The Merry-Thought: Or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1

Imagine stumbling upon the secret wit of early 18th-century England, scratched into tavern windows and painted on outhouse doors by drunkards and dreamers who'd never see their words in print. That's exactly what this collection claims to preserve: the raw, unpublishable graffiti of England's drinking establishments, captured by an anonymous compiler who went by the improbable name Hurlo Thrumbo. These are epigrams composed in the haze of ale, love poems scrawled beneath church pews, and mocking verses about neighbors, rivals, and the inevitable disappointments of human connection. The humor is often broad, the sentiment occasionally tender, and the social climbing always ridiculous. Part One gathers the choicest bits from glass windows and bog-houses, preserving voices that were never meant to be preserved, voices that spoke only to the moment and the fellow drinker at the next stool. It is a portrait of England laughing at itself before the coffee houses and the novel-reading public changed everything.