AGAINST PUNNING.
349
George Simmons, shoemaker at Turnstile in Holborn, was so given to this custom, and did it with so much success, that his neighbours gave out he was a wit. Which report coming among his creditors, no body would trust him; so that he is now a bankrupt, and his family in a miserable condition.
Divers eminent clergymen of the university of Cambridge, for having propagated this vice, became great drunkards and tories.
A Devonshire man of wit, for only saying in a jesting manner I get up pun a horse, instantly fell down, and broke his snuffbox and neck, and lost the horse.
"From which calamities, the Lord in his mercy defend us all, &c. &c." So prayeth the punless and penny less J. Baker, knight.
