...the outside being a perfect mockery of the inside, and admitting of two amusing queries,—Whether the persons that ordered the building of it, or those...thing be not as disagreeable as harp and harrow." By another—the no less facetious Ned Ward—it was termed, " A costly college for a crackbrained society,...

...set out. Taking his way along East Smithfield, mounting Little Tower-hill, and threading the Minories and Hounsditch, he arrived without accident or molestation,...crack-brained society, raised in a mad age, when the chiefs of the city were in a great danger of losing their senses, and so contrived it the more noble...

...the age: by one of whom — the facetious Tom Brown — it was said, "Bedlam is a pleasant place, ami abounds with amusements ; — the first of which is...crack-brained society, raised in a mad age, when the chiefs of the city were in a great danger of losing their senses, and so contrived it the more noble...

...things hang together like harp and harrow, as they say. Gataker, 1624, NED. [Bethlehem] Bedlam . . . whether the Name and Thing be not as disagreeable as Harp and Harrow. T. Brown, 1700, NED. — Harp and harrow are utterly different though the words alliterate. See Dissimilarity...

...in Moorfields in l675, upon the model of the Tuileries. it is said that Louis the Fourteenth was BO incensed at the insult offered to his palace, that...crack-brained society, raised in a mad age, when the chiefs of the city were in a great danger of losing their senses, and so contrived it the more noble...

...insensible of the beauty and use of it ; the outside is a perfect mockery to the inside, and admits of two amusing queries, Whether the persons that ordered...of it, or those that inhabit it, were the maddest ? But what need I wonder at that, since the whole is but one entire amusement ? Some were preaching,...

...unsensible of the Beauty and Use of it: The Outside is a perfect Mockery to the Inside, and Admits of two Amusing Queries, Whether the Persons that ordered...Building of it, or those that inhabit it, were the maddest?8 The joke was nourished by the perverse pride Londoners would come to take in the grubbiness...