(37) Independency
Stript & Whipt (London, [12 Dec.] 1648), pp.
Leslie, in his The Wolf
Stript would lash out at contemporary moderates and dissenters for the "craft and artificial Management" of what he called their "little plots" (46).
44 7 pieces
stript Musleen 15 yds 4 [pounds 29 15 sterling]: 5 pcs 5 pcs plain ditto 4 20 3 pcs.
The epitaph was written in 1728 by Franklin himself, 62 years before he died: "THE BODY / OF / BENJAMIN FRANKLIN / PRINTER / (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT AND
STRIPT / OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING), / LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS, / BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST, / FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE / IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION, / REVISED AND CORRECTED / BY / THE AUTHOR." The burial site of this founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence is at Christ Church, near 5th and Arch Streets, a few blocks north of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
"He is like a Man who were
stript, not only of his Cloaths, but of his Skin, and turn'd out in that Situation to combat with the rude and boisterous Element...."
Sarah appeared in court several times, once showing the "twenty one Impressions of blowes small and great upon her back." Tobias Wells testified on another occasion that "he saw Sarah Tailor
stript and on her backe he saw severall blacke spots and on her arme a great blacke spot about as broad as the hand." While whipping was permitted to discipline servants, excessive abuse was not.
Stript to her Skin, see how she stooping stands, Nor scorns to rub him down with those fair Hands; And washing (lest the scent her Crime disclose) His sweaty Hooves, tickles him 'twixt the Toes.
Perhaps he is the sizar who matriculated from Peterhouse, Easter 1579, and of whom nothing else seems to be known.(13) Perhaps the author of the manuscript is to be identified with Francis Burton, the bookseller known in London from 1594 to 1617, whose monogram (genuine or, in one edition, counterfeit) adorns the title-page of George Wither's Abuses
Stript and Whipt published for Francis Burton from 1613 to 1617, playfully -- and proudly, rather like a schoolboy -- using all the letters in FRANCIS BURTON.(14) If the author of the manuscript were the owner of the monogram, who for a considerable time used it some twenty years after his entry into the book-trade, I should have thought it likely that he would have displayed it in his manuscript.
Wither's Abuses
Stript and Whipt (1613)--with its satiric treatment of lust, avarice, and pride--apparently gave offense, and he was imprisoned for some months.
So Polis and his party had a secret meeting about it; he got ready fifteen or twenty stout young men, "
stript 'em naked, and painted 'em like old times," and told them that when the priest and his party went to cut down the liberty-pole, they were to rush up, take hold of it, and prevent them, and he assured them that there would be no war, only a noise, "no war where priest is." He kept his men concealed in a house near by, and when the priest's party were about to Cut clown the liberty-pole, the fall of which would have been a death-blow to the school-party, he gave a signal, and his young men rushed out and seized the pole.