32. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 28., July 12. '56. 



The Gray's Inn Glutton may be well supposed 

 to have been annoyed by this publication, but 

 about the same time appeared, probably by the 

 same hand, another 4to. tract, entitled : 



The English. Mountebank : or, a Physical Dis- 

 pensato7-y, wherein is prescribed, many strange and 

 Excellent Receits of Mr. Marriot, the Great Eater 

 of Grays Inn, ^c. With sundry Directions, 1. How 

 to make his Cordial Broath. 2. His pills to appease 

 hunger. 3. His strange Purgation ; never before 

 practised by any Doctor in England. 4. The 

 maimer and reason why he swalloivs bullets and 

 stones. 5. How he orders his Baked Meat, or rare 

 Dish on Sundays. 6. How to make his neio fashion 

 Fish' Broath, 7. How to make his Sallet for cool- 

 ing of the Bloud. 8. How to make his new Dish, 

 called a Erigazee ; the operation whereof expels all 

 Sadness and Melancholy. By J. Marriot, of Grays 

 Inn, Gent. London: G. Horton, 1652. 



Prefixed to this we have a full-length portrait 

 of Marriot, holding in one hand a large substance 

 of pumpkin shape, which I take, from the text, 

 to represent one of his "pills;" while on his arm 

 hang three sheep's heads, and seven large hearts 

 of some animal — no doubt his usual dinner al- 

 lowance. Out of his mouth issue the words, 

 " Behold the wonder of the age ! " From the 

 spirit of this tract it is evident that the author's 

 motive was not honestly the advancement of the 

 culinary art : for old Marriot, whose name he im- 

 pudently affixes to it, figures in it in a manner 

 still farther calculated to irritate him. Let us 

 take as a specimen : — 



** How to make bis pills ta appease hunger, ordinarily car- 

 ried about him : — 



" Take of rye meal 9 pound, of Chandler's graves 

 3 pound, of the Skimmings of honey one pound ; warm 

 water as much as will make it into Paste ; then roll them 

 up into a dozen balls ; then put them into some boiling 

 broath, till they be thorough boiled ; then set them to 

 cool ; but beware that the dogs do not deceive you of 

 them, as they have done him oftentimes. The chief use 

 of these pills is for travelling ; for Mr. Marriot carried 

 always a dozen to Westminster in the Term time for 

 fear of fasting. His ordinary place for eating them was 

 in the dark place neer the Common Pleas Treasury; 

 where one might see him swallow these pills, as easily as 

 an ordinary man would do a gilt pill in the pap of an 

 apple." 



How many of these characteristics of old Mar- 

 riot, the great eater, were really true, or how far 

 they were the invention of G. F. Gent, for the 

 gratification of private animosity, the world will 

 now probably never know. These attacks were 

 not, however, allowed to pass unnoticed. Your bon 

 vivant, rascal or not, is rarely without some friends 

 who think him a "good fellow ;" and it is therefore 

 not surprising that an answer to G. F, appeared 

 about two months afterwards (if I can trust the 

 manuscript notes on the copies before me) in a 

 tract bearing the following title : — ' 



A Letter to Mr. Marriot from a friend of his : 

 wherein His Name is redeemed from that Detrac- 

 tion G. F. Gent, hath indeavoured to fasten upon 

 him, by n Scandalous and Defamatory Libell, in- 

 tituled " The Great Eater of Grayes Inn, or. The 

 Life of Mr. Marriot the Cormorant," Sfc. London : 

 Printed for the Friends of Mr. Marriot, 1652 

 l4to.l 



To this we have another full-length portrait of 

 old Marriot, besides a picture of G. F., Gent., on 

 his knees, and performing an act of homage and 

 apology towards the unbreeched and injured law- 

 yer, not to be described in the pages of " N. & Q." 

 It is only fair to the memory of our hero to hear 

 what his friend can say in his favour. He ad- 

 dresses him thus : 



" Had I not known you myself, as well as by the 

 report of your neighbours, a common easiness of credulity 

 might have carried me on to believe a late publisht pam- 

 phlet, pretended to be the True History of your Life, for 

 the author assures the Reader he set down nothing, but 

 what haA truly been acted by you ; whereas indeed 'tis 

 nothing else but a mere libell of his scandal and defama- 

 tion, spun out to a great length without one syllable of 

 wit or honesty, whereof he sufficiently accuses himself by 

 shrouding his name under the covert of two letters, and 

 thereby securing his person from that punishment the 

 law hath provided for him; the injury of fastening upon 

 your name so vile a detraction, and presenting you a 

 derision to posterity, is of so high a nature that it exceeds 

 any satisfaction such an abject vermin can give, neither 

 can I find out a better expedient for your reparation than 

 by letting the world know what you are indeed : aad 

 this I shall do as an equal friend to you and the truth. 



" That you are a gown-man and a most ancient member 

 of the Honourable Society of Grayes Inne now resident, 

 the Book of Entrance can witness, having been a Student 

 and Professor of the Law above 47 years. For j-our 

 abilities and knowledge of the law, and for your easy fees, 

 3''our Clients do very much commend you. For your 

 private way of life, you have given it a Geometrical pro- 

 portion, squaring your mind and fortune with equal lines 

 to a fit subserviency of Nature's requisites in food and 

 rayment. For your Societj' you have made choice of 

 honest men, not despising the meanest, whereby you have 

 stood firm in these Nationall Hurricanes, which have 

 blown down the lofty and ambitious, and for your general 

 deportment it hath been so fair and clear, that I never 

 3'et heard you had wronged any man." 



Mr. Marriot's friend goes on to predict that the 

 slanderous G. F. will have his due reward, and 

 concludes thus : 



" In the interim let him stand to the publike view in 

 that becoming posture the frontispiece presents him, as 

 destined by charity to repentance." 



Can all this be true ; and can it be that the al- 

 lusion of John Dunton, and the verses of Cotton, 

 and the republication a hundred years after by the 

 Glasgow bookseller, are all acts of injustice done to 

 the memory of an upright and temperate lawyer, 

 who was driven out of the world in twelve months 

 by the unrelenting persecution of G. F. ? Such 

 a case of "giving a bad name" would probably be 

 not without parallel in the memory of any thought- 



