a Week since there happened to me a very odd Accident, by Reason of one of these my Papers of Minutes which I had accidentally dropped at
Lloyd's
Coffee-house, where the Auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it, there were a Cluster of People who had found it, and were diverting themselves with it at one End of the Coffee-house: It had raised so much Laughter among them before I had observed what they were about, that I had not the Courage to own it. The Boy of the Coffee-house, when they had done with it, carried it about in his Hand, asking every Body if they had dropped a written Paper; but no Body challenging it, he was ordered by those merry Gentlemen who had before perused it, to get up into the Auction Pulpit, and read it to the whole Room, that if any one would own it they might. The Boy accordingly mounted the Pulpit, and with a very audible Voice read as follows.
Minutes
Sir Roger de Coverly's Country [Seat] — Yes, for I hate long Speeches — Query, if a good Christian may be a Conjurer — Childermas-day, Saltseller, House-Dog, Screech-owl, Cricket — Mr. Thomas Inkle of London, in the good Ship called The Achilles. Yarico — Ægrescitique medendo — Ghosts — The Lady's Library — Lion by Trade a Taylor — Dromedary called Bucephalus — Equipage the Lady's summum bonum — Charles Lillie to be taken notice of[2] — Short Face a Relief to Envy — Redundancies in the three Professions — King Latinus a Recruit — Jew devouring an Ham of Bacon — Westminster Abbey — Grand Cairo — Procrastination — April Fools — Blue Boars, Red Lions, Hogs in Armour — Enter a King and two Fidlers solus — Admission into the Ugly Club — Beauty, how improveable — Families of true and false Humour — The Parrot's School-Mistress — Face half Pict half British — no Man to be an Hero of Tragedy under Six foot — Club of Sighers — Letters from Flower-Pots, Elbow-Chairs, Tapestry-Figures, Lion, Thunder — The Bell rings to the Puppet-Show — Old-Woman with a Beard married to a smock-faced Boy — My next Coat to be turned up with Blue — Fable of Tongs and Gridiron — Flower Dyers — The Soldier's Prayer — Thank ye for nothing, says the Gally-Pot — Pactolus in Stockings, with golden Clocks to them — Bamboos, Cudgels, Drumsticks — Slip of my Landlady's eldest Daughter — The black Mare with a Star in her Forehead — The Barber's Pole — Will. Honeycomb's Coat-pocket — Cæsar's Behaviour and my own in Parallel Circumstances — Poem in Patch-work — Nulli gravis est percussus Achilles — The Female Conventicler — The Ogle Master.
The reading of this Paper made the whole Coffee-house very merry; some of them concluded it was written by a Madman, and others by some Body that had been taking Notes out of the
Spectator
. One who had the Appearance of a very substantial Citizen, told us, with several politick Winks and Nods, that he wished there was no more in the Paper than what was expressed in it: That for his part, he looked upon the Dromedary, the Gridiron, and the Barber's Pole, to signify something more than what is usually meant by those Words; and that he thought the Coffee-man could not do better than to carry the Paper to one of the Secretaries of State. He further added, that he did not like the Name of the outlandish Man with the golden Clock in his Stockings.
young