The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany | Page 3

clubs had developed complex toasting rituals which involved the inscription of the name of the lady to be honored on a drinking glass suitable for that purpose. In 1709 an issue of _The Tatler_ described the process in some detail:
that happy virgin, who is received and drunk to at their meetings, has no more to do in this life but to judge and accept of the first good offer. The manner of her inauguration is much like that of the choice of a doge in Venice: it is performed by balloting; and when she is so chosen, she reigns indisputably for that ensuing year; but must be elected a-new to prolong her empire a moment beyond it. When she is regularly chosen, her name is written with a diamond on a drinking-glass.[7]
[Footnote 7: _The Tatler_, No. 24, June 4, 1709.]
Perhaps the most famous institution practicing this kind of ceremony in the eighteenth century was the Kit-Kat Club. In 1716 Jacob Tonson, a member of that club, published "Verses Written for the?Toasting-Glasses of the Kit-Kat Club" in the fifth part of his _Miscellany_. Space limitations will not permit extensive quotations from this collection, but the toast for Lady Carlisle is alone sufficient to prove that complete epigrams were at times engraved upon the drinking glasses belonging to this club:
She o'er all Hearts and Toasts must reign,?Whose Eyes outsparkle bright Champaign;?Or (when she will vouchsafe to smile,)?The Brilliant that now writes _Carlisle_.[8]
Part I of _The Merry-Thought: or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany_ was almost certainly published for the first time in 1731. Arthur E. Case (_Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies_, 1521-1750) notes that this pamphlet was listed in the register of books in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for October 1731.[9] An instant success with the reading public, second and third editions of the pamphlet, the third "with very Large Additions and Alterations," were also published in 1731.[10] Because, as its title-page declared, the third and last edition was the fullest of the three, a copy of that edition has been chosen for reproduction here.[11]
[Footnote 8: _The Fifth Part of Miscellany Poems_, ed. Jacob Tonson (London, 1716), p. 63.]
[Footnote 9: _A Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies, 1521-1750_ (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 275.]
[Footnote 10: Case, p. 276, points out that the second edition was advertised in the November 13, 1731, issue of _Fog's Weekly Journal_ and that the third edition was advertised in the December 11, 1731, issue of the same journal. Three additional parts were also published within a year or so, see Case, pp. 276-277.]
[Footnote 11: Although, as the title-page of the third edition advertises, the third edition does contain materials not to be found in the second edition, it does not indicate that the second edition itself contained materials omitted from the third edition. Among the materials not reprinted were the following verses:
_Red-Lyon_ at _Stains_.
My Dear _Nancy P---k---r_?I sigh for her, I wish for her,?I pray for her. Alas! it is a Plague?That _Cupid_ will impose, for my Neglect?Of his Almighty, Dreadful, Little Might.?Well, will I love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan?Ah! where shall I make my Moan!?_T. S._ 1709.
_John Crumb_, a Bailiff, as he was carrying to his Grave, occasioned the following Piece to be written upon a Window in _Fleet-Street_, _1706_.
Here passes the Body of _John Crumb_,?When living was a Baily-Bum?T'other Day he dy'd,?And the Devil he cry'd,?Come _Jack_, come, come.
In the _Tower_.
Though Guards surround me Day and Night,?Let _Celia_ be but in my Sight,?And then they need not fear my Flight.?L. N. & G. ]
The title-page of Part I of _The Merry-Thought_ states that the contents of the pamphlet had been taken from "Original Manuscripts written in _Diamond_ by Persons of the first Rank and Figure in _Great Britain_" and that they had been "Faithfully Transcribed from the Drinking-Glasses and Windows in the several noted _Taverns_, _Inns_, and other _Publick Places_ in this Nation. Amongst which are intermixed the Lucubrations of the polite Part of the World, written upon Walls in Bog-houses, _&c._" These statements suggest one of the principal leveling strategies of the pamphlet as a whole: the nobility and the rich, whatever their advantages otherwise, must, like the lowest amongst us, make use of privies; and, in the process, they are just as likely as their brethren of the lower classes to leave their marks on the walls of those conveniences.
A number of the verses included in the pamphlet continue the leveling process. One in particular (p. 20) adopts the principal strategy employed on the title-page:
_From the Temple Bog-House._
No Hero looks so fierce to Fight,?As does the Man who strains to sh-te.
Others suggest that sexual relations are essentially leveling activities. Here (p. 24) is an example:
_Toy, at Hampton-Court_, 1708.
D---n _Molley H---ns_ for her Pride,?She'll suffer none but Lords to ride:?But why the Devil should