| Citation |
VGW(PA.738.047
6-13 Oct 1738:32 (115)
London, Jun 18. The romantick story from Bengal, of an
alligator's making a meal of three sailors on board a French
ship that was lost in the late hurricane, has engross'd the
conversation of almost all the whole town, and furnish'd all
our coffee-house connisseurs with discourse, variously
affecting them according to their different complexions; to
the jocular and gay affording mirth and jollity; to the
phlegmatick credulous, yielding horror and surprize, serious
debates and dull reasoning; of which latter sort a round
company at one of the most eminent coffee-houses in the
city, learnedly debating about the table, and not entirely
agreeing in their opinions, they took occasion to ask a
sprightly young gentleman, who casually dropt in at that
time, his sentiments of the tale: to which he merrily
answer'd, he look'd upon the writer to be a ill-natur'd
fellow, that envied the author of the old English ballad,
Moor of Moor-Hall, his terrible description or the dragon of
Wantley, in the following lines:
Devoured he
Poor children three,
That could not with him grapple,
And at a sup
He eat them up,
As a man would eat an apple.
And therefore he makes his monster snap up three men in a
trice, and eagerly gape for more; no doubt the whole ships
crew. Upon this, one of the principals rose from his seat,
and declared he was inclined to be of the gentleman's
opinion, to which the rest assented' tho' one of them said
he had seen an alligator a yard and half long; a convincing
proof of the probability of the narration.
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