I, Lawrence Lucifer, alias Dick Devil-barn, sick in soul, but not in body, being in perfect health to wicked memory, do constitute and ordain this my last will and testament irrevocable, as long as the world shall be trampled on by villany.
Imprimis, I, Lawrence Lucifer, bequeath my soul to hell, and my body to the earth: amongst you all divide me, and share me equally, but with as much wrangling as you can, I pray; and it will be the better if you go to law for me.
As touching my worldly-wicked goods, I give and bequeath them in most villanous order following:
First, I constitute and ordain Lieutenant Prigbeard, archpander of England, my sole heir of all such lands, closes, and gaps as lie within the bounds of my gift; beside, I have certain houses, tenements, and withdrawing-rooms in Shoreditch, Tunbold-street,[667] Whitefriars, and Westminster, which I freely give and bequeath to the aforesaid lieutenant and the base heirs truly begot of his villanous body; with this proviso, that he sell none of the land when he lacks money, nor make away any of the houses, to impair and weaken the stock, no, not so much as to alter the property of any of them, which is, to make them honest against their wills, but to train and muster his wits upon the Mile-end of his mazzard,[668] rather to fortify the territories of Tunbold-street and enrich the county of Pict-hatch[669] with all his vicious endeavours, golden enticements, and damnable practices. And, lieutenant, thou must dive, as thou usest to do, into landed novices, who have only wit to be lickerish and no more, that so their tenants, trotting up to London with their quartridges, they may pay them the rent, but thou and thy college shall receive the money.
Let no young wriggle-eyed damosel, if her years have struck twelve once, be left unassaulted, but it must be thy office to lay hard siege to her honesty, and to try if the walls of her maidenhead may be scaled with a ladder of angels;[670] for one acre of such wenches will bring in more at year’s end than a hundred acres of the best harrowed land between Deptford and Dover. And take this for a note by the way,—you must never walk without your deuce or deuce-ace of drabs after your boot-heels; for when you are abroad, you know not what use you may have for them. And, lastly, if you be well-feed by some riotous gallant, you must practise, as indeed you do, to wind out a wanton velvet-cap and bodkin from the tangles of her shop, teaching her—you know how—to cast a cuckold’s mist before the eyes of her husband, which is, telling him she must see her cousin new-come to town, or that she goes to a woman’s labour,[671] when thou knowest well enough she goes to none but her own. And being set out of the shop, with her man afore her, to quench the jealousy of her husband, she, by thy instructions, shall turn the honest, simple fellow off at the next turning, and give him leave to see The Merry Devil of Edmonton,[672] or A Woman killed with Kindness,[673] when his mistress is going herself to the same murder. Thousand of such inventions, practices, and devices, I stuff thy trade withal, beside the luxurious[674] meetings at taverns, ten-pound suppers, and fifteen-pound reckonings, made up afterwards with riotous eggs and muscadine. All these female vomits and adulterous surfeits I give and bequeath to thee, which I hope thou wilt put in practice with all expedition after my decease; and to that end I ordain thee wholly and solely my only absolute, excellent, villanous heir.
Item, I give and bequeath to you, Gregory Gauntlet, high thief on horseback, all such sums of money that are nothing due to you, and to receive them in, whether the parties be willing to pay you or no. You need not make many words with them, but only these two, Stand and deliver! and therefore a true thief cannot choose but be wise, because he is a man of so very few words.
I need not instruct you, I think, Gregory, about the politic searching of crafty carriers’ packs, or ripping up the bowels of wide boots and cloak-bags; I do not doubt but you have already exercised them all. But one thing I especially charge you of, the neglect of which makes many of your religion tender their winepipes at Tyburn at least three months before their day; that if you chance to rob a virtuous townsman on horseback, with his wife upon a pillion behind him, you presently speak them fair to walk a turn or two at one side, where, binding them both together, like man and wife, arm in arm very lovingly, be sure you tie them hard enough, for fear they break the bonds of matrimony, which, if it should fall out so, the matter would lie sore upon your necks the next sessions after, because your negligent tying was the cause of that breach between them.
Now, as for your Welsh hue and cry—the only net to catch thieves in—I know you avoid well enough, because you can shift both your beards and your towns well; but for your better disguising henceforward, I will fit you with a beard-maker of mine own, one that makes all the false hairs for my devils, and all the periwigs that are worn by old courtiers, who take it for a pride in their bald days to wear yellow curls on their foreheads, when one may almost see the sun go to bed through the chinks of their faces.
