VIRGIDEMIARUM The three last Books. Of biting satires. Corrected and amended with some Additions. by. I. H.  
Imprinted at London for Robert Dexter, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent in Paul's Church yard. 1599   

The Author's charge to his satires.  

YE luckless Rhymes, whom not unkindly spite  
Begot long since of Truth and holy Rage,  
Lie here in womb of Silence and still Night  
Until the broils of next unquiet age:  
That which is others grave shallbe your womb,  
And that which bears you, your eternal Tomb.   

Cease ere ye gi'en, and ere ye live be dead,  
And die and live ere ever ye be borne,  
And be not boar, ere ye be buried,  
Then after live, sith you have died before,  
When I am dead and rotten in the dust,  
Then gi'en to live, and leave when others lust.   

For when I die, shall Envy die with me  
And lie deep smothered with my Marblestone,  
Which while I live cannot be done to die,  
Nor, if your life gin ere my life be done,  
Will hardly yield t'await my mourning hearse.  
But for my dead corpse change my liunig verse.   

What shall the ashes of my senseless urn,  
Need to regard the raving world above.  
Sith afterwards I never can return  
To feel the force of hatred or of love?  
Oh if my soul could see their Post-hume spite  
Should it not joy and triumph in the sight?   

What ever eye shalt find this hateful scroll  
After the date of my dear Exequys,  
Ah pity thou my plaining Orphans dole  
That feign would see the sun before it dies:  
It died before, now let it live again,  
Then let it die, and bide some famous bane.   
Satis est potuisse videri.   


VIRGIDEMIARUM LIB. 4.   

SAT. 1.  
Che baiar vuol, bai.  

WHO dares upbraid these open rhymes of mine  
With blindfold Aquines, or dark Venusine?  
Or rough-hew'ne Teretismes writ in th'antic vain  
Like an old Satire, and new Flaccian?  
Which who reads thrice, & rubs his rugged brow,  
And deep intendeth every doubtful row,  
Scoring the margin with his blazing stars  
And hundredth crooked interlinears,  
(Like to a Merchant's debt-role new defaced  
When some cracked Manor crossed his book at last)  
Should all in rage the Curse-beat Page out-rive,  
And in each dust-heape bury me alive  
Stamping like Bucephall, whose slackened rains,  
And bloody fetlocks fry with seven men's brains;  
More cruel than the cravon satires Ghost,  
That bound dead bones unto a burning post,  
Or some more straitlaced juror of the rest,  
Impanneled of an Holy-Fax inquest;  
Yet well bethought stoops down, and reads a new:  
The best lieslow, and loathes the shallow view,  
Quoth old Eudemon, when his gout-swolne fist  
Gropes for his double Ducats in his chest:  
Then buckle close his careless lids once more,  
To pose the purblind snake of Epidaore.  
That Lyncius may be matched with Gaulards' sight,  
That sees not Paris for the houses height;  
Or wily Cyppus, that can wink and snort  
Whiles his wife dallies on Maecenas skort;  
Yet when he hath my crabbed Pamphlet red  
As often times as PHILIP hath been dead,  
Bids all the Furies haunt each peevish line  
That thus have racked their friendly reader's eyen;  
Worse than the Logogryphes of later times,  
Or hundredth Riddles shaked to sleeveless rhymes;  
Should I endure these curses and despite  
While no man's ear should glow at what I writ?  
Labeo is whipped, and laughs me in the face:  
Why? for I smite and hide the galled place.  
Gird but the Cynics Helmet on his head,  
Careshee for Talus, or his flail of lead?  
Long as the crafty Cuttle lieth sure  
In the black Cloud of his thick vomiture;  
Who list complain of wronged faith or fame  
When he may shift it to another's name?  
calvus can scratch his elbow, and can smile,  
That thriftless Pontice bites his lip the while.  
Yet I intended in that self devise,  
To check the churl for his known covetise.  
Each points his strait forefinger to his friend,  
Like the blind Dial on the Belfry end:  
Who turns it homeward to say, this is I,  
As bolder Socrates in the Comedy?  
But single out, and say once plat and plain  
That coy Matrona is a Courtesan,  
Or thou false Cryspus chokd'st thy wealthy guest  
Whiles he lay snoring at his midnight rest,  
And in thy dung-cart didst the carcase shrine  
And deep entomb it in Port-esquiline.  
Proud Trebius liu's for all his princely gate  
On third-hand suits, and scrape of the plate.  
Titius knew not where to shroud his head  
Until he did a dying widow wed  
Whiles she lay doting on her deaths bed,  
And now hath purchased lands with one night's pain  
And on the morrow woes and weds again.  
Now see I fire-flakes sparkle from his eyes  
Like a Comets tail in th'angry skies,  
His pouting cheeks puff up above his brow  
Like a swollen Toad touched with the Spiders blow;  
His mouth shrinks sideward like a scornful Plaice  
To take his tired Ears ingrateful place.  
His Ears hang laving like a new-luged swine  
To take some counsel of his grieved eyen.  
Now laugh I loud, and break my spleen to see  
This pleasing pastime of my poesy,  
Much better than a Paris-garden Bear,  
Or prating puppet on a Theatere,  
Or Mimoes' whistling to his tabouret  
Selling a laughter for a cold meals meat.  
Go to then ye my sacred Semones,  
And please me more, the more ye do displease;  
Care we for all those bugs of idle fear?  
For Tigels grinning on the Theatre,  
Or scar-babe threatenings of the rascal crew,  
Or wind-spent verdicts of each Ale-knights view?  
What ever breast doth freeze for such false dread,  
Beshrew his base white liver for his meed.  
Fond were that pity, and that fear were sin,  
To spare waste leaves that so deserved been.  
Those toothless Toys that dropped out by mishap,  
Be but as lightning to a thunderclap:  
Shall then that foul infamous Cyneds hide  
Laugh at the purple wales of others side?  
Not, if he were as near, as by report,  
The stews had wont to be to the Tennis-court,  
He that while thousands envy at his bed,  
Neighs after Bridals, and fresh-mayden head;  
While slavish juno dares not look awry  
To frown at such imperious rivalrye,  
Not though she sees her wedding jewels dressed  
To make new Bracelets for a strumpets wrest,  
Or like some strange disguised Messalina,  
Hires a night's lodging of his concubine;  
Whether his twilight-torch of love do call  
To revils of uncleanly Musical,  
Or midnight plays, or Taverns of new wine,  
High ye white Aprons to your Landlords sign;  
When all, save toothless age or infancy,  
Are summoned to the Court of Venery.  
Who list excuse? when chaister dames can hire,  
Some snout-fair stripling to their Apple-squire:  
Whom staked up like to some stallion-steede  
They keep with Eggs and Oysters for the breed.  
O Lucine! barren Caia hath an heir  
After her husband's dozen years despair.  
And now the bribed Midwife swears apace,  
The bastard babe doth bear his father's face.  
But hath not Lelia past her virgin years?  
For modest shame (God wots) or penal fears.  
He tells a Merchant tidings of a prize,  
That tells Cynedo of such novelties,  
Worth little less than landing of a Whale,  
Or Gades spoils, or a churls funeral:  
Go bid the baines and point the bridal day,  
His broking Bawd hath got a noble prey,  
A vacant tenement, an honest dower  
Can fit his pander for her paramour,  
That he, base wretch, may clog his wit-old head  
And give him handsel of his Hymen-bed.  
Ho! all ye Females that would live unshent  
Fly from the reach of Cyneds regiment.  
If Trent be drawn to dregs, and Low refuse,  
Hence ye hot lecher, to the steaming stews.  
Tiber the famous sink of Christendom  
Turn thou to Thames, & Thames run towards Rome:  
What ever damned stream but thine were meet  
To Quench his lusting livers boiling heat?  
Thy double draft may quench his dog-days rage  
With some stolen Bacchis, or obsequious page,  
When writhe Lena makes her sale-set shows  
Of wooden Venus with fair limned brows;  
Or like him more some veiled Matrons face,  
Or trained prentice trading in the place:  
The close adulteress, where her name is red  
Comes crawling from her husband's lukewarm bed,  
Her carrion skin bedaubed with odours sweet,  
Groping the postern with her bared feet.  
Now play the Satire who so list for me,  
Valentine self, or some as chaste as he.  
In vain she wisheth long alchmana's night,  
Cursing the hasty dawning of the light,  
And with her cruel Ladie-starre uprose  
She seeks her third roost on her silent toes,  
Besmeared all with loathsome smoke of lust  
Like Acheron's steams, or smouldering sulphur dust:  
Yet all day sits she simpering in her mew  
Like some chaste dame, or shrined saint in show,  
Whiles he lies wallowing with a westiehed  
And palish carcase, on his Brothel-bed,  
Till his salt bowels boil with poisonous fire,  
Right Hercules with his second Deianeira.  
O Esculape! how rife is Physic made,  
When each Brasse-basen can profess the trade  
Of ridding pocky wretches from their pain,  
And do the beastly cure for ten-groats gain?  
All these & more, deserve some blood-drawne lines:  
But my six Cords been of too lose a twine.  
Stay till my beard shall sweep mine aged breast,  
Then shall I seem an awful Satirist:  
While now my rhymes relish of the Ferule still,  
Some nosewise Pedant saith; whose deepe-sene skill  
Hath three times construed either Flaccus over,  
And thrice rehearsed them in his Trivial floor,  
So let them tax me for my hote-bloodes rage,  
Rather than say I doted in my age.    

