LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
This is a quick climbing animal ; but is, in other respects, heavy and helpless. When it is pursued on level ground and overtaken, it feigns itself dead, to deceive the hunters. A faculty in its seat, enables it to suspend itself from a high branch, by that part, for a long time together; and, in this position, watching for whatever is weak that comes within its reach, it falls upon it and usually destroys it. By this elevating power in its nether end, it not only seizes its prey more securely, but preserves itself from pursuers ; look- ing down on them, in a sort of upright position, heels up- wards. It is very domesticated, but proves a disagreeable inmate, from its scent; which, however fragrant in small quan- tities, is uniformly ungrateful when copiously supplied. It is
a
EGEOUGHINGcreature.*
• Goldsmith, iii. 322. Stedman's Surinam. Shaw's Zoology,
Fall of business, bustle, and chicanery; Dibdin's Bibl. Deeam. iii. 301.
An odious and vile kind of creatures that fly about the House ; B. Jonson's Discos.
They seem—descending, at some direful blow,
To nibble brimstone in the realms below! Salmagundi, 139.
Suppose one to be " boring" on one side for two hours, and his opponent to be " bothering"
for a like period on the other side, what must be the consequence?
Sir Jos. Yorke, in H. of Corn. March 30, 1821.
Of torrent tongue, and never blushing face;
---- Knaves, who, in truth's despite, Can white to black transform, and black to white!
Gifford's Juvenal, Sat. iii.
When they were fewer, men might have had a Lordship safely conveyed to them in a piece of parchment no bigger than your hand, though several sheets will not do it safely in this wiser age.
Walton's Angler, (4to. Bagster) 93.
They'll argue as confidently as if they spoke gospel instead of law; they'll cite you six hundred several Precedents, though not one of them come near to the case in hand; they'll muster up the authority of Judgments, Deeds, Glosses, and Reports, and tumble over so many dusty Records, that they make their employ, though in itself easy, the greatest slavery imaginable; always ac_
counting that the best plea which they have took most pains for. Erasmus of Folly, 96.
In other countries, they make laws upon laws and add precepts upon precepts, till the endless number of them makes the fundamental part to be forgotten ; leaving nothing but a confused heap of explanations, which may cause ignorant people to doubt whether there is really any thing meant by the laws or not. Bp. Berkeley's Gaudenlio di Lucca, 166.
In the country of the Fared Law-cats, they gripe all, devour all, conskite all, burn all, draw all. hang all, quarter all, behead all, murder all, imprison all, waste all, and ruin all, without the least notice of right or wrong: for among them vice is called virtue; wickedness, piety ; tree- son, loyalty ; robbery, justice: Plunder is their motto; and all this they do, because they dare.
—Gripe-men-all, the Chief of the Fared Law-cats, said to Pantagruel ' Our Laws are like cobwebs ; your silly little flies are stopt, caught, and destroy'd therein, but your stronger ones break them, and force and carry them which way they please. Don't think we are so mad as to net up our nets to snap up your great Robbers and tyrants: no, they are somewhat too hard for us, there's no meddling with them; for they will make no more of us, than we make of the
little ones.' — Rabelais, b. v. c. xi. xii.
BLACK RATS.—(Stuffed)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
These are most pernicious animals. They no- Rot) GI', and prey on our food, drink, clothing, furniture, live-stock, and every convenience of life ; furnishing their residences with the plunder of our property. They have particular
HAUNTS,to which they entice each other in large numbers, for the sake of prey; where they often do incre- dible damage to our mounds, and undermine the strongest embankments. Sometimes they hoard their plunder in nests, that they make at a distance from their usual places of congre- gating.* They are very bold and fierce. Instead of waiting for an attack, they usually become the aggressors, and, seizing their adversaries by the lips, inflict dangerous, and even deadly wounds. While they subsist on our industry, and increase our terrors, they make no grateful returns, and, therefore, mankind have studied various ways for diminishing their numbers ; but their cunning discovers the most distant dan- ger, and if any are disturbed or attacked, in an unusual man- ner, the rest take the alarm, and, becoming exceedingly shy, and wary, elude the most ingenious devices of their pursuers.
When, unhappily, you come in contact with one of these vermin, the best way of dispatching it is by a single squeeze;
but novices who hesitate, are sure to prove sufferers. They have been found on a
BENCH, sointerwoven by their tails, that by reason of their entanglement, they could not part.t A
DEAD RAT,by altering the look of his
HEADand the ap- pearance of his SKIN, may be transformed into the appearance of a much more powerful animal ; and
THISLadies and Gentlemen, has been considered a
MASTER PIECEin cheating.$
• White's Selboroe, 4to. 75. t Letters from Bodleian Library, i. le.
j Ibid. 160, note. See also Goldsmith, iii. 169.
A bait, such wretches to beguile. Spenser.
C
Pierce Egan •
t•-'1 "4,4*
Cadger. n. s. A Low Character.
One of
" The blessings of this most indebted laud."
•
•Useless in Lim alike both brain and speech,
Fate having plac'd all truth above his reach. Caliper.
A most damnable swearer and inventor of new oaths. A tongue•libelling lad of the sea—he matters not the truth of any thing he speaks; but is prone to fasten his stings in the reputation of those that would scorn to be like him. I wonder to see this unquiet disposition in a brute crea- ture— a Swill-tub. Pell's Improvement of the Sea, 1695, p. 101, et seq.
A CADGE ANCHOR.—(a Remora—
a sucking Fish)
WHAT
have we here ? a man or a fish ? A FIsx
:he smells like a fish ; a very ancient and fish-like smell ; a kind of, not of the newest, Poor John. Were I in England now (as once I was) and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver
:there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man.
His gabbling voice is to utter
FOUL SPEECHES,and to
DE- TRACT.He is as disproportioned in his manners, as in his shape. As with age his body grows uglier, his mind cankers.
CALIBAN.