THE SCOURGE OF Villainy.  
Three Books of satires.  
PERSEUS. v v v Nec scompros metuentia carmina, nec thus.  
AT LONDON, Printed by I. R. and are to be fold by john Buzbie, in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Crane 1598.   

To Detraction I present my Poesy.  

Foul canker of fair virtuous action,  
Vile blaster of the freshest blooms on earth,  
envies abhorred child, Detraction,  
I hear expose, to thy all-taynting breath  
The issue of my brain, snarl, rail, bark, bite,  
Know that my spirit scorns Detractions spite.   

Know that the Genius, which attendeth on,  
And guides my powers intellectual,  
Holds in all vile repute Detraction.  
My soul an essence metaphysical,  
That in the basest sort scorns Critics rage,  
Because he knows his sacred parentage.   

My spirit is not huft up with fat fume  
Of slimy Ale, nor Bacchus' heating grape.  
My mind disdains the dungy muddy scum  
Of abject thoughts, and envies raging hate.  
True judgement, slight regards Opinion,  
A sprightly wit, disdains Detraction.   

A partial praise shall never elevate  
My settled censure, of mine own esteem.  
A cankered verdict of malignant Hate  
Shall near provoke me, worse myself to deem.  
Spite of despite, and rancours villainy,  
I am myself, so is my poesy.    

In Lectores prorsus indignos.  

FIE Satire fie, shall each mechanic slave,  
Each dunghill peasant, free perusal have  
Of thy well laboured lines? Shall each satin suit,  
Each acquaint fashion-monger, whose sole repute  
Rests in his trim gay clothes, lie slavering  
Tainting thy lines with his lewd censuring?  
Shall each odd puisne of the Lawyer's Inn,  
Each barmy-froth, that last day did begin  
To read his little, or his near a whit,  
Or shall some greater ancient, of less wit,  
(That never turned but brown Tobacco leaves  
Whose senses some damned Occupant bereaves.  
Lie gnawing on thy vacant times expense?  
Tearing thy rhymes, quite altering the sense?  
Or shall perfumed Castilio censure thee?  
Shall he oreview thy sharpe-fanged poesy?  
(Who near read farther than his Mistress lips,  
Near practised aught, but some spruce capering skips  
Near in his life did other language use,  
But, Sweet Lady, fair Mistress, kind heart, dear couse,  
Shall this Fantasma, this coloss peruse  
And blast with stinking breath, thy budding Muse?  
Fie, wilt thou make thy wit a Courtesan  
For every broking handcrafts artisan?  
Shall brainless Cyterne heads, each iubernole,  
Pocket the very Genius of thy soul?  
I Phylo, I, I'll keep an open hall,  
A common, and a sumptuous festival,  
Welcome all eyes, all ears, all tongues to me,  
Gnaw peasants on my scraps of poesy.  
Castilios, Cyprians, court-boyes, spanish blocks,  
Ribanded ears, granado-netherstocks,  
Fiddles, Scriveners, peddlers, tynkering knaves,  
Base blue-coats, tapsters, brod-cloth minded slaves,  
Welcome I'faith, but may you near departed,  
Till I have made your gauled hides to smart.  
Your gauled hides? avaunt base muddy scum.  
Think you a satires dreadful sounding drum  
Will brace itself? and deign to terrify,  
Such abject peasants basest roguery?  
No, no, pass on ye vain fantastic troop  
Of puffie youths; Know I do scorn to stoop  
To rip your lives. Then hence lewd nags, away,  
Go read each post, view what is played to day.  
Then to Priapus gardens. You Castilio,  
I pray thee let my lines in freedom go,  
Let me alone, the Madams call for thee  
Longing to laugh at thy wit's poverty.  
Sirrah, livery cloak, you lazy slipper slave,  
Thou fawning drudge, what wouldst thou satires have?  
Base mind away, thy master calls, begun,  
Sweet Gnato let my poesy alone.  
Go buy some ballad of the Fairy King,  
And of the beggar wench, some rogie thing  
Which thou mayst chant unto the chambermaid  
To some vile tune, when that thy master's laid.  
But will you needs stay? am I forced to bear,  
The blasting breath of each lewd Censurer?  
Must nought but clothes, and images of men  
But sprightles trunks, be judges of thy pen?  
Nay then come all, I prostitute my Muse,  
For all the swarm of Idiots to abuse.  
Read all, view all, even with my full consent,  
So you will know that which I never meant;  
So you will near conceive, and yet dispraise,  
That which you near conceived, & laughter raise:  
Where I but strive in honest seriousness,  
To scourge some soule-poluting beastliness.  
So you will rail, and find huge errors lurk  
In every corner of my Cynic work.  
Proface, read on, for your extrem'st dislikes  
Will add a pineon, to my praises flights.  
O, how I bristle up my plumes of pride,  
O, how I think my satires dignified,  
When I once hear some acquaint Castilio,  
Some supple mouthed slave some lewd Tubrio,  
Some spruce pedant, or some span-new come fry  
Of Inns a-court, striving to vilify  
My dark reproofs. Then do but rail at me,  
No greater honour craves my poesy.   

1.  
But ye diviner wits, celestial souls,  
Whose freeborn minds no kennel thought contoules,  
Ye sacred spirits, Maia's eldest sons.   

2.  
Ye substance of the shadows of our age,  
In whom all grace's link in marriage,  
To you how cheerfully my poem runs.   

3.  
True judging eyes, quick sighted censurers,  
heavens best beauties, wisdoms treasurers,  
O how my love embraceth your great worth.   

4.  
Ye Idols of my soul, ye blessed spirits,  
How should I give true honour to your merits,  
Which I can better think, than here paint forth.   

You sacred spirits, Maia's eldest sons,  
To you how cheerfully my poem runs.  
O how my love, embraceth your great worth,  
Which I can better think, than here paint forth.  
O rare!    

To those that seem judicial perusers.  
KNow I hate to affect too much obscurity, & harshness, because they profit no sense. To note vices, so that no man can understand them, is as fond, as the French execution in picture. Yet there are some, (too many) that think nothing good, that is so courteous, as to come within their reach. Terming all satires (bastard) which are not palpable dark, and so rough writ, that the hearing of them read, would set a man teeth on edge. For whose unseasond palate I wrote the first Satire in some places too obscure, in all places misliking me. Yet when by some scurvy chance it shall come into the late perfumed fist of judicial Torquatus, (that like some rotten stick in a troubled water, hath got a great deal of barmy froth to stick to his sides) I know he will vouchsafe it, some of his new-minted Epithets, (as Real, Intrinsicate, Delphic,) when in my conscience he understands not the least part of it. But from thence proceeds his judgement. Perseus is crabby, because ancient, & his jerks, (being particularly given to private customs of his time) dusky. Iwenall (upon the like occasion) seems to our judgement, gloomy. Yet both of them go a good seemly pace, not stumbling, shuffling. Chaucer is hard even to our understandings: who knows not the reason? how much more those old satires which express themselves in terms, that breathed not long even in their days. But had we then lived, the understanding of them had been nothing hard. I will not deny there is a seemly decorum to be observed, and a peculiar kind of speech for a satires lips, which I can willinglier conceive, then dare to prescribe; yet let me have the substance rough, not the shadow. I cannot, nay I will not delude your sight with mists; yet I dare defend my plainness 'gainst the verjuice face, of the crabbed'st Satirist that ever stuttered. He that thinks worse of my rhymes then myself, I scorn him, for he cannot, he that thinks better, is a fool. So favour me Good-Opinion, as I am far from being a Suffenus. If thou perusest me with an unpartial eye, read on, if otherwise, know I neither value thee, nor thy censure.  W. Kinsayder.  


PROEMIUM IN librum primum.  
I Bear the scourge of just Rhamnusia,  
Lashing the lewdness of Britania.  
Let others sing as their good Genius moves,  
Of deep desines, or else of clipping loves.  
Fair fall them all, that with wits industry,  
Do cloth good subjects in true poesy.  
But as for me, my vexed thoughtful soul,  
Takes pleasure, in displeasing sharp control.  
Thou nursing Mother of fair wisdoms lore,  
Ingenuous Melancholy, I implore  
Thy grave assistance, take thy gloomy seat,  
Enthrone thee in my blood; Let me entreat  
Stay his quick jocund skips, and force him run  
A sad paced course, until my whips be done.  
Daphne, unclip thine arms from my sad brow,  
Black Cypress crown me whilst I up do blow  
The hidden entrails of rank villainy.  
Tearing the vail from damned Impiety.  
Quake guzzell dogs, that live on putrid slime,  
Skud from the lashes of my jerking rhyme.   

satire. I.  
Fronti nulla fides.  
MArry God forfend, Martius swears he'll stab,  
Phrigeo, fear not, thou art no lying drab.  
What though dagger hacked mouths of his blade swears  
It slew as many as figures of years  
Aqua fortis eat in't, or as many more,  
As methodist Musus, killed with Hellebore  
In autumn last, yet he bears the male lie  
With as smooth calm, as Mecho rivalry.  
How ill his shape, with inward form doth fage,  
Like Aphrogenias' ill-yoked marriage.  
Fond Physiognomer, complexion  
Guides not the inward disposition,  
Inclines I yield. Thou sayst Law julia,  
Or Cato's often cursed Scatinia  
Can take no hold on simpering Lesbian,  
True, not on her eye, yet Allom oft doth blast,  
The sprouting bud that feign would longer last.  
Chary Casca, right pure or Rhodanus,  
Yet each night drinks in glassy Priapus.  
Yond Pine is fair, yet foully doth it ill  
To his own sprouts, mark, his rank drops distill  
Fowl Naples canker in their tender rind;  
Woe worth when trees drop in their proper kind!  
Mystagogus, what means this prodigy?  
When Hiadolgo speaks 'gainst usury.  
When Verres rails 'gainst thieves. Mylo doth hate  
Murder, Clodius coockolds, Marius the gate  
Of squinting janus shuts? run beyond bound  
Of Nil ultra, and hang me when on's sound  
Will be himself. Had Nature turned our eyes  
Into our proper selves, these now right curious spies  
Would be ashamed, Flavia would blush to flout  
When Oppia calls Lucina help her out.  
If she did think, Lynceus did know her ill,  
How Nature, Art, how Art, doth Nature spill.  
God pardon me, I often did aver  
Quoth gratis, grate, the Astronomer  
An honest man, but I'll do so no more,  
His face deceived me; but now since his whore  
And sister are all one, his honesty  
Shall be as bare as his Anatomy,  
To which he bond his wife, o packstaffe rhymes!  
Why not, when court of stars shall see these crimes?  
rods are in piss, I for thee Empiric,  
That twenty grains of Oppium will't not stick  
To minister to babes. Here's bloody days,  
When with plain herbs, Mutius more men slays  
Then ere third Edward's sword. Sooth in our age,  
Frantic Coribautes need not enrage  
The people's minds. You Ophiogine  
Of Hellespont, with wrangling villainy  
The swollen world's inly stung, then deign a touch,  
If that your fingers can effect so much.  
Thou sweet Arabian Panchaia,  
Perfume this nasty age, smug Lesbian  
Hath stinking lungs, although a simpering grace,  
A muddy inside, though a surfled face.  
O for some deepe-searching Corycean,  
To ferret out yond lewd Cynedian.  
How now Brutus, what shape best pleaseth thee?  
All Protean forms, thy wife in venery  
At thy inforcemant takes; well go thy way,  
She may transform thee ere thy dying day.  
Hush, Gracchus hears, that hath retailed more lies,  
Broached more slanders, done more villainies,  
Then Fabius perpetual golden coat  
(Which might have Semptridem for a mott)  
Hath been at feasts, and led the measuring  
At Court, and in each marriage reveling.  
Writ Palaephatus, comment on those dreams,  
That Hylus takes, midst dung-pit reeking steams  
Of Athos hot house. Gramercy modest smile.  
Chremes a sleep. Paphia, sport the while.  
Lucilla, new set thy ruff, tut thou art pure,  
Canst thou not lisp, (good brather) look demure?  
Fie Gallus, what, a skeptick Pyrrhomist?  
When chaste Dictinna, breaks the Zonelike twist?  
Tut, hang up Hieroglyphickes. I'll not feign  
Wresting my humour, from his native strain.   