SAT. 2.  
Arcades ambo.  

OLD drivelling Lolio drudges all he can,  
To make his eldest son a Gentleman.  
Who can despair that sees another thrive,  
By lone of twelvepences to an Oyster-wive?  
When a crazed scaffold, and a rotten stage,  
Was all rich Naenius his heritage.  
Nought spendeth he for fear, nor spares for cost:  
And all he spends and spaires beside is lost;  
Himself goes patched like some bare Cottyer,  
Lest he might ought the future stock appeyre.  
Let giddy Cosmius change his choice array,  
Like as the Turk his Tents thirse in a day.  
And all to sun and air his suits untold  
From spitful moths, and frets, and hoary mould,  
Bearing his pawn-laid lands upon his back  
As Snails their shells, or peddlers do their pack:  
Who cannot shine in tissues and pure gold,  
That hath his lands and patrimony sold?  
Lolioes side-cote is ●ough Pampilian  
Guilded with drops that down the bosom ran,  
White Carsy hose, patched on either knee,  
The very Emblem of good husbandry,  
And a knit nightcap made of coarsest twine,  
With two long labels buttoned to his chin;  
So rides he mounted on the market-day  
Upon a straw-stuft panel, all the way,  
With a maund charged with household merchandise  
With eggs, or whitemeate, from both dairies:  
And with that bees he roast for sunday-noone,  
Proud how he made that week's provision:  
Else is he stall-fed on the workday  
With browne-bread crusts softened in sodden whey,  
Or water-gruel, or those paups of meal  
That Maro makes his Simule, and Cybeale:  
Or once a week perhaps for novelty,  
Reezed Bacon: soords shall feast his family;  
And weens this more than one egg cleft in twain  
To feast some patron and his Chappelaine;  
Or more than is some hungry gallants dole,  
That in a dearth runs sneaking to an hole,  
And leaves his man and dog to keep his hall  
Lest the wild room should run forth of the wall.  
Good man him list nor spend his idle meals  
In quinsing Plovers, or in winning Quales;  
Nor toot in Cheap side baskets earn and late please  
To set the first tooth in some novell-cate.  
Let sweet-mouthed Mercia bid what crowns she  
For halfe-fed Cherries, or green garden pease,  
Or the first Artichoks of all the year,  
To make so lavish cost for little cheer:  
When Lolio feasteth in his reveling fit,  
Some starved Pullen scours the rusted spit.  
For else how should his son maintained be,  
At Ins of Court or of the Chancery:  
There to learn Law, and courtly carriage,  
To make amends for his mean parentage,  
Where he unknown and ruffling as he can,  
Goes currant each-where for a Gentleman?  
What Brokers lousy wardrobe cannot reach,  
With tissued pains to prank each peasant's breech?  
Couldst thou but give the wall, the cap, the knee,  
To proud Sartorio that goes straddling by,  
Were't not the needle pricked on his sleeve  
Doth by good hap the secret watchword give?  
But hearest thou Lolioes son, gi'en not thy gate,  
Until the evening Owl or bloody-Batt.  
Never until the lamps of Paul's been light,  
And niggard lanterns shade the Moonshine night,  
Then when the guilty bankrupt in bold dread,  
From his close Cabin thrusts his shrinking head,  
That hath been long in shady shelter penned  
Imprisoned for fear of prisonment.  
May be some russet-cote Parochian  
Shall call thee cozen, friend, or countryman,  
And for thy hoped fist crossing the street,  
Shall in thy father's name his Godson greett,  
Can never man work thee a worse shame  
Then once to minge thy father's odious name,  
Whose mention were alike to thee as leeve,  
As a Catchpoles fist unto a Bankrupts sleeve;  
Or an, Hos ego, from old Petrarchs sprite  
Unto a Plagiary sonnet-wright.  
There soon as he can kiss his hand in gree,  
And with good grace bow it below the knee,  
Or make a Spanish face with fawning cheer,  
With th' Iland-Conge like a Cavalier,  
And shake his head, and cringe his neck and side,  
Home hies he in hisf athers' Farm to bid.  
The Tenants wonder at their landlords Son,  
And bless them at so sudden coming on,  
More than who vies his pence to view some trick  
Of stranges Moroccoes dumb Arithmetic,  
Or the young Elephant, or two-tayled steer,  
Or the rig'd Camel, or the Fiddling Frere.  
Nay then his Hodge shallleave the plough & wain,  
And buy a book, and go to school again:  
Why mought not he as well as others done,  
Rise from his Festuc to his Littleton?  
Fools, they may feed with words & live by air,  
That climb to honour by the Pulpits stair:  
Sat seven years pining in an Anchores' cheyre,  
To win some parched shreds of Minivere,  
And seven more plod at a Patron's tail,  
To get a gelded Chapels cheaper sail.  
Old Lolio sees and laugheth in his sleeve,  
At the great hope they and his state do give.  
But that which glads and makes him proudest of all,  
Is when the brabbling neighbours on him call,  
For counsel in some crabbed case of law,  
Or some Indentments, or some bond to draw:  
His Neighbour's goose hath grazed on his Lea,  
What action mought be entered in the plea?  
So new fallen lands have made him in request,  
That now he looks as lofty as the best.  
And well done Lolio, like a thrifrie sire,  
'Twere pity but thy son should prove a squire.  
How I foresee in many ages past,  
When Lolioes caitiff name is quite defa'st,  
Thine heir, thine heirs heir, & his heir again  
From out the loins of careful Lolian,  
Shall climb up to the Chancel pews on high,  
And rule and reign in their rich tenancy;  
When parched aloft to perfect their estate  
They rack their rents unto a triple rate;  
And hedge in all the neighbour common-lands,  
And clodge their slavish tenant with commands,  
Whiles they, poor souls, with feeling sighs complain  
And wish old Lolio were alive again,  
And praise his gentle soul and wish it well  
And of his friendly facts full often tell.  
His father dead, tush, no it was not he,  
He finds records of his great pedigree,  
And tells how first his famous Ancestor  
Did come in long since with the Conqueror.  
Nor hath some bribed Herald first assigned  
His quartered Arms and crest of gentle kind,  
The Scottish Barnacle (if I might choose)  
That of a worm doth wax a winged goose;  
Nevertheless some hungry squire for hope of good  
Matches the churls Son into gentle blood,  
Whose son more justly of his gentry boasts  
Than who were borne at two pied painted posts;  
And had some traunting Merchant to his sire  
That trafiqued both by water and by fire.  
O times! since ever Rome did Kings create,  
Brass Gentlemen, and Caesar's Laureate.    

SAT. 3. Fuimus Troës. VEL Vix ea nostra.  

WHat boots it Pontice, though thou couldst discourse  
Of a long golden line of Ancestors?  
Or show their painted faces gay dressed,  
From ever since before the last conquest;  
Or tedious Beadroles of descended blood,  
From Father japhet since Deucalion's flood,  
Or call some old Church-windowes to record  
The age of thy fair Arms,  
Or find some figures half obliterate  
In rain-beat Marble near to the Church-gate,  
Upon a Cross-legged Tomb: what boots it thee  
To show the rusted Buckle that did tie  
The Garter of thy greatest Grand sires knee?  
What to reserve their relics many years,  
Their siluer-spurs, or spills of booken spears;  
Or cyte old Oclands' verse, how they did wield  
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field?  
And if thou canst in picking straws engage,  
In one half day thy father's heritage,  
Or hide what ever treasures he the got,  
In some deep Cockpit; or in desperate Lot  
Upon a six-square piece of ivory,  
Throw both thyself, and thy posterity?  
Or if (O shame!) in hired Harlots bed  
Thy wealthy heyre-dome thou have buried:  
Then Pontice little boots thee to discourse  
Of a long golden line of Ancestors.  
Venturous Fortunio his farm hath sold,  
And god's to Guiane land to fish for gold,  
Meeting perhaps, if Orenoque deny,  
Some straggling pinnace of Polonian Rye.  
Then comes home floating with a silken sail,  
That Severne shaketh with his Canon-peale;  
Wiser Raymundus in his closet penned,  
Laughs at such danger and adventurement;  
When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,  
And now his second hopeful glass is broke.  
But yet if haply his third furnace hold,  
Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold;  
So spend thou Pontice, if thou canst not spare,  
Like some stout sa-man or Philosopher;  
And were thy father's gentle? that's their praise,  
No thank to thee by whom their name decays;  
By virtue got they it, and valorous deed,  
Do thou so Pontice, and be honoured:  
But else look how their virtue was their own,  
Not capable of propagation,  
Right so their titles been, nor can be thine,  
Whose ill deserts might blank their golden line.  
Tell me, thou gentle Trojan; dost thou prize  
Thy brute beasts worth by their dams qualities?  
sayst thou this Colt shall prove a swift-paced steed  
Only because a jennet did him breed?  
Or sayst thou this same Horse shall win the prize,  
Because his dame was swiftest Trunchefice,  
Or Runcevall his Sire; himself a Gallaway?  
Whiles like a tireling jade he lags halfway;  
Or whiles thou seest some of thy Stallion-race,  
Their eyes bored out, masking the Millers-maze,  
Like to a Scythian slave sworn to the pail;  
Or dragging frothy barrels at his tail?  
Albe wise Nature in her providence,  
Want in the want of reason and of sense,  
Traduce the native virtue with the kind,  
Making all brute and senseless things inclined,  
Unto their cause, or place where they were sown  
That one is like to all, and all like one.  
Was never Fox, but wily cubs begets,  
The Bear his fierceness to hi● brood besets;  
Nor fearful Hare falls out of Lions' seed,  
Nor Eagle wont the tender Dove to breed;  
Creet ●u●r wont the Cypress sad to bear,  
Acheron banks the palish Popelare;  
The Palm doth rifely rise in jury field,  
And Alpheus wa●ers nought but Olives wild.  
Asopus br●ed● big-Bul-rushes alone,  
Meander heath; Peaches by Nilus' grown●;  
An English Wolf, an Irish Toad to see,  
Were as a chast-man nursed in Italy.  
And now when Nature gives another guide,  
To human kind that in his bosom bides:  
Above instinct, his reason and discourse,  
His being better, is his life the worse?  
Ah me! how s●ldome see we sons succe●d  
Their Father's praise in prowess and great deed?  
Yet certes if the Sire be ill inclined,  
His faults befall his sons by course of kind.  
Scaurus was covetous; his son not so,  
But not his pared nail will he forego:  
Flori●n the sire ●id women love ali●e,  
And so his son doth too, all, but his wife:  
Brag of thy Father's faul●s, they are thine own;  
Brag of his lands, if those be not foregone:  
Brag of thine own good deeds, for they are thine,  
More than his life, or lands, or golden line.    

