"the (unnatural) trade", c1693/1694

[Joel S. Berson]

I have now verified the c1693/1694 quotation, from a published source
(not from the MS).

Is this thy Faith? Is this thy Return to all my foolish lavish
Fondness? It seems I have taught you a Trade, and Harlot-like you
intend to be as common and as despicable as those abject Wretches.
[We must beg Pardon of the Reader for omitting here some Lines which
are in the Original of this Letter, being too obscene to be inserted ]

[I hope they are in the MS!]

Letter XV, to Mr. Wilson, unsigned [presumably from the "nobleman"].
c1693/1694, I believe.

In _Love-Letters Between a certain late Nobleman And the famous Beau Wilson_.
No date [attributed to 1723; English Short Title Catalog, T117106],
no publisher.
[ECCO]
Page 21.

One source on Edward (Beau) Wilson is Chamber's _Book of Days_;
http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/dec/10.htm,
see "Beau Witson" [sic].  That says Wilson died in 1694.  But it
seems not to say a word about his homosexuality, nor the notion that
he acquired his wealth via gifts from the nobleman.

Joel

At 8/8/2010 11:37 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>Rictor Norton's __Mother Clap's Molly House_ (1992) alleges two
>quotations for "trade" = prostitution:
>
>1)   c1693/1694, in a letter from Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of
>Sunderland, to Edward ("Beau") Wilson.  Sunderland accuses Wilson of
>behaving like a harlot in "the Trade".  The source presumably is
>_Love Letters Between a certain late Nobleman And the famous Mr.
>Wilson_, 1723 ("In a collection of Tracts, British Library shelfmark
>Cup. 363gg. 31 (1)."  In Norton: 38 and n.9.

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