satire. II.  
Difficile est Satyram non scribere. wv— juve.  
I Cannot hold, I cannot I endure  
To view a big wombed foggy cloud immure  
The radiant tresses of the quickening sun.  
Let Custards quake, my rage must freely run.  
Preach not the Stoics patience to me,  
I hate no man, but men's impiety.  
My soul is vexed, what power will'th desist?  
Or dares to stop a sharp fangd Satirist?  
Who'll cool my rage? who'll stay my itching fist  
But I will plague and torture whom I list?  
If that the threefold walls of Babylon  
Should hedge my tongue, yet I should rail upon  
This fusty world, that now dare put in ure  
To make jehovah but a coverture,  
To shade rank filth, lose conscience is free,  
From all conscience, what else hath liberty?  
As't please the Thracian Boreas to blow,  
So turns our airy conscience, to, and fro.  
What icy Saturnist, what northern pate  
But such gross lewdness would exasperate?  
I think the blind doth see, the flame God rise  
From Sister's couch, each morning to the skies:  
Glowing with lust. Walk but in dusky night,  
With Lynceus eyes, and to thy piercing sight  
Disguised Gods will show, in peasants shape,  
priest to commit some execrable rape.  
Here Ioues lust pander, Maia's juggling son,  
In clowns disguise, doth after milkmaids run.  
And fore he'll lose his brutish lechery,  
The trulls shall taste sweet Nectar's surquedry.  
There junos' brat, forsakes Neries bed,  
And like a swaggerer, lust fired,  
Attended only with his smock sworn page,  
Pert Gallus, slily slips along, to wage  
Tilting encounters, with some spurious seed  
Of marrow pies, and yawning Oystars breed.  
O damned!  
Who would not shake a satires knotty rod?  
When to defile the sacred seat of God  
Is but accounted gentlemen's disport?  
To snort in filth, each hour to resort  
To brothel pits: alas a venial crime,  
Nay, royal, to be last in thirtieth slime.  
Ay me, hard world for Satirists begin  
To set up shop, when no small petty sin  
Is left unpurged, once to be pursy fat  
Had wont be cause that life did macerate.  
Marry the jealous Queen of air doth frown,  
That Ganymede is up, and Hebe down.  
Once Albion lived in such a cruel age  
That men did hold by servile villeinage.  
Poor brats were slaves, of bondmen that were borne,  
And marted, sold, but that rude law is torn,  
And disanuld, as too too inhuman,  
That Lords o'er peasants should such service strain.  
But now, (sad change!) the kennel sink of slaves,  
Peasant great bloods, and servile service craves.  
Bondslaves sons had wont be bought & sold,  
But now Heroes heirs (if they have not told  
A discreet number, fore their dad did die)  
Are made much of, how much from merchandie?  
Tailed, and retailed, till to the peddlers pack,  
The fourth-hand ward-ware comes, alack, alack,  
Would truth did know I lied but truth, and I  
Do know that fence is borne to misery.  
Oh would to God, this were their worst mischance,  
Were not their souls sold to dark ignorance.  
Fair goodness is foul ill, if mischiefs wit  
Be not repressed from lewd corrupting it.  
O what dry brain melts not sharp mustard time  
To purge the snottery of our slimy time?  
Hence idle Cave, vengeance pricks me on,  
When mart is made of fair Religion,  
Reformed bald Trebus swore in Romish choir  
He sold God's essence, for a poor denier.  
The Egyptians adored Onions,  
To Garlic yielding all devotions.  
O happy Garlic, but thrice happy you,  
Whose scenting gods, in your large gardens grew.  
Democritus, rise from thy putrid slime  
Sport at the madness of that hotter clime.  
Deride their frenzy, that for policy  
Adore Wheat dough, as real deity.  
Almighty men, that can their Maker make,  
And force his sacred body to forsake  
The Cherubins, to be gnawn actually,  
dividing individuum, really.  
Making a score of Gods with one poor word,  
I, so I thought, in that you could afford,  
So cheap a pennyworth. O ample field,  
In which a Satire may just weapon wield.  
But I am vexed, when swarms of julian's  
Are still manured by lewd Precisians.  
Who scorning Church rites, take the symbol up  
As slovenly, as careless Courtiers slup  
Their mutton gruel. Fie, who can withhold,  
But must of force make his mild Muse a scold?  
When that he grieved sees, with red vexed eyes,  
That Athens ancient large immunities,  
Are eye sores to the fates; Poor cells forlorn!  
Is't not enough you are made an abject scorn  
To iering Apes, but must the shadow too  
Of ancient substance, be thus wrung from you?  
O split my heart, lest it do break with rage  
To see th'immodest looseness of our age.  
Immodest looseness? fie too gentle word,  
When every sign can brothelry afford.  
When lust doth sparkle from our females eyes  
And modesty, is rousted in the skies.  
Tell me Galliottae, what means this sign  
When impropriate gentiles will turn Capuchin?  
Sooner be damned. O stuff Satirical?  
When rapine feeds our pomp, pomp ripes our fall.  
When the guest trembles at his hosts swart look,  
The son, doth fear his stepdame, that hath took  
His mother's place for lust, the twin-born brother  
maligns his mate, that first came from his mother.  
When to be huge, is to be deadly sick,  
When virtuous peasants, will not spare to lick  
The devils tail for poor promotion.  
When for neglect, slubbered Devotion  
Is wan with grief. When Rufus, yawns for death  
Of him that gave him undeserved breath.  
When Hermus makes a worthy question,  
Whether of Wright, as Paraphonalion  
A silver pisspot fits his Lady dame?  
Or is't too good? a pewter best became.  
When Agrippina poisons Claudius' son,  
That all the world to her own brat might run.  
When the husband, gapes that his stolen wife would die,  
That he might once be in by courtesy.  
The big paunched wife, longs for her loathed mates death,  
That she might have more jointures here on earth.  
When tenure for short years, (by many a one)  
Is thought right good be turned forth Littleton,  
All to be headdie, or free hold at least  
When 'tis all one, for long life be a beast,  
A slave, as have a short termed tenancy  
When dead's the strength of England's yeomanry,  
When inundatiou of luxuriousness,  
fats all the world with such gross beastliness.  
Who can abstain? what modest brain can hold,  
But he must make his shamefaced Muse a scold?   

