VIRGIDEMIARUM Six Books.  
First three Books, Of Toothless Satyrs. 1. Poetical. 2. Academical. 3. Moral.  
LONDON Printed by john Harison, for Robert Dexter. 1602.   

His Defiance to Envy.  

Nay: let the prouder Pines of Ida fear  
The sudden fires of heaven: and decline  
Their yielding tops, that dared the skies whilere:  
And shake your sturdy trunks ye prouder Pines,  
Whose swelling grains are like be galled alone,  
With the deepefurrowes of the thunder-stone.   

Stand ye secure, ye safer shrubs below,  
In humble dales, whom heauns do not despite:  
Nor angry clouds conspire your overthrow,  
Envying at your too-disdainfull height.  
Let high attempts dread Envy, and ill tongues,  
And cowardly shrink for fear of causeless wrongs   

So wont big Oaks fear winding Yuy-weed:  
So soaring Eagles fear the neighbour Son:  
●o golden Mazor wont suspicion breed,  
deadly Hemlocks poisoned Potion,  
So Adders shrowded themselves in fairest leaves:  
So fouler Fate the fairer thing bereaves.   

Nor the low bush fears climbing Yuy-twine:  
Nor lowly Bustard dreads the distant rays.  
Nor earthen Pot want secret death to shrine:  
Nor subtle Snake doth lurk in pathed ways.  
Nor base deed dreads Envy and ill tongues,  
Nor shrinks so soon for fear of causeless wrongs.   

Needs me then hope, or doth me need misdread:  
Hope for that honour, dread that wrongful spite:  
Spite of the party, honour of the deed,  
Which want alone on lofty objects light.  
That Envy should accost my Muse and me,  
For this so rude, and reckless Poesy.   

Would she but shade her tender Brows with Bay,  
That now lie bare in careless wilful rage:  
And trance herself in that sweet Extasey,  
That rouseth drooping thoughts of bashful age.  
(though now those Bays, and that aspired thought,  
In carelesser age, she sets at worse than nought.)   

Or would we lose her plumy pineon,  
Manacled long with bonds of modest fear:  
Soon might she have those Kestrels proud out gone,  
Whose flightie wings are dewed with weeter air;  
And hopen now to shoulder from above  
The Eagle from the stairs of friendly jove   

Or list she rather in late Triumph rear  
Eternal Trophies to some Conqueror,  
Whose dead deserts slept in his Sepulchre,  
And never saw, nor life, nor light before:  
To lead sad Pluto captive with my song,  
To grace the triumphs he obscured so long.   

Or scour the rusted swords of Elvish knighes,  
Bathed in Pagan blood: or sheathe them new  
In misty moral Types; or tell their fights,  
Who mighty Giants, or who Monsters slew.  
And by some strange enchanted spear and shield▪  
Vanquished their foe, and won the doubtful field.   

May be she might in stately Stanza's frame  
Stories of Ladies, and adventurous knights,  
To raise her silent and inglorious name,  
Unto areach-lesse pitch of Praises hight.  
And somewhat say, as more unworthy done.  
Worthy of Brass, and hoary Marble stone.   

Then might vain Envy waste her duller wing,  
To trace the aerysteps, she spiting sees:  
And vainly faint in hopeless following  
The clouded paths her native dross denies.  
But now such lowly satires here I sing,  
Not worth our Muse, not worth their envying.   

To good (if ill) to be exposed to blame:  
Too good, if worse, to shadow shameless vice.  
Ill, if too good, not answering their name:  
So good and ill infickle censure lies.  
Since in our Satire lies both good and ill,  
And they and it, invarying readers will.   

Witness ye Muses how I wilful song  
These heady rhymes, withouten second care:  
And wished them worse, my guilty thoughts among:  
The ruder Satire should go raged and bare:  
And show his rougher and his hairy hide:  
though mine be smooth, and decked in careless pride.   

Would we but breath within a wax-bound quill.  
Pan's sevenfold Pipe, some plaintive Pastor all:  
To teach each hollow grove, and shrubby hill,  
Each murmuring brook, each solitary vale  
To sound our love, and to our song accord,  
Wearying Echo with one changeless word.   

Or list us make two striving shepherds sing,  
With costly wagers for the victory,  
Under Menalcas judge: whiles one doth bring  
A carven Bowl well wrought of Beechen tree:  
Praising it by the story, or the frame,  
Or want of use, or skilful maker's name.   

Another layeth a well-marked Lamb,  
Or spotted Kid, or some more forward steer;  
And from the Pail doth praise their fertile dam:  
So do they strive in doubt, in hope, in fear,  
A waiting for their trusty umpires doom,  
Faulted as false, by him that's overcome.   

Whether so me list my lovely thought to sing,  
Come dance ye nimble Dryads by my side:  
Ye gentlewood- Nymphs come: and with you bring  
The willing Fauns that mought your music guide  
Come Nymphs and Fauns, that haunt those shady groves  
While I report my fortunes or my loves.   

Or whether list me sing so per sonate,  
My striving self to conquer with my verse:  
Speak ye attentive swains that heard me late,  
Needs me give grass unto the Conquerors.  
At Colin's feet I throw my yielding reed:  
But let the rest win homage by their deed.   

But now (ye Muses) sith your sacred hests  
Profaned are by each presuming tongue:  
In scornful rage I vow this silent rest,  
That never field nor grove shall hear my song.  
Only these refuse rhymes I here misspend,  
To chide the world, that did my thoughts offend.    

De suis Satyris.  

Dum Satyrae dixi, videor dixisse Satirae  
Corripio; aut istaec non satis est Satyra.   

Irafacit Satyram, reliquum Sat temperat iram;  
Pinge two Satyram sanguine, tum Satyra est.   

