DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0506
456 MEMOIRS OF NATHANIEL BENTLEY, ESS.
“ Behold how whistling winds and driving rain,
Gain free admission at each broken pane,
Save where the dingy tenant keeps them out
With urn or tray, knife-case, or dirty clout !
Here snuffers, waiters, patent screws for corks ;
There castors, card-racks, cheese-trays, knives and forks I
Here empty cases pil’d in heaps on high ;
There packthread, papers, rope, in wild disorder lie.
“ O say, thou enemy to, soap and towels !'
Hast no compassion lurking in thy bowels ?
Think what the neighbours suffer by thy whim,
Of keeping self and house in such a trim ?
The officers of health should view the scene,
And put thy shop and thee in quarantine.
Consider thou, in summer’s ardent heat,
When various means are tried to cool the street,
What must each decent neighbour suffer then
Brom noxious vapours issuing from thy den.
When fell Disease, with all her horrid train,.
Spreads her dark pinions o’er ill-fated Spain,
That Britain may not witness such a scene,
Behoves us doubly'now to keep our dwellings cleats.
“ Say, if within the street where thou dost dwells
Each house were kept exactly like thy cell ;
O say, thou enemy to brooms and mops I
How long thy neighbours could keep open shops,.
If following thee in taste, each wretched elf,
Unshav’d, unwash’d, and squalid like thyself,
Resolv’d to live?—The answer’s very plain,
One year would be the utmost of their reign :
Victims to filth, each vot’ry soon would fall,
And one grand jail distemper kill them all.
w Persons there are, who say thou hast been seen
(Some years ago) with hands and face wash’d clean j
And would'st thou quit this .most unseemly plan,
Thou art (’tis said) a very comely man ?
Of polish’d language, partial to the fair,
Then why not wash thy face, and comb, thy matted hair 5
Clear from thy house accumulated dirt,
^eyy paint the front, and wear a cleaner shirt.”
SlNGVLAB
“ Behold how whistling winds and driving rain,
Gain free admission at each broken pane,
Save where the dingy tenant keeps them out
With urn or tray, knife-case, or dirty clout !
Here snuffers, waiters, patent screws for corks ;
There castors, card-racks, cheese-trays, knives and forks I
Here empty cases pil’d in heaps on high ;
There packthread, papers, rope, in wild disorder lie.
“ O say, thou enemy to, soap and towels !'
Hast no compassion lurking in thy bowels ?
Think what the neighbours suffer by thy whim,
Of keeping self and house in such a trim ?
The officers of health should view the scene,
And put thy shop and thee in quarantine.
Consider thou, in summer’s ardent heat,
When various means are tried to cool the street,
What must each decent neighbour suffer then
Brom noxious vapours issuing from thy den.
When fell Disease, with all her horrid train,.
Spreads her dark pinions o’er ill-fated Spain,
That Britain may not witness such a scene,
Behoves us doubly'now to keep our dwellings cleats.
“ Say, if within the street where thou dost dwells
Each house were kept exactly like thy cell ;
O say, thou enemy to brooms and mops I
How long thy neighbours could keep open shops,.
If following thee in taste, each wretched elf,
Unshav’d, unwash’d, and squalid like thyself,
Resolv’d to live?—The answer’s very plain,
One year would be the utmost of their reign :
Victims to filth, each vot’ry soon would fall,
And one grand jail distemper kill them all.
w Persons there are, who say thou hast been seen
(Some years ago) with hands and face wash’d clean j
And would'st thou quit this .most unseemly plan,
Thou art (’tis said) a very comely man ?
Of polish’d language, partial to the fair,
Then why not wash thy face, and comb, thy matted hair 5
Clear from thy house accumulated dirt,
^eyy paint the front, and wear a cleaner shirt.”
SlNGVLAB