satire. III.  
Red, age, quae deinceps risisti.  
IT's good be wary whilst the sun shines clear  
(Quoth that old chuff that may dispend by year  
Three thousand pound) whilst he of good pretence  
Commits himself to Fleet to save expense.  
No Countries Christmas: rather tarry here,  
The Fleet is cheap, the Country hall too dear.  
But Codrus, hark, the world expects to see  
Thy bastard heir rot there in misery.  
What? Will Luxurio keep so great a hall  
That he will prove a bastard in his fall?  
No, come on five, S. George, by heaven at all,  
Makes his catastrophe, right tragical;  
At all, till nothing's left, Come on, till all comes off,  
I hair and all, Luxurio, left a scoff  
To leprous filths: o stay, thou impious slave,  
Tear not the lead from off thy Father's grave,  
To stop base brokage, sell not thy father's sheet,  
His leaden sheet, that stranger's eyes may greet  
Both putrefaction of thy greedy Sire,  
And thy abhorred viperous desire.  
But wilt thou needs, shall thy Dad's lackey brat  
Wear thy Sires halfe-rot finger in his hat?  
Nay then Luxurio waste in obloquy,  
And I shall sport to hear thee faintly cry,  
A die, a drab, and filthy broking knaves,  
Are the world's wide mouths, all devouring graves.  
Yet Samus keeps a right good house I hear▪  
No, it keeps him, and free'th him from i'll fear  
Of shaking fits; How then shall his smug wench,  
How shall her bawd, (fit time) assist her quench  
Her sanguine heat? Lynceus, canst thou sent?  
She hath her Monkey, & her instrument  
Smooth framed at Vitrio. O grievous misery!  
Luscus hath left his female luxury.  
I, it left him; No, his old Cynic Dad  
Hath forced him clean forsake his Pickha'ch drab.  
Alack, alack, what piece of lustful flesh  
Hath Luscus left, his Priape to redress?  
Grieve not good soul, he hath his Ganymede,  
His perfumed she-goat, smooth combed, high fed  
At Hogsdon now his monstrous lust he feasts,  
For there he keeps a bawdy-house of beasts.  
Paphus, let Luscus have his Courtesan,  
Or we shall have a monster of a man.  
Tut, Paphus now detains him from that bower,  
And clasps him close within his brick-built tower.  
Diogenes, thou'rt damned for thy lewd wit,  
For Luscus now hath skill to practise it.  
faith, what cares he for fair Cynedian boys?  
Velvet caped Goats, dutch Mares? tut common toys.  
Detain them all, on this condition  
He may but use the Cynic friction.  
O now ye male stews, I can give pretence  
For your luxurious incontinence.  
Hence, hence, ye falsed, seeming, Patriotes,  
Return not with pretence of salving spots,  
When here ye soil us with impurity,  
And monstrous filth, of Douai seminary.  
What though Iberia yield you liberty,  
To snort in source of Sodom villainy?  
What though the blooms of young nobility,  
Committed to your Rodons' custody,  
Ye Nero like abuse? yet never here approach,  
Your new S. Homer's lewdness for to broach.  
Tainting our Towns, and hopeful Accademes,  
With your lust-bating most abhorred means.  
Valladolid, our Athens 'gins to taste  
Of thy rank filth, Camphire and Lettuce chaste,  
Are clean cashiered, now Sophi Ringoes eat,  
Candid Potatoes, are Athenians meat.  
Hence Holy-thistle, come sweet marrow pie,  
Inflame our backs to itching luxury.  
A Crabs baked guts, a Lobsters buttered thigh,  
I hear them swear is blood for venery.  
Had I some snout fair brats, they should endure  
The new found Castilian calenture:  
Before some pedant Tutor, in his bed  
Should use my fry, like Phrygian Ganymede.  
Nay then chaste cells, when greasy Aretine  
For his rank Fico, is surnamed divine:  
Nay then come all ye venial 'scapes to me,  
I dare well warrant you'll absolved be.  
Rufus, I'll term thee but intemperate,  
I will not once thy vice exaggerate,  
Though that each hour thou lewdly swaggerest,  
And all the quarter day, payest interest  
For the forbearance of thy chalked score.  
Though that thou keep'st a tally with thy whore.  
Since Nero keeps his mother Agrippine,  
And no strange lust can satiate Messalina.  
Tullus go scotfree, though thou often bragg'st  
That for a false French-crown, thou vaulting hadst  
Though that thou knowst for thy incontinence  
Thy drab repaid thee, true French pestilence.  
But tush, his boast I bear, when Tegeran  
Brags that he foists his rotren Courtesan  
Upon his heir, that must have all his lands:  
And them hath joined in Hymen's sacred bands.  
I'll wink at Robrus, that for vicenage  
Enters comen, on his next neighbours stage,  
When jove maintains his sister, and his whore:  
And she incestuous, jealous evermore,  
Lest that Europa on the Bull should ride:  
Woe worth when beasts for filth are deified!  
Alack poor rogues, what Censor interdicts  
The venial 'scapes of him that purses picks?  
When some sly, golden-slopt Castilio  
Can cut a manors strings at Primero?  
Or with a pawn▪ shall give a Lordship mate,  
In statute staple chaining fast his state?  
What Academic starved Satirist  
Would gnaw rezed Bacon, or with ink black fist  
would toss each muck-heap for some outcast scraps  
Of halfe-dung bones to stop his iawning chaps?  
Or with a hungry hollow half pined jaw (gnaw  
Would once a thrice-turned bone-picked subject  
When swarms of mountebanks, & Bandeti  
Damned Briareans, sinks of villainy,  
Factors for lewdness, brokers for the devil,  
Infect our souls with all polluting evil.  
Shall Lucia scorn her husband's lukewarm bed?  
(Because her pleasure being hurried  
In jolting Coach, with glassy instrument,  
Doth far exceed the Paphian blandishment)▪  
Whilst I (like to some mute Pythagoras)  
Halter my hate, and cease to curse and ban  
Such brutish filth? Shall Matho raise his name,  
By printing pamphlets in another's name,  
And in them praise himself, his wit, his might.  
All to be deemed his Country's Lantern light?  
Whilst my tongue's tied with bonds of blushing shame  
For fear of broaching my concealed name?  
Shall Balbus, the demure Athenian,  
Dream of the death of next Vicarian?  
Cast his nativity? mark his complexion?  
Weigh well his bodies weak condition?  
That with guilt sleight he may be sure to get  
The Planet's place, when his dim shine shall set?  
Shall Curio streak his limbs on his days couch,  
In Summer bower? and with bare groping touch  
Incense his lust, consuming all the year  
In Cyprian dalliance, and in Belgic cheer?  
Shall Faunus spend a hundred galleons,  
Of goats pure milk, to lave his stallions,  
As much Rose juice? O bath! o royal, rich  
To scour Faunus, and his salt proud bitch!  
And when all's cleansed, shall the slaves inside stink  
worse than the new cast slime of Thames ebbed brink?  
Whilst I securely let him overslip?  
Near jerking him with my satyric whip?  
Shall Crispus with hypocrisy beguile,  
Holding a candle, to some fiend a while?  
Now jew, than Turk, then seeming Christian,  
Then Atheist, Papist, and strait puritan,  
Now nothing, any thing, even what you list,  
So that some guilt may grease his greedy fist?  
Shall Damas' use his third-hand ward as ill,  
As any jade that tuggeth in the mill?  
What, shall law, nature, virtue, be rejected,  
Shall these world Arteries be soul infected,  
With corrupt blood? Whilst I shall Martia task?  
Or some young vilius, all in choler ask,  
How he can keep a lazy waiting man,  
And buy a hood, & silver-handled fan  
With forty pound? Or snarl at Lollios' son?  
That with industrious pains hath harder won  
His true got worship, and his gentry's name  
Then any Swineherds brat, that lousy came  
To luskish Athens, and with farming pots,  
Compiling beds, & scouring greasy spots,  
By chance (when he can like taught Parrot cry  
dearly beloved▪ with simpering gravity)  
Hath got the Farm of some gelt Vicary,  
And now on cockhorse, gallops jollily  
Tickling with some stolen stuff his senseless cure,  
Belching lewd terms 'gainst all sound littrature.  
Shall I with shadows fight? task bitterly  
Rome's filth? scraping base channel roguery?  
Whilst such huge Giants shall affright our eyes  
With execrable, damned impieties?  
Shall I find trading Mecho, never loathe  
Frankly to take a damning perjured oath?  
Shall Furia broke her sister's modesty,  
And prostitute her soul to brothelry?  
Shall Cossus make his well-faced wife a stolen,  
To yield his braided ware a quicker sale?  
Shall cockhorse, fat-paunched Milo stain whole stocks  
Of well borne souls, with his adultering spots?  
Shall broking panders suck Nobility?  
Soiling fair stems with foul impurity?  
Nay, shall a trencher slave extenuate,  
Some Lucrece rape? and strait magnificate  
Lewd jovian lust? Whilst my satyric vain  
Shall muzzled be, not daring out to strain  
His tearing paw? No gloomy juvenal,  
Though to thy fortunes I disastrous fall.   

satire. FOUR  
CRAS.  
I Mary Sir, here's perfect honesty:  
When Martius will forswear all villainy:  
(All damned abuse, of payment in the wars  
All filching from his Prince, and Soldiers)  
When once he can but so much bright dirt glean,  
As may maintain, one more White-friar's quean.  
One drab more, faith then farewell villainy,  
He'll cleanse himself to Shoreditch purity.  
As for Stadius, I think he hath a soul,  
And if he were but free from sharp control  
Of his sour host, and from his tailors bill,  
He would not thus abuse his rhyming skill,  
jading our tired ears with fooleries,  
Greasing great slaves, with oily flatteries,  
Good faith I think▪ he would not strive to suit  
The back of humorous Time, (for base repute  
'Mong dunghill peasants) botching up such ware,  
As may be saleable in Sturbridge far.  
If he were once but freed from specialty,  
But sooth, till then, bear with his ballatry.  
I asked lewd Gallus when he'll cease to swear,  
And with whole culvering raging oaths to tear  
The vault of heaven, spitting in the eyes  
Of nature's Nature, loathsome blasphemies.  
To morrow he doth vow he will forbear:  
Next day I meet him, but I hear him swear  
Worse than before, I put his vow in mind,  
He answers me, to morrow, but I find  
He swears next day, far worse than ere before:  
Putting me of with (morrow) evermore.  
Thus when I urge him, with his sophistry  
He thinks to salve his damned perjury.  
Sylenus now is old, I wonder I  
He doth not hate his triple venery,  
Cold▪ writhled Eld, his lives-wet almost spent,  
Me thinks a unity were compotent:  
But o fair hopes! He whispers secretly,  
When it leaves him, he'll leave his lechery.  
When simpering Flaccus (that demurely goes  
Right neatly tripping on his new blacked toes)  
Hath made rich use of his Religion,  
Of God himself, in pure devotion:  
When that the strange Ideas in his head  
(Broached 'mong curious sots, by shadows led)  
Hath furnished him, by his hot auditors  
Of fair demeans, and goodly rich manors,  
Sooth than he will repent, when's treasury  
Shall force him to disclaim his heresy.  
What will not poor need force? but being sped,  
God for us all, the gurmonds paunch is fed.  
His mind is changed, but when will he do good?  
To morrow, (I, to morrow by the rood.)  
Yet Ruscus swears, he'll cease to broke a suit:  
By peasant means striving to get repute  
'Mong puffie Sponges, when the Fleet's defrayed  
His revel tier, and his Laundress paid.  
There is a crew which I too plain could name  
If so I might without th' Aquinians blame,  
That lick the tail of greatness with their lips:  
Labouring with third-hand jests, and Apish skips,  
retailing others wit, long barreled  
To glib some great man's ears, till paunch be fed,  
Glad if themselves, as sporting fools be made,  
To get the shelter of some high-grown shade.  
To morrow yet these base tricks they'll cast off,  
And cease for lucre be a iering scoff.  
Ruscus will leave, when once he can renew  
His wasted clothes, that are ashamed to view  
The world's proud eyes. Drusus will cease to fawn  
when that his Farm, that leaks in melting pawn  
Some Lord-applauded jest hath once set free.  
All will to morrow leave their roguery.  
When fox-furred Mecho (by damned usury,  
Cuthroat deceit, and his craft's villainy)  
Hath raked together some four thousand pound,  
To make his smug gurle, bear a bumming sound  
In a young merchant's ear, faith then (may be)  
He'll ponder if there be a Deity?  
Thinking, if to the parish poverty,  
At his wished death, be doled a halfpenny,  
A work of Supererogation,  
A good filth-cleansing strong purgation.  
Aulus will leave begging Monopolies,  
When that 'mong troops of gaudy Butterflies,  
He is but able jet it jollily,  
In pie-bauld suits, of proud Court bravery.  
To morrow doth Luxurio promise me,  
He will unline himself from bitcherie.  
Marry Alcides thirteenth act must lend  
A glorious period, and his lust-itch end.  
When once he hath froth-foming Aetna passed  
At one and thirty being always last.  
If not to Day (quoth that Nasonian)  
Much less to morrow, Yes saith Fabian,  
For ingrained Habits, died with often dips,  
Are not so soon discoloured, young slips  
New set, are easily moved, and plucked away,  
But elder roots, clip faster in the clay.  
I smile at thee, and at the Stagerite,  
Who holds the liking of the appetite,  
Being fed with actions often put in ure  
Hatcheth the soul, in quality impure,  
Or pure. May be in virtue, but for vice,  
That comes by inspiration, with a trice  
Young Furius scarce fifteen years of age  
But is straightways, right fit for marriage  
Unto the devil, for sure they would agree,  
Betwixt their souls there is such sympathy,  
O where's your sweaty habit, when each Ape,  
That can but spy the shadow of his shape,  
That can no sooner ken what's virtuous,  
But will avoid it, and be vicious.  
Without much do, or far fetched habiture  
In earnest thus, it is a sacred cure  
To salve the soul's dread wounds; Omnipotent  
That Nature is, that cures the impotent,  
Even in a moment; Sure Grace is infused  
By divine favour, not by actions used.  
Which is as permanent as heavens bliss  
To them that have it, than no habit is.  
To morrow, nay, to day, it may be got:  
So please that gracious Power cleanse thy spot.  
Vice, from privation of that sacred Grace,  
which God withdraws, but puts not vice in place.  
Who says the sun is cause of ugly night?  
Yet when he veils our eyes from his fair sight,  
The gloomy curtain of the night is spread.  
Ye curious sots, vainly by Nature led,  
Where is your vice or virtuous habit now?  
For Sustine pro nunc doth bend his brow,  
And old crabbed Scotus on th'organon  
Pay'th me with snaphance, quick distinction,  
Habits that intellectual termed be,  
Are got, or else infused from Deity.  
Dull Sorbonist, fly contradiction.  
Fie, thou oppung'st the definition.  
If one should say, Of things termed rational,  
Some reason have, others mere sensual.  
Would not some freshman reading Porphirie,  
Hiss, and deride such blockish foolery?  
Then vice nor virtue have from habit place,  
The one from want, the other sacred grace.  
Infused, displaced, not in our will or force.  
But as it please jehova have remorse.  
I will, cries Zeno, o presumption!  
I can, thou mayst, dogged opinion  
Of thwarting Cynics. To day vicious,  
List to their precepts, next day virtuous.  
Peace Seneca, thou belchest blasphemy.  
To live from God, but to live happily  
(I hear thee boast,) from thy Philosophy,  
And from thyself, o raving lunacy!  
Cynics, ye wound yourselves, for Destiny  
Inevitable Fate, Necessity,  
You hold doth sway the acts spiritual,  
As well as parts of that we mortal call,  
Where's then (I will?) where's that strong Deity,  
You do ascribe to your Philosophy?  
Confounded Natures brats, can will and Fate,  
Have both their seat, & office in your pate?  
O hidden depth of that dread Secrecy,  
Which I do trembling touch in Poetry!  
To day, to day, implore obsequiously,  
Trust not to morrows will, least utterly  
Ye be attached with sad confusion,  
In your Grace-tempting lewd presumption.  
But I forget; why sweat I out my brain,  
In deep designs, to gay boys lewd, and vain?  
These notes were better sung, 'mong better sort,  
But to my pamphlet, few save fools resort.  
Libri primi, finis.    

