A DISCOVERY OF DIVERS SORTS OF ASSES: WITH The Description of their Condition, setting them forth in proper Colours, according to Smithfields Fancies and Inventions.  
ALSO, Follies Petition against all sorts of Fools and Asses, desiring to have them banished to the I'll of SILLY.  Stultorum plena sunt omnia.  printer's or publisher's device 
July 8. London Printed for john Powel. 1642   

IT is well known that in Diebus illis, in former times, I was a very dirty miry Smithfield, & a very Dunghill of deformities, until the city brought me into compass, railing me in on every side, that I might come into due form and proportion.  
Now there comes into the walks in Smithfield many horses, various in shape, colour, and condition, which are rodden together in a shuffling pace to allure & draw on buyers: I could wish therefore for novelties sake, that all ignorant Asses, black, red-gray & brown, might be all brought on a day into Smithfield, for else they will never be sold to their worth, and let them be ridden with bridles of authority in their mouths, or else they will fall to braying and railing against their Governors, and Masters: for an Ass when he is angry will encounter with a Lion, though he lose his skin; but if these Ass' kick and fling against their Rider's authority, let them be tied to my Rails in Smithfield, or to the sign-posts that stand a cross, for if they be thus haltred it will learn them more wit.  
But because I Smithfield am not Scholar, nor under stand any thing but Horses and Oxen, who with their hooves would said beat wit into me, but cannot: & therefore setting learning aside and beyond my Bars, I will seek all the Corners of my Invention, especially my Tavern corners, and with the vermilion colour of wine, paint out and describe my Market or Fair of Asses in such manner as I can fashion and form them according to Smithfields fancy.  
First, you know that the spirit seasonable, if it could assume an unreasonable figure and shape, might and would appear often in the form and likeness of an Ass, but of several conditions and qualities; so that Smithfield doth in this feigned Fair or Market intent to describe and explain the colours, complexion, properties and conditions of several sorts and kinds of verationall qualities that may be denominated and called Asses, for Smithfield medles with no persons but asslike properties.  
The Ignorant Ass is the ass of asses, most excellent and eminent in nonsense and want of understanding, he is dull of conceit, and his words walk alone without wit in a slow asslike pace, and this ass is a fumbler at all things, and a great stumbler, especially at straws, he is feareefull as it is the nature of ignorance to be, and will start at every thing, this ass knows nor understands any thing but eating and drinking, pissing and farting, and living according to instinct of Nature.  
The proud Ass is contrary to the former, for he holds up his head as if it were full of brains, when there's nothing but empty windines, yet he will play with his Bridle, look often upon his legs and body, & then smile to himself, as if he would say, how brave am I? Alexander's Bucephalus was a jade in respect of me, this kind of animal thinks himself wise, and scorns all but himself.  
The Covetous Ass loves to carry burdens and heavy loads of Cabbages and Turnips, but never eats a bit, takes pains and wears his hooves to pieces with trotting up and down to gather wealth for others, hope of profit is his only provender, which makes this ass look so thin and lean, that one of his jaw bones would serve Samson to kill a 1000 Philistines withal; he had rather part with skin than his riches, which when he dies he leaves behind him to some young heir that is an arranter ass than himself. But to come to the asses of the times, is not the pettifogging Lawyer a kind of stupid Dulman, that has been indeed in much request, and many Countrymen have appeared in the shape of Angels to make these asses speak as Balaams did, but now they may shake their long ears, for they can no longer graze upon and devour the poor Commons, so that now they are grown stark dumb, and if they will do any thing they may turn Porters, because they how to carry the matter very well.  
But there are certain kind of asses that have raw wits and Roundheads, these are mad kicking flinging animals, that can't endure the Bridle of Authority, and if they come by any thing that is like a cross, they will start and turn back again, and run out of the way with their Prick-eares as if they were mad, in the Country they will troth five or six miles to Church, and return again without eating a bit, and in London in regard of their proud abominable ignorance, bleating & braying of Sermons out of Tubs, and for their blockish stubbornness in scorning Learning, they may be justly called stiffnecked asses.  
