Thomas Flatman
(1637-1688)

From Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. cit. iv. 246.

This person ... was in his younger days much against marriage, to the dislike of his father, and made a song describing the cumbrances of it, beginning thus:

Like a dog with a bottle tied close to his tail,
Like a tory in a bog, or a thief in a jail, etc.

But being afterwards smitten with a fair virgin, and more with her fortune, he did espouse her 26 November 1672; whereupon his ingenious comrades did serenade him that night, while he was in the embraces of his mistress, with the said song.

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