66 Ho! bring us tobacco, boys, Bring us long pipes again, And landlord replenish the bo-o-o-owl; With any good fellow, And drink him as drunk as an owl. Come here's hob and nob, my boys, The whilst the bells merrily ring: To-night drown all sorrow, So here's to the Church and the King. And he that declines the toast, Is not a Briton, boys, Now we're so jovial and free-e-e-e. Round-head or Cavalier, Such have no business here, Among such good fellows as we." Bravo, Tom, bravo," exclaimed Davenant. "An excellent impromptu," added Ingoldsby. Capital, very good," cried every one. 66 "And right to the purpose," said Nokes. "Now Tom, I revoke. The wit is not in the wig, but in the wine. Take my advice, Tom, never write again, play the Improvisatore; 'twill save a world of trouble, and as you contrive to be pretty equably drunk, you can carry on the war over the bottle, Live by the bottle, and die by the bowl.'" "Come, Master Nokes, let me have no more of your preachment from that text-hic-let it alone if you please, I've sung my song, now I shall call upon you, my boy, for a madrigal, or a ditty, or a story, or a toast, or what you please, only my drowsy shard, do not run us so hard upou the goose quill, because am I not a poet by trade, profession, or calling; and am I not going to offer my services, together with my nine old tits, to the manager there! Damme, I met my old master, old Prynne, the other day, and said I to him, your humble servant, Sir, hic-(hiccoughing) your humble-cum stumble master-hic." "Come, come, Tom, you are going it too fast," said Leigh. The rattle, as usual when he presided o'er the bowl, his wits would depend on the turn of a glass. He was now becoming non compos, yet after losing himself awhile, he would rally again and be drunk and sober by turns; until he brought himself up to an equable pitch, it were difficult to say whether he was drunk or sober. "I met old what's his name there, that puritanical old son of a W -e, who wrote his His-Histri-Histrio Mastix,* and blowed * Histrio Mastix; or, Player's Scourge. This work, written by Prynne, and published in 1633, was a most wanton, furious, and illiberal attack upon the drama, players, and all those who favoured them. He attacked the amusements of the elegant court of King Charles the First, in the same blind and illiberal spirit of the fanaticism of the times. He says that "Princes dancing in their own persons was the cause of their untimely ends. That our English ladies, shorn and frizzled madams, (such as Vandyke has represented them) had lost their modesty; that plays were the chief delight of the devil, and all who frequented them were damned." These last charitable reflections were aimed at the king and queen, who performed in those elegant masques, which were performed at Whitehall, written by Ben Jonson and others, with the music by Copperario, Laniere, and other celebrated composers, and exhibited with the scenery and decorations by Inigo Jones. His antipathy for music, is vented in terms no less unqualified. "Cathedral music," he compares to the up all you sons of Thespis. Well my old boy,' said I, 'how goes the times ?' and a reprobate, Tom,' said he, Thou art a sot thou wert a pro-pro-promising young man, and you had better have pursued your pursu―hic-pursuits.' Damme, Nokes, do you know that I said the best thing in the world to him. "Why did you not stick to the law?' said he. Its old barrister Prynne I am talking about, you dog. 'So I do governor,' said I, hic, I am always engaged at the bar. Fye, fye, Tom,' said the 6 66 The choristers bellow the bark a counterpart, like bleating of brute beasts. tenor, as if they were oxen; a kennel of hounds; roar a treble as if they were bulls; and grunt out a bass, like a parcel of hogs.” This book was considered so atrocious a libel, that it was adjudged to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, and its author was sentenced to be put from the bar, excluded from the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and degraded by the University of Oxford; to stand in the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, to lose an ear at each place; to be fined five thousand pounds, and to perpetual imprisonment. A cruel sentence, and, considering the zealotry of the times, more cruelly put in force to the very letter. old shaver. Damme, there's honesty about him, too. He tells people their own, and if every rascal-hic, hic-had his desert, there are rogues in this house, who'd have no more ears to shake than he. Is'nt it so, Master Nokes? Come give us your song, and let us take a glass of punch together. Hillo-you tapster boydrawer, what's your name-hic-come, replenish the bowl." At this moment who should enter but the two Killegrews, he the manager elect of the King's company, and his brother, who had lately come from Breda, in the suite of the King. "Ha-ha-ha-ha, replenish the bowl! Why my D'Urfey, hast been sitting there ever since? Ha-ha-ha, why, the last words I ever heard from my old friend Tom, were from that chair, and over that very bowl. I know it by the golden rivet-the mended fracture across the old mandarin. Why Tom, that is now two years since, within a day or two. Why, if the bibber has not been sitting at it from that hour to this! Well, and my D'Urfey, how wags the world with thee; and how do ye my worthies all ?" "What! my noble Killegrews!" exclaimed |