There are another sort of asses that voe think themselves fine fellows, because they can in an obstreperous manner outswagger the Devil, and so thunder out execrations against the poor Roundheads, that they dare not show their heads when the Rattle-heads be in place: so that the one seems like Samson with a long bush of hair as if his strength lay therein, and the other Rotundian animal looks with a supercilious countenance as smooth as a scalded Pig; and therefore the one doth reside at York, and the other that is the Roundheads live plentifully at rack and manger in London.  
If you desire to know the symptoms and signs of your grey Asses, they are so big-bodyd and so well trapped with gold and silver, that you cannot overlook them, they are somewhat stricken in years, and by the stateliness of their pace you would think them as wise as a City justice, this ass gets on the Lion's skin, and with the authority of his warrants frights delinquents, and at a Sessions he brays on a Bench, if he be of the inferior sort, his grey head shakes with a Palsy ague, and he walks on three Legs that is by the support of his staff, and at last marries a young wench when he can neither neigh nor wag tail.  
There is moreover a mad-braind Ass, that is so wilful, that he will not be reform by any good counsel, but will violently run on in all pernicious courses, he will run his head against a post if he be angry, and will stray abroad into all wild and vicious paths, until at last he be caught and put into the Pound, that is, into the Counter or Ludgate.  
The Cock brained Ass is somewhat like the mad-braind, but they differ because the Cockbrained is ever running after females, and affecting change in all things, this Ass will leap his Neighbour's wife, and will breaks over the hedge of Matrimony to come at her, he will take a journey only to see Towns, or to dine at Barner and come back again, for his actions are precipitate without any intention or end, he loves to be in the fashion, wear fine  and have a new Mistress, when he has the happiness to purchase a new suit, this is a kind of Tailor's ass, that changes himself into all shapes and colours.  
The haire-braind Ass is timerarious and rash, and casting up his head will rush forward though he fall into a ditch or quagmire, this Ass will without any advice run his head into the Halter of Marriage, or debt, and sometimes by stobbing and committing manslaughter, brings himself to sing a pen●tentiall Psalm at Tyburn, he is very much subject unto Quarrels, and vents his ordinary anger with beating his wife and servants, or breaking his Tobacco pipes against the walls, age and the whip of wedlock may tame this Ass.  
Besides all these there are many other Asses, as your Frenchified ass, that goes straddling with his legs so wide asunder, that a wheelebarrow may run between them, and this came with leaping of Mules and Muliers, that is women.  
There are also intelligent Asses that will discourse profoundly of matters above their understanding. And valiant asses, that when they come into the Field will shoot wet powder backward, and beshit themselves for fear. Folly therefore being ashamed that the old Proverb is true, Stultorum plena sunt omnia, the world is full of Fools and asses, hath framed this petition against all sorts of asses.   

Follies Petition against all sorts of Fools and Asses.  
Proudly and foolishly showeth,  
THat whereas a number of asses and malignant parties have long ears, and do eat more hay than their bodies are worth, being shitten companions, and hayre-braind coxcombs, whose understandings are full of want of knowledge, plotting many things in their dreams, and contriving such strange devices, as the Wisemen of Gotham never thought on, and whereas some of them out of their stubborn senses, meddling as fools will do, with politic businesses, drink themselves drunk with discoursing thereon: and whereas there are many prating, gaping, covetous, & factious fools, humorous fools, and timerarious fools, fools in long coats and cloaks; and wherea● some of them have endeavoured, contrary to the Laws of Reason and the peace of the I'll of Man, to fill a scive with water, and not only to drown Eels, but to put red Herring into the Thames to breed there, and to catch all the Rain that hath fell in Bottles, folly therefore desireth, that these and all other sorts of fools may be banished to the I'll of Silly, there to make a Commonwealth of Coxcombs.   
FINIS.