What Pulpits, nor the Stage dare not contemn:
So Anger, Frank, can no Redress afford,
For to defend my Pen, see here’s my Sword.
Now think I with myself, if this be the Way of London, Drinking, Gaming, and Whoring; I’ll e’en retire into the Country, where I thought was more Simplicity and Honesty among the Rusticks than the Citizens; but I found myself mistaken, for going to Deptford, I perceiv’d as much Drunkenness among the Tarpaulins, as among the Admirers of Geneva, at the Frenchman’s Bob-Shop, or dirty-Face Dick in the Strand; but however, the Tarpaulin’s Froes of this Place, as well as at Wapping, are pretty virtuous, thro’ their Husband’s making them go without Smocks, to prevent their Neighbours from taking up their Wives Linnen. From hence, I went to Greenwich-Park, where I found as many Assignations made betwixt Whore and Cully, as in St. James’s, or Hyde-Park. Here was as much Lying by the Fops in Praise of their Mistresses, as is among Lawyers; as much Flattering, as there is at Court; and as much Dissembling, as in a Presbyterian or Anabaptist Meeting-House; a Folly, which I must own, I have been formerly guilty of myself, when I sent to a young Gentlewoman this amorous Petition, for Flattery is the only Bait to decoy the coyest Virgin in England.
Harmonious Numbers now my Muse does find,
To sing the choicest of your precious Kind.
Thy Wit, as well as Beauty, lovely Dame,
Who first my Breast, and more than Wealth, or Fame,
Exerts my Soul, and is my constant Aim.
The genuine Blushes that your Cheeks adorn,