Monologue

The Inventory Monologue from The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield

From The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield by Edward Robins

any · comedic · 3:21 min

Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions. Three bottles and a half of lightning. One shower of snow in the whitest French paper. Two showers of a browner sort. A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than ordinary, and a little damaged. A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well conditioned. A rainbow, a little faded. A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and furbelowed. A new moon, something decayed. A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two hogsheads sent over last winter. A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to be sold cheap. A setting-sun, a pennyworth. An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini. A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in. Roxana's night-gown. Othello's handkerchief. The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once. A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts (A) and Dioclesian. (Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.) A serpent to sting Cleopatra. A mustard-bowl to make thunder with. Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s (A) directions, little used. (Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.) Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots for their partners. The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha. The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke. A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the breast. A bale of red Spanish wool. Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them. Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of Mr. Pinkethman. (A) (Footnote A: The comedian.) Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten rounds. Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly. A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex. There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats, turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and a jointed baby.

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