SAT. 4.  
Plus beauque fort.  

CAn I not touch some upstart carper-shield  
Of Lolio's son, that never saw the field●  
Or tax wild Pontice for his Luxuries,  
B●t strait they tell me of Tiresias eyes?  
Or luckless Collingborns feeding of the crows,  
Or hundredth Scalps which Thames s●ill underflowes?  
But strait Sigalion nods and knits his brows,  
And winks and wa●tes his warning hand for fear,  
And lisps some silent letters in my ear?  
Have I not vowed for shunning such debate  
(Pardon ye satires) to degenerate?  
And wading low in this plebeian lake  
That no salt wave shall froth upon my back,  
L●t Labeo, or who else list for me,  
Go lose his ears and fall to Alchemy.  
Only, let Gallio give me leave a while  
To school him once, or ere I change my style.  
O lawless paunch the cause of much despite,  
Through ranging of a currish appetite,  
When splenish morsels cr●m the gaping Maw,  
Withouten d●ets care, or trencher-law,  
though never have I ●alerne ●imes professed  
To be some Ladies trencher-cri●icke guest;  
Whiles each bit cooleth for the Oracle  
Whose sentence charms it with a rhyming spell;  
Touch not this Coler, that Melancholy  
This bit were ●rie and hot, that cold and d●y;  
Yet can I set my Gallios' d●●ting,  
Ape●tle of a Lark, or Plovers wing,  
And warn him not to cast his wanton eyen  
On grosser Bacon, or salt Gaberdine,  
Or dried Fli●hes of some smoked beef,  
Hanged on a writ●en with since Martin's eve,  
Or burnt Larks heels, or Rashers ●aw and green,  
Or Melancholic liver of an H●n,  
Which stout Vor●no brags to make his feast,  
A●d claps his hand on his brave Ostrige-breast;  
Then falls to praise the ●ardy janizar,  
That sucks his horse side thirsting in the war.  
Las●ly to s●ale up all that he hath spoke,  
Quaffes a whole tunnel of Tobacco smoke:  
If Ma●tius in boisterous Buffs be dressed,  
Branded with Iron plates upon the breast,  
And pointed on the shoulders, for the nonce,  
As newcome from the Belgian garrisons:  
What shall thou need to envy aught at that,  
When as thou smellest like a Civet Cat;  
When as thine oiled locks smooth plaited fall,  
Shining like varnished pictures on a wall.  
When a plumed Fan may shade thy chalked face,  
And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.  
If brabbling Make-fray at each Fair and Sise  
Picks quarrel● for to show his valiantize,  
Strait pressed for an hungry Swizzers pay  
To thrust his fist to each part of the fray,  
And piping hot puffs toward the pointed plain  
With a broad Scot, or proking spit of Spain,  
O● hoiseth sail up to a sorraine shore,  
That he may live a lawless Conqueror.  
If some such desperate Hakster shall devise  
To rouse thine Hares-heart from her cowardice,  
As idle children striving to excel  
In blowing bubbles from an empty shell;  
Oh Hercules how like to prove a man,  
That all so rath thy warlike life began?  
Thy mother could thee for thy cradle set,  
Her husband's rusty iron corselet;  
Whose iargling sound might rock her babe to rest  
That never plained of his uneasy nest  
There did he dream of dreary wars at hand,  
And work, and fought, & won, ●re he could stands  
But who hath seen the Lambs of Tarentine,  
May guess what G●llio his manners been;  
All soft as is the falling thistle-down,  
Soft as the fu●●e ball, or Morrians crown;  
Now Gallio, 'gins thy youthly heat to reign  
In every vigorous limb, and swelling vain,  
Time bids the raise thine headstrong thoughts on by  
To valour and adventurous chivalry;  
Pawn thou no glove for challenge of the deed,  
Nor make thy Quintaine others armed head  
T'enrich the waiting Herald with thy shame  
And make thy loss, the scornful scaffolds game●  
Wars; God for●end; nay God defend from war,  
Soon are Sons spent, that not soon reared are:  
Gallio may pull me roses ere they fall,  
Or in his net entrap the Tennis-ball:  
Or tend his Spar-hauke mantling in her mew,  
Or yelping Begles busy heels pursue,  
Or watch a sinking cork upon the shore,  
Or halter Finches through a privy door,  
Or list he spend the time in sportful game,  
In daily courting of his lovely dame,  
Hang on her lips, melt in her wanton eye,  
Dance in her hand, joy in her jollity,  
Here's little peril, and much lesser pain,  
So timely Hymen do the rest restrain:  
High wanton Gallio and wed betime,  
Why shouldst thou lose the pleasures of thy prime?  
Seest thou the Rose-leaves fall ungathered?  
Then high thee wanton Gallio to wed:  
Let Ring and Ferule meet upon thine hand,  
And Lucines girdle with her swathing-bands,  
High thee and give the w●●ld yet one dwarf more:  
Such as it got when thou thyself wast boar:  
Look not for warning of thy bloomed chin,  
Can never happiness to soon begin;  
Virginius vowed to keep his Maidenhead,  
And eats cha●t Lettuce, and drinks Poppy-seed,  
And smells on Camphor fasting: and that done,  
L●ng hath he lived chaste as a veiled Nun,  
Free as a new-absolued damosel  
That Friar Cornelius shrived in his Cell,  
Till now he waxed a toothless Bachelor,  
He thaws like Chaucer's frosty janivere  
And sets a month's mind upon smiling May.  
And dies his beard that did his age bewray;  
Biting on Annis-●eede, and Rose-marine,  
Which might the Fume of his rot lungs refine:  
Now he in Charon's barge a Bride doth seek,  
The maidens mock, and call him withered Leek,  
That with a green tail hath an hoary head,  
And now he would, and now he cannot wed●    

SAT. 5.  
Stupet Albius aere.  