Ecce novam Satyram: Satyrum sine cornibus! Euge  
Monstra novi monstri haec, & Satyri & Satyrae.    

VIRGIDEMIARUM.  
LIB. I.  

Prologue.  

I First adventure, with foolhardy might,  
To tread the steps of perilous despite:  
I first adventure, follow me who list,  
And be the second English Satirist.  
Envy waits on my back, Truth on my side:  
Envy will be my Page, and Truth my Guide.  
Envy the margin holds, and Truth the line:  
Truth doth approve, but envy doth repine.  
For in this smoothing age who durst indite,  
Hath made his pen an hired Parasite.  
To claw the back of him that beastly lives,  
And prank base men in Proud Superlatives.  
Whence damned vice is shrouded quite from shame  
And crowned with virtues meed, immortal Name:  
Infamy dispossessed of native due,  
Ordained of old on loser life to sue:  
The world's eye bleared with those shameless lies,  
Masked in the show of meal-mouthed Poesies.  
Go daring Muse, on with thy thankless task,  
And do the ugly face of vice unmask:  
And if thou canst not thine high flight remit,  
So as it mought a lowly Satire fit,  
Let lowly satires rise a fit to thee:  
Truth be thy speed, & Truth thy Patron be.    

SAT. I.  

NOr Ladies wanton love, nor wandering knight,  
Legend I out in rhymes all richly dight.  
Nor fright the Reader with the Pagan vaunt  
Of mighty Mahu, and great Termagant.  
Nor list I Sonnet of my Mistress face,  
To paint some Blowesse with a borrowed grace,  
Nor can I bide to pen some hungry Scene  
For thick-skin ears, and undiscerning eyen.  
Nor ever could my scornful Muse abide  
With Tragic shoes her ankles for to hide.  
Nor can I crouch, and writhe my fawning tail  
To some great Patron, for my best avail.  
Such hunger-starven Trencher Poetry,  
Or let it never live, or timely die:  
Nor under every bank, and every Tree,  
Speak rhymes unto my oaten Minstrelsy:  
Nor carol out so pleasing lively lays,  
As mought the Graces move my mirth to praise.  
Trumpet, and reeds, and socks, and buskins fine,  
I them bequeath: whose statues wandering Twine  
Of Yuy, mixed with Bays, circlen around  
Their living Temples likewise Laurell-bound.  
Rather had I, albe in careless rhymes,  
Check the mis-ordered world, and lawless times.  
Nor need I crave the Muse's midwifery,  
To bring to light so worthless Poetry:  
Or if we list, what base Muse can bide,  
To sit and sing by Grantaes naked side?  
They hunt the tided Thames and salt Medway,  
Ere since the same of their late Bridal day.  
Nought have we here but willow-shaded shore,  
To tell our Grant his banks are left for lore.    

SAT. II.  

Whilom the sisters nine were Vestal maids,  
And held their Temple in the secret shades.  
Of fair Parnassus that two-headed hill,  
Whose ancient fame the Southern world did fill.  
And in the stead of their eternal fame,  
Was the cool stream, that took his endless name,  
From out the fertile hoof of winged steed:  
There did they sit and do their holy deed,  
That pleased both heaven and earth: till that of late,  
Whom should I fault? or the most righteous Fate?  
Or heaven, or men, or fiends, or aught beside,  
That ever made that foul mischance betide?  
Some of the sisters in securer shades.  
Deflowered were:  
And ever since disdaining Sacred shame.  
Done aught that might their heavenly stock defame.  
Now is Parnassus turned to a stews:  
And on Bay-stocks the wanton Myrtle grewes.  
Cythêron hill's become a Brothel-bed,  
And Pyrene sweet, turned to a poisoned head  
Of coal-black puddle: whose infectious stain  
Corrupteth all the lowly fruitful plain.  
Their modest stole, to garish loser weed,  
Decked with love-favors: their late whoredoms meed.  
And where they want sip of the simple flood,  
Now toss they bowls of Bacchus' boiling blood,  
I marveled much with doubtful jealousy,  
Whence came such Litturs of new Poetry;  
Me thought I feared, lest the horse-hoofed well  
His native banks did proudly over-swell  
In some late discontent, thence to ensue  
Such wondrous rabblements of Rhymesters new:  
But since, I saw it painted on Fame's wings,  
The Muses to be waxed Wanton.  
Each bush, each bank, and each base Apple-squire,  
Can serve to sat their beastly lewd desire.  
Ye bastard Poets see your Pedigree  
From common Trulls and loathsome Brothelry.    

SAT. III.  

