in Pict-hatch[635] here, and turn the walk in Paul’s[636] into a bowling alley: I would have the Thames leaded over, that they might play at cony-holes with the arches under London Bridge. Well (and with that he waked), the devil is mad knave still.

How now, Pierce? quoth I, dost thou call me knave to my face? Whereat the poor slave started up with his hair a-tiptoe; to whom by easy degrees I gently discovered myself; who, trembling like the treble of a lute under the heavy finger of a farmer’s daughter, craved pardon of my damnable excellence, and gave me my titles as freely as if he had known where all my lordships lay, and how many acres there were in Tartary.[637] But at the length, having recovered to be bold again, he unfolded all his bosom to me; told me that the Knight of Perjury had lately brought him a singed letter sent from a damned friend of his, which was thus directed as followeth,

_From Styx to Wood’s-close,

or

The Walk of Pict-hatch._

After I saw poor Pennyless grow so well acquainted with me, and so familiar with the villany of my humour, I unlocked my determinations, and laid open my intents; in particular[638] the cause of my uprising, being moved both with his penetrable petition and his insufferable poverty, and therefore changed my shape into a little wapper-eyed[639] constable, to wink and blink at small faults, and through the policy of searching, to find him out the better in his cleanly tabernacle; and therefore gave him encouragement now to be frolic, for the time was at hand, like a pickpurse, that Pierce should be called no more Pennyless, like the Mayor’s bench at Oxford,[640] but rather Pierce Pennyfist, because his palm shall be pawed with pence. This said, I bade him be resolved and get up to breakfast, whilst I went to gather my noise[641] of villains together, and made his lodging my convocation-house. With that, in a resulting humour, he called his hose[642] and doublet to him (which could almost go alone, borne like a hearse upon the legs of vermin), whilst I thumped down stairs with my cow-heel, embraced mistress Silverpin, and betook me to my bill-men;[643] when, in a twinkling, before them all, I leapt out of master constable’s night-gown into an usurer’s fusty furred jacket; whereat the watchmen staggered, and all their bills fell down in a swoon; when I walked close by them, laughing and coughing like a rotten-lunged usurer, to see what Italian faces they all made when they missed their constable, and saw the black gown of his office lie full in a puddle.

Well, away I scudded in the musty moth-eaten habit; and being upon Exchange-time, I crowded myself amongst merchants, poisoned all the Burse[644] in a minute, and turned their faiths and troths into curds and whey, making them swear that things now which they forswore when the quarters struck again; for I was present at the clapping up of every bargain, which did ne’er hold, no longer than they held hands together. There I heard news out of all countries, in all languages; how many villains[645] were in Spain, how many luxurs[646] in Italy, how many perjurds in France, and how many reel-pots in Germany. At last I met, at half-turn, one whom I had spent mine eyes so long for, an hoary money-master, that had been off and on some six-and-fifty years damned in his counting-house, for his only recreation was but to hop about the Burse before twelve, to hear what news from the Bank, and how many merchants were banqrout[647] the last change of the moon. This rammish penny-father[648] I rounded[649] in the left ear, winded in my intent, the place and hour; which no sooner he sucked in, but smiled upon me in French, and replied,— O mounsieur Diabla, I’ll be chief guest at your tabla! With that we shook hands, and, as we parted, I bade him bring master Cog-bill the scrivener along with him; and so I vanished out of that dressing.

