Extract from The Mermaid of Bristol:

The story so far...

Jenny Go-Sprightly now runs a tavern in Bristol and here we meet one of her regular long-standing (oft' falling) customers:

Of the Bucks and the Sparks who now swill’d at the bar
One specific nose-painter outstripp’d them by far:
The Admiral of Ale, The Boozy Grandee
He could drink enough belch-juice to empty the sea.
His round, hollow legs like a nincompoops pate
Could hold enough sauce to make Samson prostrate!
He could toss off ten bumpers and still cry for more
This Soldier of Bacchus, this Gladiator.
Crown him with laurels of Barley and Hops
The Conquistador of all milksops and fops.

Sprung from the pages of Mr. Defoe
His eyes were like raisins push'd into dough
In the midst of his phiz, he’d a nose like a strawb'ry
And two ruddy cheeks of a similar daub'ry
His complexion was pock-mark’d from forehead to chin
A paean to the pleasures of swiving and gin
His hair was the colour of piss-sodden straw
No finer coxcomb could Rowlandson draw.

There was no better plea for sobriety’s case
Than one candle-lit glance at his fermented face.
The deepest carouser in Somersetshire
Was undoubtedly Timothy Tosspot esquire.