O, new Father, what a sweet Delight and Pleasure you must needs have in reviewing this great List of your Gossips!  What multiplicities of wishes of joy and prosperity have you to expect!  But if I were to be your Counsellor, I assure you I would order the Nurse to desire Doctor Toss-bowl, my Lord Drinkfirst and then the other Gentlemen, to wit, Masters Cleardrinker, Dryliver, Spillnot, Sup-up, Seldom-sober, and Shift-gut, to fetch home their Wives in good time from the Gossipping; because you have other mens Wives, who are your near relations, that you must entertain longer; and they otherwise will never think of rising or going home though it were midnight:  And by this means you will have a fit opportunity, with a full Bowl and a Pipe, to wash away that rammish sent of a Child-bed out of your brains; and also after many hopes, once arrive to the height of receiving your full delight and pleasure.  And then you may e’en clap it all together upon the account of a Lying-in.

Now Nurse, here you have work by whole hand-fulls:  for you shall no sooner have made an end of your other errands, but immediately there’s so much tricking and pricking of all things up in neat order against the coming of the sharp-sighted guests; that it’s a terror to think on’t.  Their eys will fly into every nook and corner; nay the very house of Office must be extraordinary neat and clean; for Mistris Foul-arse, Gossip Order-all, and Goody Dirty-buttocks, will be peeping into every crevise and cranny:  And because they will do it forsooth, according to their fashion, they make a shew as if they must go to the necessary Chamber, with a Letter to Gravesend, only to take an inspection whether it be as cleanly there as it is upon the Gossipping Chamber where all the Guests are.  And ’tis a wonder if they do not look into the Seat, to see whether there be no Spyders webs spun in it; or whether the Goldfinders Merchandize be of a good colour, equal-size and thickness.

But come let’s pass all this by:  for in the middle of these incumbrances, the time will not only fly away; but we shall, at the hour appointed, be surprized by our Guests.  Uds life, how busie the Wet and Dry-Nurses are with dressing the Babe neatly.  Now Father, look once upon your Child!  O pretty thing!  O sweet-fac’d dainty darling! ’tis Father’s own picture!  Well what would not one undergo to be the Mother of so fine an Angel!  And who can or dare doubt any thing of it, for the Mother loves it, and the Father beleeves it, nay and all the friends that come tumbling in one upon another to-day, do confirm it:  For behold, every one looks earnestly at the Babe; and doth not a little commend his prettiness.  One saith it is as like the Father (alias Daddy) as one drop of Water is like another.  Another, that the upper part of the face, forehead, eys and nose incline very much to be like the mother; but downwards it is every bit the Father.  And who forsooth should not beleeve it, if it be a son.  Every one is in an admiration.  O me, what a pretty sweet Infant!  Nurse, you have drest it up most curiously!  And truly there’s no cost spar’d for the having very rich laces.