The Merry-Thought Volume Ii Part 16

_The Nature of Women: From a _Summer-House_ near _Richmond_._

Fair and foolish, little and loud, Long and lazy, black and proud; Fat and merry, lean and sad, Pale and peevish, red and bad.

_The Nature of Men from the same._

To a Red Man read thy Read; To a Brown Man break thy Bread; At a Pale Man draw thy Knife; From a Black Man keep thy Wife.

_In a Chamber Window in _Queen's College, Cambridge_._

Our _Bodies_ are like _Shoes_, which oft we _cast_, _Physick_ the _Cobler_ is, and _Death_ the _Last_.

_On a Tomb._

Here, in their last Bed, The loving _Alice_ rests with her Love _Ned_.

_Underwritten by a _Cambridge_ Schollar._

_Viator siste! ecce miraculum!

Vir & Uxor, hic non litigant._

_Which in _English_ may stand thus._

Behold a Bed, where, without Strife, There rests a Man, and eke his Wife.

_Tom of _Bedlam_'s Sentiments on Marriage._

One ask'd a Madman, if a Wife he had, A Wife! quoth he.----No!----I'm not quite so mad.

_In the Vaults belonging to Trinity College, _Cambridge_, there is cut the Form of a Tobacco-Box, with this Inscription:_

Pandora's Treasure.

_Underneath,_

Tobacco, that outlandish Weed, It dries the Brain, and spoils the Seed; It dulls the Spirit, it dims the Sight, It robs a Woman of her Right.

_An Epitaph on a Wicked Man's Tomb. Written by Doctor _Wild_ the famous Non-Conformist Minister._

Beneath this Stone there lies a cursed Sinner, Doom'd to be roasted for the Devil's Dinner.

_In the Vaults at _Chelsea_, and in an hundred other Places._

When the Devil was sick, the Devil a Monk would be, When the Devil was well, the Devil a Monk was he.

_Sir _Walter Raleigh_ on the Snuff of a Candle the Night before he died._

Cowards fear to die, but Courage stout, Rather than live in Snuff, will put it out.

_On Marriage: In a Window at _Tunbridge_._

If 'tis to marry when the Knot is ty'd, Why then they marry, who at _Tyburn_ ride.

And if that Knot, 'till Death, is loos'd by none, Why then to marry, and be hang'd's all one.

_In a Window in a Public-House, near _Tunbridge_._

Sing High Ding a Ding, And Ho Ding a Ding, I'm finely brought to Bed; My Lord has stole that troublesome Thing, That Folks call a Maidenhead.

_Jane Hughs_ eighteen Years of Age.

_A little below it, in the same Window._

Then sing High Ding a Ding, And Ho Ding a Ding, You're finely brought to Bed; For something you've got for that troublesome Thing, A Cl--p for a Maidenhead.

_By my Lord's Gentleman._

_Written in the first Leaf of _Arbor Vitae_._

Two D - - - s, and a Doctor, 'tis said, wrote this Piece, Who were modest as Wh.o.r.es, and witty as Geese.

They penn'd it, it seems, to shew their great Parts, Their Skill in Burlesque, and their Knowledge in Arts But what say the Town----that 't has fully desected, That Fools they are all----which had long been suspected.

_At the _Red Lyon_ at _Egham_, and in the Windows at many other Places._

_Cornutus_ call'd his Wife both Wh.o.r.e and s.l.u.t, Quoth she, you'll never leave your Brawling--but-- But, what? quoth he: Quoth she, the Post or Door; For you have Horns to But, if I'm a Wh.o.r.e.

_In a Window at the Pudding-House in the Road to _Islington_._

The End of all, and in the End The Praise of all depends: A Pudding merits double Praise, Because it hath two Ends.

_Underneath it._

A Pudding hath two Ends; You lye, my Brother, For it begins at one, and ends at t'other.

_On Marriage. By a Batchelor._