WOuld now that Math● were the Satirist,  
That some fat bribe might grease him in the fist,  
●o● which he need not brawl at any bar  
Nor kis●e the book to be a perjurer;  
Who else would s●orne his silence to have sold,  
And have his tongue tied with strings of Gold?  
C●rius is dead, and buried long since,  
And all that loved golden Abstinence:  
Might he not well repine at his old fee,  
Would he but spare to speak of usury?  
Hirelings enough beside, can be so base,  
though we should scorn each bribing varlets brass;  
Yet he and I could shun each ●ealous head,  
Sticking our thumbs close to our girdlestead,  
though were they manacled behind our back,  
Another's fist can serve our fees to take:  
Yet pursy Euclio clearly smiling prayed,  
That my sharp words might curtal their side trade;  
For thousands been in every gouernall●  
That live by loss, and rise by others fall.  
What ever sickly sheep so secret dies,  
But some foul Ra●en hath bespoke his eyes?  
What else makes N. when his lands are spent,  
Go shaking like a threedbare malcontent.  
Whose band-lesse Bonnet veils his oregrown chin  
And sullen rags be wray his Morphewed skin;  
So●ships he to the wolvish western isle,  
Among the savage Kerns in sad exile;  
Or in the Turkish wars at Caesar's pay  
To rub his life out till the latest day;  
Another shifting Gallant to forecast,  
To gull his Hostess for a month's repast,  
With some galled Trunk ballaced with straw & ston●  
Left for the pawn of his provision;  
Haddit F. shop lain fallow but from hence,  
His doors close sealed as in some pestilence,  
Whiles his light keels their fearful flight can take,  
To get some badg-lesse Blue upon his back?  
Tocullio was a wealthy usurer,  
Such store of incomes had he every year,  
By Bushels was he wont to met his ●oyne  
As did the old wife of Trim●lcion●  
Can he do● more that finds an idle room,  
For many hundredth thousands on a Tomb?  
Or who rears up four free-schooles in his age,  
Of his old pillage, and damned surplusage?  
Yet now he swore by that sweet Cross he kissed,  
(That silver cross, where he had sacrificed  
His coveting soul, by his desires own doom,  
Daily to die the devils Martyrdom)  
His Angels were all flown up to their sky,  
And had forsook his naked Treasury:  
Farewell Astraea and her weights of gold●  
Until his lingering Calends once be told;  
Nought left behinds but wax & parchment scrolls  
Like Lucian's dream that silver turned to coles●  
Shouldst thou him credit, that nould credit thee?  
Yes and mayest swear he swore the verity;  
The ding-thrift heir, his shift-got sum misspent,  
Comes drooping like a penniless penitent,  
And beats his faint fist on Tocullios' door,  
It lost the last and now must call for more.  
Now hath the Spider caught a wandering Fly,  
And drags her captive at her cruel thie●  
Soon is his errand red in his pale face,  
Which bears dumb Characters of every case,  
So Cyneds dusky cheek and fiery eye,  
And hayre-les brow, tells where he last did lie;  
So M●tho doth bewray his guilty thought,  
While his pale face doth say, his cause is naughty  
Seest thou the wary Angler trail along  
His feeble line, soon as some Pike too strong  
Hath swallowed the bate that scorns the shore,  
Yet now nearhand cannot resist no more:  
So lieth he aloof in smooth pretence,  
To hide his rough intended violence;  
As he that under name of Christmas Cheer,  
Can starve his Tenants all th'ensuing year:  
Paper and wax (God wo●) a weak repay,  
For such deep debts, and downcast sums as they;  
Writ, seal, deliver, take, go, spend and speed,  
And yet full hardly could his present need  
Part with such sum; For but as yester-late  
Did Furnus offer pen-worths at easy rate,  
For small disbursement; He the banks hath broke,  
And needs might now some further plain o'er loo●;  
Yet ere he go fame would he be released:  
High yo● ye Ravens, hy you to the feast;  
Provided that thy lands are leften ●yre,  
To be redeemed or ere thy day expire;  
Then shalt thou tear those idle paper-bonds,  
That thus had fettered thy pawned lands.  
Ah fool! For sooner shalt thou s●ll the rest,  
Then stake ought for thy ●ormer Interest;  
Wh●n it shall grind thy grating gall for shame,  
To see the lands that bear thy Grandsire's name,  
Become a dunghill peasant's sommer-hall,  
Or lonely Hermit's cage inhospitall;  
A pining Gourmand, an imperious slave,  
An horseleech, barren womb, and gaping grave,  
A legal thief, a bloodless murderer;  
A fiend incarnate, a false Usurer,  
Albe such main extort s●orns to be penned  
In the clay walls of thatched Tenement,  
For certes no man of a low degree,  
May bid two guests; or Gout, or Usury:  
Unless some base hedge-creeping Collybist  
Scatters his refuse scraps on whom he list,  
For Easter-gloves, or for a shrovetide Hen,  
Which bought to give, he takes to ●ell again:  
I do not mean some glozing Merchant's feat,  
That laugheth at the cozened world's deceit,  
When as an hundred stocks lie in his fist●  
He leaks and sinks, and breaketh when he list.  
But, Nummius cased the needy Gallants care,  
With a base bargain of his blown ware●  
Of fusted hops now lost for lack of sail,  
Or mo'ld brown-paper that could nought avail:  
Or what he cannot utter otherwise,  
May pleasure Fridoline for triple price.  
Whiles his false broker lieth in the wind,  
And for a present Chapman is assigned,  
The cut●throte wretch for their compacted gain,  
Buys all for but one quarter of the main;  
Whiles if he chance to break his dear-bought day●  
And forfeit for default of due repay  
His late entangled lands: Then Fridoline,  
Buy thee a wallet, and go beg or pine●  
If Mammon self should ever live with men,  
Mammon himself shallbe a Citizen.    

SAT. 6.  
Quid placet ergo?  

I Wot not how the world's degenerate,  
That men or know, or like not their estate:  
Out from the Gades up to the Eastern morn,  
Not one but holds his native state forlorn.  
When comely striplings wish it were their chance,  
For Cae●is dista●●e to exchange their Lance;  
And we are curled Periwigs, and chalk their face,  
And still ●re poring on their pock●t-glasse●  
Tired with pinned Ruffs, & Fans, and partlet strips,  
And Busks, and Verdingales about their hips;  
And tread on corked stilts 〈◊〉 prisoner's pace,  
And make their Napkin for their spitting-place,  
And gripe their waist within a narrow span:  
Fond Caenis that would'dst wish to be a man;  
Whose mannish Hus-wives like their refuse state,  
And make a drudge of their uxorius mate,  
Who like a Cotquean freezeth at the rock,  
Whiles his breached dame doth man the foreign stock.  
Is't not a shame to see each homely groom●  
Sat perched in an idle charriot-roome,  
That were not meet some paunell to bestride  
Surcingled to a galledg Hackneys hide?  
Each Muckworme will be rich with lawless gain,  
Although he smother up mows of seven years grain,  
And hanged himself when corn grows cheap again;  
Although he buy whole Harvests in the spring  
And foist in ●alse strikes to the measuring:  
Although his shop be muffled from the light  
Like a day-dungeon, or Cimmerian night:  
Nor full nor fasting can the Carl take rest,  
Whiles his George-Nobles rusten in his Chest,  
He sleeps but once and dreams of burglary,  
And wakes and casts about his frighted eye,  
And gropes for thieves in every darker shade,  
And if a Mouse but stir he calls for aid.  
The sturdy Ploughman doth the soldier see,  
All scar●ed with pied colours to the knee,  
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate,  
And now he 'gins to loathe his former state:  
Now doth he inly scorn his Kendall-greene,  
And his patched Cockers now despised been.  
Nor list he now go whistling to the Car,  
But sells his Teeme and fetleth to the war.  
O war to them that never tried thee sweet!  
When his dead mate falls groveling at his feet,  
And angry bullets whistlen at his ●are,  
And his dim eyes see nought but death and drere:  
Oh happy Ploughman were thy weal well known;  
Oh happy all estates except his own!  
Some drunken Rhymer thinks his time well spent,  
If he can live to see his name in print:  
Who when he is once fleshed to the Press,  
And sees his handsel have such fair success,  
Sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail,  
He sends forth thraves of Ballads to the sale.  
Nor then can rest: But volumes up bodged rhymes,  
To have his name talked of in future times:  
The brainsick youth that feeds his tickled ear  
With sweet-sauced lies of some false Tra●eiler,  
Which hath the Spanish Decades red a while;  
Or whetstone leaving of old mandevile,  
Now with discourses breaks his midnight sleep,  
Of his adventures through the Indian deep,  
Of all their massy heaps of golden mines,  
Or of the antic Toombs of Palestine;  
Or of Damascus' Magic wall of Glass,  
Of Solomon his sweeting piles of Brass,  
Of the Bird Ru● that bears an Elephant:  
Of Mer-maids that the Southern seas do haunt;  
Of head less men; of savage Cannibals;  
The fashions of their lives and Governals:  
What monstrous Cities there erected be,  
Cayro, or the City of the Trinity:  
Now are they dung hill-Cocks that have not seen  
The bordering Alps, or else the Neighbour Rhine,  
And now he plies the newes-full Grasshopper,  
Of voyages and ventures to inquire.  
His land mortgaged, He sea-beat in the way  
Wishes for home a thousand scythes a day:  
And now he deems his homebred fare asleep  
As his parched Biscuit, or his barrelled Beef:  
'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,  
Oh let me lead an Academic life,  
To know much, and to think we nothing know;  
Nothing to have, yet think we have enough,  
In skill to want, and wanting seek for more,  
In weal nor want, nor wish for greater store;  
Envy ye Monarches with your proud excess  
At our low Sail, and our high Happiness.    
Lib. 4. Finis.   


VIRGIDEMIARUM LIB. 5.   

SAT. 1.  
Sit paena merenti.  

