Old Striker, after a quarrelling bout with old Touchwood.
Touchwood. I have put him into these fits this forty years, and hope to choke him at last, (aside; and exit.)
Striker. Huh, huh, huh! so he is gone, the villain’s gone in hopes that he has killed me, when my comfort is he has recovered me. I was heart-sick with a conceit, which lay so mingled with my flegm, that I had perished if I had not broke it, and made me spit it out; hem, he is gone, and I’ll home merrily. I would not he should know the good he has done me for half my estate; nor would I be at peace with him to save it all. I would not lose his hatred for all the good neighbourhood of the parish.
His malice works upon me
Past all the drugs and all the Doctors’ counsels,
That e’er I coped with; he has been my vexation
E’er since my wife died; if the rascal knew it,
He would be friends, and I were instantly
But a dead man; I could not get another
To anger me so handsomely.
C. L.
BEAR AND TENTER.
To the Editor.
Morley, near Leeds, July, 1827.
Sir,—On surveying the plays and pastimes of children, in these northern parts especially, it has often struck me with respect to some of them, that if traced up to their origin, they would be found to have been “political satires to ridicule such follies and corruptions of the times, as it was, perhaps, unsafe to do in any other manner.” In this conjecture I have lately been confirmed, by meeting with a curious paper, copied from another periodical work by a contributor to the old London Magazine, vol. for 1738, p. 59. It is an article which many would doubtless be glad to find in the Table Book, and nobody more so than myself, as it would be a capital accompaniment to my present remarks.