With some Pot-furie ravished from their wit,  
They sit and muse on some no-vulgar writ:  
As frozen Dunghills in a winter's morn,  
That void of Vapours seemed all before,  
Soon as the Sun, sends out his piercing beams,  
Exhale out filthy smoke and stinking steams:  
So doth the base, and the fore-barren brain,  
Soon as the raging wine begins to reign.  
One higher pitched doth set his soaring thought  
On crowned kings that Fortune hath low brought:  
Or some upreared, high-aspiring swain  
As it might be the Turkish Tamburlaine.  
Then weeneth he his base drink-drowned sprite,  
Rapt to the threefold fit of heaven hight,  
When he conceives upon his feigned stage  
The stalking steps of his great parsonage,  
Graced with hufcap terms, and thundering threats,  
That his poor hearers hair quite upright sets.  
Such soon, as some brave minded hungry youth  
Sees fitly frame to his wide-strained mouth,  
He vaunts his voice upon an hired stage,  
With high-set steps, and princely carriage;  
Now soouping in side robes of Royalty,  
That erst did skrub in lousy brokery.  
There if he can with terms Italianate,  
Big-sounding sentences, and words of state,  
Fair patch me up his pure iambic verse,  
He ravishes the gazing Scaffolders:  
Then certes was the famous Corduban  
Never but half so high Tragedian.  
Now, lest such frightful shows of Fortune's fall,  
And bloody Tyrant's rage, should chance appall  
The dead stroke audience, midst the silent rout,  
Comes leaping in a selfe-mis form lout,  
And laughs, and grins, and frames his Mimik face,  
And justles strait into the prince's place.  
Then doth the Theatre Echo all aloud,  
With gladsome noise of that applauding crowd.  
A goodly hochpoch; when vile Russetting,  
Are match with monarches, and with mighty kings.  
A goodly grace to sober Tragic Muse,  
When each base clown, his clumbsie fist doth bruise  
And show his teeth in double rotten-row,  
For laughter at his selfe-resembled show.  
Mean while our Poets in high Parliament,  
Sat watching every word, and gesturement,  
Like curious Censors of some doughty gear,  
Whispering their verdict in their fellows ear.  
woe to the word whose margin in their scroll,  
Is noted with a black condemning Coal.  
But if each period might the Synod please,  
Ho, bring the ivy boughs, and bands of Bays  
Now when they part and leave the naked stage,  
Gins the bare hearer in a guilty rage,  
To curse and ban, and blame his likerous eye,  
That thus hath lavished his late halfpenny.  
Shame that the Muses should be bought and sold,  
For every peasant's brass, on each scaffold.    

SAT. FOUR  

TOo popular is Tragic Poesy,  
Straining his tiptoes for a farthing fee,  
And doth beside on Rimelesse numbers tread,  
Unbid iambics flow from careless head.  
Some braver brain in high Heroic rhymes  
Compileth worm-eate stories of old times:  
And he like some imperious Maronist,  
Conjures the muses that they him assist.  
Then strives he to bombast his feeble lines  
With far-fetched phrase:  
And maketh up his hard-betaken tale  
With strange enchantments, fetched from darksome vale  
Of some Melissa, that by Magic doom  
To Tuscans soil transporteth Merlin's tomb:  
Painters and Poets hold your ancient right:  
Write what you will, and write not what you might:  
Their limits be their list, their reason will.  
But if some Painter in presuming skill,  
Should paint the stars in centre of the earth,  
Could ye forbear some smiles, and taunting mirth?  
But let no rebel Satire dare traduce  
Th'eternal Legends of thy Fairy Muse,  
Renowned Spencer: whom no earthly wight  
Dares once to emulate, much less dares despite.  
Sallust of France, and Tuscan Ariost,  
Yield up the Laurel garland ye have lost:  
And let all others willow wear with me,  
Or let their undeserving Temples bared be.    

SAT. V.  

ANother, whose more heavy hearted Saint  
Delights in nought but notes of rueful plaint,  
Urgeth his melting Muse with solemn tears  
Rhyme of some dreary fates of luckless peers.  
Then brings he up some branded whining Ghost,  
To till how old misfortunes had him tossed.  
Then must he ban the guiltless fates above,  
Or fortune frail, or unrewarded love.  
And when he hath parbraked his grieved mind,  
He sends him down where erst he did him find,  
Without one penny to pay Charon's hire,  
That waiteth for the wandering ghosts retire.    

SAT.  

ANother scorns the homespun thread of rhymes,  
Matched with the lofty feet of elder times:  
Give me the numbered verse that Virgil sung,  
And Virgil self shall speak the English tongue:  
Manhood and garboils shall he chant with changed feet   

And headstrong Dactyls making Music meet.  
The nimble Dactyls striving to out-go  
The drawling Spondees pacing it below.  
The lingering Spondees, labouring to delay,  
The breathless Dactyls with a sudden stay.  
Who ever saw a Colt wanton and wild,  
Yoked with a slow-foote Ox on fallow field?  
Can right aread how handsomely besets  
Dull Spondees with the English Dactilets?  
If jove speak English in a thundering cloud,  
Thwick thwack, and Empirics, roars he out aloud.  
Fie on the forged mint that did create  
New coin of words never articulate.    

SAT. VII.  

GReat is the folly of a feeble brain,  
Ore-rulde with love, and tyrannous disdain:  
For love, however in the basest breast,  
It breeds high thoughts that feed the fancy best.  
Yet is he blind, and leads poor fools awry,  
While they hang gazing on their mistress eye.  
The lovesick Poet, whose importune prayer  
Repulsed is with resolute despair,  
Hopeth to conquer his disdainful dame,  
With public plaints of his conceived flame.  
Then powers he forth in patched Sonettings,  
His love, his lust, and loathsome flatter:  
As though the staring world hanged on his sleeve,  
When once he smiles, to laugh: and when he sighs, to grieve.  
Careth the world, thou love, thou live, or die?  
Careth the world how fair thy fair one be?  
Fond wit-wal that wouldst load thy witless head  
With timely horns, before thy Bridal bed.  
Then can he term his dirty ill-faced Bride  
Lady and Queen, and virgin deified:  
Be she all sootie-blacke, or berry brown,  
she's white as morrows milk, or flakes new blown.  
And though she be some dunghill drudge at home,  
Yet can he her resign some refuse room  
Amids the well-known stars: or if not there,  
Sure will he saint her in his Calendere.    

SAT. VIII.  

HEnce ye profane: mell not with holy things,  
That Zion Muse from Palestina brings.  
Parnassus is transformed to Sion-hill,  
And jury-palmes her steep ascents done fill.  
Now good S. Peter weeps pure Helicon,  
And both the Maries make a Music moan:  
Yea and the Prophet of the heavenly Lyre,  
Great Solomon, sings in the English Choir,  
And is become a new found Sonetist,  
Singing his love, the holy spouse of Christ:  
Like as she were some light-skirts of the rest,  
In mightiest Ink-hornismes he can thither wrest.  
Ye Zion Muses shall by my dear will,  
For this your zeal, and farre-admired skill,  
Be strait transported from jerusalem,  
Unto the holy house of Bethleem.    