PArdon ye glowing ears; Needs will it out,  
though brazen walls compassed my tongue about,  
As thick as wealthy Scrobioes' quickset rows  
In the wide Common that he did enclose.  
Pull out mine eyes, if I shall see no vice,  
Or let me see it with detesting eyes.  
Renowned Aquine, now I follow thee,  
far as I may for fear of jeopardy;  
And to thy hand yield up the juye-mace,  
From crabbed Persius, and more smooth Horace;  
Or from that shrew, the Roman Poetess,  
That taught her gossips learned bitterness,  
Or Luciles Muse whom thou did stimitate,  
Or Menips old, or Pasquillers of late,  
Yet name I not Mutius, or Tigilline;  
though they deserve a keener style than mine;  
Nor mean to ransack up the quiet grave;  
Nor burn dead bones, as h● example gave,  
I tax the living, let dead ashes rest,  
Whose faults are dead, and nailed in their chest;  
Who can refrain, that's guiltless of their crime,  
Whiles yet he lives in such a cruel time.  
When Titios' grounds, that in his grandsire's days  
But one pound fine, one penny rend did raise,  
A sommer-snow-ball, or a winter-rose,  
Is grown to thousands as the world now goes:  
So thrift and time sets other things on float,  
That now his son soups in a silken cote,  
Whose Grandsire happily a poor hungry Swain,  
Beg●d some cast Abbey in the Church's wain  
And but for that, what ever he may want,  
Who knows a Monk, had been a Mendicant;  
While freezing Matho, that for one lean see,  
Want term each Term the Term of Hibarie,  
May now in steed of those his simple fees;  
Get the fee-simples of fair Manneryes●  
What, did he counterfeit his Prince's hand,  
For some streave Lordship of concealed land?  
Or on each Michael, and Lady-day,  
took he deep forfeits for an hours delay?  
And gained no less by such injurious brawl,  
Then Gamius by his sixth wives burial?  
Or hath he won some wider Interest,  
By hoary charters from his Grandsire's chest,  
Which late some bribed Scribe for slender wage,  
Writ in the Characters of another age,  
That Ploydon self might stammer to rehearse,  
Whose date over looks three Centuries of years;  
Who ever yet the Tracks of weal so tried,  
But there hath be●ne one beaten way beside?  
He, when he lets a Lease for life, or years,  
(As never he doth until the date expeares;  
For when the full state in his fist doth lie,  
He may take vantage of the vacancy,)  
His Fine affor'ds so many trebled pounds,  
As he agreethy ●ares to Lease his grounds:  
His Rent in fair respondence must a●●se,  
To double trebles of his one years price;  
Of one bays breadth, God wots, a silly cote,  
Whose thatched spars arefurred with sluttish soot  
A whole inch thick; shininig like Black-moors brows  
Through smoke that down the head les barrel blows.  
At his beds-feets feeden his stalled teme.  
His swine beneath, his pullen o'er the beam:  
A starved Tenement, such as I guess,  
Stand straggling in the wastes of holderness,  
Or such as shiver on a Peake-hill side,  
When Marches lungs beat on their turfe-clad hide:  
Such as nice Lip●ius would grudge to see,  
Above his lodging in wild West-phalye:  
Or as the Saxon King his Court might make,  
When his sides plained of the Neat-heards cake.  
Yet must he hau●t his greedy Landlords hall,  
With often presents at each Festival;  
With crammed Caponsevery New-ye ears morn,  
Or with greene-cheeses when his sheep are shorn  
Or many Maunds-full of his mellow fruit,  
To make some way to win his weighty suit.  
Whom cannot gifts at last cause to relent,  
Or to win favour, or flee punishment?  
When gripple Patrons turn their sturdy steel  
To wax, when they the golden flame do● fcelc;  
When grand M●●cenas casts a glavering eye,  
On the cold present of a Poefie:  
And lest he might more frankly take then give,  
Grop●s for a french crown in his empty slee●e●  
Thence Clod●us hopes to set his shoulders free,  
From the light burden of his Nap●rie.  
The smiling Landlord shows a sunshine face,  
Feigning that he will grant him further grace;  
And lear's like Aesop's Fox upon a Crane,  
Whose neck he craves for his Chirurgeon;  
So lingers off the lease vnt●ll the last,  
What recks he then of pains or promise's past?  
Was ever feather, or fond woman's mind,  
More light than words; the blasts of idle wind●  
What's sib or fire, to take the gentle slip;  
And in th' Exchequer rot for surety-ship;  
Or thence thy starved brother live and di●,  
Within the cold Cole-harbour sanctuary?  
Will one from Scots-banke bid but one groat more,  
My old Tenant may be turned out of door,  
though much he spent in th'rotten roofesrepayre,  
In hope to have it left unto his heir;  
though many a load of Marle and Manure led,  
Reui●'d his ●●rren leas, that erst lay dead.  
Were he as Furius, he would defy,  
Such pilfering slips of Petty land-lordrye.  
And might dislodge whole Colonies of poor,  
And lay their roof quite level with their floor,  
Whiles yet he gives as to a yielding fence,  
Their bag and baggage to his Citizens,  
And ships them to the newnamed Virgin-lond,  
Or wilder wales, where never wight yet word:  
Would it not vex thee where thy sires did keep,  
To see the dunged folds of dag●tayled she●pe,  
And ruined house where holy things were said,  
Whose freestone walls the thatched roof upbraid,  
Whose shrill Saints-bell hangs on his loverie,  
While the rest are damned to the Plumbery?  
Yet pure devotion lets the steeple stand,  
And idle battlements on either hand;  
Lest that perhaps, were all those relics gone,  
Furious his Sacrilege could not be known.    

SAT. 2.  
Heic quaerite Troiam.  

HOus-keping's dead, Sat●rio: wotest thou where?  
Forsooth they say far hence in Brek-neck shire.  
And ever since they say that fe●le and taste,  
That men may break their neck, soon as their fast.  
Certes, if Pity died at Cha●cers date,  
He lived a widower long behind his mate:  
Save that I see some rott●n bedrid Sire,  
Which to out strip the nonage of his heirs,  
Is crammed with golden broths, and drugs of price,  
And each day dying liu's, and living dies,  
Till once suruind his wardships latest eve,  
His eyes are closed with choice to die or l●ue●  
Plenty, and hee● died both in that same year,  
When the sad sky did shed so many a tear●.  
And now, who list not of his labour fail;  
Mark, with Saturio, my friendly tale:  
Along thy way, thou canst not but descry,  
Fair glittering Hals to tempt the hopeful eye,  
Thy right eye 'gins to leap for vain delight,  
And surbeate toes to tickle at the ●ight●  
As greedy T. when in the sounding mould  
He finds a shining pot-shard tiped with gold;  
For never Siren tempts the plea●ed ears,  
As these the eye of fainting passengers;  
All is not so that scemes; for surely than  
Matrona should not be a Courtesan,  
Smooth Chrysalu● should not be rich with fraud,  
Nor honest R. be his own wife's bawd,  
Look not a squint, nor stride a cross the way,  
Like some demurring Alcide to delay.  
But walk on ch●rely, till thou have espied,  
Saint Peter's finger at the Churchyard side,  
But wilt thou needs when thou art warned so well  
Go ●ee who in so garish walls doth dwell?  
There findest thou some stately Doric frame  
Or neat jonicke work;  
Like the vain bubble of Iberian pride,  
That ou●r-croweth all the world besides  
Which reared to raise the crazy monarchs fame,  
Strives for a Court and for a College name;  
Yet nought within, but lousy coul's doth hold,  
Like a scabbed Cuckoo in a cage of gold;  
So pride above doth shade the shame below:  
A golden Periwig on a Blackamoors brow.  
When Mae●ios first pag● of his poesy,  
Nailed to an hundredth posts for novelty,  
With his big title, an Italian mot,  
Lays siege unto the backward buyers groat.  
Which all within is drastie sluttish gear,  
Fit for the Oven or the Kitchen fire:  
So this gay gate adds fuel to thy thought,  
That such proud piles were never raised for naughty  
Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound  
With doubled Echoes doth again rebound,  
But not a Dog doth bark to welcome thee,  
Nor churlish Porter canst thou chafing see:  
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,  
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite.  
The marble pavement hid with desert weed,  
With houseleek, thistle, dock, & hemlock-seed,  
But if thou chance cast up thy wondering eyes,  
Thou shalt discern upon the Frontispiece,  
ΟΥΛΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ graven up on high,  
A fragment of old Plato's Poesy:  
The meaning is, Sir fool ye may be gone,  
Go back by leave, for way here lieth none.  
Look to the towered chymne is which should be  
The wind-pipes of good hospitality,  
Through which it breatheth to the open air,  
Betokening life and liberal welfare,  
Lo, there th'unthankful swallow takes her rest,  
And; fills the Tonue●● with her circled nest,  
Nor half that smoke from all his chymneys goes  
Which one Tobacco-pipe drives through his nose  
So rawbone hunger scorns the mudded walls,  
And 'gins to revel it in Lordly halls;  
Sooth black Prince is broken lose again  
That saw no Sun save once (as stories feign)  
That once was, when in Trinacry I ween  
He stole the daughter of the harvest Queen,  
And gripped the mawks of barren Sicily●  
With long constraint of pinefull penury;  
And they that should resist his second rage,  
Have penned themselves up in the private cage  
Of some blind lane; and their they lurk unknown  
Till th'hungry tempest once be overblown;  
Then like the coward, after his neighbour's fray,  
They creep forth boldly, and ask where are they?  
Mean while the hunger-starved Appurtenance  
Must bide the brunt, what ever ill mischance;  
Grim Famine sits in their forepined face  
All full of angles of unequal space,  
Like to the plain of many sided squares,  
That want be drawn out by Geometars;  
So sharp and meager that who should them see  
Would swear they lately came from Hungary●  
When their brass pans and winter coverled,  
Have wiped the manger of the Hoses●bread;  
Oh me; what odds there seemeth twixt their cheer,  
And the swollen Bezzle at an Alehouse fire,  
That tons in gallons to his bursten paunch,  
Whoseslimy droughts, his draft can never staunch?  
For shame ye gallants grow more hospital  
And turn your needless wardrobe to your Hall:  
As lavish Virro that keeps open doors  
Like janus in the wars,  
Except the twelve-days, or the wakeday-feast  
What time he needs must be his Cousin's guest,  
Philene hath bid him, can he choose but come?  
Who should pull Virro's sleeve to stay at home?  
All year beside, who meal-time can attend:  
Come Trebius welcome to the table's end:  
What though he chires on purer manchets crown,  
Whiles his kind client grinds on black & browne●  
A jolly rounding of a whole foot broad,  
From of the Mong-corne heap shall Trebius loads  
What though he quaff pure Amber in his bowl  
Of March-brewd wheat● yet slecks thy thirsting soul  
With palishoat, ●roathing in Boston-clay  
Or in a shallow cruse, nor must that stay  
Within thy reach, for fear of thy crazed brain,  
But call and crave, and have thy cruse again;  
Else how should even tale beer gistred,  
Or all thy draughts, on the chalked barrels head?  
And if he list revive his heartless grain  
With some French grape, or pure Canariane  
When pleasing B●rdeaux falls unto his lot,  
Some sow●●sh Rochel cuts thy thirsting throat,  
What though himself carveth his welcome friend  
With a co●ld pittance from his trenchers-end?  
Mu●t 〈◊〉 lip hang to ward his trencher side?  
Nor kiss ●is fist to take what doth betide?  
What tho to spare thy teeth he emploies thy tongue  
In busy qu●stions all the dinner long?  
What though the scornful waiter looks askile,  
And pouts and frowns, and curseth thee the while,  
And tak●● his farewell with a jealous eye,  
At 〈◊〉 morsel he his last shall see●  
And, if but one exceed the common size  
Or make an hillock in thy cheek arise,  
Or if perchance thou shouldest, ere thou witted,  
Hold thy knife uprights in thy gripped ●ist,  
Or sittest double on thy backward seat,  
Or with thine elbow shad'st thy shared meat;  
He laughs thee in his fellows ear to scorn,  
And asks aloud, where Trebius was borne.  
though the third Sewer takes thee quite away  
Without a staff: when thou wouldst ●enger ●tay  
What of all this? Is't not enough to say,  
I di●●'d at Virro his own board to day?    

