Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	case_n	estate_n	remainder_n	5,475	5	10.8721	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34743	The country gentleman's vade mecum, or his companion for the town in eighteen letters from a gentleman in London to his friend in the country wherein he passionately disswades him against coming to London, and represents to him the advantages of a country life, in opposition to the follies and vices of the town : he discovers to him most of the humours, tricks and cheats of the town, which as a gentlemen and a stranger he is most exposed to, and gives him some general advice and instructions how he may best in his absence dispose of his affairs in the country, and manage himself with the most security and satisfaction when he comes to London.	Gentleman in London.; Sc̲̲̲̲y, Ed.	1699 (1699)	Wing C6533; ESTC R2672	63,002	180

as Young and is as well descended and has been as well bred as any of 'em and do you think that she 'll be put off with your nasty shabby forty or fifty Guinea's No truly she rather thinks that as Cases stand between you and her you ought to cut off the Entail of your Estate and settle a good part of it upon her for her Life and then let the Child Heir it afterwards and perhaps all this too may be only Whore-craft and Pretences and so she must be forc'd to bring her self off to sham a Miscarriage and that your Cruelty and Hard-heartedness in not settling your Estate upon her and answering her Demands has been the cause of it and will at last force her to make her self away Well but if you loved her as well as she loves you you could not be so Barbarous to deny her any thing Besides she has been no chargeable Mistress to you neither she has been your Drudge for at least these Seven Months and ha'nt cost you fifteen hundred Pound in the whole If you had lived with some she knows in Town so long but she is an easie Fool 't would not stood you in a Penny less than three thousand Sir their Tricks and Devices are numberless and not to be paralell'd by any thing but their Ingratitude and Inhumanity there indeed they exceed themselves nothing in Nature being so perfectly brutish and Cruel as One of these kind of Creatures the very Moment you stop your Hand they grow Rude and Insolent and when they find they have entirely done your Business and turned you a grazing who so ready as that very Syren that has spent your Estate to laugh at revile and scorn you and you are not less her Buffoon now than you were her Property formerly To have done with her A Jilt is a Procurer Bawd and Whore Compounded together A Vermine so Ravenous and Malicious and withal so subtile and Designing so formally Chast and Hypocritically Vertuous and yet so Scandalously Common and Impudently Lewd so Proud and yet so Mercenary and above all so Insolently Ill-natur'd That in the short Title of a Jilt are comprehended all the Vices Follies and Impertinencies of her whole Sex And last for their Art of Trapping This is Mystery that they commonly manage either by the Assistance of a Pregnant Whore or by the help of some Letters or Papers that they pick out of your Pocket that gives them an Inlet into your Affairs The first is carried on by Procurers Bawds and Jilts and the latter by Sharpers Setters and Bullies If they are once so fortunate to get a Big-bellied Whore into their Confederacy then they carry her about in a kind of Triumph among all their Cullys and Novices every one forsooth under the Notion of being the true Father must subscribe an Individual Maintenance for the Strumpet and the Brat or a Warrant must be got immediately or the Masters of the Parish call'd in to their Assistance to force you to it 'T is no boot to contest it for if you do they 'll force the Woman to Swear it upon you and the● your Reputation 's lost and withal you have the Charge of a Whore and a Bastard entail'd upon you ad infinitum If they get your Papers and Letters into their Clutches those are their Credentials for their Sharpers Setters and Bullys to commence their Villanies in such Cases they pretend that the Harlot that rifled you was an honest Gentlewoman and the Wife of a Person of Credit and Reputation and you must either make Satisfaction and Compound the Business or else they 'll expose you first and bring their Action against you afterwards And what can a Man can do when he has brought himself into such a Dilemma by his Folly For my part the Case is so very bad and desperate I can't direct you in 't If you Compound with 'em now you do but lay your self open to their Mercy and render your self a Bubble and a Property for the future or if you resist 'em why then you lose your Credit they 'll be sure to be as good as their Words in that point however to misrepresent you and abuse you in all Companies and upon all Occasions so that this Business of Whoring especially seems to have a Malevolent Influence both upon your Estate and Reputation nay upon your Person too and very rarely terminates without destroying 'em all To conclude this loathsome Relation you may learn from this rough Account what kind of