JOURNAL TO STELLA, CONTINUED. LETTER XLIII. London, March 8, 1711-12. I CARRIED my forty-second letter in my pocket till evening, and then put it in the general post. I went in the morning to see lord-treasurer, who had taken physic, and was drinking his broth. I had been with the secretary before, to recommend a friend, one Dr Freind, to be physician-general; and the secretary promised to mention it to the queen. I can serve every body but myself. Then I went to court, and carried lord-keeper and the secretary to dine with Lord Masham, when we drank the queen and lord-treasurer with every health, because this was the day of his stabbing.-Then I went and played pools at picquet with Lady Masham and Mrs Hill ; won ten shillings, gave a crown to the box, and came home. I met at my lodgings a letter from Jo, with a bit annexed from Ppt. What Jo asks is entirely out of my way; and I take it for a foolish whim in him. Besides, I know not who is to give a patent; if the Duke of Ormond, I would speak to him; but good security is all; and to think that I would speak to lordtreasurer for any such matter at random is a jest. Did I tell you of a race of rakes, called the Mohocks, that play the devil about this town every night, slit people's noses, and bid them, &c.? Night, sirrahs, and love Pdfr. Night, MD. 9. I was at court to-day, and no body invited me to dinner, except one or two, whom I did not care to dine with; so I dined with Mrs Vanhomrigh. Young Davenant was telling us at court how he was set upon by the Mohocks, and how they ran his chair through with a sword. * It is not safe being in the streets at night for * Ever since the accession of James I. the streets of London had been infested with a set of disorderly debauchees, who, under the various names of nickers, scowrers, &c. insulted passengers, and attacked the watchmen. Shadwell wrote a play, called "The Scowrers," in which the heroes, men whom he intended to represent as persons of wit, honour, and fashion, are engaged in this disorderly exercise. One of them, a veteran scowrer, thus describes the champions of his youth: "Puh, this is nothing; why, I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityre Tu's; they were brave fellows indeed; in those days, a man could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willy." The fame of the Muns, the Hectors, and the Tityre Tu's, has been obscured by that of the Mohocks, whose insults upon the public were more daring and desperate than those of any Scowrers who had preceded them. They are often mentioned in the Spectator; and Gay has commemorated some of their exploits in Trivia : "Now is the time that rakes their revels keep; His scatter'd pence the flying Nicker flings, 1 |
