And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman,
Who at Blackfriars-bridge used for to ply;
And he feather’d his oars with such skill and dexterity,
Winning each heart and delighting each eye:
He looked so neat, and rowed so steadily,
The maidens all flocked in his boat so readily,
And he eyed the young rogues with so charming an air,
That this waterman ne’er was in want of a fare.
What sights of fine folks he oft row’d in his wherry!
’Twas clean’d out so nice, and so painted withal;
He was always first oars when the fine city ladies,
In a party to Ranelagh went, or Vauxhall:
And oftentimes would they be giggling and leering,
But ’twas all one to Tom, their gibing and jeering,
For loving, or liking, he little did care,
For this waterman ne’er was in want of a fare.
And yet, but to see how strangely things happen,
As he row’d along, thinking of nothing at all,
He was plied by a damsel so lovely and charming,
That she smiled, and so straightway in love he did fall;
And, would this young damsel but banish his sorrow,
He’d wed her to-night before to-morrow:
And how should this waterman ever know care,
When he’s married and never in want of a fare?
Tom Tug wins Dogget’s coat and badge under the eyes of his mistress, who sits with her friends to see the rowing-match from an inn window overlooking the river; and, with the prize, he wins her heart.
Dogget.
Colley Cibber calls Dogget “a prudent, honest man,” and relates anecdotes highly to our founder’s honour. One of them is very characteristic of Dogget’s good sense and firmness.
The lord chamberlain was accustomed to exercise great power over actors. In king William’s reign he issued an order that no actor of either company should presume to go from one to the other without a discharge, and the lord chamberlain’s permission; and messengers actually took performers who disobeyed the edict into custody. Dogget was under articles to play at Drury-lane, but conceiving himself treated unfairly, quitted the stage, would act no more, and preferred to forego his demands rather than hazard the tediousness and danger of the law to recover them. The manager, who valued him highly, resorted to the authority of the lord chamberlain. “Accordingly upon his complaint, a messenger was immediately despatched to Norwich, where Dogget then was, to bring him up in custody. But doughty Dogget, who had money in his pocket, and the cause of liberty at his heart, was not in the least intimidated by this formidable summons. He was observed to obey it with a particular cheerfulness, entertaining his fellow-traveller, the messenger, all the way in the coach (for he had protested against riding) with as much humour as a man of his business might be capable of tasting. And, as he found his charges were to be defrayed, he, at every inn, called for the best dainties the country could afford, or a pretended weak appetite could digest. At this rate they jollily rolled on, more with the air of a jaunt than a journey, or a party of pleasure than of a poor devil in durance. Upon his arrival in town, he immediately applied to the lord chief justice Holt for his habeas corpus. As his case was something particular, that eminent and learned minister of the law took a particular notice of it: for Dogget was not only discharged, but the process of his confinement (according to common fame) had a censure passed upon it in court.”
“We see,” says Cibber, “how naturally power, only founded on custom, is apt, where the law is silent, to run into excesses; and while it laudably pretends to govern others, how hard it is to govern itself.”[284]