Thus they have
jested themselves stark naked, and run into the streets and
frighted the people very successfully. There is no inhabitant of
any standing in Covent Garden, but can tell you a hundred good
humours where people have come off with a little bloodshed, and yet
scoured all the witty hours of the night. I know a gentleman that
has several wounds in the head by watch-poles, and has been twice
run through the body to carry on a good jest. He is very old for a
man of so much good humour; but to this day he is seldom merry, but
he has occasion to be valiant at the same time. But, by the favour
of these gentlemen, I am humbly of opinion that a man may be a very
witty man, and never offend one statute of this kingdom."
More harmless was the joking of Villiers, the last Duke of Buckingham,
(father of Lady Mary Wortley Montague), who seems to have inherited some
of the family humour. Addison tells us,
"One of the wits of the last age, who was a man of a good estate,
thought he never laid out his money better than on a jest. As he
was one year at Bath, observing that in the great confluence of
fine people there were several among them with long chins, a part
of the visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he
invited to dinner half a score of these remarkable persons, who had
their mouths in the middle of their faces.
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