Moreover, Gregory, because I know thee toward enough, and thy arms full of feats, I make thee keeper of Combe Park,[675] sergeant of Salisbury Plain, warden of the standing-places, and lastly, constable of all heaths, holes, highways, and cony-groves, hoping that thou wilt execute these places and offices as truly as Derrick[676] will execute his place and office at Tyburn.
Item, I give and bequeath to thee, Dick Dogman, grand catchpoll—over and above thy barebone fees, that will scarce hang wicked flesh on thy back—all such lurches, gripes, and squeezes as may be wrung out by the fist of extortion.
And because I take pity on thee, waiting so long as thou usest to do, ere thou canst land one fare at the Counter, watching sometimes ten hours together in an ale-house, ever and anon peeping forth and sampling thy nose with the red lattice;[677] let him whosoever that falls into thy clutches at night pay well for thy standing all day: and, cousin Richard, when thou hast caught him in the mousetrap of thy liberty with the cheese of thy office, the wire of thy hard fist being clapt down upon his shoulders, and the back of his estate almost broken to pieces, then call thy cluster of fellow-vermins together, and sit in triumph with thy prisoner at the upper end of a tavern-table, where, under the colour of shewing him favour (as you term it) in waiting for bail, thou and thy counter-leech may swallow down six gallons of Charnico,[678] and then begin to chafe that he makes you stay so long before Peter Bail[679] comes. And here it will not be amiss if you call in more wine-suckers, and damn as many gallons again, for you know your prisoner’s ransom will pay for all; this is, if the party be flush now, and would not have his credit coppered with a scurvy counter.[680]
Another kind of rest you have, which is called shoepenny—that is, when you will be paid for every stride you take; and if the channel be dangerous and rough, you will not step over under a noble:[681] a very excellent lurch to get up the price of your legs between Paul’s-chain and Ludgate.
But that which likes[682] me beyond measure is the villanous nature of that arrest which I may fitly term by the name of cog-shoulder, when you clap a’ both sides like old Rowse[683] in Cornwall, and receive double fee both from the creditor and the debtor, swearing by the post of your office to shoulder-clap the party the first time he lights upon the lime-twigs of your liberty; when for a little usurer’s oil you allow him day by day free passage to walk by the wicked precinct of your noses, and yet you will pimple your souls with oaths, till you make them as well-favoured as your faces, and swear he never came within the verge of your eyelids. Nay, more, if the creditor were present to see him arrested on the one side, and the party you wot on over the way at the other side, you have such quaint shifts, pretty hinderances, and most lawyer-like delays, ere you will set forward, that in the meantime he may make himself away in some by-alley, or rush into the bowels of some tavern or drinking-school; or if neither, you will find talk with some shark-shift by the way, and give him the marks of the party, who will presently start before you, give the debtor intelligence, and so a rotten fig for the catchpoll! A most witty, smooth, and damnable conveyance![684] Many such cunning devices breed in the reins of your offices beside. I leave to speak of your unmerciful dragging a gentleman through Fleet-street, to the utter confusion of his white feather, and the lamentable spattering of his pearl-colour silk stockings, especially when some six of your black dogs of Newgate[685] are upon him at once. Therefore, sweet cousin Richard (for you are the nearest kinsman I have), I give and bequeath to you no more than you have already; for you are so well gorged and stuffed with that, that one spoonful of villany more would overlay your stomach quite, and, I fear me, make you kick up all the rest.
Item, I give and bequeath to you, Benedick Bottomless, most deep cutpurse, all the benefit of pageant-days, great market-days, ballat-places,[686] but especially the sixpenny rooms in play-houses, to cut, dive, or nim, with as much speed, art, and dexterity, as may be handled by honest rogues of thy quality. Nay, you shall not stick, Benedick, to give a shave of your office at Paul’s-cross in the sermon-time: but thou holdest it a thing thou mayest do by law, to cut a purse in Westminster Hall; true, Benedick, if thou be sure the law be on that side thou cuttest it on.