Creatures Procurers Bawds Jilts Whores and their Appendages i. e. Sharpers Setters and Bullies are And now what shall I say more but advise you again If you reguard your Health your Estate or your Reputation nay what is yet more if you regard the Liberty and Quiet of your Life to shun 'em all and that will be one great means to make your London Expedition a little the more Comfortable and the less exposed to Hazard and Expence LETTER XVI In which the Humours of Bully's Setters and Hangers on are exposed together with Reflections upon Gaming in General SIR having in a long Letter the last Post entertained you with the Vicious Tricks and Humours of the Female Prostitutes I shall now change the Sex and expose to you some of the base Practices of the Male as they fall in Order under the distinct Characters of Bullys Setters and Hangers-on And first for the Bully which if I take him right is a kind of Lewd Blustering Animal that having rendered himself unfit by a Complication of Vicious and Degenerate Actions for the Conversation and Society of Sober and Rational Creatures is forc'd to throw himself into the Company of Bawds and Whores and to live upon their Contribution and Subsistance I shall not enlarge much upon his Character or Method of living they are both so generally known in Town and Country too 't would be at best an Impertinence to spend much time about him As I told you before his common Rendezvous is among the Bawds and Whores he eats their Bread and fights their Battles Hectors and insults their Cullys gathers their Contribution and for a need can Pimp Betray and Set as well as the best of ' em You may discern him by his long Sword his Insolent and Sawcy Behaviour but above all by his Atheistical Dialect Swearing Cursing and Ribaldry If ever you should be so unhappy to fall in with him he consequently entertains you with the dismal Relation of the Men he has Murder'd and the Women he has Raped the famous Battle he fought with such a Watch or the bloody Rencounter he had with a Detachment of Bailiffs or some such Romantick Lies and Forgeries and if he can impose so far upon you that he perceives you 're inclin'd to believe him 't is ten to one but he draws you into a Quarrel or some other Inconveniency and then by a Cowardly Stratagem brings himself off and basely deserts you to shift for

I grant indeed that the Flute and Violin that Dancing Singing Fencing and the like may be very proper and innocent Qualifications for a young Gentleman to pass away an idle Interval but then I would not have him like Nero prefer his Fiddle to his Empire or like Domitian spend his whole time in catching Flyes I confess if he could use them as all Bables and Trifles ought to be used play with them at his Leisure and then throw them by there 's no harm in them but they are rather an Accomplishment To make as short of the Matter as I can there is but one thing within the Compass of my Experience in which this Town can any ways improve your Education beyond the Country and that 's a small thing in Point of Conversation If you were so well weighed both in your Judgment and Principles that you might be turned loose to take a short view of the Town without any Danger I mean if you could run through the different Societies and Humours of it without being infected or seduced by any of 'em and withal could extract from them too some good Morals and useful Observations why then if you did make a Winter Trip to London for a Month or two and stay no longer then indeed there would be no great matter of Harm or Hazard in it but to leave your Estate to the Management of Servants and your House and Gardens to run into Ruin and Disorder and to come up hither and spend your Time and Money purely under the Pretence of better Company Diversion and Education than your own Country can afford you is such an unaccountable Mixture of Folly and Madness that 't will at once render you the Pity Scorn and Wonder of all that know you But here I 'll leave you to retire into your self and to reflect in earnest upon the Nature and Consequence of what you are about LETTER IV. In which is a general Reflection upon the present State and Condition of the Town HAving made some General Observations and Reflections upon the three Things which chiefly induce you to leave the Country and come to Town and withal having briefly told you my Thoughts concerning the Vanity of your Pretensions and in some Measure demonstrated to you That you either have or at least might have as good Opportunity both for Convensation Pleasure and Education in the Country as you can have in London I might have stopp'd there and left the Acquital that these have receiv'd at the Tribunal of Reason and Common Experience to have included all the rest But Sir that will not thorowly answer my present Design I intend to expose the whole Town to you as the Spartans of old were wont to do their drunken Helots to their Children to wean them betimes from the vicious Inclination to Wine and Debauchery I intend to lead you from one Seat of Action to another and give you a short View of most of the Dangers Tricks and