SATY: Liber secundus.  

Proemium in librum secundum.  

I Cannot quote a mott Italienate.  
Or brand my satires with some Spanish term.  
I cannot with swollen lines magnificate,  
Mine own poor worth, or as immaculate  
Task others rhymes, as if no blot did stain,  
No blemish soil, my young satyric vain.   

Nor can I make my soul a merchandise,  
Seeking conceits to suit these Artless times.  
Ordain for base reward to Poetize:  
Soothing the world▪ with oily flatteries.  
Shall mercenary thoughts provoke me write?  
Shall I for lucre be a Parasite?   

Shall I once pen for vulgar sorts applause?  
To please each hound? each dungy Scavenger?  
To fit some Oystar-wenches yawning jaws?  
With tricksy tales of speaking Cornish daws?   

First let my brain (bright haired Latona's son)  
Be clean distract with all confusion.   

What though some john-á-stile will basely toil,  
Only incited with the hope of gain,  
Though roguie thoughts do force some iade-like Moil  
Yet no such filth my trueborn Muse will soil.  
O Epictetus, I do honour thee,  
To think how rich thou wert in poverty    

Ad Rithmum.  
COme pretty pleasing symphony of words,  
Ye wel-matched twins (whose like-tuned tongues affords  
Such musical delight,) come willingly  
And dance Levaltoes in my poesy.  
Come all as easy, as spruce Curio will,  
In some court hall to show his capering skill.  
As willingly come meet & jump together,  
As new joined loves, when they do clip each other.  
As willingly, as wenches trip a round,  
About a Maypole, after bagpipes sound.  
Come rhyming numbers, come and grace conceit,  
Adding a pleasing close, with your deceit  
Enticing ears. Let not my ruder hand  
Seem once to force you in my lines to stand,  
Be not so fearful (pretty souls) to meet,  
As Flaccus is the Sergeants face to greet.  
Be not so backward loath to grace my sense,  
As Drusus is, to have intelligence  
His Dad's alive; but come into my head  
As iocondly, as when his wife was dead  
Young Lelus to his home. Come like-faced rhyme,  
In tuneful numbers keeping musics time.  
But if you hang an arse, like Tubered,  
When Chremes dragged him from his brothel bed,  
Then hence base ballad stuff, my poetry  
Disclaims you quite, for know my liberty  
Scorns rhyming laws; Alas poor idle sound,  
Since I first Phoebus knew, I never found  
Thy interest in sacred Poesy.  
Thou to Invention add'st but surquedry,  
A gaudy ornature, but hast no part,  
In that soule-pleasing high infused art.  
Then if thou wilt clip kindly in my lines,  
Welcome thou friendly aid of my designs.  
If not? No title of my senseless change  
To wrest some forced rhyme, but freely range.  
Ye scrupulous observers, go & learn  
Of Aesop's dog; meat from a shade discern.   

satire. V  
♂ ☿ Totum in toto.  
Hang thyself Drusus, haste nor arms nor brain?  
Some Sophy say, the gods sell all for pain.  
Not so.  
Had not that toiling Theban steled back  
Dread poisoned shafts, lived he now, he should lack.  
Spite of his farming Oxe-staules. Themis self  
Would be cashiered from one poor scrap of plefe.  
If that she were incarnate in our time  
She might lusk scorned in disdained slime,  
Shaded from honour by some envious mist  
Of watery fogs, that fill the ill-stuft list  
Of fair Desert, jealous even of blind dark,  
Lest it should spy, and at their lameness bark.  
honours shade, thrusts honours substance from his place  
'tis strange, when shade the substance can disgrace?  
Harsh lines cries Curus, whose ears near rejoice  
But at the quavering of my Lady's voice.  
Rude limping lines fits this lewd halting age,  
Sweet scenting Curus, pardon then my rage,  
When wizards swear plain virtue never thrives,  
None but Priapus by plain dealing wives.  
Thou subtle Hermes, are the Destinies  
Enamoured on thee? then up mount the skies.  
Advance, depose, do even what thou list,  
So long as Fates do grace thy juggling fist.  
Tuscus, hast Benclarkes arms and strong sinews,  
Large reach, full fed veins, ample revenues?  
Then make thy markets by thy proper arm,  
O, brawny strength is an all-canning charm!  
Thou dreadless Thracean, haste Hallirrhotius slain?  
What? is't not possible thy cause maintain  
Before the dozen Areopagites?  
Come Enagonian, furnish him with slights.  
Tut, Pluto's wrath, Proserpina can melt,  
So that thy sacrifice be freely felt.  
What cannot juno force in bed with jove?  
Turn and return a sentence with her love.  
Thou art too dusky. Fie thou shallow Ass,  
Put on more eyes, and mark me as I pass.  
Well plainly thus, Sleight, Force, are mighty things,  
Fron which, much, (if not most) earths glory springs.  
If virtues self, were clad in human shape,  
Virtue without these, might go beg and scrape.  
The naked truth is, a well clothed lie,  
A nimble quick-pate mounts to dignity.  
By force, or fraud, that matters not a jot,  
So massy wealth may fall unto thy lot.  
I heard old Albius swear, Flavus should have  
His eldest gurle, for Flavus was a knave.  
A damned deep-reaching villain, & would mount  
He durst well warrant him to great account.  
What though he laid forth all his stock & store  
Upon some office, yet he'll gain much more,  
Though purchased dear. Tut, he will treble it  
In some few terms, by his extorting wit.  
When I in simple meaning went to sew  
For tonge-tide Damus, that would needs go woo,  
I praised him for his virtue, honest life,  
By God, cries Flora, I'll not be his wife.  
He'll near come on. Now I swear solemnly,  
When I go next, I'll praise his villainy.  
A better field to range in now a days,  
If vice be virtue, I can all men praise.  
What though pale Maurus paid huge simonies  
For his half-dozen gelded vicaries.  
Yet with good honest cut-throat usury,  
I fear he'll mount to reverent dignity.  
O sleight! all-canning sleight! all-damning sleight!  
The only gally-ladder unto might.  
Tuscus is trade fallen, yet great hope he'll rise,  
For now he makes no count of perjuries.  
Hath drawn false lights from pitch-black loveries,  
Glazed his braided ware. Clogs, swears, and lies.  
Now since he hath the grace, thus graceless be  
His neighbours swear, he'll swell with treasury.  
Tut who maintains, such goods ill got, decay.  
No, they'll stick by thy soul, they'll near away.  
Luscus my Lord's perfumer had no sale  
Until he made his wife a brothel stolen.  
Absurd, the gods sell all for industry?  
When, what's not got by hellbred villainy?  
Codrus my well-faced Lady's taile-bearer,  
(He that sometimes play'th Flavia's usherer)  
I heard one day complain to Lynceus,  
How vigilant, how right obsequious  
Modest in carriage, how true in trust,  
And yet (alas) near guerdoned with a crust.  
But now I see, he finds by his accounts  
That sole Priapus by plain dealing mounts.  
How now? what droops the new Pegasian Inn?  
I fear mine host is honest. Tut, begin  
To set up whorehouse. Near too late to thrive  
By any means at Porta Richardo ' arrive;  
Go use some sleight, or live poor Irus' life,  
Strait prostitute thy daughter, or thy wife.  
And soon be wealthy, but be damned with it,  
Hath not rich Mylo then deep reaching wit?  
Fair age!  
When 'tis a high, and hard thing t' have repute  
Of a complete villain, perfect, absolute,  
And roguing virtue brings a man defame.  
A packstaffe Epithet, and scorned name.  
Fie how my with flags, how heavily  
Me thinks I vent dull sprightless poesy.  
What cold black frost congeals my nummed brain?  
What envious power stops a satires vain?  
O now I know, the juggling God of sleights,  
With Caduceus nimble Hermes fights,  
And mists my wit. Offended that my rhymes  
Display his odious, world-abusing crimes.  
O be propitious, powerful God of Arts,  
I sheath my weapons, and do break my darts,  
Be then appeased, I'll offer to thy shrine,  
An Heccatombe, of many spottedkine.  
Myriad of beasts shall satisfy thy rage,  
Which do profane thee in this Apish age.  
Infectious blood, ye gouty humours quake  
Whilst my sharp Razor doth incision make.   

