A Sunday Ramble; or, Modern Sabbath-Day Journey; in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, 2nd edn (London, for the author by James Harrison, [1776]), [11], 70pp.; 12°. BL: 10349.aaa.15. Extract, pp. 28–35. Hünersdorff

An extract from an anonymous prose satire on the manners and follies of London and Westminster. The satire takes the form of ‘a ramble’, depicting the protagonist’s peripatetic travels around the city as a way of motivating a series of loosely connected satiric characters and scenic descriptions. The ramble was an established literary sub-genre as much as it was a mode of aimless ambulatory travel. Ramble writings were clearly indebted to the spy-book pseudo-guides made famous by Ned Ward’s London Spy (1698–1700), which purported to give a new insight into low life, but which were themselves complicated, allusive and learned works of literature. A Sunday Ramble, as might be expected from the title, takes the form of a survey of the city on Sunday — a day when the city wore quite a different aspect from the rest of the week. The Sabbath city is one devoted to piety and pleasure, both telling subjects for the satirist’s pen. Setting out early in the morning, the narrator and his interlocutor (an old school-friend) undertake a perambulation around the city, visiting a range of churches and chapels, a boxing match, various pleasure gardens, parks, taverns, ordinaries, theatres and bagnios.