And passing through Birchin-lane, amidst a camp-royal of hose and doublets (master Snip’s backside being turned where his face stood), I took excellent occasion to slip into a captain’s suit, a valiant buff doublet, stuffed with points[650] like a leg of mutton with parsley, and a pair of velvet slops[651] scored thick with lace, which ran round about the hose like ringworms, able to make a man scratch where it itched not. And thus accoutred, taking up my weapons a’ trust in the same order at the next cutler’s I came to, I marched to master Bezle’s ordinary, where I found a whole dozen of my damned crew, sweating as much at dice as many poor labourers do with the casting of ditches; when presently I set in a stake amongst them: round it went; but the crafty dice having peeped upon me once, knew who I was well enough, and would never have their little black eyes off a’ me all the while after. At last came my turn about, the dice quaking in my fist before I threw them; but when I yerked them forth, away they ran like Irish lacqueys[652] as far as their bones would suffer them, I sweeping up all the stakes that lay upon the table; whereat some stamped, others swore, the rest cursed, and all in general fretted to the gall that a new-comer, as they termed me, should gather in so many fifteens at the first vomit. Well, thus it passed on, the dice running as false as the drabs in Whitefriars; and when any one thought himself surest, in came I with a lurching cast, and made them all swear round again; but such gunpowder oaths they were, that I wonder how the ceiling held together without spitting mortar upon them. Zounds, captain, swore one to me, I think the devil be thy good lord and master. True, thought I, and thou his gentleman-usher. In conclusion, it fatted me better than twenty eighteenpence ordinaries,[653] to hear them rage, curse, and swear, like so many emperors of darkness. And all these twelve were of twelve several companies. There was your gallant extraordinary thief that keeps his college of good-fellows,[654] and will not fear to rob a lord in his coach for all his ten trencher-bearers on horseback; your deep-conceited cutpurse, who by the dexterity of his knife will draw out the money, and make a flame-coloured purse shew like the bottomless pit, but with never a soul in’t; your cheating bowler, that will bank false of purpose, and lose a game of twelvepence to purchase his partner twelve shillings in bets, and so share it after the play; your cheveril-gutted catchpoll, who like a horse-leech sucks gentlemen; and, in all, your twelve tribes of villany; who no sooner understood the quaint form of such an uncustomed legacy, but they all pawned their vicious golls[655] to meet there at the hour prefixed; and to confirm their resolution the more, each slipped down his stocking, baring his right knee, and so began to drink a health half as deep as mother Hubburd’s cellar,—she that was called in[656] for selling her working bottle-ale to bookbinders, and spurting the froth upon courtiers’ noses. To conclude, I was their only captain (for so they pleased to title me); and so they all risse,[657] _poculis manibusque_ applauding my news; then the hour being more than once and once reiterated, we were all at our hands again, and so departed.[658]

I could tell now that I was in many a second house in the city and suburbs afterward, where my entertainment was not barren, nor my welcome cheap or ordinary; and then how I walked in Paul’s[659] to see fashions, to dive into villanous meetings, pernicious plots, black humours, and a million of mischiefs, which are bred in that cathedral womb and born within less than forty weeks after. But some may object and say, What, doth the devil walk in Paul’s then? Why not, sir, as well as a sergeant, or a ruffian, or a murderer? May not the devil, I pray you, walk in Paul’s, as well as the horse[660] go a’ top of Paul’s? for I am sure I was not far from his keeper. Pooh, I doubt, where there is no doubt; for there is no true critic indeed that will carp at the devil.

Now the hour posted onward to accomplish the effects of my desire, to gorge every vice full of poison, that the soul might burst at the last, and vomit out herself upon blue cakes of brimstone. When returning home for the purpose, in my captain’s apparel of buff and velvet, I struck mine hostess into admiration at my proper[661] appearance, for my polt-foot[662] was helped out with bumbast; a property which many worldlings use whose toes are dead and rotten, and therefore so stuff out their shoes like the corners of woolpacks.

Well, into my tiring-house[663] I went, where I had scarce shifted myself into the apparel of my last will and testament, which was the habit of a covetous barn-cracking farmer, but all my striplings of perdition, my nephews of damnation, my kindred and alliance of villany and sharking, were ready before the hour to receive my bottomless blessing. When entering into a country night-gown, with a cap of sickness about my brows, I was led in between Pierce Pennyless and his hostess, like a feeble farmer ready to depart England and sail to the kingdom of Tartary;[664] who setting me down in a wicked chair, all my pernicious kinsfolks round about me, and the scrivener between my legs (for he loves always to sit in the devil’s cot-house), thus with a whey-countenance, short stops, and earthen dampish voice, the true counterfeits of a dying cullion,[665] I proceeded to the black order of my legacies.

_The last will and testament of Lawrence Lucifer, the old wealthy bachelor of Limbo,[666]

alias

Dick Devil-barn, the griping farmer of Kent._

In the name of Bezle-bub, Amen.

I, Lawrence Lucifer, alias Dick Devil-barn, sick in soul, but not in body, being in perfect health to wicked memory, do constitute and ordain this my last will and testament irrevocable, as long as the world shall be trampled on by villany.

_Imprimis_, I, Lawrence Lucifer, bequeath my soul to hell, and my body to the earth: amongst you all divide me, and share me equally, but with as much wrangling as you can, I pray; and it will be the better if you go to law for me.

