Put all their degrees and conditions together,
Are liable always to wear the Bull's Feather.
Any candidate desirous of being admitted a member of the fraternity was proposed by the sword-bearer; and the master of the ceremonies placing him in the adopting chair, the comptroller made three ejaculations, upon which the brethren doffed their hats. Then the master of the ceremonies exchanged his own comuted castor for a cap, and administered to his newly elected brother, on a book horned on all sides, an oath in rhyme, recapitulating a long string of duties belonging to their peculiar art and mystery, and enjoining their strict performance.
Lastly, observe thou shalt esteem none other
Equal to this our club;—so welcome brother!” *
* Bull-Feathers-Hall; or, The Antiquity and Dignity of Horns
amply shown. Also a Description of the Manners,
Rites, Customs, and Revenues belonging to that ingenious and
numerous society of Bull-Feathers-Hall. London: printed for
the Society of Bull-Feathers-Hall. 1664.
A copy of this rare tract produced at Bindley's sale five
pounds ten shillings, and at Strette's five pounds.
“Thus ends my story, gentlemen; and if you have found it tedious, visit the offence on the Lauréat of Little Britain, by enjoining him the penance of a bumper of salt and water.”
But mine host of the Horns, very prim about the wig, his coat marked with his apron strings, which left a seam all round, as if he had been cut in two, and afterwards stitched together again, having been slyly telegraphed, that obedient functionary, who was as neat as his wines, entered, bearing before him what Mr. Bosky facetiously called “a good afternoon,” to wit, a brimming bowl, in which whiskey had been judiciously substituted for salt. Uncle Timothy rose; so did the voice of Mr. Bosky! and to such an altitude as to drown his expostulations in contumacious carolling, which, truth obliges us to add, received laughing impunity from the company.
Come merrily push round the toddy,
The cold winter nights are set in;