… that we live in an unusually uncouth or rough age can be found in my Christmas Amazon order, my usual present to myself, which includes a collection of verse from 1580 to 1830 (concentrated in the earlier section of that span).

Two samples from the milder end of the spectrum:

I owed my hostess thirty pound

I owed my hostess thirty pound,
And how d’ye think I paid her?
I met her in my turnip ground
And gently down I laid her.

She oped a purse as black as coal
To hold my coin when counted.
I satisfied her in the whole,
And just by tail she found it.

Two stones make pounds full twenty-eight,
And stones she had some skill in,
And if good flesh bear any rate
A yard’s worth forty shilling.

If this coin pass, no man that lives
Shall dun for past debauches.
Zounds, landlords, send but in your wives!
We’ll scour off all their notches.

(From an undated song sheet, probably early 18th century. In case you were wondering: “just by tail” means exactly paying off a debt; “yard” was a word for penis and “stones” testicles. Zounds I haven’t worked out – Google gives me ” a group of anarcho-punk rockers” – probably not quite right.)

And then Sir John Davies, leaving nothing to the imagination, and proving not much has changed in the weirder bedrooms of the nation …

When Francus comes to solace

When Francus comes to solace with his whore
He sends for rods and strips himself stark naked,
For his lust sleeps and will not rise before
By whipping of the wench it be awaked.
I envy him not, but wish I had the power
To make myself his wench for one half hour.
(From his Epigrammes and Elegies, ?1596. The modern text gives no idea of Francus was, but I bet contemporary readers did.)

Lovers, Rakes and Rogues: A New Garner of Love-songs and Merry Verses, 1580-1830, John Wardroper, Shelfmark, 1995. Poems pages 154-5 and 186.

… that we live in an unusually uncouth or rough age can be found in my Christmas Amazon order, my usual present to myself, which includes a collection of verse from 1580 to 1830 (concentrated in the earlier section of that span).

Two samples from the milder end of the spectrum:

I owed my hostess thirty pound

I owed my hostess thirty pound,
And how d’ye think I paid her?
I met her in my turnip ground
And gently down I laid her.

She oped a purse as black as coal
To hold my coin when counted.
I satisfied her in the whole,
And just by tail she found it.

Two stones make pounds full twenty-eight,
And stones she had some skill in,
And if good flesh bear any rate
A yard’s worth forty shilling.

If this coin pass, no man that lives
Shall dun for past debauches.
Zounds, landlords, send but in your wives!
We’ll scour off all their notches.

(From an undated song sheet, probably early 18th century. In case you were wondering: “just by tail” means exactly paying off a debt; “yard” was a word for penis and “stones” testicles. Zounds I haven’t worked out – Google gives me ” a group of anarcho-punk rockers” – probably not quite right.)

And then Sir John Davies, leaving nothing to the imagination, and proving not much has changed in the weirder bedrooms of the nation …

When Francus comes to solace

When Francus comes to solace with his whore
He sends for rods and strips himself stark naked,
For his lust sleeps and will not rise before
By whipping of the wench it be awaked.
I envy him not, but wish I had the power
To make myself his wench for one half hour.
(From his Epigrammes and Elegies, ?1596. The modern text gives no idea of Francus was, but I bet contemporary readers did.)

Lovers, Rakes and Rogues: A New Garner of Love-songs and Merry Verses, 1580-1830, John Wardroper, Shelfmark, 1995. Poems pages 154-5 and 186.

Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson, Paula Bryne, HarperCollins, 2004. (Thanks Anne, lovely present)

In 1772 the 14-year-old Mary, who was to have successive careers as actress, courtesan and writer, wrote that she loved the “buzz” of London (p. 25). Curious, since it is one of those words that sounds as though it should be a recent invention. More later – she’s a great character.

‘Almost a Man of Genius,: Clemence Royer, Feminism and Nineteenth-Century Science, Joy Harvey, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1997.

The Diary of A Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-65, by Cleonie Knox, Thornton Butterworth, Second impression 1925 – a further excursion into old historical fiction.

Goya, Robert Hughes, Vintage, 2004, only £9 from Amazon – a bargain for a beautifully produced large paperback.

Lovers, Rakes and Rogues: A New Garner of Love-songs and Merry Verses, 1580-1830, John Wardroper, Shelfmark, 1995.

(Plus the paperbacks in the post below, and the lovely Sevenoaks history.)

Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson, Paula Bryne, HarperCollins, 2004. (Thanks Anne, lovely present)

In 1772 the 14-year-old Mary, who was to have successive careers as actress, courtesan and writer, wrote that she loved the “buzz” of London (p. 25). Curious, since it is one of those words that sounds as though it should be a recent invention. More later – she’s a great character.

‘Almost a Man of Genius,: Clemence Royer, Feminism and Nineteenth-Century Science, Joy Harvey, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1997.

The Diary of A Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-65, by Cleonie Knox, Thornton Butterworth, Second impression 1925 – a further excursion into old historical fiction.

Goya, Robert Hughes, Vintage, 2004, only £9 from Amazon – a bargain for a beautifully produced large paperback.

Lovers, Rakes and Rogues: A New Garner of Love-songs and Merry Verses, 1580-1830, John Wardroper, Shelfmark, 1995.

(Plus the paperbacks in the post below, and the lovely Sevenoaks history.)

For those who assume academic life is genteel, a couple of quotes:

“A man who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barere’s Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie.” – Thomas Macauley, who died on this day in 1859.
(From the Today in Literature email.)

A footnote from the Mary Robinson biography (see post above)
* Robert Bass, The Green Dragon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson (New York, 1957) … though Bass undertook valuable archival research, his transcriptions were riddled with errors, he misdated key incidents, and he failed to notice many fascinating newspaper reports, references in memoirs, and other sources. It is no exaggeration to say that his inaccuracies outnumber his accuracies; if Bass says that an article appeared on November in the Morning Post, one may be assured that it is to be found in December in the Morning Herald. (p. 3)

For those who assume academic life is genteel, a couple of quotes:

“A man who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barere’s Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie.” – Thomas Macauley, who died on this day in 1859.
(From the Today in Literature email.)

A footnote from the Mary Robinson biography (see post above)
* Robert Bass, The Green Dragon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson (New York, 1957) … though Bass undertook valuable archival research, his transcriptions were riddled with errors, he misdated key incidents, and he failed to notice many fascinating newspaper reports, references in memoirs, and other sources. It is no exaggeration to say that his inaccuracies outnumber his accuracies; if Bass says that an article appeared on November in the Morning Post, one may be assured that it is to be found in December in the Morning Herald. (p. 3)