SAT. IX.  

Envy ye Muses, at your thriving Mate,  
Cupid hath crowned a new Laureate:  
I saw his statue gaily tired in green,  
As if he had some second Phoebus been.  
His Statue trimmed with the Venerean tree,  
And shrined fair within your Sanctuary.  
What, he, that erst to gain the rhyming Goal  
The worn Recitall-post of Capitol,  
Rimed in rules of Stewish ribaldry,  
Teaching experimental bawdry?  
Whiles th'itching vulgar tickled with the song,  
Hanged on their unready Poet's tongue.  
Take this ye patient Muses: and foul shame  
Shall wait upon your once profaned name.  
Take this, ye Muses, this so high despite,  
And let all hateful luckless birds of night:  
Let Scriching Owls nest in your razed roofs,  
And let your sloore with horned satires hooves  
Be dinted and defiled every morn:  
And let your walls be an eternal scorn.  
What if some Shoreditch fury should incite  
Some lust-stung lecher: must he needs indite  
The beastly rites of hired Venery,  
The whole world's universal bawd to be?  
Did never yet no damned Libertine,  
Nor elder Heathen, nor new Florentine,  
though they were famous for lewd liberty,  
Venture upon so shameful villainy  
Our Epigrammatarians old and late,  
Were wont be blamed for too licentiate.  
chaste men, they did but glance at lesbia's deed,  
And handsomely leave off with cleanly speed.  
But Arts of Whoring: stories of the stews,  
Ye Muses, will ye bear, and may refuse?  
Nay let the Devil, and Saint Valentine,  
Be gossips to those ribald rhymes of thine.   
FINIS.    

VIRGIDEMIARUM.  
LIB. II.  

Prologue.  

OR been the Manes of that Cynic sprite,  
Clothed with some stubborn clay & led to light?  
Or do the relic ashes of his grave  
Revive and rise from their for saken cave?  
That so with gall-weet words and speeches rude,  
Controls the manners of the multitude.  
Envy belike incites his pining heart,  
And bids it sat itself with others smart.  
Nay, no despite: but angry Nemesis,  
Whose scourge doth follow all that done amiss:  
That scourge I bear, albe in rude fist,  
And wound, and strike, and pardon whom she list.    

SAT. I.  

FOr shame write better Labeo, or write none,  
Or better write, or Labeo write alone,  
Nay call the Cynic but a witty fool,  
Tnence to abjure his handsome drinking bowl:  
Because the thirsty swain with hollow hand,  
Conveyed the stream to weet his dry wezand.  
Write they that can, though they that cannot, do:  
But who knows that, but they that do not know.  
Lo what it is that makes white rags so dear,  
That men must give a teston for a choir.  
Lo what it is that makes goose-wings so scant,  
That the distressed Sempster did them want,  
So, lavish ope-tide causeth fasting-lents,  
And starveling Famine comes of large expense.  
Might not (so they where pleased that been above)  
Long Paper-abstinence our death remove?  
Then many a Lollerd would in forfaitment,  
Bear Paper-fagots o'er the Pavement.  
But now men wager who shall blot the most,  
And each man writes. there's so much labour lost,  
That's good, that's great: Nay much is seldom well,  
Of what is bad, a little's a great deal.  
Better is more: but best is nought at all.  
Less is the next, and lesser criminal.  
Little and good, is greatest good save one,  
Then Labeo, or write little or write none.  
Tush but small pains can be but little art,  
Or load full drie-fats fro the foreign mart.  
With Folio-volumes, two to an Ox hide,  
Or else ye Pamphleter go stand a side,  
Read in each School, in every margin quoted,  
In every Catalogue for an autour noted.  
There's happiness well given, and well got,  
Less gifts, and lesser gains I weigh them not.  
So may the Giant room and write on high,  
Be he a Dwarf that writes not their as I.  
But well fare Strabo, which as stories tell,  
Contrived all Troy within one Walnut shell.  
His curious ghost now lately hither came.  
Arriving near the mouth of lucky Tame:  
I saw a Pismire struggling with the load,  
Dragging all Troy home towards her abode.  
Now dare we hither, if we durst appear,  
The subtle Stithy-man that lived while ear:  
Such one was once, or once I was mistaught,  
A Smith at Vulcan's own forge up brought,  
That made an Iron-chariot so light,  
The coach-horse was a Flea in trappings dight.  
The tamelesse steed could well his waggon wield,  
Through downs and dales of the uneven field.  
Strive they laugh we: mean while the black story  
Passes new Strabo, and new Straboes Troy.  
Little for great: and great for good: all one:  
For shame or better write, or Labeo write none.  
But who conjured this bawdy Poggies ghost,  
From out the stews of his lewd homebred coast:  
Or wicked Rabelais drunken revel,  
To grace the misrule of our Taverning?  
Or who put Bays into blind Cupid's fist,  
That he should crown what Laureates him list?  
Whose words are those, to remedy the deed,  
That cause men stop their noses when they read?  
Both good things ill, and ill things well: all one?  
For shame write cleanly Labeo, or write none.    

SAT. II.  

