Great NEWS from SOUTHWARK:
OR, THE
Old Woman's Legacy to her Cat:
Giving an Account of an old miserable Woman, who lately kept a blind
Ale-house, in Tooley street, near the Burrough of Southwark; who was so wretch-
ly Covetuous, as to deny herself the common Benefits of Life, as to Meat and
Cloaths; leaving at her Death, about eighteen hundred Pounds to her CAT;
using to say often, when the CAT mew'd,
Peace PUSS, peace; thou shalt have all, when I am Dead.
To the Tune of, The Bleeding Heart, etc.
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IN Southwark there did lately dwell,
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A rich old Woman, noted well:
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An Ale-house-keeper by her trade;
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She liv'd alone, and had no maid.
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For very poor she seem'd to be,
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And was maintain'd by Charity,
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Her Family was very small,
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A Cat she kept, and that was all.
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No food herself she would afford,
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But what came from her Neighbour's board:
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But for her Cat, she meat would buy,
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And feed her; ay! most daintily.
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She liv'd so close, and far'd so hard,
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That she herself had well nigh starv'd:
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No cloath's or victuals would she buy,
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But feet her Cat most daintily.
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She heaped up her bags in store,
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And pincht her guts, to lay up more:
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Tho' she as lean as rak, did grow,
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Her Cat was plump as any doe.
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Her belly-money up she laid,
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Until an handsome sum it made:
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Her guttage-money it was found
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To be nigh eighteen hundred pound.
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For Death at length began to creep,
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And rock the rich old Crone asleep;
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Asleep she lay, to Death confin'd,
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And left her Cat, and wealth, behind.
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A day or two, did scarcely pass,
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When by her Neighbors mist she was:
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Who marvell'd greatly, that she stay'd,
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And came not for her daily bread.
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Among the rest, one went to see,
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What the occasion there might be:
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But when that he came in the house,
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He found all still, as any mouse.
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Up stairs he went, and in the bed
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He found the rich old Woman dead:
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And looking in a trunk just by,
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Near eighteen hundred pounds did lie.
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No sooner he had found the hoard,
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But he divulg'd it all abroad:
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Then flockt the Neighbours, to behold
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The treasur'd bags of coyned gold.
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Thus did he cheat and baffle such,
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As thought her poor, for she was rich:
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Her belly sav'd it for her Cat,
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But Puss must shew the Will for that.
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