  By the same Author. Tune.—On a time I was great, now little I’m grown. I’ll tell you a story, if you please to attend, When my heart was afflicted with sorrow, The song it is new, but it’s absolute true; It’s for nothing that I did buy or borrow: But I was sent for to Preston’s one day the last week, There I little expected with what I did meet, But the country’s all rogues, and the world is a cheat, And there they confin’d me in Limbo. Like an innocent lamb to the slaughter I went, Not knowing what was their intention, But when I came there, O how I did stare, When I found out their damned invention. There was Preston the bailiff, Joe Craggs was his bum, And there they did seize me, as sure as a gun, Upstairs then they haul’d me into the back room, And there they confin’d me in Limbo. My belly was empty, though my stomach was full, For to think there how I was trepanned, Preston pull’d out a paper and made a long scrawl, And he forc’d me to set my hand to’t. Then I open’d his closet, I got out a pie, Then I call’d for liquor, while I was a dry, I knew somebody would pay for’t, but what cared I? I wasn’t to starve, though in Limbo. Another poor fellow there happen’d to be, Which they had confined in Limbo; Brother prisoner, says I, how shall we get free, For want of this thing called rhino? The poor fellow sat like one was half dead, Then I gave him claret to dye his nose red; But I never knew yet how the reck’ning was paid; I was resolv’d to live well, though in Limbo. There was Mr Bum and I, we toss’d it about, Until we began to grow mellow; Three bottles of claret he there did me give, Indeed he’s a jolly good fellow: Full bumpers of claret went round it is true, Some drank for vexation till twice they did spew, I ne’er in my life saw so merry a crew, As we were when I was in Limbo. There was Ralph Jackson, the tanner, he came in by chance, And did chatter and talk like a parrot; And likewise Will Bulmer was one of our number, For he had a mind to drink claret. Full glasses went round till I could not see, O then they were all willing I should go free; But the devil may pay them their reckoning for me, For now I have got out of Limbo. With many a foul step then I stagger’d home, And it happen’d to be without falling; I got on my bed, and nothing I said, But my wife she began with her bawling; She rung me such a peal, though she’d been not well, As if she would have rais’d all the devils in hell, You might have heard her as far as the sound of Bow Bell; Then I wish’d that I’d stay’d there in Limbo. |
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