TO what end did our lavish ancestors,  
Erect of old these stately piles of ours?  
For threadbare clerks, and for the ragged Muse  
Whom better fit some coats of sad secluse?  
Blush niggard Age, and be ashamed to see,  
These monuments of wiser ancestry.  
And ye fair heaps the Muses sacred shrines,  
(In spite of time and envious repines)  
Stand still and flourish till the world's last day,  
Upbraiding it with former loves decay.  
Here may you Muses, our dear Soneraignes,  
Scorn each base Lordling ever you disdains,  
And every peasant churl, whose smoky roof  
Denied harbour for your dear behoof.  
Scorn ye the world before it do complain,  
And scorn the world that scorneth you again.  
And scorn contempt itself that doth incite  
Each single-sold Squire to set you at so light.  
What needs me care for any bookish skill,  
To blot white papers with my restless quill:  
Or pore on painted leaves: or beat my brain  
With far-fetch thought, or to consume in vain  
In latter Even, or midst of winter nights,  
Ill sinelling oils, or some still-watching lights.  
Let them that mean by bookish business  
To earn their bread: or hopen to profess  
Their hard got skill: let them alone for me;  
Busy their brains with deeper bookerie.  
Great gains shall bide you sure, when ye have spent  
A thousand Lamps: and thousand Reams have rend  
Of needless papers, and a thousand nights  
Have burned out with costly candle lights.  
Ye palish ghosts of Athens; when at last,  
Your patrimony spent in witless waist,  
Your friends all weary, and your spirits spent,  
Ye may your fortunes seek: and be forewent    

SAT. III.  

Who doubts? The laws fell down from heavens height,  
Like to some gliding star in winter's night.  
Themis the Scribe of God did long agone,  
Engrave them deep in during Marblestone,  
And cast them down on this unruly clay,  
That men might know to rule and to obey.  
But now their Characters depraved been,  
By them that would make gain of others sin.  
And now hath wrong so mastered the right,  
That they live best, that on wrongs off all light;  
So loathly fly that lives on galled wound,  
And scabby festers inwardly unsound,  
Feeds fatter with that poisonous carrion,  
Then they that haunt the healthy limbs alone.  
woe to the weal where many Lawyers be,  
For there is sure much store of malady.  
'Twas truly said, and truly was foreseen  
The fat kine are devoured of the lean.  
Genus and Species long since barefoot went,  
Upon their ten-toes in wild wanderment:  
Whiles father Bartoll on his foot-cloth road,  
Upon high pavement gaily siluer-strowd.  
Each homebred science percheth in the chair,  
While sacred arts grovel on the groundsel bare.  
Since peddling barbarisms 'gan be in request,  
Nor classicke tongues, nor learning found no rest.  
The crouching Client, with low-bended knee,  
And many Worships, and fair flattery,  
Tells on his tale as smoothly as him list,  
But still the Lawyer's eye squints on his fist:  
If that seem lined with a larger fee,  
Doubt not the suit, the law is plain for thee.  
though must he buy his vainer hope with price,  
Disclout his crowns, and thank him for advice.  
So have I seen in a tempestuous stowre,  
Some bryer-bush showing shelter from the shower,  
Unto the hopeful sheep, that fain would hide  
His fleecy coat from that same angry tide.  
The ruthless breere regardless of his plight,  
Lays hold upon the fleece he should acquit,  
And takes advantage of the careless prey,  
That thought she in securer shelter lay.  
The day is fair, the sheep would far to feed:  
The tyrant Brier holds fast his shelters meed,  
And claims it for the fee of his defence:  
So robs the sheep, in favours fair pretence.    

SAT. FOUR  

Worthy were Galen to be weighed in gold,  
Whose help doth sweetest life & health uphold  
Yet by S. Escnlape he solemn swore,  
That for diseases they were never more,  
Fees never less, never so little gain,  
Men give a groat and ask the rest again.  
Groatsworth of health, can any leech allot?  
Yet should he have no more that gives a groat:  
Should I on each sick plliow lean my breast.  
And grope the pulse of every mangy wrist:  
And spy out marvels in each Urinal:  
And rumble up the filths that from them fall,  
And give a Dosse for every disease,  
In prescripts long and tedious Recipes:  
All for so lean reward of Art and me?  
No Horseleech but will look for larger fee.  
Mean while if chance some desperate patient die,  
come to the Period of his destiny:  
(As who can cross the fatal resolution,  
In the decreed day of dissolution:)  
Whether ill tendment, or recureless pain,  
Procure his death; the neighbours all complain,  
Th'unskilful leech murdered his patient,  
By poison of some foul Ingredient.  
Hereon the vulgar may as soon be brought  
To Socrates-his poisoned Hemlock-drought,  
As to the wholesome julap, whose receat  
Might his diseases lingering force defeat.  
If nor a dram of treacle sovereign,  
Or Aqua vitae, or Sugar Candian,  
Nor Kitchin-cordials can it remedy,  
Certes his time is come, needs mought he die.  
Were I a leech, as who knows what may be,  
The liberal man should live, and carl should die.  
The sickly Lady, and the gouty Peer  
Still would I haunt, that love their life so dear.  
Where life is dear, who cares for coined dross?  
That spent, is counted gain, and spared, loss:  
Or would conjure the Chemic Mercury,  
Rise from his hors-dung bed, and upwards fly:  
And with glasse-stils, and sticks of juniper,  
Raise the Black-spright that burns not with the fire:  
And bring Quintessence of Elixir pale,  
Out of sublimed spirits mineral.  
Each powdered grain raunsometh captive kings,  
Purchaseth Realms, and life prolonged brings.    

SAT. V.  

SAw'st thou ever Siquiss patched on Paul's Church door,  
To seek some vacant Vicarage before?  
Who wants a Churchman, that can service say,  
Read fast, and fair, his monthly Homiley?  
And wed, and bury, and make Christen-soules?  
Come to the left-side Alley of Saint Paul's.  
Thou servile Fool, why couldst thou not repair  
To buy a Benefice at Steeple-Faire?  
There moughtst thou for but a slender price,  
advowson thee with some fat benefice:  
Or if thee list not wait for dead men's shoes,  
Nor pray each morn th'incumbents days were done:  
A thousand Patrons thither ready bring,  
Their newfallen Churches to the Chaffering,  
Stake three years Stipend; no man asketh more:  
Go take possession of the Church-porch-doore:  
And ring thy bells; luck strooken in thy fist:  
The Parsonage is thine or ere thou wist.  
Saint Fools of Go●am, mought thy parish be,  
For this thy base and servile Simony.    

