Question, WHat's your Name?

Answer, Observator.

Quest. Who gave you that Name?

Ans. My Country-Man.

Quest. Who's your Country-Man?

Ans. An honest poor Fellow that I bubble— Lie with his Wife, eat up his Victuals, and drink up his drink; cram his head full of Stratagem and Politicks, and drain his Barn to sup­ply my Exchequer: Instead of Tilling and Mannuring his Land to propogate the Increase of the Earth, I send him to prog for Intelligence, and propogate Scandal; which, together with his being naturally of a busie turbulent Spirit, may in time qualifie him for my Business▪ if the Aspect of his Affairs, the mean while does not make him turn Wise, before I turn Honest; of which there's most probability.

Quest. How d'ye Title your self to the World?

Ans. A Gentleman.

Quest. And how do's the World Title you?

Ans. A Blockhead.

Quest. Are you in any Condition in the World?

Ans. Yes, in a Shitten one, if the Government lays hold of me again: Nec non, and five false Latin Councellors won't bring me off, with the Additional help of a trusty Whig Friend [Page 2] in H—t's Office— But a pox of the Jest, it has baulk'd the Sale of my Paper since, tho' I put the laudable Name of John Tutchin at the End on't— Witness it's being thrown out of Fifty Coffee-Houses in Town.

Quest. What did it's Merit consist in before?

Ans. Impudence.

Quest. And what has Eclyps'd it since?

Answ. Dullness— a Consequence as Plain and Natural as the four first Rules of Arithmetick, that when one leaves me, t'other seizes me— for when I am abridg'd in my Latitude of Scandal, which is my principal Talent, I grow dull as naturally, as I grow drunk with my Country Man's October: Nor has that Power to inspire me with any Eloquence, unless I may join a little Impudence to help it out. Railing is my Genius, and Scurrility and Reproaches, the natural Product of my Brain:— I turn'd Poet too, but having nothing but Scandal to qualifie my Muse, Apollo had like to've broke my head with my own Standish.

Quest. Who employ'd you to write against the Play-house?

Ans My self.

Quest. And who paid you for it?

Ans. George P—e, when he scour'd me over Lambeth-Marsh, with an Execution at my Heels; leaving the dearest Friends I had upon Earth in a praemunire— Meaning my worldly Move­ables; and rubbing to the Mint, in as pittiful a Condition, as when I left my Lodging in Southwark, and repair'd to honest Will. Fuller near the Fleet, with all my Furnitude and Apparel in a sheet of Brown-Paper.

Quest. Why did not you take Satisfaction for this affront?

Ans. Even Sawney's Reason— because I durst not, having but too lately suffer'd under the violent Hands of a Sea Here, whom I had drench'd in an Ocean of Scandal.

Quest. Have you any Courage?

Ans. Yes, but there's no Body believes it but my Country-man. Who believes any thing, I say— and yet I have said as [Page 3] much in praise of my own Valour, as ever was said of that clam­bring Hero Prince Eugene's— Nay, I had the Courage t'other day in my Observator, to give a certain Person of Note the Lie, for say­ing, I was an approv'd Coward; where I prov'd the Gentleman's Words true, tho' it had not been done before— For if I'd had the Courage of an angry Cat, I had told him so to his Face, and not in Print— But let others draw their Swo ds— I'll stab with my Pen, and when Scandal and Invectives fail me, I'll appeal to my Oaken Towel, a Weapon, adapted more suitably to my un­w [...]ildy Bulk— which I presume those, who gave me the Title of Labourer had been made acquainted with, it being a Title as proper to my Person, as my celebrated Impudence is to my po­pular Capacity.

Quest. What Religion are you of?

Ans. My Country-Man's.

Quest. And what Religion's your Country-Man of?

Ans. None at all— as how the Devil should he, when he has been so long at my Devotion.

Quest. What are your Principles?

Ans. Very necessary and suitable to the Station into which t'has pleas'd John How, and the Republican Whigs, to call me. The old Rebellious King-killing Principles of Forty-Eight; Se­dition and Levelling, under the specious Name of Liberty and Property, and Power in the People: There's Principles that fire me with pious Rage! To be an Ostentatious Rogue among the Party, and fatten upon popular Scandal; through which I resolve to stand by the Party to the last drop of my Ink. I dare not say, my Blood, for fear Leslic should make Treason of it— In short— My Principles are to rail immoderately at the High-Church Party, to traduce the Government when it is not mov'd by those Precepts▪ I lay down, and to throw the same dirt at the Crown, I do at the Mitre, to spare none, tho' never so high in Station, and to stick at nothing within the Verge of my Ears, to explode Immorality, and be catch'd in a B [...]wdy-House, to run in every Bodies debt, and pay no Body; to ruin my Coun­try-Man, and as many of Mankind besides as will be led by the Nose— and finally— to be a very Capricious positive Cox­comb— [Page 4] revengful without Courage, and conceited without Merit— and now, Sir, I have given you an exact, tho' brief Ac­count, of my Principles.

Quest. Very well, Sir— but pray, how came you to rail at King William?

Ans. First— Because he bore that Regal Title; next, because he let the Bishops sit in Council; and lastly, because I could not rail my self into a better Office than a Tubber of pickled Beef upon Tower-Hill— Out of which, notwithstanding, I was kick'd for a troublesome vexatious Fellow.

Quest. In what Post were you in Ireland?

Ans. A Captain, if you'll take my own word for't; but if you'l believe other People, I was but a Corporal, who adapt my Preferment more suitable to my desert.

Quest. What were you in the West of England?

Ans. A busie turbulent Fellow, as I've appear'd ever since; where. Jefferies not finding Law enough to hang me— resolv'd upon Measures to make me hang my self— which I had done, had not King James pardoned me, tho' I deserv'd the Halter I petition'd for, and which Providence, by her inscrutable De­crees, may have reserv'd to a more convenient Season.