SAT. 3.  
ΚΟΙΝΑ ΦΙΛΩΝ.  

THe Satire should be like the Porcupine,  
That shoots sharp quills out in each angry line,  
And wounds the blushing cheek, and fiery eye,  
Of him that hears, and readeth guiltily.  
Ye antic satires, how I bless your days,  
That brooked your bolder style, their own dispraise,  
And well near wish; yet joy my wish is vain,  
I had been then, or they were now again!  
For now our ears been of more brittle mould,  
Than those dull earthen ears that were of old:  
Sith theirs, like anuilles bore the hammers head,  
Our glass can never touch unshivered.  
But from the ashes of my quiet style  
Hence forth may rise some raging rough ●●cile,  
That may with Eschylus both find and le●se  
The snaky tresses of ●h' Eumenideses:  
Mean while, sufficeth me, the world may say  
That I these vices loathed another day,  
Which I ha●e done with as devout a ●heer●  
As he that rounds Poules●pillers in the ●are,  
Or bends his ham down in the naked Queare.  
'Twas ever said, Frontine, a●d ever seen●,  
That golden Clerks, but wooden Lawyers been;  
Can ever wise man wish in good estate  
The use of all things indiscriminate?  
Who wots not yet how well this did beseem,  
The learned master of the Academe?  
Plato is dead, and dead is his d●uise  
Which some thought witty, none thought ever wise;  
Yet certes M●●ch● is a Platonis●,  
To all, they say, save who so do not list,  
Because her husband a farre-trafiqueed man,  
Is a professed peripatecian,  
And so our Grandsires were images past▪  
That let their lands lie all so widely waste,  
That nothing was in pale or hedge ypent  
Within some province or whole shires extent:  
As Nature made the earth, so did it lie,  
Save for the ●urrowes of the●●●u●bandrie;  
When as the neighbour-lands so couched lain,  
That al●●ore show of one fair Champian●●●  
Some headless cros●e they digged on their 〈◊〉,  
Or rolled some marked M●ar●-stone in the way●  
Poor simplemen● For what might that avail  
That my field might not 〈◊〉 neighbours pail  
More than a peeled stick chestand ●●stead,  
〈◊〉 ●ynedo from his neighbour's bed  
More than the thr●d bare ●li●nts poverty  
〈◊〉 th' Attorney of ●his wont fee?  
If they were thriftless, moat not we amend,  
And with more care our dangered fields defend?  
Each man can guard what thing he deemeth d●●r●,  
As fearful Merchants do their Female heir,  
Which were it not for promise of their wealth,  
Need not be st●lled up for fear of stealth;  
Would rather stick upon the Belmans' cries,  
though proffered for a branded Indians pric●,  
Then raise we muddy b●l-wark●s on our ba●kes,  
B●set around with triple quic-set ranks,  
Or if those walls be over weak● a ward,  
The squared Brick may be a better guard.  
Go to my thri●tie Yeoman, and uprear  
A brazen wall to shend thy land from fear,  
Do so; and I shall praise thee all the while,  
So be, thou stake not up the commo● stil●;  
So be thou hedge in nought, but what's ●hi●●own●,  
So be thou p●y●what ●ithes thy neighbour's done,  
So be thou let not lie in fallowed plain.  
That which was wont yield Usury of grain,  
But when I see thy pitched stakes do stand  
On thy encroached piece of common land,  
Whiles thou discommonest thy neighbours keyne,  
And warn'st that none ●eed on thy field save thine;  
Brag no more Scrobius of thy mudded banks,  
Nor thy deep ditches, nor three quick set ranks:  
Oh happy dries of old Deucalion.  
When one was Landlord of the world alone!  
But now whose choler would not rise to yield  
A peasant halfe-stakes of his new-●owne field  
Whiles yet he may not for the triple price  
Buy out the remnant of his royalties?  
Go on and thrive my petty Tyrant's pride  
Scorn thou to live, if others live beside,  
And trace proud Castille that aspires to be  
In his old age a yo●ng ●i●t Monarchy  
Or the red Hat that cries the luckless main,  
For wealthy Thames to change his lowly R●ene.    

SAT. 4.  
Possunt, quia posse videntur.  

VIllius the wealthy farmer left his heir,  
Twice twenty sterling pounds to spend by year;  
The neighbour's praise Villios' hidebound son,  
And say it was a goodly portion;  
Not knowing ●ow some merchants dower can rise,  
By sundays tale to fifty Centuries;  
Or to weigh down a leaden Bride with Gold;  
Worth all that Matho bought, or Pontice sold:  
But whiles ten pound goes to his wives new gown,  
Nor little less can serve to suit his own,  
Whiles one piece pays her idle waiting man,  
Or buys an hood, or silver-handled Fann●,  
Or hires a Friezeland● Trotter half yard deep,  
To drag his Tu●nbrell through the staring Cheap  
Or whiles he rideth with two liveries,  
And'● treble rated at the Subsidies,  
One end a kennel keeps of 〈◊〉 ●ounds,  
What think yo● rests of all my younkers pounds,  
To diet him, or ●eale out at his door,  
To coffer up, or stock his wasting store?  
If then I reckoned right, it should appear,  
That sourtie pounds serve not the Farmer's hey●e.    
Finis. Lib. 2.   


VIRGIDEMIARUM LIB. 6.   

SAT. 1.  

