The English Spy, page 519 by Bernard Blackmantle
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sweet somniferous repose. But zounds, gentlemen, I am forgetting the count, whose pardon I crave, for bestowing my attention on minor constellations while indulged with the overpowering brilliancy of his meteoric presence."
"The 'Farewell to the Ring,'" vociferated the count. "Come, lieutenant, give us the episode: I long to hear all my misfortunes strung together in rhyme."
"By the powers, you shall have it, then; and a true history it is, as ever was said or sung in church, chapel, or conventicle, with only one little exception--by the free use of poetic license, the satirist has fixed his hero in a very embarrassing situation--just locked him up at Radford's steel Hotel in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, coning over a long bill of John Long's, and a still longer one of the lawyers, with a sort of codicil, by way of refresher, of the house charges, and a smoking detainer tacked on to its tail, by Hookah Hudson, long enough to put any gentleman's pipe out.
[Illustration: page207]
There's the argument, programme, or fable. Now for the characters; they are all drawn from the life by the English Spy (see plate), under the amusing title of 'Morning, and in Low Spirits, a scene in a Lock-up House;' a very appropriate spot for a lament to the past, and
"'Tis past, and the sun of my glory is set. How changed in my case is the fortune of war! With no money to back, and no credit to bet, No more in the Fancy I shine forth a star.
~208~~
"Accursed be the day when my bargeman I brought To fight with Jos. Hudson!--the thought is a sting. I sighing exclaim, by experience taught, Farewell to Tom Cannon, farewell to the ring!
"By the Blackwater vict'ry made drunk with success, Endless visions of milling enchanted my nob; I thought my luck in: so I could do no less Than match 'gainst the Streatham my White-headed Bob.
"I've some reason to think that there, too, I was done; For it oft has