as millposts: but upon putting her finger into another cup, she becomes as young and handsome as she was before.

He gives any gentleman leave to drive forty twelvepenny nails up to the head in a porter's backside, and then places the said porter on a loadstone chair, which draws out every nail, and the porter feels no pain.

He likewise draws the teeth of half a dozen gentlemen, mixes and jumbles them in a hat, gives any person leave to blindfold him, and returns each their own, and fixes them as well as ever.

With his fore-finger and thumb, he thrust several gentlemens and ladies eyes out of their heads, without the least pain, at which time they see an unspeakable number of beautiful colours; and after they are entertained to the full, he places them again in their proper sockets, without any damage to the sight.

He lets any gentleman drink a quart of hot melted lead, and by a draught of prepared liquor, of which he takes part himself, he makes the said lead pass through the said gentleman, before all the spectators, without any damage; after which it is produced in a cake to the company.

With many other wonderful performances of art, too tedious here to mention.

The said artist has performed before most kings and princes in Europe with great applause.

He performs every day (except Sundays) from ten of the clock to one in the forenoon; and from four till seven in the evening, at the New Inn in Smithfield.

The first seat a British crown, the second a British half-crown, and the lowest a British shilling.

N. B. The best bands in town are to play at the said show.

A LETTER,

GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF A PESTILENT NEIGHBOUR.

SIR,

where he visits.

You must give me leave to complain of a pestilent fellow in my neighbourhood, who is always beating mortar, yet I cannot find he ever builds. In talking he useth such hard words, that I want a druggerman to interpret them. But all is not gold that glisters. A pot he carries to most houses He makes his prentice his galleyslave. I wish our lane were purged of him. Yet he pretends to be a cordial man. Every spring his shop is crowded with country-folks; who by their leaves, in my opinion, help him to do a great deal of mischief. He is full of scruples; and so very litigious, that he files bills against all his acquaintance: and though he be much troubled with the simples, yet I assure you he is a jesuitical dog; as you may know by his bark. Of all poetry he loves the drama-tick best. I am, &c.

A

LETTER TO THE EARL OF PEMBROKE:

Pretended to be the dying speech of Tom Ashe, whose brother, the Reverend Dillon Ashe, was named Dilly.*

"Given to Dr Monsey by Sir Andrew Fountaine ; and communicated to Dr Deane Swift by that ingenious, learned, and very obliging gentleman." [On the 29th June, 1711, Swift records in his Journal, that Dillon Ashe was four days in this country punning with him. Lord Pembroke's attachment to the jeu de mots, is occasionally mentioned in the Journal and Correspondence.]

TOM ASHE died last night. It is conceived he was so puffed up by my lord lieutenant's favour, that it struck him into a fever. I here send you his dying speech, as it was exactly taken by a friend in

* Thomas Ashe, Esq. descended from an antient family of that name in Wiltshire, was a gentleman of fortune in Ireland. He was a facetious pleasant companion, but the most eternal unwearied punster that ever lived. He was thick and short in his person, being not above five feet high at the most, and had something very droll in his appearance. He died about the year 1719, and left his whole estate, of about a thousand pounds a-year, to his intimate friend and kinsman Richard Ashe, of Ashfield, Esq. There is a whimsical story, and a very true one, of Tom Ashe, which is well remembered to this day. It happened, that, while he was travelling on horseback, and at a considerable distance from any town, there burst from the clouds such a torrent of rain as wetted him through. He galloped forward; and, as soon as he came to an inn, he was met instantly by a drawer: "Here," said he to the fellow, stretching out one of his arms, "take off my coat immediately." "No, Sir, I won't," said the drawer. 66 Pox con

short-hand. It is something long, and a little incoherent; but he was several hours in delivering it, and with several intervals. His friends were about the bed, and he spoke to them thus:

66 MY FRIENDS,

"It is time for a man to look grave, when he has one foot there. I once had only a punnic fear of death; but of late I have pundered it more seriously. Every fit of coffing hath put me in mind of my coffin; though dissolute men seldomest think of dissolution. This is a very great alteration:

that supported myself with good wine, must now be myself supported by a small bier. A fortuneteller once looked on my hand, and said, this man is to be a great traveller; he will soon be at the diet of Worms, and from thence go to Ratisbone. But now I understand his double meaning. I desire to be privately buried, for I think a public funeral looks like Bury-fair; and the rites of the dead too often prove wrong to the living. Methinks the word itself best expresses the number, neither few nor all. A dying man should not think of obsequies, but ob se quies. Little did I think you would so soon see poor Tom stown under a tomb-stone. But as the mole crumbles the mold about her, so a man of small

found you, ," said Ashe, "take off my coat this instant." No, Sir," replied the drawer, "I dare not take off your coat; for it is felony to strip an AsH." Tom was delighted beyond measure, frequently told the story, and said he would have given fifty guineas to have been the author of that pun. This little tract of Dr Swift's, entitled, "The Dying Words of Tom Ashe," was written several years before the decease of Tom, and was merely designed to exhibit the manner in which such an eternal punster might have expressed himself on his death-bed.-D. S.

mold, before I am old, may molder away. Sometimes I've rav'd that I should revive; but physicians tell me, that when once the great artery has drawn the heart awry, we shall find the cor di all, in spite of all the highest cordial.-Brother, you are fond of Daffy's elixir; but when death comes, the world will see that, in spite of Daffy, down Dilly.* Whatever doctors may design by their medicines, a man in a dropsy drops he not, in spite of Goddard's drops, though none are reckoned such high drops?-I find death smells the blood of an Englishman: afee faintly fumbled out will be a weak defence against his fe-fa, fum. P.T. are no letters in death's alphabet; he has not half a bit of either: he moves his sithe, but will not be moved by all our sighs. Every thing ought to put us in mind of death: Physicians affirm, that our very food breeds it in us; so that, in our dieting, we may be said to die eating. There is something ominous, not only in the names of diseases, as diarrhoea, di-abetes, di-sentery: but even in the drugs designed to preserve our lives; as di-accodium, diapente, di-ascordium. I perceive Dr Howard (and I feel how hard) lay thumb on my pulse, then pulls it back, as if he saw lethum in my face. I see as bad in his; for sure there is no physic like a sick phiz. He thinks I shall decease before the day cease; but before I die, before the bell hath toll'd, and Tom Tollman is told that little Tom, though not old, has paid nature's toll, I do desire to give some advice to those that survive me. First, Let gamesters consider that death is a hazard and passage, upon the turn of a die. Let lawyers consider it as a hard case. And let punners consider how hard it is to die jesting, when death is so hard in digesting.

* A nickname of Tom's brother, Dillon Ashe.