Or like a painted staring Saracin;  
His che●ks chang● hue like th'air-fed vermin skin  
Now red, now pale, and swollen above his eyes  
Like to the old Colossian imageries:  
But when he doth of my recanting hear;  
Away ye angry fires, and frosts of fear,  
Giu● place unto his hopeful tempered thought  
That yields to peace, ●re ever peace be sought:  
Then l●t me now repent mee of my ●●ge,  
For writing satires in so righteous age:  
Whereas I should have stroked her towardly head,  
And cried Eu●e in my satires stead,  
Sith now not one of thousand does amisse●  
Was never age I ween so pure as th●s:  
As pure as old Labulla from the Baynes,  
As pure as thoroughfare Channels when it raynes,  
As pure as is a Blackmoors face by night,  
As dung●clad skin of dying Heraclite.  
Seek over all the world, and tell me where  
Thou findest a proud man, or a flatterer:  
A thie●e, a drunkard, or a parricide,  
A lechor, liar, or what vice beside?  
Merchants are no whit covetous of late,  
Nor make no mart of Time, gain of Deceit.  
Patrons are honest now, over they of old,  
Can now no benefice be bought norsold,  
Give him a gelding, or some two-yeares tithe,  
For he all bribes and Simony defi'th.  
Is not one Pick●thanke stirring in the Court,  
That seld was free till now by all report,  
But some one, like a clawback parasite,  
Picked moths from his master's Cloak in sight,  
Whiles he could pick out both his eyes for need,  
Mought they but stand him in some better steed.  
Nor now no more smell-feast Vitellio  
Smiles on his master for a meal or two;  
And loves him in his maw, loathes in his heart,  
Yet soothes, and yea, and nays on either part.  
Tattelius the newcome traveler,  
With his disguised cote, and ringed ●are,  
Trampling the Burses Marble twice a day,  
Tells nothing but stark truths I dare well say,  
Nor would he have them known for any thing,  
though all the vault of his loud murmur ring.  
Not one man tells a lie of all the year  
Except the Almanac or the Chronicler.  
But not a man of all the damned crew  
For hills of Gold would swear the thing untrue.  
Pansophus now though all in the cold sweat  
Dares venture through the feared Castle●gate,  
Albe the faithful Oracles have ●orsayne,  
The wi●est Senator shall there be slain:  
That made him long keep home as well it might,  
Till now he hopeth of some wiser wight.  
The vale of Stand●gate, or the Suitors hill,  
Or western plain are free from feared ill.  
Let him that hath nought, fear nought I aread:  
But he that hath aught; ●y him; and God speed;  
Nor drunken Dennis doth by break of day  
Stumble into blind Taverns by the way,  
And reel me homeward at the Evening star,  
Or ride more easily in his neighbour's chair.  
Well might these checks have fitted former times  
And shouldered angry Sk●ltons breathless rhymes:  
Ere Chrysalus had ●ar'd the common box,  
Which erst he picked to store his private stocks;  
But now ●ath all with vantage paid again;  
And locks and plates what doth behind remain;  
When erst our dry-souled Sires so lavish were,  
To charge whole boots-full to their friend's welfare;  
Now shalt thou never see the ●alt beset  
With a bigbellied gallon Flagonet.  
Of an ebb Cruse must thirsty Silent sip,  
That's all forestalled by his upper lip;  
Somewhat it was that made his paunch so pear,  
His girdle fell ten inches in a year.  
Or when old go●ty bedrid Euclio  
To his officious factor fair could show,  
His name in margin of some old castbyll  
And say; Lo whom I named i● my will:  
Whiles he believes and looking for the share,  
Tendeth his cumbrous charge with busy care;  
For but a while; Fornow he sure will die,  
By his strange qualm of liberality:  
Great thanks he gives: but God him shield & save  
From ever gaining by his master's grave;  
Only live long, and he is well repaid,  
A●d weats his forced cheeks whiles thus he said,  
Some ●●rong-smeld Onion shall stir his eyes  
Rather than no salt tears shall then arisen  
So looks he like a Marble toward rain,  
And wrings and snites, and weeps, & wipes again,  
Then turns his back and smiles & look askance,  
Seasoning again his soured countenance,  
Whiles yet he wearies heaven with daily cries,  
And backward Death with devout sacrifice,  
That they would now his tedious ghost bereaven,  
And wishes well, that wished no worse than heaven.  
When Zoilus was sick, he knew not where  
Save his wrought nightcap, and laun● Pillowbere:  
Kind fools; they made him sick that made him fine  
Take those away, and there's his medicine:  
Or Gellia wore a velvet Mastick-patch  
Upon her temples when no tooth did ache,  
When Beauty was her Rheum I soon espied,  
Nor could her plaster cure her of her pride.  
These vices were, but now they ceased off long:  
Then why did I a righteous age that wrong,  
I would repent me were it not too late,  
Were not the angry world prejudicate:  
If all the seven penitential  
Or thousand white wands might me ought avail,  
If Trent or Thames could scour my foul offence  
And set me in my former innocence,  
I would at last repent me of my rage:  
Now; bear my wrong, I thine, O righteous age●  
As for fine wits an hundredth thousand fold  
Passeth our age what ever times of old.  
For in that Puisnè world, our sires of long  
Can hardly wag the●r too-unweldy tongue  
As pined Crows and parats can do now,  
When hoary age did bend their wrincled brow:  
And now of late did many a learned man  
Serve thirty years Prenticeship with Priscian,  
But now can every Novice speak with ease  
The far fetched language of th'- Antipodes.  
Wouldst thou the tongues that erst were learned height  
though our wise age hath wiped them of their right;  
Wouldst thou the Courtly Three in most request,  
Or the two barbarous neighbours of the west?  
Bibinu● self can have ten tongues in one,  
though in all Ten not one good tongue alone.  
And can deep skill lie smothering within  
Whiles neither smoke nor flame discerned been?  
Shall it not be a wild-fig in a wall  
Or fired Brimstone in a Mineral?  
Do thou disdain, O over-learned age,  
The tongue-ty'de silence of that Samian sage;  
Forth ye fine wits, and rush into the press,  
And for the cloyed world your works address.  
Is not a Gnat, nor Fly, nor silly Ant,  
But a fine wit can make an Elephant;  
Should Bandels Throstle die without a song,  
Or Adamantius my Dog be laid along,  
Down in some ditch without his Exequys,  
Or Epitaphs● or mournful Elegies?  
Folly itself, and baldness may be praised,  
And sweet conceits from filthy objects raised;  
What do not fine wits dare to undertake?  
What dare not fine wits do for honour's sake?  
But why doth Balbus his dead-doing quill  
Parch in his rusty scabbard all the while,  
His golden Fleece o'ergrown with moldy hoar  
As though he had his witty works forswore?  
Belike of late now Balbus hath no need,  
Nor now belike his shrinking shoulders dread  
The catchpoles fist● The Press may still remain  
And breath, till Balbus be in debt again.  
Soon may that be; so I had silent been,  
And not thus rak't up quiet crimes unseen.  
Silence is safe, when saying stirreth sore  
And makes the stirred puddle stink the more.  
Shall the controller of proud Nemesis  
In lawless rage upbraid each others vice,  
While no man seeketh to reflect the wrong  
And curb the range of his mis-ruly tongue?  
By the two crowns of Pernasse ever-greene,  
And by the cloven head of Hippocrene  
As I true Poet am, I here avow  
(So solemnly kissed he his Laurel bow)  
If that bold Satire unrevenged be  
For this so saucy and foul injury.  
So Labeo weens it my eternal shame  
To prove I never earned a Poet's name.  
But would I be a Poet if I might,  
To rub my brows three days & wake three nights,  
And bite my nails, and scrat my dullard head,  
And curse the backward Muses on my bed  
About one peevish syllable: which out-sought  
I take up Thales joy, save for forethought  
How it shall please each Ale-knights censuring eye,  
And hanged my head for fear they deem awry;  
Whiles threadbare martial turns his merry note  
To beg of Rufus a cast winter cote;  
Whiles hungry Marot leapeth at a Bean  
And dieth like a starved Cappucien;  
Go Ariost, and gape for what may fall  
From Trencher of a flattering Cardinal,  
And if thou gettest but a Pedants fee  
Thy bed, thy board, and courser livery,  
O honour far beyond a brazen shrine  
To ●it with Tarleton on an Ale●posts sign!  
Who had but lived in Augustus' days  
T●ad been some honour to be crowned with Bays  
When Luca● streaked on his Marble-bed  
To think of C●esar, and great Pompey's deed;  
Or when Archelaus shaved his mourning head  
Soon as he heard Ste●icho●us was dead.  
At least would some good body of the rest,  
Set a Gold-pen on their bay-wreathed Crest●  
Or would the●r face in stamped coin express,  
As did the Mytelens their Poetesse●  
Now as it is, beshrew him if he might,  
That would his brows with Caesar's Laurel dight:  
though what ailed me, I might not well as they  
Rake up some forwo●ne tales that smothered lay  
In chimney corners smoked with winter-fires,  
To read and rock a sleep our drowsy Syres●  
No man his threshold better knows, than I  
Brutes first arrival, and first victory,  
Saint George's Sorrel, or his crossed of blood,  
Arthur's round Board, or Caledonian wood,  
Or holy battles of bold Charlemagne,  
What were his knights did salem's sieg● maintain;  
How the mad Rival of fair Angelice  
Was Phisicked from the newfound Paradise;  
High stories they; which with their swelling strain  
Have riven Frontoes broad Rehearsal Plain,  
But so to fill up books both back and side  
What needs it? Are there not enough beside?  
O age well thriven and well fortunate,  
When each man hath a Muse appropriate,  
And she like to some servile ●are●boar'd slave  
Must play and sing when and what he would h●ue!  
Would that were all: small fault in number lies,  
Were not the fear from whence it should arise  
But can it be aught but a spurious seed,  
That grows so rife in such unlikely speed?  
Sith Pontian left his barren wife at home,  
And spent two years at Venice and at Rome,  
Returned, hears his blessing asked of three,  
Cries out, O julian law, Adultery?  
though Labeo reaches right: (who can deny?)  
The true straynes of Heroic Poesy:  
For he can tell how fury re●● his sense  
And Phoebus filled him with intelligence,  
He can implore the heath en deites  
To guide his bold and busy enterprise;  
Or filch whole Pages at a clap for need  
From honest Petrarch, clad in English weed;  
While big But ohs each stranzae can begin,  
Whose trunk and tail sluttish and heartless been;  
He knows the grace of that new elegance,  
Which sweet Philisides fetched of late from France,  
That well beseemed his high-stiled Arcady,  
though others mar it with much liberty,  
In Epithets to join two words in one,  
Forsooth for adjectives cannot stand alone;  
As a great Poet could of Bacchus say,  
That he was Semele-femori-gena.  
Lastly he names the spirit of Astrophel:  
Now hath not Labeo done wondrous well?  
But ere his Muse her weapon learn to wield.  
Or dance a sober Pirrhicke in the field,  
Or marching wade in blood up to the knees,  
Her Arma Virûm goes by two degrees,  
The sheepecote first hath been her nursery  
Where she hath worn her idle infancy,  
And in hy startups walked the pastured plains  
To tend her tasked her● that there remains,  
And wound still a pipe of oat or Brere  
Striving for wages who the praise shall bear;  
As did whilere the homely Carmelite  
Following Virgil, and he Theocrite;  
Or else hath been in Venus' Chamber trained  
To play with Cupid, till she had attained  
To comment well upon a beauteous face,  
Then was she fit for an Heroic place;  
As witty Pontan in great earnest said  
His Mistress breasts were like two weights of lead,  
Another thinks her teeth might likened be  
To two fair ranks of pales of ivory,  
To sense in sure the wild beast of her tongue,  
From either going far, or going wrong;  
Her grinders like two Chalk-stones in a mill,  
Which shall with time and wearing wax as ill  
As old Catillaes● which want every night  
Lay up her holy pegs till next daylight,  
And with them grinds soft-simpring all the day,  
When least her laughter should her gums be wray  
Her hands must hide her mouth if she but smile;  
Fain would she seem all frixe and frolic still.  
Her forehead fair is like a brazen hill  
Whose wrincled furrows which her age doth breed  
Are daubed full of Venice chalk for need●  
Her eyes like silver saucers fair beset  
With shining Amber and with shady jet  
Her lids like Cupids-bow, case where he hides  
The weapons which doth wound the wanton-eyde.  
Her chin like Pindus or Parnassus' hill  
Where down descends th'o'erflowing stream doth fill  
The well of her fair mouth● Each hath ●is praise.  
Who would not but wed Poets now a days!   
FINIS.   

