THE BIRTH, LIFE, DEATH, WILL, AND EPITAPH, OF JACK PUFF GENTLEMAN.   depiction of Jack Puffe 
London, Printed for T.P. 1642.   

The Birth, Life, Death, Will, and Epitaph, of jacke Puff Gentleman.  

THe people shun the wall, lo here he comes,  
With fierce aspect, the ●●lgar before runs,  
To see his straddling gate, his hat advanced  
His down cast eye, upon his boots are glanct  
Who hugs himself he's viewed so strangely fine;  
But one cries there's a changeling of the time,  
A moorcalfe; that doth change so of his shaped.  
In , as doth the Moon her bulk abate.  
Stay cries a second, you have fed enough,  
All this same creature ●hat you see's a puff,  
A blast, a vapour, that only a year,  
Can make Invisible for to appear:  
His birth did make his mother's mountain shake,  
While all the women did stand by and quake,  
As did the people in old Aesop's time,  
At the shockt mount, when forth a Mouse did climb,  
So did this creature, this same piece of stuff,  
Appear, but forth at last came out a puff,  
But now grown up, as innocently good;  
As he is ignorant, so long he stood  
From ill: but now he is to London come,  
For to see fashions for fashion he's undone,  
And must be ill, for if he be nor, than  
He is not so as other Gentlemen,  
And to become a gradiate of the time,  
He learns the fashions for to make him fine:  
Then next, to scoff and flout a Citizen,  
Terming them Round heads, for that they begin,  
To ask their debts: but stay let me not err  
In blaming him who loves his Creditor;  
One that doth mean to pay, but alas he  
Thinks it belongs not to Gentility:  
For 'tis his glory, who thus can speak,  
I in one year ten Tailors did break.  
And now grown impupent, him next degree  
Is to despise all manners that here be;  
For 'tis the Frenchman doth his only please  
Who buyed their forms, they give him their disease;  
So that the vapour is all frenchified,  
With our stuck benim, straight breech; and spit at side.  
More fool than feather, less wit than hair,  
Though there is one thing that in him is rare,  
A true decorum, each in him doth find,  
A simple carriage, to a foolish mind,  
No puritan, I vow I think he's none,  
For what he is he glories to make known,  
He will not mind his oaths, or stick to swear,  
God dame him; doth he man or Diveil fear.  
Not cares he, for his credit unto men,  
If that the person be a Citizen:  
But here he plays the Pope that doth no stick  
To brearke all faith with an Heretic:  
He with a Citizen, what shall I pay,  
My money to a Round, head, let him stay  
I'll see ●he rogue first dammed, my whore shall have,  
A gown, my money is not for a slave.  
Now swelled with debt, our Puff to France is blown,  
England unworthy is of such a one,  
A land that borrows all their wit from France,  
Who can't like them, on antic form advance,  
They only by the virtue of the shire,  
Can make a Country puff so wife appear  
That when he's caist in a new suit of ,  
No Councillor, carries so high his nose;  
But ne'er before, his mother's curds and c came,  
Can add, to make him thus so wifely seem,  
Arrived in France, he doth not long remain,  
Another puff, soon puffes him bacl again,  
But all be frenchifide, he vows the nation,  
From all the world to excel in fashion,  
His Country's vile, they clowns that in it dwell,  
But France in , and compliment excel,  
Shrouded in a strange garb he walks the street.  
At l●st his Creditor doth chance to meet,  
Who ha●●ly now can know him by his feature,  
and is amazed who should be this creature  
Unto himself, them speaks, is this not him?  
Whom that a year ago I ware did bring,  
Sure his the same, or whosoe'er he be,  
I'll venture to arrest his bravery,  
Puff then arrested, takes his next degree,  
Within the Counters University,  
A stayed m●n now he is, for he is none,  
Of those that doth not kept themselves at home,  
Bu● here he doth not rest himself so long,  
B●● all his  and means is spent and gone,  
That like some ancient escutcheon he doth seem  
All tattered, in show of no esteem,  
Save that he's honoured of some, and for  
He bears the coat of his brave ancestor;  
Who was a man perhaps of worth and Spirit,  
Whose son doth but his means, not mind inherit,  
But Puff not long within the Counter lies  
But that with melancholy straight he dies:  
For being ripped, within was quickly found  
Bills, bonds and notes of debt, that all lay round  
His heart, that all men present did suppose,  
The weight of these, thus soon his eyes did close,  
His will he left, but alas 'twas his last will  
Hided been his first, his wealth he had kept still.  
That all as he did now, should hate a whore,  
For that and wine, did make him die thus poor:  
N●xt that no gallant should not aught suppose  
That Prayers and glory, doth consist in ,  
Or for to court a wench with words compiled,  
Such ever fame, hath from her court exiled,  
But that they ra●her should enrich their mind,  
W●th arms and arts, 'tis those that fame doth find,  
Next in his will he Legacies did give,  
First all his vices, with our blades to live,  
And for his French disease he did bequeath,  
To all those blades that cannot women leave.  
Next that the Prentices should have his ,  
To make shooclouts, for the shoes of those,  
Their Masters, which before he had abused,  
With n●me of Roundheads, and their debts refused,  
As for his soul, I think it was forgot,  
In's life, for here in's will, we find it not.  
He never thought of it, sure to bequeath,  
He ever that did to God's mercy leave.    

His Epitaph.  
HEre lies jack Puff, wrapped up in his skin,  
For want of a shirt he lveth thus thin,  
Who like cut grass, did live but a day,  
The sunshine of beauty soon burnt him to hay.  
His bladder of life, by death being pricked  
The bladder shrinks up, Puff out soon then skip't:  
The great miss of wind might soon cause his death,  
For how can a puff be aught without breath:  
But where he is gone, I hardly can tell,  
Unless he doth with Boreas dwell,  
That as in his life, so after his death,  
He might keep a storming here still upon Earth.   
FINIS.