As touching my worldly-wicked goods, I give and bequeath them in most villanous order following:

First, I constitute and ordain Lieutenant Prigbeard, archpander of England, my sole heir of all such lands, closes, and gaps as lie within the bounds of my gift; beside, I have certain houses, tenements, and withdrawing-rooms in Shoreditch, Tunbold-street,[667] Whitefriars, and Westminster, which I freely give and bequeath to the aforesaid lieutenant and the base heirs truly begot of his villanous body; with this proviso, that he sell none of the land when he lacks money, nor make away any of the houses, to impair and weaken the stock, no, not so much as to alter the property of any of them, which is, to make them honest against their wills, but to train and muster his wits upon the Mile-end of his mazzard,[668] rather to fortify the territories of Tunbold-street and enrich the county of Pict-hatch[669] with all his vicious endeavours, golden enticements, and damnable practices. And, lieutenant, thou must dive, as thou usest to do, into landed novices, who have only wit to be lickerish and no more, that so their tenants, trotting up to London with their quartridges, they may pay them the rent, but thou and thy college shall receive the money.

Let no young wriggle-eyed damosel, if her years have struck twelve once, be left unassaulted, but it must be thy office to lay hard siege to her honesty, and to try if the walls of her maidenhead may be scaled with a ladder of angels;[670] for one acre of such wenches will bring in more at year’s end than a hundred acres of the best harrowed land between Deptford and Dover. And take this for a note by the way,—you must never walk without your deuce or deuce-ace of drabs after your boot-heels; for when you are abroad, you know not what use you may have for them. And, lastly, if you be well-feed by some riotous gallant, you must practise, as indeed you do, to wind out a wanton velvet-cap and bodkin from the tangles of her shop, teaching her—you know how—to cast a cuckold’s mist before the eyes of her husband, which is, telling him she must see her cousin new-come to town, or that she goes to a woman’s labour,[671] when thou knowest well enough she goes to none but her own. And being set out of the shop, with her man afore her, to quench the jealousy of her husband, she, by thy instructions, shall turn the honest, simple fellow off at the next turning, and give him leave to see _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_,[672] or _A Woman killed with Kindness_,[673] when his mistress is going herself to the same murder. Thousand of such inventions, practices, and devices, I stuff thy trade withal, beside the luxurious[674] meetings at taverns, ten-pound suppers, and fifteen-pound reckonings, made up afterwards with riotous eggs and muscadine. All these female vomits and adulterous surfeits I give and bequeath to thee, which I hope thou wilt put in practice with all expedition after my decease; and to that end I ordain thee wholly and solely my only absolute, excellent, villanous heir.

_Item_, I give and bequeath to you, Gregory Gauntlet, high thief on horseback, all such sums of money that are nothing due to you, and to receive them in, whether the parties be willing to pay you or no. You need not make many words with them, but only these two, _Stand and deliver!_ and therefore a true thief cannot choose but be wise, because he is a man of so very few words.

I need not instruct you, I think, Gregory, about the politic searching of crafty carriers’ packs, or ripping up the bowels of wide boots and cloak-bags; I do not doubt but you have already exercised them all. But one thing I especially charge you of, the neglect of which makes many of your religion tender their winepipes at Tyburn at least three months before their day; that if you chance to rob a virtuous townsman on horseback, with his wife upon a pillion behind him, you presently speak them fair to walk a turn or two at one side, where, binding them both together, like man and wife, arm in arm very lovingly, be sure you tie them hard enough, for fear they break the bonds of matrimony, which, if it should fall out so, the matter would lie sore upon your necks the next sessions after, because your negligent tying was the cause of that breach between them.

Now, as for your Welsh hue and cry—the only net to catch thieves in—I know you avoid well enough, because you can shift both your beards and your towns well; but for your better disguising henceforward, I will fit you with a beard-maker of mine own, one that makes all the false hairs for my devils, and all the periwigs that are worn by old courtiers, who take it for a pride in their bald days to wear yellow curls on their foreheads, when one may almost see the sun go to bed through the chinks of their faces.

Moreover, Gregory, because I know thee toward enough, and thy arms full of feats, I make thee keeper of Combe Park,[675] sergeant of Salisbury Plain, warden of the standing-places, and lastly, constable of all heaths, holes, highways, and cony-groves, hoping that thou wilt execute these places and offices as truly as Derrick[676] will execute his place and office at Tyburn.

_Item_, I give and bequeath to thee, Dick Dogman, grand catchpoll—over and above thy barebone fees, that will scarce hang wicked flesh on thy back—all such lurches, gripes, and squeezes as may be wrung out by the fist of extortion.