SAT. VI  

A Gentle Squire would gladly entertain  
Into his house, some trencher-Chaplaine:  
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,  
And that would stand to good conditions.  
First that He lie upon the Truckle-bed,  
Whiles his young master lieth over his head.  
Second, that he do, on no default,  
Ever presume to sit above the salt.  
Third, that he never change his trencher twice.  
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies:  
Sat bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.  
Last, that he never his young master beat,  
But he must ask his mother to define,  
How many jerks she would his breech should line.  
All these observed, he could contented be,  
To give five marks and winter livery.    

SAT. VII.  

IN th'heavens universal Alphabet.  
All earthly things so surely are foreset,  
That who can read those figures, may foreshow  
What ever thing shall afterwards ensue  
Feign would I know (might it our Artist please)  
Why can his telltruth Ephemerideses  
Teach him the weather's state so long before:  
And not foretell him, nor his fatal horn  
Nor his deaths-day, nor no such sad event  
Which he mought wisely labour to prevent?  
Thou damned mock-art, and thou brainsick tale,  
Of old Astrology: where didst thou vail  
Thy cursed head thus long: that so it missed  
The black brands of some sharper Satirist.  
Some doting gossip 'mongst the Chaldee wives,  
Did to the credulous world thee first derive:  
And superstition nursed thee ever sense,  
And published in profounder Arts pretence:  
That now who pares his nails, or libs his swine,  
But he must first take counsel of the sign.  
So that the Vulgars' count for fair or foul,  
For living or for dead, for sick or whole:  
His fear or hope, for plenty or for lack,  
Hangs all upon his newyears Almanac.  
If chance once in the spring his head should ache:  
It was foretold: Thus says mine Almanac.  
In th'heavens Highstreete are but dozen rooms,  
In which dwells all the world, past and to come:  
Twelve goodly Inns they are, with twelve fair signs,  
Ever well tended by our Star-divines.  
Every man's head Inns at the horned Ram,  
The whiles the neck the Black-buls guest became:  
The'arms by good hap, meet at the wrestling twins,  
Th' heart in the way at the Blew-lion inns.  
The legs their lodging in Aquarius got,  
That is the Bride-streete of the heaven, I wot.  
The feet took up the Fish with teeth of gold:  
But who with Scorpio lodged, may not be told.  
What office then doth the Stargazer bear?  
Or let him be the heavens Ostelere:  
Or Tapsters some: or some be Chamberlains,  
To wait upon the guests they entertain.  
Hence can they read, by virtue of their trade,  
When any thing is missed where it was laid.  
Hence they divine, and hence they can devise:  
If their aim fail, the Stars to moralise.  
Demon my friend once liver-sicke of love,  
Thus learned I by the signs his grief remove.  
In the blind Archer first I saw the sign,  
When thou receivedst that wilful wound of thine:  
And now in Uirgo is that cruel maid,  
Which hath not yet with love thy love repaid.  
But mark when once it comes to Gemini,  
Strait way Fish-whole shall thy sick liver be.  
But now (as th'angry Heavens seem to threat  
Many hard Fortunes, and disastres great:  
If chance it come to wanton Capricorn,  
And so into the Rams disgraceful horn,  
Then learn thou of the ugly Scorpion,  
To hate her for her fowl abusion:  
Thy refuge then the Balance be of Right,  
Which shall thee from thy broken bond acquit:  
So with the Crab, go back whence thou began,  
From thy first match: and live a single man.   
FINIS.    

VIRGIDEMIARUM.  
LIB. III.  

Prologue.  

Some say my satires overloosely flow,  
Nor hide their gall enough from open show:  
Not riddle like, obscuring their intent;  
But packstaff plain, uttering what thing they meant:  
Contrary to the Roman ancients,  
Whose words were short, and darksome was their sense.  
Who reads one line of their harsh poesies,  
Thrice must he take his wind, and breathe him thrice.  
My Muse would follow them that have foregone,  
But cannot with an English pineon,  
For look how farre the ancient Comedy  
Past former satires in her liberty:  
Sofarre must mine yield unto them of old.  
'Tis better be too bad, then be too bold.    

SAT. I.  