satire. VI  
Hem nosti'n.  
CVrio, knowst me? why thou bottle-ale,  
Thou barmy froth! O stay me, lest I rail  
Beyond Nil ultra, to see this Butterfly,  
This windy bubble task my balladry  
With senseless censure. Curio, knowst my sprite!  
Yet deemest that in sad seriousness I writ  
Such nasty stuff as is Pygmalion?  
Such maggot-tainted lewd corruption?  
Ha, now he glavers with his fawning snout,  
And swears; he thought, I meant but faintly flout,  
My fine smug rhyme. O barbarous dropsy noll!  
Thinkest thou that Genius that attends my soul,  
And guides my fist to scourge Magnificoes  
Will deign my mind be ranked in Paphian shows?  
Thinkest thou, that I, which was create to whip  
Incarnate fiends, will once vouchsafe to trip  
A Paunis traverse? or will lisp (sweet love)  
Or pule (Ay me) some female soul to move?  
Thinkest thou, that I in melting poesy  
Will pamper itching sensuality?  
(That in the bodies scum all fatally  
Entombs the souls most sacred faculty.)  
Hence thou misjudging Censor, know I wrote  
Those idle rhymes to note the odious spot  
And blemish that deforms the lineaments  
Of modern Poesy's habiliments.  
Oh that the beauties of Invention,  
For want of judgements disposition  
Should all be soiled, o that such treasury,  
Such strains of well-conceited poesy,  
Should moulded be, in such a shapeless form,  
That want of Art, should make such wit a scorn.  
Here's one must invocate some lose-legged dame,  
Some brothel drab, to help him stanzas frame,  
Or else (alas) his wits can have no vent  
To broach conceits industrious intent.  
Another yet dares tremblingly come out,  
But first he must invoke good Colyn Clout.  
yond's one hath yeaned a fearful prodigy,  
Some monstrous misshapen Balladry,  
His guts are in his brains, huge jobbernoule,  
Right Gurnets-head, the rest without all soul.  
Another walks, is lazy, lies him down,  
Thinks, reads, at length some wont sleep doth crown  
His new fallen lids, dreams, strait ten pound to one,  
Out steps some Fairy with quick motion,  
And tells him wonders, of some flowery vale,  
Awakes strait, rubs his eyes, and prints his tale.  
yond's one, whose strains have flown so high a pitch  
That strait he flags, & tumbles in a ditch.  
His sprightly hot high-soring poesy  
Is like that dreamt of Imagery,  
Whose head was gold, breast silver, brassy thigh,  
Led legs, clay feet; o fair framed poesy.  
Here's one, to get an undeserved repute  
Of deep deep learning, all in fustian suit  
Of ill-placed farre-fetched words attiereth  
His period, that all sense forsweareth.  
Another makes old Homer, Spencer cite  
Like my Pygmalion, where, with rare delight  
He cries, O ovid. This caused my idle quill,  
The world's dull ears with such lewd stuff to fill,  
And gull with bombast lines, the witless sense  
Of these odd naggs; whose pates circumference  
Is filled with froth! O these same buzzing Gnats  
That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus Rats,  
Half dung, that have their life from putrid slime▪  
These that do praise my lose lascivious rhyme:  
For these same shades I seriously protest  
I slubbered up that Chaos indigest,  
To fish for fools, that stalk in goodly shape,  
What though in velvet cloak, yet still an Ape.  
Capro reads, swears, scrubs, and swears again,  
Now by my soul an admirable strain,  
Strokes up his hair, cries passing passing good,  
Oh, there's a line incends his lustful blood.  
Then Muto comes with his new glasse-set face,  
And with his late kist-hand my book doth grace,  
Strait reads, than smiles & lisps ('tis pretty good)  
And praiseth that he never understood.  
But room for Flaccus, he'll my satires read.  
Oh how I trembled strait with inward dread!  
But when I saw him read my fustian,  
And heard him swear I was a Pythian,  
Yet strait recalled, & swears I did but quote  
Out of Xilinum to that margins note,  
I could scarce hold, & keep myself concealed,  
But had well-nigh myself and all revealed.  
Then strait comes Friscus, that neat gentleman,  
That new discarded Academian,  
Who for he could cry (Ergo) in the school,  
straightway, with his huge judgement dares control  
What soe'er he views, that is pretty, pretty good,  
That Epithet hath not that sprightly blood  
Which should enforce it speak, that's Perseus vain,  
That's juvenal's, here's Horace crabbed strain,  
Though he near read one line in juvenal,  
Or in his life his lazy eye let fall  
On dusky Perseus. O indignity  
To my respectless free-bred poesy.  
Hence ye big-buzzing-little-bodied Gnats,  
Ye tattling Echoes, huge tongued pigmy brats,  
I mean to sleep, wake not my slumbering brain  
With your malignant weak detracting vain.  
What though the sacred issue of my soul  
I hear expose to Idiots control?  
What though I bore to lewd Opinion  
Lay open to vulgar profanation  
My very Genius. Yet know my poesy  
Doth scorn your utmost, rankest indignity.  
My pate was great with child, & here 'tis eased,  
Vex all the world, so that thyself be pleased.   

satire. VII.  
A Cynic Satire.  
A Man, a man, a kingdom for a man.  
Why how now currish mad Athenian?  
Thou Cynic dog, see'st not streets do swarm  
With troops of men? No, no, for Circe's charm  
Hath turned them all to swine: I never shall  
Think those same Samian saws authentical,  
But rather I dare swear, the souls of swine  
Do live in men, for that same radiant shine,  
That lustre wherewith nature's Nature decked  
Our intellectual part, that gloss is soiled  
With staining spots of vile impiety,  
And muddy dirt of sensuality,  
These are no men, but Apparitions,  
Ignes fatui, Glow-worms, Fictions,  
Meteors, Rats of Nilus, Fantasies,  
Colossuses, Pictures, Shades, Resemblances.  
Ho Lynceus!  
Seest thou yond gallant in the sumptuous clothes,  
How brisk, how spruce, how gorgeously he shows,  
Note his French-herring bones, but note no more,  
Unless thou spy his fair appendent whore  
That lackeys him. Mark nothing but his clothes,  
His new stamped complement, his Cannon oaths.  
Mark those, for nought but such lewd viciousness  
Ere graced him, save Sodom beastliness.  
Is this a Man? Nay, an incarnate devil,  
That struts in vice, and glorieth in evil.  
A man, a man: peace Cynic, yond is one,  
A complete soul, of all perfection.  
What? meanest thou him that walks all open breasted?  
Drawn through the ear with Ribbons, plumy crested?  
He that doth snort in fat-fed luxury,  
And gapes for some grinding Monopoly?  
He that in effeminate invention,  
In beastly source of all pollution,  
In riot, lust, and fleshly seeming sweetness,  
Sleeps sound secure, under the shade of greatness?  
Meanest thou that senseless, sensual Epicure?  
That sink of filth, that guzzell most impure?  
What he? Lynceus on my word thus presume,  
He's nought but clothes, & scenting sweet perfume.  
His very soul, assure thee Lynceus,  
Is not so big as is an Atomus:  
Nay, he is sprightless, sense or soul hath none,  
Since last Medusa turned him to a stone.  
A man, a man, Lo yonder I espy  
The shade of Nestor in sad gravity;  
Since old Sylenus broke his Asses back,  
He now is forced his paunch, and guts to pack  
In a fair Tumbril. Why sour Satirist  
Canst thou unman him? Here I dare insist  
And sooth say, he is a perfect soul,  
Eats Nectar, drinks Ambrosia, sans control.  
An inundation of felicity  
Fats him with honour, and huge treasury.  
Canst thou not Lynceus cast thy searching eye  
And spy his imminent Catastrophe?  
He's but a sponge, and shortly needs must lose  
His wrong got juice, when greatness fist shall squeeze  
His liquor out. Would not some, shallow head,  
That is with seeming shadows only fed,  
Swear yond same Damaske-coat, yond guarded man,  
Were some grave sober Cato Utican?  
When let him but in judgements sight uncase,  
He's nought but budge, old guards, brown foxe-furface  
He hath no soul, the which the Stagerite  
Termed rational, for beastly appetitie.  
Base dunghill thoughts, and sensual action,  
Hath made him lose that fair creation.  
And now no man, since Circe's magic charm  
Hath turned him to a maggot, that doth swarm  
In tainted flesh, whose foul corruption  
Is his fair food, whose generation  
Another's ruin. O Canaan's dread curse  
To live in people's sins. Nay far more worse  
To muck rank hate. But sirrah, Lynceus,  
Seest thou that troup that now affronteth us?  
They are nought but Eels, that never will appear,  
Till that tempestuous winds or thunder tear  
Their slimy beds. But prithee stay a while,  
Look, yond comes john-á-noke, and john-a-stile,  
they're nought but slow-paced, dilatory pleas,  
Demure demurrers, still striving to appease  
Hot zealous love. The language that they speak,  
Is the pure barbarous blacksaunt of the Geate,  
Their only skill rests in Collusions,  
Abatements, stopples, inhibitions.  
Heavy-paced jades, dull pated jobernoules,  
Quick in delays, checking with vain controls  
Fair justice course, vile necessary evils,  
Smooth seeme-Saints, yet damned incarnate devils.  
far be it from my sharp Satiric Muse,  
Those grave, and reverent legists to abuse,  
That aid Astrea, that do further right:  
But these Megeras that inflame despite,  
That broach deep ranchor, that do study still  
To ruin right, that they their paunch may fill  
With Irus' blood; these Furies I do mean,  
These Hedgehogs, that disturb Astrea's Scene.  
A man, a man: peace Cynic, yond's a man,  
Behold yond sprightly dread Mavortian.  
With him I stop thy currish barking chaps.  
what? meanest thou him, that in his swaggering slops  
Wallows unbraced all along the street?  
He that salutes each gallant he doth meet,  
With farewell sweet Captain, kind heart, adieu.  
He that last night, tumbling thou didst view  
From out the great man's head, and thinking still  
He had been Sentinel of warlike Brill.  
Cries out Que va la? 'zounds Que? and out doth draw  
His transformed poniard, to a Syrrenge straw,  
And stabs the Drawer. What that Ringo root?  
Meanest thou that wasted leg, puff bombast boot?  
What he that's drawn, and quartered with lace?  
That westphalian gamon Clove-stuck face?  
Why, he is nought but huge blaspheming oaths,  
Swart snout, big looks, misshaped Switzers clothes,  
Weak meager lust hath now consumed quite,  
And wasted clean away his martial sprite,  
Enfeebling riot, all vices confluence,  
Hath eaten out that sacred influence  
Which made him man.  
That divine part is soaked away in sin,  
In sensual lust, and midnight bezeling.  
Rank inundation of luxuriousness,  
Have tainted him with such gross beastliness,  
That now the seat of that celestial essence  
Is all possessed with Naples pestilence.  
Fat peace, and dissolute impiety,  
Have lulled him in such security,  
That now, let whirlwinds and confusion tear  
The Centre of our state, let Giants rear  
Hill upon hill, let western Termagant  
Shake heavens vault, he with his Occupant,  
Are clinged so close, like dew-wormes in the morn,  
That he le not stir, till out his guts are torn  
With eating filth. Tubrio snort on, snort on,  
Till thou art waked with sad confusion.  
Now rail no more at my sharp Cynic sound  
Thou brutish world, that in all vileness drowned  
Hast lost thy soul, for nought but shades I see,  
Resemblances of men inhabit thee.  
Yond Tissue slop, yond Holy-crossed pane,  
Is but a water-spaniel that will feign  
And kiss the water whilst it pleasures him,  
But being once arrived at the brim▪  
He shakes it off.  
Yond in the capering cloak, a Mimic Ape  
That only strives to seem an others shape.  
yond's Aesop's Ass, yond sad cruilitie,  
Is but an Ox, that with base drugerie  
Ears up the Land, whilst some gilt Ass doth chaw  
The golden wheat; he well apayed with straw.  
Yons but a muckhill overspread with snow,  
Which with that vail doth even as fairly show  
As the green meads, whose native outward fair  
Breathes sweet perfumes into the neighbour air.  
Yond effeminate sanguine Ganymede,  
Is but a Beaver, hunted for the bed.  
Peace Cynic, see what yonder doth approach,  
A cart? a tumbril? no a Badged coach.  
What's in't? some man. No, nor yet woman kind,  
But a celestial Angel, fair refined.  
The devil as soon. Her mask so hinders me  
I cannot see her beauty's deity.  
Now that is off, she is so vizarded,  
So steeped in Lemons-ivyce, so surfled  
I cannot see her face, under one hood  
Too faces, but I never understood  
Or saw, one face under two hoods till now,  
'tis the right semblance of old janus brow  
Her mask, her vizard, her loose-hanging gown  
For her lose lying body, her bright spangled crown  
Her long slit sleeve, stiff busk, puff verdingall,  
Is all that makes her thus angelical.  
Alas, her soul struts round about her neck,  
Her seat of sense is her rabato set,  
Her intellectual is a feigned niceness  
Nothing but clothes, & simpering preciseness.  
Out on these puppets, painted Images,  
Haberdashers shops, torchlight maskeries,  
Perfuming pans, Dutch ancients, Glow worms bright  
That soil our souls, and damp our reason's light:  
Away, away, hence Coachman, go enshrine  
Thy new glazed puppet in port Esqueline.  
Blush Martia, fear not, or look pale, all's one,  
Margara keeps thy set complexion.  
Sure I near think those axioms to be true,  
That souls of men, from that great soul ensue,  
And of his essence do participate  
As't were by pipes, when so degenerate,  
So adverse is our nature's motion,  
To his immaculate condition:  
That such foul filth, from such fair purity,  
Such sensual acts from such a Deity,  
Can near proceed. But if that dream were so,  
Then sure the slime that from our souls do flow,  
Have stopped those pipes by which it was conveyed,  
And now no human creatures, once disraied  
Of that fair iem.  
Beast's sense, plants growth, like being as a stone,  
But out alas, our Cognisance is gone.  
Finis libri Secundi.    

