The English Spy, page 388 by Bernard Blackmantle
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; even Mrs. Marigold and the amiable Miss Biddy have become victims to the vulgar inspiration, and are laughing as heartily as if they were enjoying the grimaces of the first of buffos, Signor Ambrogetti. And now the curtain falls, and the busy group disperse their several ways, chuckling with delight over the ~66~~recollections of the mad waggeries of immortal Mr. Punch.
All hail! thou first great mimic chief, Physician to the mind's relief; Thrice hail! most potent Punch. Not Momus' self, should he appear, Could dim the lustre of thy sphere; So hail! all hail! great Punch.
Bernard Blackmantle.
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THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLAR.
Reminiscences of former Times--Lamentations of Old Crony-- Ancient Sports and Sprees--Modern Im-provements--Hints to Builders and Buyers--Some Account of the School and its Worthies--Recollections of old Schoolfellows--Sketches of Character--The Living and the Dead.
"Fast by, an old but noble fabric stands, No vulgar work, but raised by princely hands; Which, grateful to Eliza's memory, pays, In living monuments, an endless praise."
From a poem by a Westminster Scholar, written during Dr. Friend's Mastership, in 1699.
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"What say you to a stroll through Thorney Island,{1} this morning?" said old Crony, with whom I had been taking a déjeuné à la fourchette; "you have indulged your readers with all the whims and eccentricities of Eton and of Oxford, and, in common justice, you must not pass by the Westminster blacks."{2} Crony had, I learned, been a foundation scholar during the mastership of Dr. Samuel Smith; when the poet Churchill, Robert Lloyd, (the son of the under-master) Bonnel Thornton, George Colman the elder, Richard Cumberland, and a host of other highly-gifted names, were associated within the precincts of the abbey cloisters.