[John Cottington] Mulld . Sake. I Walke the Strand, and Westminster; and Scorne / to march t'th Cittie; though I beare the Horne, / My feather, and my yellow Band, accord / to prove me Courtier, My Boote, spur, and sword, / My smokinge Pipe, Scarfe, Garter, Rose on Shoe, / Showe my brave mind, t'affect what Gallants do. / I Singe, dance, drinke, and merrily passe the day, / and like a Chimney, sweep all care away.
Pub.d Aug.t 8th 1794 by Caulfield and Herbert. Etching with engraving. Sheet 245 165mm (9½ x 6½"). Trimmed within plate. Full length portrait of John Cottington (1610-1655), called 'Mul-Sack', a chimney sweep, carrying the tools of his trade. However, after a bad marriage (his bride turned out to be a cross-dresser), he turned to crime: becoming a pickpocket, he is said to have attempted to steal Oliver Cromwell's purse. After a failed attempt at highway robbery he fled to the contintent, where he was introduced at the court of exiled Charles II. Assuming he had enough intelligence to buy a pardon from Oliver Cromwell, he returned to England, but he was arrested and executed in Smithfield Rounds in April, 1655. From James Caulfield's 'Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of remarkable Persons, from the Reign of Edward III to the Revolution'.
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