The Sleeping Bard | Page 8

upon the highway? What is the tailor who cabbages a piece of cloth, to the great man who takes a piece out of the parish common? Ought not the latter to be called a thief of the first water, or ten times more a rogue than the other?--the tailor merely takes snips of cloth from his customer, whilst the other takes from the poor man the sustenance of his beast, and by so doing the sustenance of himself and his little ones--what is taking a handful of flour at the mill, to keeping a hundred sacksfull to putrify, in order to obtain afterwards a four-fold price?--what is the half-naked soldier who takes your garment away with his sword, to the lawyer, who takes your whole estate from you with a goose's quill, without any claim or bond upon it?--and what is the pickpocket who takes five pounds, to the cogger of dice who will cheat you of a hundred in the third part of a night?--and what is the jockey who tricks you in some old unsound horse, to the apothecary who chouses you of your money, and your life also with some old unwholesome physic?--and yet what are all these thieves to the mistress-thief there, who takes away from the whole all these things, and their hearts and their souls at the end of the fair?" From this dirty, disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the princess Pleasure, in which I beheld a number of Britons, French, Italians, Pagans, &c. She was a princess exceedingly beautiful to the eye, with a cup of drugged wine in the one hand, and a crown and a harp in the other. In her treasury there were numberless pleasures and pretty things to obtain the custom of every body, and to keep them in the service of her father. Yea! there were many who escaped to this charming street, to cast off the melancholy arising from their losses and debts in the other streets. It was a street prodigiously crowded, especially with young people; and the princess was careful to please every body, and to keep an arrow adapted to every mark. If you are thirsty, you can have here your choice of drink; if you love dancing and singing, you can get here your fill. If her comeliness entice you to lust for the body of a female, she has only to lift up her finger to one of the officers of her father, (who surround her at all times, though invisibly), and they will fetch you a lass in a minute, or the _body_ of a harlot newly buried, and will go into her in lieu of a _soul_, rather than you should abandon so good a design.
Here there are handsome houses with very pleasant gardens, teeming orchards, and shadowy groves, adapted to all kinds of secret meetings, in which one can hunt birds and a certain fair coney; here there are delightful rivers for fishing, and wide fields hedged around, in which it is pleasant to hunt the hare and fox. All along the street you could see farces being acted, juggling going on, and all kinds of tricks of legerdemain; there was plenty of licentious music, vocal and instrumental, ballad singing, and every species of merriment; there was no lack of male and female beauty, singing and dancing; and there were here many from the street of Pride, who came to receive praise and adoration. In the interior of the houses I could see people on beds of silk and down, wallowing in voluptuousness; some were engaged at billiardplaying, and were occasionally swearing or cursing the table keeper; others were rattling the dice or shuffling the cards. My guide pointed out to me some from the street of Lucre, who had chambers in this street; they had run hither to reckon their money, but they did not tarry long lest some of the innumerable tempting things to be met with here should induce them to part with their pelf, without usury. I could see throngs of individuals feasting, with something of every creature before them; oh, how every one did gorge, swallowing mess after mess of dainties, sufficient to have feasted a moderate man for three weeks, and when they could eat no more, they belched out a thanks for what they had received, and then gave the health of the king and every jolly companion; after which, they drowned the savour of the food, and their cares besides, in an ocean of wine; then they called for tobacco, and began telling stories of their neighbours--and, I observed, that all the stories were well received, whether true or false, provided they were amusing and of late date, above all if they contained plenty of scandal: there they