Chaunt.
Come, all my merry customers, of high, middling, and low degree,
Look in at one of these little glasses, and you shall see what you shall see;
My fine galanty show you great wonders shall view in,
You shall see the high road to Fortune, and that’s better than the road to Ruin.
O pretty show, O raree show, O finey galanty show, O pretty galanty show!
There you see the New Lott’ry Scheme, such as never was plann’d before!
Fewer Tickets, and fewer Blanks, and yet the Prizes are more;
And besides the usual 5’s, 10’s, and 20 Thousands (Peep thro’ one of these wickets,)
You shall see such a Prize as was never yet known, neither more nor less than 1000 whole Tickets!
O pretty show, &c.
And there you shall see, (Look a little to the right) Mr. BISH’s Shop on Cornhill:
(Now a little to the left) And there’s his other Shop at Charing-cross, where buy Shares if you will;
You’ll get a part of the 1000 whole Tickets, I’ll be bound,
And that’s very much like getting a part of more than a Hundred Thousand Pounds!
O pretty show, &c.
Then look straight forward, and there you see Coopers’ Hall, (Isn’t it a fine building?) there the Tickets they draw;
And there you see the pretty little Blue-coat Boys, and nicer little fellows you never saw;
There you’ll see ’em pulling the Numbers and Prizes out of the very Grand Wheels
And when one has a Ticket in the Lottery, and sees such a sight, how narvous one feels!
O pretty show, &c.
And there—(Rub the glass a little cleaner) there’s a sight I’d not have you miss fora pound,
The little Boy draws out a Number (Let me see what Number you have got) aye, that’s it, I’ll be bound;
There don’t the Clerk (On the left hand) look exactly as if he was calling it, don’t you see how he cries?
And the other little Boy draws, and the other Clerk looks as if he bawl’d out a £20,000 Prize.
O pretty show, &c.
There you see (’tis no Dream of Castles in the Air, called Utopia)
There you see Fortune pouring the Guineas out of—what the deuce is it? a great long hard name—Oh! her Cornucopia!
That’s a fine Golden Horn, that holds all the Prizes, I declare,
And to get its Contents would be a pretty Horn Fair!
O pretty show, &c.
“Bish” was pleased to devise the scheme of a Lottery to be drawn on St. Swithin’s day, wherein wine was added to the prizes, and therefore, and because its novelty was deemed alluring, we find one of his bills beginning with an apostrophising and prophetic couplet:—
Hail, famed St. Swithin! who, with pow’r benign,
Instead of rain pour showers of gold and wine!
Another in the same Lottery, beneath a wood-cut of a bunch of grapes, breaks out:—
On the 15th of July what a golden supply
Of wine given gratis by BISH,
If you can get but a share, you’ll have plenty to spare,
And can treat all your friends as you wish.
“Bish,” on the same occasion, throws the “leer of invitation,” with