TIme was, and that was termed the time of Gold,  
When world and time were young, that now are old.  
(When quiet Saturn swayed the mace of lead,  
And Pride was yet unborn, and yet unbred.)  
Time was, that whiles the Autumn fall did last,  
Our hungry sires gaped for the falling mast of the Dodonian oaks.  
Could no unhusked acorn leave the tree,  
But there was challenge made whose it might be.  
And if some nice and lickerous appetite,  
Desired more dainty dish of rare delight,  
They scaled the stored Crab with clasped knee,  
Till they had sated their delicious eye:  
Or searched the hopeful thicks of hedgy-rowes,  
For brierie berries, or haws, or sourer sloes:  
Or when they meant to far the finest of all,  
They licked oake-leaves besprint with honey fall.  
As for the thrice three-angled beech nutshell,  
Or chestnuts armed husk, and hid kernel,  
No Squire durst touch, the law would not afford,  
Kept for the Court, and for the kings own board.  
Their royal Plate was clay, or wood, or stone:  
The vulgar, save his hand, else had he none.  
Their only seller was the neighbour brook.  
None did for better care, for better look.  
Was then no plaining of the Brewers scape,  
Nor greedy Vintner mixed the strained grape.  
The king's pavilion, was the grassy green,  
Under safe shelter of the shady treen.  
Under each bank men laid their limbs along,  
Not wishing any ease, not fearing wrong:  
Clad with their own, as they were made of old,  
Not fearing shame, not feeling any cold,  
But when by Ceres' huswifrie and pain,  
Men learned to bury the reviving grain:  
And father janus taught the new found vine,  
Rise on the Elm, with many a friendly twine..  
And base desire bad men to deluen low,  
For needless metals: then 'gan mischief grow.  
Then farewell fairest age, the world's best days:  
Thriving in ill as it in age decay.  
Then crept in Pride, and peevish Covetise:  
And men grew greedy, discordous and nice.  
Now man, that erst Hail fellow was with beast,  
wox on to ween himself a God at least.  
No airy foul can take so high a flight,  
though she her daring wings in clouds have dight:  
Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding Sea.  
though Thetis-selfe should swear her safety:  
Nor fearful beast can dig his cave so low,  
All could he further than earth's centre go:  
As that the air, the earth, or Ocean,  
Sold shield them from the gorge of greedy man.  
Hath utmost Ind ought better then his own?  
Then utmost Ind is near, and rife to gone.  
O Nature: was the world ordained for nought,  
But fill man's maw, and feed man's idle thought?  
Thy Grandsire's words sauored of thrifty Leeks,  
Or manly Garlic, But thy furnace reeks,  
Hot steams of wine: and can a loof descry  
The drunken draughts of sweet Autumnitie.  
They naked went: or clad in ruder hide:  
Or homespun Russet, void of foreign pride:  
But thou canst mask in garish gauderie,  
To suit a fools farfetched livery.  
A French head joined to neck Italian:  
Thy thighs from Germany, and breast fro Spain's:  
An Englishman in none, a fool in all:  
Many in one, and one in several.  
Then men were men, but now the greater part  
Beasts are in life, and women are in heart.  
Good Saturn self, that homely Emperor?  
In proudest pomp was not so clad of yore,  
As is the under-groome of the Ostlerie,  
Husbanding it in work-day yeomanry.  
Lo the long date of those expired days,  
Which the inspired Merlin's word foresaies:  
When dunghill Peasants shall be dight as kings,  
Then one confusion another brings:  
Then farewell fairest age, the world's best days,  
Thriving in ill, as it in age decay.    

SAT. II.  

GReat Osmond knows not how he shallbe known  
When once great Osmond shallbe dead & gone:  
Unless he rear up some rich monument,  
Ten furlongs nearer to the firmament.  
Some stately tomb he builds, Egyptian wise,  
Rex Regum written on the Pyramid:  
Where as great Arthur lies in ruder oak,  
That never felt none but the fellers' stroke.  
Small honour can be got with gaudy grave:  
Nor it thy rotten name from death can save.  
The fairer tomb, the fowler is thy name.  
The greater pomp procuring greater shame,  
Thy monument make thou thy living deeds:  
No other tomb then that, true virtue needs,  
What? had he nought whereby he might be known,  
But costly pilements of some curious stone?  
The matter, Natures, and the workman's frame,  
His purses cost; where then is Osmonds' name?  
Deserved'st thou ill? well were thy name and thee.  
Wert thou inditched in great secrecy,  
Where as no passenger might curse thy dust,  
Nor dogs sepulchral sat their gawning lust.  
Thine ill deserts cannot be graved with thee,  
So long as on thy grave they engraved be.    

SAT. III.  

THe courteous Citizen bade me to his feast,  
With hollow words, and overly request:  
Come, will ye dine with me this Holy day?  
I yielded, though he hoped I would say Nay:  
For had I maydened it, as many use:  
Loath for to grant, but loather to refuse.  
A lack sir, I were loath, Another day:  
I should but trouble you: pardon me, if you may.  
No pardon should I need; for, to depart  
He gives me leave: and thanks too, in his heart.  
Two words for money, Darbishirian wise:  
(That's one too many) is a naughty guise,  
Who looks for double biddings to a feast,  
May dine at home for an importune guest.  
I went, then saw, and found the great expense:  
The fare and fashions of our Citizens.  
Oh: Cl●lopatricall: what wanteth there  
For curious cost, and wondrous choice of cheer?  
Beef, that erst Hercules held for finest fare:  
Pork, for the fat Boeotian, or the hare  
For martial: fish for the Venetian,  
Goose-liver for the likorous Roman,  
Th' Athenians goat, Quail, jolans' cheer,  
The Hen for Esculape; and the Parthian Deer,  
Grapes for Arcesilas, figs for Plato's mouth,  
And Chestnuts fair for Amarillis tooth.  
Hadst thou such cheer, were't thou ever there before  
Never: I thought so: nor come there no more.  
Come there no more; for so meant all that cost:  
Never hence take me for thy second host.  
For whom he means to make an often guest,  
One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.    

SAT. FOUR  

WEre yesterday Polemons Natals kept  
That so his threshold is all freshly steeped  
With new-shed blood? could he not sacrifice  
Some sorry morkin that unbidden dies:  
Or meager heifer, or some rotten Ewe:  
Rutilio he must needs his Posts with blood imbrue,  
And on his way-doore fix the honned head,  
With flowers, and with ribbons garnished?  
Now shall the passenger deem the man devout.  
What boots it be so, but the world must know't?  
O the fond boasting of vainglorious man:  
Does he the best, that may the best be seen?  
Who ever gives a pair of velvet shoes  
To th' holy Road: or liberally allows:  
But a new rope, to ring the Cowre-feu Bell,  
But he desires that his great deed may dwell,  
Or graven in the Chancel-window-glasse,  
Or in the lasting tomb of plated brass.  
For he that doth so few deserving deeds,  
T' were sure his best sue for such larger meeds.  
Who would inglorious live, inglorious die,  
And might eternize his names memory?  
And he that cannot brag of greater store,  
Must make his somewhat much, and little more.  
Nor can good Myson wear on his left hand,  
A signet ring of Bristol-diamond:  
But he must cut his glove, to show his pride,  
That his trim jewel might be better spied:  
And that men monght some Burgess him repute,  
With Satin sleeves hath graced his sack-cloth sure.    