Villanies which as a Gentleman and a Stranger you will consequently be exposed to when you come to it As to the Town it self 'T is a kind of large Forrest of Wild Beasts where most of us range about at a venture and are equally Savage and mutually destructive one of another I wish 't were possible to give you a Distant View of the State and Manner of it I 'm confident the Spectacle if you were not really bewitch'd would be so horridly odious and ungrateful that you 'd have small Lust to come at it notwithstanding the Fury of your present Inclinations The first thing that you 'd be encountred with would be the dismal Prospect of an universal Poverty and Crowds of miserable People either wrack'd with the Agonies of their own Guilt or Folly or groaning under the intolerable Want of Bread or mad or infatuated by Oppression or desperate by a too quick Sence of a continued Infelicity here you 'd see us all generally busied to trappan undermine and deceive one another which we are forc'd to do to make good our mistaken Pretence to a Life of Sensuality and Delight If you cast your Eye upon the Court you 'd see but few there but Flatterers and Hypocrites except it be some nauseous useless Creatures that are only fix'd there for Show and indeed are fit for nothing else If you look into Westminster Hall among the Lawyers there you 'll be entertain'd with little else but hideous Complaints for Want of Money and Business and find 'em all so sower and ill natur'd that you can hardly speak to any of 'em without endangering your Nose Look among the Religious pretenders and you 'll see them in the very same Condition all furiously hating and uncharitably censuring one another snapping snarling grinning and biting and almost every Party wishing all the rest damn'd but just those few that agree with them in their own Opinion and Judgment Observe the Shops and you 'll see an Universal Discontent and Melancholy hanging in the Faces of their respective Owners You would see all these things and many other unpleasant and tormenting Objects And what sensible Man then would not be mightily rejoyc'd and satisfy'd that his better Fortune hath remov'd him from hence out of the Noise and Participation of all these Evils and Calamities and be constantly alarm'd affraid and disturb'd that some cross and malicious Accident should force him hither Consider I beseech you what are the Advantages and Goods of this Town that can give you any just Reason to be so fond of it or what Evils in the Country that can render it so odious and obnoxious to you and engage you to forsake it in such a Hurry and Affright Suppose you were now at some convenient Stand from whence you might take a full and deliberate View and Prospect of ●em both and were just making a Pause to survey and compare them one with another suppose that having viewed over all the Comforts and Enjoyments of a Country Life and the Blessings and Sweets of Retirement and Liberty you were now looking forward upon the Town and that all in a View you saw the strange Hurries and Impertinencies the busy Scramblings and Vnderminings and what is worse the monstrous Villanies Cheats and Impostures in it suppose I say that both these were in your View i. e. the Content Happiness and Quiet of the Country and the Disturbance Hazard and Noise of the City In such a Case I hope I need not direct you to make your Election Well the Case is the very same and if true innocent Delight and Diversion be preferable to Debauchery and Excess If Liberty be better than Confinement if a wholsom open Air be better than contagious Smoak and Stink and a quiet easie Life better than a Life of Noise Vexation and Disappointment why then the Country is better than the Town and there is none but Madmen or Fools will venture to exchange the one for the other and like the Dog in

forces him upon the ungrateful Inconveniency to steer to the next Barber's Shop to new Rig and Mundifie Perhaps some Antiquated Whore that for Company sake can drink and smoke a Pipe and be drunk as well as he for want of a better Adventure halls him to her and lays him aboard and if she can but once decoy him to a Tavern she ply's him so very warmly that she soon makes him quite up then dexterously picks his Pocket and so leaves him And this is the way a great many of these sort of Gentry in this Town pass away their Lives till an Habitual Course of Sottishness and Debauchery hath either made them insensible or thrown them into a Feaver or some other dangerous Distemper which carries them off intirely or at least brings the Gout Stone Gravel Strangury or some such thing upon them by which the whole Remainder of their Lives is render'd bitter and uncomfortable But Sir I remember the Caution you gave me in your last i. e. to make my Letters as short as I could and so I 'll defer the Character of the other two idle Companions till my next LETTER VI. In which are the Characters of a Beau and a Gamester together with some short Reflections upon Idleness in general The Character of a Beau. ABeau is a Creature of a Nature so different and disagreeable to the former that you 