He cheats young gulls that are newly come to town; and when the keeper
of the ordinary blames him for it he answers him in his own profession,
that a woodcock must be plucked ere he be dressed. He is a supervisor to
brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice than prentices
on Shrove-Tuesday. He loves his friend as a counsellor at law loves the
velvet breeches he was first made barrister in, he will be sure to wear
him threadbare ere he forsake him. He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe in his
mouth; and his first prayer in the morning is he may remember whom he
fell out with over night. Soldier he is none, for he cannot distinguish
between onion-seed and gunpowder; if he have worn it in his hollow tooth
for the toothache and so come to the knowledge of it, that is all. The
tenure by which he holds his means is an estate at will, and that's
borrowing. Landlords have but four quarter-days, but he three hundred
and odd. He keeps very good company, yet is a man of no reckoning; and
when he goes not drunk to bed he is very sick next morning. He commonly
dies like Anacreon, with a grape in his throat; or Hercules, with fire
in his marrow. And I have heard of some that have escaped hanging begged
for anatomies, only to deter man from taking tobacco.
A DRUNKEN DUTCHMAN RESIDENT IN ENGLAND
Is but a quarter-master with his wife. He stinks of butter as if he were
anointed all over for the itch. Let him come over never so lean, and
plant him but one month near the brew-houses in St Catherine's, and he
will be puffed up to your hand like a bloat herring.
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