SATY: Liber Tertius.   


Proemium in librum tertium.  
IN serious jest, and jesting seriousness  
I strive to scourge polluting beastliness.  
I invocate no Delian Deity,  
Nor sacred offspring of Mnemosyne:  
I pray in aid of no Castalian Muse,  
No Nymph, no female Angel to infuse  
A sprightly wit to raise my flagging wings,  
And teach me tune these harsh discordant strings:  
I crave no Sirens of our halcyon times,  
To grace the accents of my rough-hewed rhymes;  
But grim Reproof, stern Hate of villainy,  
Inspire and guide a satires poesy.  
Fair Detestation of foul odious sin,  
In which our swinish times lie wallowing.  
Be thou my conduct and my Genius,  
My wits inciting sweet breathed Zephyrus.  
O that a satires hand had force to pluck  
Some fludgate up, to purge the world from muck:  
Would God I could turn Alpheus' river in  
To purge this augean oxstaule from foul sin.  
Well, I will try, awake impurity,  
And view the vail drawn from thy villainy.   

satire. VIII.  
Inamorato Curio.  
CVrio, ay me! thy mistress Monkey's dead,  
Alas, alas, her pleasures buried.  
Go woman's slave, perform his exequys,  
Condole his death in mournful Elegies.  
Tut, rather Paeans sing Hermaphrodite,  
For that sad death gives life to thy delight.  
Sweet faced Corinna, deign the ribbon tie  
Of thy Cork-shooe, or else thy slave will die:  
Some puling Sonnet toll his passing bell,  
Some sighing Elegy must ring his knell,  
Unless bright sunshine of thy grace revive  
His wambling stomach, certes he will dive  
Into the whirlpool of devouring death,  
And to some Mermaid sacrifice his breath.  
Then oh, oh then, to thy eternal shame,  
And to the honour of sweet Curios name,  
This Epitaph upon the Marble stone,  
Must fair be graved of that true loving one;  
Hear lieth he, he lieth here, that bounced, and pity cried,  
The door not oped, fell sick alas, alas fell sick, and died.  
What Myrmidon, or hard Dolopian,  
What savage minded rude Cyclopian,  
But such a sweet pathetic Paphian  
Would force to laughter? Ho Amphitrion,  
Thou art no Cuckold, what though jove dallied  
During thy wars, in fair Alckmenas' bed,  
Yet Hercules true borne, that imbecility  
Of corrupt nature all apparently  
Appears in him, o foul indignity,  
I heard him vow himself a slave to Omphale,  
Puling (ay me) o valours obloquy!  
He that the inmost nooks of hell did know,  
Whose near crazed prowess all did overthrow,  
Lies streaking brawny limbs in weakening bed,  
Perfumed, smooth combed, new glazed fair surfled,  
O that the boundless power of the soul  
Should be subjecteth to such base control!  
Big limned Alcides, doff thy honours crown  
Go spin huge slave lest Omphale should frown.  
By my best hopes, I blush with grief and shame  
To broach the peasant baseness of our name.  
O now my ruder hand gins to quake,  
To think what lofty Cedars I must shake:  
But if the canker fret the barks of Oaks,  
Like humbler shrubs shall equal bear the strokes  
Of my respectless rude satyric hand,  
Unless the Destin's adamantine band  
Should tie my teeth, I cannot choose but bite  
To view Mavortius metamorphized quite  
To puling sighs, & into (ay me's) state,  
With voice distinct, all fine articulate  
Lisping, Fair saint, my woe compassionate,  
By heaven thine eye is my soule-guiding fate.  
The God of wounds, had wont on Cyprian couch  
To streak himself, and with incensing touch  
To faint his force only when wrath had end:  
But now, 'mong furious garboils, he doth spend  
His feebled valour, in tilt and turneing,  
With wet turned kisses, melting dallying.  
A pox aponed, that Bacchis name should be  
The watchword given to the soldiery.  
Go troop to field, mount thy obscured fame,  
Cry out S. George, invoke thy Mistress name;  
Thy Mistress, and S. George, alarm cry,  
Weak force, weak aid that sprouts from luxury.  
Thou tedious workmanship of lust-stung jove,  
Down from thy skies, enjoy our females love,  
Some fifty more Beotian girls well sue  
To have thy love, (so that thy back be true.)  
O now me thinks I hear swart Martius cry  
Souping along in wars feigned maskerie,  
By Lais starry sront he'll forthwith die  
In cluttred blood, his Mistress livery.  
Her fancies colours waves upon his head,  
O well fenced Albion, mainly manly sped,  
When those that are Soldadoes in thy state,  
Do bear the badge of base, effeminate,  
Even on their plumy crests, brutes sensual,  
Having no spark of intellectual.  
Alack, what hope? when some rank nasty wench  
Is subject of their vows and confidence?  
Publius hates vainly to idolatries,  
And laughs that Papists honour Images,  
And yet (o madness) these mine eyes did see  
Him melt in moving plaints, obsequiously  
Imploring favour, twining his kind arms,  
Using enchantments, exorcisms, charms.  
The oil of Sonnets, wanton blandishment,  
The force of tears, & seeming languishment,  
Unto the picture of a painted lass:  
I saw him court his Mistress looking-glass,  
Worship a busk-poynt, (which in secrecy  
I fear was conscius of strange villainy.)  
I saw him crouch, devote his livelihood,  
Swear, protest, vow peasant servitude  
Unto a painted puppet, to her eyes  
I heard him swear his sighs to sacrifice.  
But if he get her itch-allaying pin,  
O sacred relic, strait he must begin  
To rave outright, then thus. Celestial bliss,  
Can heaven grant so rich a grace as this?  
Touch it not (by the Lord Sir) 'tis divine,  
It once beheld her radiant eyes bright shine:  
Her hair embraced it, o thrice happy prick  
That there was throned, and in her hair didst stick.  
Kiss, bless, adore it Publius, never linne,  
Some sacred virtue lurketh in the pin.  
O frantic fond pathetic passion!  
Is't possible such sensual action  
Should clip the wings of contemplation?  
O can it be the spirits function,  
The soul not subject to dimension,  
Should be made slave to reprehension  
Of crafty natures paint? Fie, can our soul  
Be underling to such a vile control?  
Saturio wished himself his Mistress busk,  
That he might sweetly lie, and softly lusk  
Between her paps, then must he have an eye  
At either end, that freely might descry  
Both hills and dales. But out on Phrigio,  
That wished he were his Mistress puppy cur, to go  
And lick his Mistress fist, o pretty grace,  
That pretty Phrigio begs but Pretties' place.  
Parthenophell, thy wish I will omit,  
So beastly 'tis I may not utter it.  
But Punicus, of all I'll bear with thee,  
That feign wouldst be thy Mistress smug Monkey,  
Here's one would be a flea, (jest comical)  
Another his sweet Ladies verdingall  
To clip her tender breech; Another he  
Her silver-handled fan would gladly be,  
Here's one would be his Mistress necklace feign,  
To clip her fair, and kiss her azure vain.  
Fond fools, well wished, and pity but should be,  
For beastly shape to brutish souls agree.  
If Lauras painted lip do deign a kiss  
To her enamoured slave, o heavens bliss  
(Strait he exclaims) not to be matched with this!  
Blaspheming dolt, go threescore sonnets writ  
Upon a pictures kiss, o raving sprite!  
I am not sapless, old, or rheumatic,  
No Hipponax misshaped stigmatick,  
That I should thus inveigh 'gainst amorous sprite  
Of him whose soul doth turn Hermaphrodite,  
But I do sadly grieve, and inly vex  
To view the base dishonours of our sex.  
Tush, guiltless Doves, when Gods to force foul rapes,  
Will turn themselves to any brutish shapes.  
Base bastard powers, whom the world doth see  
Traus-formed to swine for sensual luxury;  
The son of Saturn is become a Bull,  
To crop the beauties of some female trull.  
Now, when he hath his first wife Metim sped,  
And fairly choked, lest fool gods should be bred  
Of that fond Mule. Themis his second wife  
Hath turned away, that his unbridled life  
Might have more scope. Yet last his sister's love  
Must satiate the lustful thoughts of jove.  
Now doth the lecher in a Cuckoo's shape  
Commit a monstrous and incestuous rape.  
Thrice sacred gods, and o thrice blessed skies  
Whose orbs includes such virtuous deities!  
What should I say? Lust hath confounded all  
The bright gloss of our intellectual  
Is foully soiled. The wanton wallowing  
In fond delights, and amorous dallying,  
Hath dusked the fairest splendour of our soul:  
Nothing now left, but carcase, loathsome, foul.  
For sure, if that some sprite remained still,  
Can it be subject to lewd Lais will?  
Reason by prudence in her function  
Had wont to tutor all our action.  
Aiding with precepts of philosophy  
Our feebled nature's imbecility:  
But now affection, will, concupiscence,  
Have got o'er Reason chief preheminene.  
'tis so, else how, how should such baseness taint  
As force it be made slave to natures paint?  
Me thinks the spirits Pegase Fantasy  
Should hoist the soul from such base slavery,  
But now I see, and can right plainly show  
Fron whence such abject thoughts & actions grow.  
Our adverse body, being earthly, cold,  
Heavy, dull, mortal, would not long enfold  
A stranger inmate, that was backward still  
To all his dungy, brutish, sensual will:  
Now hereupon▪ our Intellectual,  
Compact of fire all celestial,  
Invisible, immortal, and divine,  
Grew strait to scorn his Landlords muddy slime.  
And therefore now is closely slunk away  
(Leaving his smoky house of mortal clay)  
Adorned with all his beauty's lineaments  
And brightest gems of shining ornaments.  
His parts divine, sacred, spiritual  
Attending on him, leaving the sensual  
Base hangers on, lusking at home in slime,  
Such as wont to stop port Esqueline.  
Now doth the body led with senseless will,  
(The which in reason's absence ruleth still)  
Rave, talk idly, as't were some deity  
Adoring female painted puppetry  
Playing at put-pin, doting on some glass  
(Which breathed but on his falsed gloss doth pass)  
Toying with babies, and with fond pastime  
Some children's sport, deflowering of chaste time,  
Employing all his wits in vain expense,  
Abusing all his organa of sense.  
Return, return, sacred Synderesis,  
Inspire our trunks, let not such mud as this  
Pollute us still. Awake our lethargy,  
Raise us from out our brainsick foolery.   

