Nov. Ha! ha! nay there she abused you, 'tis plain; for you know what Manly said: the sweetness of your pulvillio she might mean; but for your breath! ha! ha! ha! Your breath is such, man, that nothing but tobacco can perfume; and your complexion nothing could mend but the small-pox.
CHAPTER IX.
Tom Brown—His Prose Works—Poetry—Sir Richard Blackmore—D'Urfey—Female Humorists—Carey.
Whether it was owing to the commotions of the Civil War in which "fears and jealousies had soured the people's blood, and politics and polemics had almost driven mirth and good humour out of the nation," or whether it was from a dearth of eminent talent, humour seems to have made little progress under the Restoration. The gaiety of the Merry Monarch and his companions had nothing intellectual in it, and although "Tom" Brown[61] tells us that "it was during the reign of Charles II. that learning in general flourished, and the Muses, like other ladies, met with the civilest sort of entertainment," his own works show that the best wits of the day could not soar much above the attempts of Sedley and Rochester. Had Brown not acquired in his day the character of a humorist, we should think that he equally well deserved that of a man of learning, for whereas he shows an acquaintance with the classics and modern languages, his writings, which are of considerable length, contain little Attic salt. He was born in 1663, the son of a substantial Shropshire farmer, and was sent to Christ Church, Oxford, where he became as remarkable for his quickness and proficiency, as for the irregularity of his conduct. On one occasion, owing to his having been guilty of some objectionable frolic, he was about to be expelled, when, upon his writing a penitential letter, the Dean, who seems to have known his talent, promised to forgive him on his translating extempore the epigram of Martial.
"Non amo te, Zabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere non amo te."
The young delinquent replied in words now better known than the original,
"I do not love you, Dr. Fell,
But why I cannot tell,
But this I know full well,
I do not love you, Dr. Fell."
At this period he occasionally indulged in such silly effusions as the "Adverbial Declaration," which he first wrote in Latin, on "Mother Warner's bellows at Oxford."