For Love and Beauty ever wait on Fame,
Each Hero’s glory, and triumphal Claim.
Newcastle, Forth House, 1st July, 1795.
CULL, alias SILLY BILLY,
Of Newcastle upon Tyne.
This well known character, William Scott, commonly called Cull Billy, a name known in most parts of the north, is a native of Newcastle, where he resided along with his mother, a poor old woman, who made her living by retailing wooden ware; she like her son was an object of distress, being not above four feet high.
Billy, poor man, oft excited compassion from his fellow creatures, while reciting (which he did with a great degree of exactness, and in such a distinct and clear manner as to surprise many) the Lord’s Prayer, several other prayers, passages from scripture, &c. to a numerous audience of boys; but they generally repaid his endeavours for their welfare with a shower of dirt or stones.
Oft have they followed him around the streets, beating and hooting him, as boys hunt a cat or dog; and yet no notice was taken of this, until one, more compassionate than the rest, stept forward and interceded for him, in the following lines, which were published in the Newcastle Chronicle of the 28th of August, 1802, with the signature of J.S.
Whence those cries, my soul that harrow?