satire. IX.  
Here's a toy to mock an Ape indeed.  

Grim-faced Reproof, sparkle with threatening eye  
Bend thy sour brows in my tart poesy.  
avant ye curs, howl in some cloudy mist,  
Quake to behold a sharp-fanged Satirist.  
O how on tiptoes proudly mounts my Muse,  
Stalking a loftier gate than satires use.  
Me thinks some sacred rage warms all my veins,  
Making my sprite mount up to higher strains  
Than well beseems a rough-tongued satires part,  
But Art curbs Nature, Nature guildeth Art.  
Come down ye Apes, or I will strip you quite,  
Baring your bald tails to the people's sight.  
Ye Mimic slaves, what are you perched so high?  
Down jack an Apes from thy feigned royalty.  
What furred with beard, cased in a Satin suit  
judicial jack? how hast thou got repute  
Of a sound censure? O idiot times,  
When gaudy Monkeys mow over sprightly rhymes!  
O world of fools, when all men's judgement's set  
And rests upon some mumping Marmuset!  
Yond Athens Ape (that can but simperingly  
Yaule auditores humanissimi,  
Bound to some servile imitation,  
Can with much sweat patch an Oration,  
Now up he comes, and with his crooked eye  
Presumes to squint on some fair Poesy;  
And all as thankless as ungrateful Thames  
He slinkes away, leaving but reeching steams  
Of dungy slime behind, all as ingrate  
He useth it, as when I satiate  
My sparsiels' paunch, who strait perfumes the room,  
With his tails filth: so this uncivil groom,  
Ill-tutored pedant, Mortimer's numbers  
With muck-pit esculine filth bescumbers.  
Now th' Ape chatters, and is as malcontent  
As a bill-patched door, whose entrails out have sent  
And spewed their tenant.  
My soul adores judicial scholarship,  
But when to servile imitatorship  
Some spruce Athenian pen is prentized,  
'tis worse then Apish. Fie, be not flattered  
With seeming worth, fond affectation  
Befits an Ape, and mumping Babylon.   

O what a tricksy learned nicking strain  
Is this applauded, sencles, modern 
* non ledere, sed ludere non lanea, sed linea non ictus, sed nictus potius.  vain  
When late I heard it from sage Mutius lips  
How il me thought such wanton jigging skips  
Beseemed his graver speech. far fly thy fame  
Most, most, of me beloved, whose silent name  
One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style  
I ever honour, and if my love beguile  
Not much my hopes, than thy unvalued worth  
Shall mount fair place, when Apes are turned forth.  
I am too mild, reach me my scourge again,  
O yond's a pen speaks in a learned vain.  
Deep, past all sense. Lantern & candle light,  
Here's all invisible, all meant all sprite.  
What hodge-podge, giberidge, doth the Poet bring?  
How strangely speaks? yet sweetly doth he sing.  
I once did know a tinkling Pewterer,  
That was the vildest stumbling stutterer  
That ever hacked and hewed our native tongue,  
Yet to the Lute if you had heard him sung,  
jesus how sweet he breathed. You can apply.  
O senseless prose, judicial poesy,  
How ill you're linked. This affectation,  
To speak beyond men's apprehension,  
How Apish 'tis. When all in fusten suit  
Is clothed a huge nothing, all for repute  
Of profound knowledge, when profoundness knows  
There's nought contained, but only seeming shows.  
Old jack of Paris-garden, canst thou get  
A fair rich suit, though foully run in debt?  
Look smug, smell sweet, take up commodities,  
Keep whores, fee bawds, belch impious blasphemies,  
Wallow along in swaggering disguise,  
Snuff up smoke whiffs, & each morn fore she rise  
Visit thy drab? Canst use a false cut Die  
With a clean grace, and glib faciliie?  
Canst thunder cannon oaths, like th'rattling  
Of a huge, double, full-charged culvering?  
Then jack troop 'mong our gallants, kiss thy fist,  
And call them brothers. Say a Satirist  
Swears they are thine in near affinity.  
All cousin germans, save in villainy.  
For (sadly truth to say) what are they else  
But imitators of lewd beastliness?  
far worse than Apes; for mow, or scratch your pate,  
It may be some odd Ape will imitate.  
But let a youth that hath abused his time,  
In wronged travail, in that hotter clime,  
Swoope by old jack, in clothes Italienate:  
And I'll be hanged if he will imitate  
His strange fantastic suit shapes.  
Or let him bring o'er beastly luxuries,  
Some hell-devised lustful villainies,  
Even Apes & beasts would blush with native shame,  
And think it foul dishonour to their name,  
Their beastly name, to imitate such sin  
As our lewd youths do boast and glory in.   

Fie, whether do these Monkeys carry me?  
Their very names do soil my poesy.  
Thou world of Marmosets and mumping Apes,  
Unmask, put of thy feigned borrowed shapes.  
Why looks neat Curus all so simperingly?  
Why babbles thou of deep Divinity?  
And of that sacred testimonial?  
Living voluptuous like a Bacchanal?  
Good hath thy tongue: but thou rank Puritan,  
I'll make an Ape as good a Christian.  
I'll force him chatter, turning up his eye  
Look sad, go grave. Demure civility  
Shall seem to say, Good brother, sister dear,  
As for the rest, to snort in belly cheer,  
To bite, to gnaw, and boldly intermell  
With sacred things, in which thou dost excel,  
Unforced he'll do. O take compassion  
Even on your souls, make not religion  
A bawd to lewdness. Civil Socrates,  
Clip not the youth of Alcibiades  
With unchaste arms. Disguised Messalina,  
I'll tear thy mask, and bore thee to the eyen  
Of hissing boys, if to the theatres  
I find thee once more come for lecherers  
To satiate? Nay, to tire thee with the use  
Of weakening lust. Ye fainers, leave t'abuse  
Our better thoughts with your hipocisie,  
Or by the everliving Verity,  
I'll strip you naked, and whip you with my rhymes,  
Causing your shame to live to after times.    