ΡΟΜΗ ΡΥΜΗ. SAT. 2.  

WHo says these Romish Pageants been too hy  
To be the scorn of sportful Poesy?  
Certes not all the world such matter witted  
As are the seven hills, for a S●tiryst.  
pardie, Iloath an hundredth Mathoes tongues,  
An hundredth gamesters shifts, or Landlords wrongs,  
Or Labeos' Poems, or base Lolios' pride,  
Or ever what I thought or wrote beside;  
When once I think if carping Aquines sprite  
To see now Rome, were licensed to the light;  
How his enraged Ghost would stamp and sta●●  
That Caesar's throne is turned to Peter's chair.  
To see an old shorn Loze●● perched hy  
Crossing beneath a golden Canopy,  
The whiles a thou●and hairless crowns crouch low  
To kiss the precious case of his proud Toe,  
And for the Lordly Fasces borne of old,  
To see two quiet crossed keys of gold,  
Or Cyb●les shrine, the famous Panth●ons frame  
Turned to the honour of our Lady's name.  
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,  
Is th'ho●ned Mitre, and the bloody hat,  
The crooked staff, their cowls strange form and store,  
Save that he saw the fame in hell before,  
To see their broken Nuns with new●shorne heads,  
In a blind Cloister toss their idle Beads,  
Or Lousy cowls come smoking from the stews,  
To raise the Lewd Rent to their Lord accrues,  
(Who with rank Ve●ice doth his pomp advance  
By trading of ten thousand Courtesans)  
Yet backward must absolve a females sin,  
Like to a false dissembling Theatine,  
Who when his skin is red with shirts of male  
And rugged haircloth scours his greasy nail,  
Or wedding garment tames his stubborn back,  
Which his h●mpe girdle dies all blue and black.  
Or of his Almes-Boule three days supped and dined,  
Trudges to open stews of either kinde●  
Or takes some Cardinal's stable in the way,  
And with some pampered Mule doth we are the day  
Kept for his Lords own saddle when him list.  
Come Valentine, and play the Satirist,  
To see poor sucklings welcomed to the light  
With ●earing irons of some sour jacobite,  
Or golden offers of an aged fool  
To make his Coffin some Franciscans cowl,  
To see the Pope's black knight, a cloaked Frer●  
Sweeting in the channel like a Scavengere.  
Whom erst thy bowed ham did lowly greet,  
When at the Corner-Crosse thou didst him meet,  
Tumbling his Rosaries hanging at his belt  
Or his Barretta, or his towered felt,  
To see a lazy dumb Acholit●ite  
Armed against a devout flies despite,  
Which at th'hy Altar doth the Chalice vail  
With a broad Flie-flappe of a peacocks tail,  
The whiles the likerous Priest spits every trice  
With longing for his morning Sacrifice,  
Which he reres up quite perpendicular,  
That the mid Church doth spite the Chancels far,  
Beating their empty maws that would be fed,  
With the scant morsels of the Sacrists bread.  
Would he not laugh to death, when he should hear  
The shameless Legends of S. Christopher,  
S. George, the sleepers, or S. Peter's well,  
Or of his daughter good S. Petronell.  
But had he heard the Female Father's groan,  
Yeaning in mids of her procession;  
Or now should see the needless tryall-chayre,  
(When each is proved by his bastard heir)  
Or saw the Churches, and new Calendere  
Pestered with apparel Saints, and relics dear,  
Should he cry out on Codr●'s tedious Toomes,  
When his new rage would ask no narrower rooms?    
FINIS.   

A Postscript to the Reader.  
IT is not for every one to relish a true and natural Satire, being of itself besides the nat●ue and in b●ed bitterness and tartness of particulars, both hard of 〈◊〉 and harsh of s●le, and therefore cannot but be 〈◊〉 easing bo●n to the unskilful, and ●uer Musical ca●e, the one being affected with only a shallow and easy m●tte●●●e other with a smooth and current disposition: so that I wel● foresee in the timely publication of these my concealed satires, I am set upon the ra●ke of many merciless and peremptory censures. which sith the cal●est & most plausible writer is almost fatally subject unto in the curiosity of the●e nicer times, how may I hope to be exempted upon the occasion of so busy and stirring a subject? One thinks it misbelieving the Author, because a Poem: another unlawful ●n itself because a Satire; a third harmful to others for the sharpness & a forth vnsa●y rl●ke● for the mildness: T●e learned too perspicuous, being named with lwenall, P●rsius, and the other ancient Satires; The ●n●earned, favourless, because too obscure, and obscure because not ●●der the●● reach. What a monster must he be th●t would please a●l?  
Certa●ne●y look what we●●●er it would be if every Almanac should be verified; ●uch what l●ke P●●ms, if ●uery fancy should be suited. It is not for th●s kind ●o de●●●e or hope to plea●e, which naturaily should only fin●e pleasure in displeasing; notwithstanding ●f the ●●ult finding with the vices of the time ma● honestly accord with the good will of the party's, I had as 〈◊〉 ●al● my sel●e w●t● a slender ●polog●●, a● wilfully b●are ●h● b●●nt of 〈◊〉 ●nger in my silence. For Poetrie●● 〈◊〉 after the so 〈◊〉 all and absolute indeauour●●f her ●onouted Pat●ons, either she needeth no new defence, or else might w●ll ●●●rne the offer of so impotent and poor a Client. Only for my own part; though were she a more unworthy Mistress, I think s●●e might be inoffensively served with the broken Messes of our twelue-a-clocke hours, which homely service she only claimed & found of me, for that short while of my attendance: yet having thus soon taken my solemn Farewell of her, and shaked hande● with all her retinue, why should it be an eye-fore unto any, sith it can be no loss to myself?  
For my satires themselves, I see two obvious cavils to be answered. One concerning the matter; than which I confess none can be more open to danger, to envy, sith f●lts loathe nothing more than the light, and men love nothing more than their faults, and therefore what through the nature of the faults, and fault of the person's, it is impossible so violent an appeachment should be quietly brooked. But why should vices be unblamed for fear of blame? and if thou mayst spit upon a Toad unvented, why mayst thou not speak of a vice without danger? Especially so warily as I have endeavoured, who in the unpartial mention of so many vices, may safely profess to b● altogether guiltless in myself to the intention of any guilty perion who might be blemished by the likelihood of my conceived application, ●herupon choosing rather to mar mine own verse than another's name: which notwithstanding if the injurious R●●der shall wrest to his own spite, and d●sparraging of others, it is a short answer: Art thou guilty? complain not, thou art not wronged: art thou guiltless? complain not, thou art not touched. The other concerning the manner, where in perhaps too mu●h stooping to the low rea●h of the vulgar, I shallbe thought not to have any whit kindly reached my ancient Roman predecessors, whom in the want of 〈◊〉 late and familiar precedents I am constrained thus far of to imitate: which thing I can be so willing to grant, that I am further ready to warrant my action therein to any indifferent censure. First therefore I dare boldly avouch that the English is not altogether so natural to a Satire as the Latin, which I do not impute to the nature of the language itself, being so far from disabling it any way, that me thinks I durst equallit to the proudest in every respect, but to that which is common to it with all other common languages Italian, French, German, etc. in their Poesies, the fettering together the Series of the verses, with the bonds of like cadence or desinence of ●ime, which if it be unusually abrupt, and not dependent in sense upon so near affinity of words, I know not what a loathsome kind of harshness a●d discordance it bread●th to any judicial ear: which if any more confident adversary shall gainsay, I wish no better trial than the tralation of one of Persius his Satyrs into English; the difficulty and dissonance whereof, ●hall make good my assertion: besides the plain experience thereof in ●he satires of Ariosto, (save which, and one base french Satire, I could never attain the view of any for my direction, and that also might for need serve ●or an excuse at least) whose chaine-verse to which ●e fettereth himself, as it may well afford a pleasing harmony to the ear, so can it yield nothing but a flashy and lose conceit to the judgement. Whereas the Roman numbers tying but one foot to another, offereth a greater freedom of variety, with much more delight to the reader. Let my second ground be, the well known daintiness of the time, such, that men rather choose carelessly to lease the sweet of the kernel, than to urge their teeth with breaking of the shell wherein it is wrapped: and therefore sith that which is unseen is almost vn●one, and that is almost unseen which is unconceived, either I would say nothing to be untalkt of, or speak with my mouth open that I may be understood. Thirdly the end of this pains was a Satire, but the end of my Satire a further good, which whether I attain or no I know not, but let me be plain, with hope of profit, rather than purposely obscure only for a bare names sake.  
Notwithstanding in the expectation of this quarrel, I think my first Satire doth somewhat resemble the sour and crabbed face of iwenal's, which I endeavouring in that, did determinately omit in the rest, for these forenamed causes, that so I might have somewhat to stop the mouth of every accuser. The rest, to each man's censure: which let be as favourable, as so thankless a work can deserve or desire.  
FINIS.   

After this impression was finished, upon the Author's knowledge, I had the view of a more perfect Copy, wherein wer● these additions and corrections, which I thought good to place here, desiring the reader to refer them to their places.  
Additions.  
Between the 10. and 11. line of the 16. page.  
While yet he rousteth at some uncouch sign  
Nor neverred his Tenors second line.  
Ρομη Ρυμη. SAT. 7. lib. 4.  
Wwo says these Romish Pageants,  
To be the etc.  
And so to the end.