The Sleeping Bard | Page 8

and slaying, wresting kingdoms from
their right owners, and looking forward to be adored as a conqueror,
worse than the rogue who takes a purse 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