SAT. V.  

FIe on all Courtesy, and unruly winds,  
Two only foes that fair disguisement finds.  
Strange curse! But fit for such a sickle age,  
When Scalps are subject to such vassalage.  
Late travailing along in London way,  
Me met, as seemed by his disguised array,  
A lusty Courtier, whose curled head,  
With abron locks was fairly furnished.  
ay him saluted in our lavish wise:  
He answers my untimely courtesies.  
His bonnet veiled, ere ever he could think,  
Th'unruly wind blows off his Periwinkle.  
He lights, and runs, and quickly hath him sped,  
To overtake his overrunning head.  
The sportful wind, to mock the Headless man,  
Tosses apace his pitched Rogerian:  
And strait it to a deeper ditch hath blown:  
There must my younker fetch his waxen crown.  
I looked, and laughed, whiles in his raging mind,  
He cursed all Courtesy, and unruly wind.  
I looked, and laughed, and much I marveled,  
To see so large a Causeway in his head.  
And me bethought, that when it first begun,  
'Twas some shrewd Autumn, that so barred the bone.  
Is't not sweet pride, when men their crowns must  
With that which jerks the hams of every jade  
Or floor-strowd locks from off the Barber's shears?  
But waxen crowns well 'gree with borrowed hairs.    

SAT. VI  

WHen Gullion died (who knows not Gullion?)  
And his dry soul arrived at Acheron,  
He fair besought the Ferryman of hell,  
That he might drink to dead Pantagruel.  
Charon was afraid lest thirsty Gullion,  
Would have drunk dry the river Acheron.  
Yet last consented for a little hire,  
And down he dips his chaps deep in the mire,  
And drinks, and drinks, and swallows in the streeme,  
Until the shallow shores all naked seem.  
Yet still he drinks, nor can the Botemen cries,  
Nor crabbed oars, nor prayers make him rise.  
So long he drinks, till the black caravel,  
Stands still fast gravelled on the mud of hell.  
There stand they still, nor can go, nor retire,  
though greedy ghosts quick passage did require.  
Yet stand they still, as though they lay at road,  
Till Gullion his bladder would unload.  
They stand, and wait, and pray for that good hour:  
Which when it came, they sailed to the shore.  
But never since dareth the Ferryman,  
Once entertain the ghost of Gullian.  
Drink on dry soul, and pledge sir Gullion:  
Drink to all healths, but drink not to thine own.   
Desunt nonnulla.   

SAT. VII.  

SEest thou how gaily my young master goes,  
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes,  
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side,  
And picks his glutted teeth since late noontide?  
'tis Russio: Trowest thou where he dined to day:  
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray.  
Many good welcomes, and much Gratis cheer,  
Keeps he for every straggling Cavalier:  
An open house haunted with great resort,  
Long service mixed with Musical disport.  
Many fair younker with a feathered crest,  
Chooses much rather be his shot free guest,  
To far so freely with so little cost,  
Then stake his Twelvepences to a meaner host.  
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say,  
He touched no meat of all this livelong day.  
For sure me thought, yet that was but a guess,  
His eyes seem sunk for very hollowness,  
But could he have (as I did it mistake)  
So little in his purse, so much upon his back:  
So nothing in his maw: yet seemeth by his belt,  
That his gaunt gut, no too much stuffing felt.  
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?  
Hunger, and heavy Iron makes girdles slip.  
Yet for all that, how stiffly strits he by,  
All trapped in the newfound bravery.  
The Nuns of new-woon Cales his bonnet lent,  
In am of their so kind a Conquerment.  
What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,  
His Grandam could have lent with lesser pain?  
though he perhaps never passed the English shore;  
Yet fain would counted be a Conqueror.  
His hair French like; stars on his frighted head,  
One lock Amazon-like dishevelled:  
As if he meant to wear a native cord,  
If chance his Fates should him that bane afford,  
All British bare upon the bristled skin,  
Close noched is his beard both lip and chin:  
His linen collar Labyrinthian-set,  
Whose thousand double turnings never met:  
His sleeves half hid with elbow- Pineonings,  
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.  
But when I look and cast mine eyes below,  
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?  
So lender wast with such an Abbot's loin,  
Did never sober Nature sure conjoin.  
Lik'st a straw scarecrow in the new-sowne field,  
Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield:  
Or if that semblance suit not everic deal,  
Like a broad shak-forke with a slender steal.  
Despised Nature suit them once aright,  
Their body to their cote: both now mis-dight:  
Their body to their clothes might shapen be,  
That nill their clothes shape to their body.  
Mean while I wonder at so proud a back,  
Whiles th'empty guts loud rumblen for long lack,  
The belly envieth the backs bright glee,  
And murmurs at such inequality.  
The back appears unto the partial ●ine,  
The plaintive belly pleads they bribed been:  
And he for want of better Advocate,  
Doth to the ear his injury relate.  
The back insulting o'er the bellies need,  
Says: thou thyself, I others eyes must feed.  
The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain  
The backs great pride, and their own secret pain.  
Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts,  
That sets such discord twixt agreeing parts,  
Which never can be set at onement more,  
Until the maws wide mouth be stopped with store.     

THE CONCLUSION of all.  

THus have I writ in smother Cedar tree,  
So gentle Satyrs, penned so easily.  
Henceforth I write in crabbed oake-tree rinds  
Search they that mean the secret meaning find.  
Hold out ye guilty, and ye galled hides,  
And meet my farfetched stripes with waiting sides.   
FINIS.