'd hardly take him to be of the same Species and his time cut out to quite contrary uses some of it is spent in the idle pursuit of Modes and Fashions in contriving his Cloaths and putting them on with the most Advantage another part of his time is consum'd in admiring Himself or projecting to be admir'd by others and the rest in hearing of Flatteries and reflecting and ruminating upon them The first three Hours of every Day are constantly dedicated to the setting his Wig and Cravat rolling his Stockings redning his Lips and painting his nauseous Phiz and the like When he thinks he has manag'd himself in the best order as may be perhaps he stalks majestically to the Coffee-house where he teizes some-body with an Hour's Impertinence drinks his dish of Tea and is laught at and then forsooth he must have a Chair call'd to carry him to a Lady that it may be does him only the Honour after all to let him diue with her Dogs and her Abigails or perhaps if she be in a very good Humour and wants a little Sport will admit him to the favour to play a Game at Cards with her till she has won his Mony and made him the common Buffoon to the Company and then she dismisseth him with a Jest From hence perhaps he marches to another and tells her a thousand Stories how kind my Lady was to him what a plentiful Dinner they had and how earnestly she prest him to stay longer with her in short 't is ten to one but his Company soon grows ungrateful there too Ladies don't often love such Fools that are fit for nothing but to be stuck up in a Garden to fright the Birds from the Fruit which they can cut none of themselves and so to he rid of him one of the Maids has the Sign given her to take him aside and tell him that her Mistris expects Visiters and his Company won't be convenient From hence it may be he walks to the Play-house where his chief Business is to observe the Ladies in the Boxes and to expose himself to 'em when the Play is done he places himself at one of the Doors of the House and stands ready to offer his Hand to help them severally into their Coaches if there be ever a One that will take him home with her well and good if not by the help of a Link he picks his way to the Groom Porter's where he lolls about for another hour or two and then the business of the Day is done with him If there be any broken Intervals which cannot be so well devoted to these Set and Solemn Fopperies those are commonly glean'd up by some other little insignificant Trifles so that the main of his whole Life is nothing else but one continued Scene of Folly and Impertinence The Character of a Gamester A Gamester is a sort of Composition of both these together half Sot half Beau and in his Nature and Constitution worse than either of them Indeed I want a Name for him and if he be a profest Gamester and has taken up the Trade purely for a Livelihood he 's no more fit to be admitted into the Society of Country Gentlemen than a Mad Dog is to be turn'd loose into a Kennel of Beagles where if he sets his venomous Teeth into any of 'em they consequently run mad too and so are fit for nothing but to be worm'd or hang'd to prevent the Infection of the rest of the Company These forsooth range the Town in the Garb and under the Characters of Gentlemen and indeed some of 'em are so Originally but then in their Practices they are not only a Reproach to their Family but to their Title too 'T is a worthy Employment for a Gentleman is it not to make it his Business to find out Young Heirs of much Wealth and little Prudence and to rook 'em at Play or entangle 'em into Suretiship or perhaps betray 'em into some mean and unequal Matches This is their common Practice and when they have hit of such a One they seize upon him with as much eagerness and observe him with the same joy as a Vulture does the fall of a Carcase But I shall have other Opportunities to speak with them in their proper Places and therefore I 'll wave them now As to the Gentlemen that use Gaming as their ordinary Method to squander away their Time their usual Custom is this To spend their Morning at the Tennis Court their Afternoon at the Bowling Green their Evening at the Play House from thence to their Mistris from her to the Groom Porter 's from the Groom Porter's to the Tavern and from thence perhaps if they don't commit some Outrages that oblidges the Watch to secure 'em from further Mischief about four or five in the Morning they get drunk to Bed In short Sir a Gamester is a Composition of almost all the Vices of the Town jumbl'd together his ordinary Dialect is Swearing and Cursing and his Occupation solely depends upon Lying Falshood and Perjury His Life 's a perfect Lottery and a Hazard-table to day he 's a Squire and so proud and insolent no body can speak to him to Morrow he 's a Beggar and as meek as a Lamb and but lend him a Guinea to set him up you may say or do what you will to him To have done with him his time is so equally divided between Vice Folly and Impertinence and commonly so taken up and forestall'd by his Designs and Projects and which way to manage his Cheats and Adventures or at least he 's