Broadside entitled 'Humours of the Age'

Transcription

Humours of the Age!

Chuse where and what you will, here are some things
new to suit and to please Old and Young, Deaf
and Dumb, Mad, Lame and Lazy, Young Men who
walk in their Sleep, Old Maids who have no Teeth,
and Dairy Maids; Cheats and Dandies, containing
the Humours of the Age, being Whimsical, Witty
and Diverting!

I never think of a wife until I am hungry, and then I look for
a lewd woman, in hopes she will find me a morsel of bread.

I love whisky and strong beer twice in the year, that is summer
and winter.

I hate Lawyers and Liars, because they breed wrangling and
jangling.

I would be a soldier, was there all plundering and no fighting.

I love a clergyman that practises what he preaches, for other-
wise we must mind what he says and not what he does.

If ever I marry I will have the ugliest woman I can find, then I
shall have her to myself.

Shew me a poet, a painter, and a quaker, and I will shew you
three liars.

Of all men in the world blind men walk most upright, so they
are the most charitable, for they never see their neighbours faults.

Of all people I pity lewd women, for they hazard both soul and
body for a bad living.

Sailors are the bravest and the merriest fellows in the world, for
they drink and dance when there is but one inch between them and
a watery grave.

The astrologer is a wise man, he can foretell future events, but
not the man that cuckolds him, nor when.

Tea and tobacco are pernicious weeds, and grand thieves, they de-
serve hanging more than highwaymen, for they pick the pockets of
the whole nation.

There are five great rarities hard to find, a black swan, a phoenix,
a unicorn, the philosopher's stone, and a maid at sixteen.

If extortioners cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, where must
usurers, tallymen and pawnbrokers go to ?

Soldiers and butchers are very near relations; for they both live
by killing and slaying.

I never see a tailor but he puts me in mind of a cabbage, or a
miller, or a weaver, but I think on a thief.

Good old women, and good small beer, are hard to be found,
yet these are good in their kind.

What is the difference between ale-dealers and linen-drapers ?
Only this, one cheats you with froth, and the other with cloth.

Number me the sands on the sea shore, and the stars in the sky,
and I will number you the faults of a lewd woman. Yet a virtuous
woman is the pride of nature, and the glory of the universe?but
where shall I find her ?

To portion daughters, and to build ships, are chargeable things,
yet, after all costs and pains, they prove leaky vessels.

Had I three sons, if one of them was a dunce, two should prac-
tise law and physic, and the other should be a minister.

There are five things wonderfully swift ? Fame, which, like a
snow-ball, gathers as it goes?a musket shot, that kills before you
hear the report?the sight, which reaches the heavens in an instant
?thought, that traverses the globe in a moment?lightning, that
kills the child in the womb and hurts not the mother, and melts
gold in a bag without scorching the canvas.

Some say that Britain is the garden of the world, but, as Buona-
parte said, " There is many a bitter weed in it." Others say, " It
is the paradise for women?a purgatory for servants?and a hell
for horses." We have the handsomest women in the world, I must
own, and we give them the greatest privileges?the honour of the
wall, the third of our effects, and the like of that, yet they seldom
repay us with any thing but a large pair of horns; and, like the
devil, the more you humour them, the worse they are; give them
an inch, and they will take an ell.

But there is no general rule without exception, what I speak is
the bad humours of men?one story is good till another is told?
in the mean time give me leave to speak my thoughts. Those that
are good husbands make good wives ; and if they are bad, there
are six of one and half a dozen of the other. God help us all.

And thus I have finished what I first proposed,

And if I have more or less of truth disclosed

Than what you like, excuse me for this time,

As need makes old wives trot, and poets rhyme;

Therefore extend your halfpence, if you please,                                    

And I'll pray for you all my remaining days.

EDINBURGH:?Reprinted by Menzies, Lawnmarket.

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