satire. X.  
Humours.  
SLeep grim Reproof, my jocund Muse doth sing  
In other keys, to nimbler fingering.  
Dull sprighted Melancholy, leave my brain  
To hell Cimmerian night, in lively vain  
I strive to paint, than hence all dark intent  
And sullen frowns, come sporting merriment,  
Cheek dimpling laughter, crown my very soul  
With iovisance, whilst mirthful jests control  
The gouty humours of these pride-swollen days,  
Which I do long until my pen displays.  
O I am great with mirth, some midwifrie,  
Or I shall break my sides at vanity.  
Room for a capering mouth, whose lips near stur,  
But in discoursing of the graceful slur:  
Who ever heard spruce skipping Curio  
Ere prate of aught, but of the whirl on toe.  
The turn above ground, Robrus sprawling kicks,  
Fabius' caper, Harry's tossing tricks?  
Did ever any ear, ere hear him speak  
Unless his tongue of cross-points did entreat?  
His teeth do caper whilst he eats his meat,  
His heels do caper, whilst he takes his seat,  
His very soul, his intellectual  
Is nothing but a mincing capreal.  
He dreams of toe-turnes, each gallant he doth meet  
He fronts him with a travers in the street,  
Praise but Orchestra, and the skipping art,  
You shall command him, faith you have his heart  
Even capering in your fist. A hall, a hall,  
Room for the Spheres, the Orbs celestial  
Will dance Kemp's jig. They'll revel with neat jumps  
A worthy Poet hath put on their Pumps?  
O wits quick travers, but sans ceo's slow,  
Good faith 'tis hard for nimble Curio.  
Ye gracious Orbs, keep the old measuring,  
All's spoiled if once ye fall to capering.  
Luscus what's played to day? faith now I know  
I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow  
nought but pure juliat and Romio.  
Say, who acts best? Drusus, or Roscio?  
Now I have him, that near of aught did speak  
But when of plays or Players he did treat.  
H'ath made a commonplace book out of plays,  
And speaks in print, at lest what ere he says  
Is warranted by Curtain plaudeties,  
If ere you heard him courting lesbia's eyes;  
Say (Courteous Sir) speaks he not movingly  
From out some new pathetic Tragedy?  
He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts, what not,  
And all from out his huge long scraped stock  
Of well penned plays.  
Oh come not within distance, Martius' speaks,  
Who near discourseth but of fencing feats,  
Of counter times, finctures, sly passataes,  
Stramazones, resolute Stoccataes,  
Of the quick change, with wiping mandritta,  
The carricado, with th' enbrocata,  
Oh, by jesus Sir, (me thinks I hear him cry)  
The honourable fencing mystery,  
Who doth not honour? Then falls he in again,  
jading our ears, and somewhat must be sane  
Of blades, and Rapier-hilts, of surest guard,  
Of Vincentio, and the Burgonians ward.  
This bombast foile-button I once did see  
By chance, in Livia's modest company,  
When after the God-saving ceremony,  
For want of talk-stuff, falls to foinerie,  
Out goes his Rapier, and to Livia  
He shows the ward by puncta reversa.  
The incarnata. Nay, by the blessed light,  
Before he goes, he'll teach her how to fight  
And hold her weapon. Oh I laughed amain,  
To see the madness of this Martius vain.  
But room for Tuscus, that iest-mounging youth,  
Who near did open his Apish gerning mouth  
But to retail and broke another's wit.  
Discourse of what you will, he strait can fit  
Your present talk, with, Sir, I'll tell a jest  
(Of some sweet Lady, or grand Lord at least)  
Then on he goes. And near his tongue shall lie  
Till his engrossed jests are all drawn dry;  
But then as dumb as Maurus, when at play  
H'ath lost his crowns, and pawned his trim array.  
He doth nought but retail jests, break but one  
Out flies his table-book, let him alone,  
He'll have it i'faith; Lad, hast an Epigram,  
Wilt have it put into the chaps of Fame?  
Give Tuscus copies, sooth as his own wit  
His proper issue he will father it.  
O that this Echo, that doth speak, spit, writ  
nought but the excrements of others sprite,  
This ill-stuft trunk of jests, whose very soul  
Is but a heap of gibes, should once enrol  
His name 'mong creatures termed rational,  
whose chief repute, whose sense, whose soul & all  
Are fed with offal scrapes, that sometimes fall  
From liberal wits, in their large festival.  
Come a fit jack, room for a vaulting skip,  
Room For Torquatus, that near oped his lip  
But in prate of pummado reversa,  
Of the nimble tumbling Angelica.  
Now on my soul, his very intellect  
Is nought but a curvetting Somerset.  
Hush, hush, cries (honest Phylo) peace, desist,  
Dost thou not tremble sour Satirist  
Now judicial Musus readeth thee?  
He'll whip each line, he'll scourge thy balladry,  
Good faith he will. Phylo I prithee stay  
Whilst I the humour of this dog display:  
He's nought but censure, wilt thou credit me,  
He never wrote one line in poesy,  
But once at Athens in a theme did frame  
A paradox in praise of virtues name,  
Which still he hugs, and lulls as tenderly  
As cuckold Tisus his wife's bastardy.  
Well, here's a challenge, I flatly say he lies  
That heard him aught but censure Poesies.  
'tis his discourse, first having knit the brow,  
Struck up his foretop, champed every row,  
Belcheth his slavering censure on each book  
That dare presume even on Medusa look.  
I have no Artists skill in symphonies,  
Yet when some pleasing Diapason flies  
From out the belly of a sweet touched Lute,  
My ears dares say 'tis good, or when they suit  
Some harsher sevens for variety,  
My native skill discerns it presently.  
What then? Will any sottish dolt repute  
Or ever think me Orpheus absolute?  
Shall all the world of Fiddlers follow me,  
Relying on my voice in musickrie?  
Musus here's Rhodes, let's see thy boasted leap,  
Or else avaunt lewd cur, presume not speak,  
Or with thy venome-sputtering chaps to bark  
'Gainst well-penned Poems, in the tonguetied dark.  
O for a humour, look who yond doth go,  
The meager lecher, lewd Luxurio,  
'tis he that hath the sole monopoly  
By patent, of the Suburb lechery.  
No new edition of drabs comes out,  
But seen and allowed by Luxurios snout.  
Did ever any man ere hear him talk  
But of Pick-hatch, or of some Shoreditch balk,  
Aretine's filth, or of his wandering whore,  
Of some Cynedian, or of Tacedore,  
Of Ruscus nasty loathsome brothel rhyme,  
That stinks like Ajax froth, or muck-pit slime.  
The news he tells you, is of some new flesh,  
Lately broke up, span new, hot piping fresh;  
The courtesy he shows you, is some morn  
To give you Venus fore her smock be on.  
His eyes, his tongue, his soul, his all is lust,  
Which vengeance and confusion follow must.  
Out on this salt humour, lechers dropsy,  
Fie, it doth soil my chaster poesy.  
O spruce! How now Piso, Aurelius Ape,  
What strange disguise, what new deformed shape  
Doth hold thy thoughts in contemplation?  
Faith say, what fashion art thou thinking on?  
A stitched Taffeta cloak, a pair of slops  
Of Spanish leather? O who heard his chaps  
Ere chew of aught, but of some strange disguise.  
This fashion-mounger, each morn fore he rise  
Contemplates suit shapes, & once from out his bed,  
He hath them strait full lively portrayed.  
And then he chukes, and is as proud of this,  
As Taphus when he got his neighbour's bliss.  
All fashions since the first year of this Queen,  
May in his study fairly drawn be seen,  
And all that shall be to his day of doom,  
You may peruse within that little room.  
For not a fashion once dare show his face,  
But from neat Pyso first must take his grace.  
The long fools coat, the huge slop, the lugged boot  
From mimic Piso, all do claim their root.  
O that the boundless power of the soul  
Should be cooped up in fashioning some roll!  
But o, Suffenus, (that doth hug, embrace  
His proper self, admires his own sweet face,  
Praiseth his own fair limbs proportion,  
Kisseth his shade, recounteth all alone  
His own good parts) who envies him? not I,  
For well he may, without all rivalry.  
Fie, whether's fled my sprights alacrity?  
How dull I vent this humorous poesy.  
In faith I am sad, I am possessed with ruth,  
To see the vainness of fair Albion's youth;  
To see their richest time even wholly spent  
In that which is but Gentry's ornament.  
Which being meanly done, becomes them well,  
But when with dear times loss they do excel,  
How ill they do things well. To dance & sing,  
To vault, to fence, & troth a ring  
With good grace, meanly done. O what repute  
They do beget, but being absolute,  
Egging his master to proceed from this,  
And get the substance of celestial bliss.  
His Lord strait calls his parliament of sense,  
But still the sensual have pre-eminence.  
The poor souls better part so feeble is,  
So cold and dead is his Synderisis,  
That shadows by odd chance sometimes are got,  
But o the substance is respected not.  
Here ends my rage, though angry brow was bend,  
Yet I have sung in sporting merriment.  
FINIS.    

¶ To everlasting Oblivion.  
THou mighty gulf, insatiate cormorant,  
Deride me not, though I seem petulant  
To fall into thy chaps. Let others pray  
For ever their fair Poems flourish may.  
But as for me, hungry Oblivion  
Devour me quick, accept my orison:  
My earnest prayers, which do importune thee,  
With gloomy shade of thy still Empery,  
To vail both me and my rude poesy.  
far worthier lines in silence of thy state  
Do sleep securely free from love or hate,  
From which this living, near can be exempt,  
But whilst it breathes will hate and fury tempt.  
Then close his eyes with thy all-dimming hand,  
Which not right glorious actions can withstand.  
Peace hateful tongues, I now in silence pace,  
Unless some hound do wake me from my place,  
I with this sharp, yet well meant poesy,  
Will sleep secure, right free from injury  
Of cankered hate, or rankest villainy.   

To him that hath perused me.  
GEntle, or ungentle hand that holdest me, let not thine eye be cast upon privatnes, for I protest I glance not on it. If thou hast perused me, what lesser favour canst thou grant then not to abuse me with unjust application? Yet I fear me, I shall be much, much, injuried by two sorts of readers: the one being ignorant, not knowing the nature of a Satire, (which is under feigned private names, to note general vices,) willneedes wrest each feigned name to a private unfeigned person. The other too subtle, bearing a private malice to some greater parsonage than he dare in his own person seem to malingne, will strive by a forced application of my general reproofs to broach his private hatred. Then the which I know not a greater injury can be offered to a Satirist. I durst presume, knew they how guiltless, and how free I were from prying into privatnes, they would blush to think, how much they wrong themselves in seeking to injure me. Let this protestation satisfy our curious searchers. So may I obtain my best hopes, as I am free from endeavouring to blast any private man's good name. If any one (forced with his own guilt) will turn it home and say Tul▪ I cannot hinder him. Neither do I injure him. For other faults of Poesy, I crave me pardon, in that I scorn all penance the bitterest censurer can impose upon me. Thus (wishing each man to leave inquiring who I am, and learn to know himself,) I take a solemn congee of this fusty world.  Tberiomastix.