Item, I give and bequeath to you, old Bias, alias Humfrey Hollowbank, true cheating bowler and lurcher, the one half of all false bets, cunning hooks, subtle ties, and cross-lays,[687] that are ventured upon the landing of your bowl, and the safe arriving at the haven of the mistress,[688] if it chance to pass all the dangerous rocks and rubs of the alley, and be not choked in the sand, like a merchant’s ship before it comes half-way home, which is none of your fault (you’ll say and swear), although in your own turned conscience you know that you threw it above three yards short out of hand, upon very set purpose.
Moreover, Humfrey, I give you the lurching of all young novices, citizens’ sons, and country gentlemen, that are hooked in by the winning of one twelvepenny game at first, lost upon policy, to be cheated of twelve pounds’ worth a’ bets afterward. And, old Bias, because thou art now and then smelt out for a cozener, I would have thee sometimes go disguised (in honest apparel), and so drawing in amongst bunglers and ketlers[689] under the plain frieze of simplicity, thou mayest finely couch the wrought-velvet of knavery.
Item, I give and bequeath to your cousin-german here, Francis Fingerfalse, deputy of dicing-houses, all cunning lifts, shifts, and couches, that ever were, are, and shall be invented from this hour of eleven-clock upon black Monday, until it smite twelve a’ clock at doomsday. And this I know, Francis, if you do endeavour to excel, as I know you do, and will truly practise falsely, you may live more gallanter far upon three dice, than many of your foolish heirs about London upon thrice three hundred acres.
But turning my legacy to you-ward, Barnaby Burning-glass, arch-tobacco-taker of England, in ordinaries, upon stages[690] both common and private, and lastly, in the lodging of your drab and mistress; I am not a little proud, I can tell you, Barnaby, that you dance after my pipe so long, and for all counterblasts[691] and tobacco-Nashes[692] (which some call railers), you are not blown away, nor your fiery thirst quenched with the small penny-ale of their contradictions, but still suck that dug of damnation with a long nipple, still burning that rare Phœnix of Phlegethon, tobacco, that from her ashes, burned and knocked out, may arise another pipeful. Therefore I give and bequeath unto thee a breath of all religions save the true one, and tasting of all countries save his[693] own; a brain well sooted, where the Muses hang up in the smoke like red herrings; and look how the narrow alley of thy pipe shews in the inside, so shall all the pipes through thy body. Besides, I give and bequeath to thee[694] lungs as smooth as jet, and just of the same colour, that when thou art closed in thy grave, the worms may be consumed with them, and take them for black puddings.
Lastly, not least, I give and bequeath to thee, Pierce Pennyless, exceeding poor scholar, that hath made clean shoes in both universities, and been a pitiful battler[695] all thy lifetime, full often heard with this lamentable cry at the buttery-hatch, Ho, Launcelot, a cue[696] of bread, and a cue of beer! never passing beyond the confines of a farthing, nor once munching commons but only upon gaudy-days;[697] to thee, most miserable Pierce, or pierced through and through with misery, I bequeath the tithe of all vaulting-houses,[698] the tenth denier of each heigh, pass, come aloft! beside the playing in and out of all wenches at thy pleasure, which I know, as thou mayest use it, will be such a fluent pension, that thou shalt never have need to write Supplication again.
Now, for the especial trust and confidence I have in both you, Mihell[699] Moneygod, usurer, and Leonard Lavender, broker or pawn-lender, I make you two my full executors to the true disposing of all these my hellish intents, wealthy villanies, and most pernicious damnable legacies.
And now, kinsmen and friends, wind about me; my breath begins to cool, and all my powers to freeze; and I can say no more to you, nephews, than I have said,—only this, I leave you all, like ratsbane, to poison the realm. And, I pray, be all of you as arrant villains as you can be; and so farewell: be all hanged, and come down to me as soon as you can.
This said, he departed to his molten kingdom: the wind risse,[700] the bottom of the chair flew out, the scrivener fell flat upon his nose; and here is the end of a harmless moral.
Now, sir, what is your censure[701] now? you have read me, I am sure; am I black enough, think you, dressed up in a lasting suit of ink? do I deserve my dark and pitchy title? stick I close enough to a villain’s ribs? is not Lucifer liberal to his nephews in this his last will and testament? Methinks I hear you say nothing; and therefore I know you are pleased and agree to all, for qui tacet, consentire videtur; and I allow you wise and truly judicious, because you keep your censure to yourself.