AN ENCOMIASTIC CHARACTER Of the most Necessary, most Ingenious, and most Pleasant Art, OF TAYLORIE Dedicated to the Masters of the much Honoured CORPORATION OF EDINBURGH.  

Blessed are Our Days, and Happy are Our Stars!  
After Our Brutish, and Intestine Wars;  
When harmless Peace claps her Triumphant Wings,  
Betwixt the Subject's Interest, and the Kings:  
Peace the sole Nurse of Plenty, and of Arts,  
Hath with such Thrift and Virtue filled our Hearts  
No more the Bloody, and Revengeful Blade  
To Toss, but each to follow his Own Trade.  
Amongst the which Your necessary Art,  
Hath both the Pompous, and the pleasant Part;  
An Art whose Character, and true intent,  
Both for distinction is, and ornament.  
For constantly through all the World we find,  
Man's habit differs from the Womankind.  
If we affirm (who'll take it in ill part?)  
That Kings and Patriarches both practised your Art  
Joseph was jacob's darling, And what not?  
And it was Jacob that made joseph's Coat.  
Ladies made clothes, who had no Journey men,  
A Madam Taylor was no wonder then.  
Yea without Tailors, where's the difference,  
Betwixt a Countess and a Country Wench?  
Let any stranger's eye (the most observant)  
Distinction make of Master from a Servant,  
Without your Art? Nay it is only ye,  
Can fashion each Man to his own degree.  
Did not your Art adorn them year by year,  
Lords would like Beggars, Beggars Lords appear.  
View me your Parliaments, wherein it's said  
The Glory of a Nation is Displayed;  
Did not your Pompous Art each Man adorn,  
Their Glorious Grandour all would turn to scorn.  
Adam and Eve, he King, and she a Queen,  
The greatest ever in this world were seen,  
Were Tailors both: But this was the mischief.  
They wanted Cloth, and sowed Leaf to Leaf.  
Yet since no Art, nor Instrument was theirs,  
They were but Embrio-Master fashioner's.   

It's yours above all Arts, whose industry  
Can add a Splendour to Nobility.  
Yea, Ye have filled all Ages, and all States  
With Worthy Patriots and Magistrates;  
Both Burgesses, and Splendid Gentry too,  
In Town and Country owe their Birth to you:  
Councils, and Armies, ye have both supplied  
With Wit and Valour, more than any Trade.  
Some Arts the Hands, and some the Feet do cover,  
Only the Tailor's Art, is seen all over.  
Some are for Halcyon peace, some for stern War,  
But yours for both, So great's a Tailor's Care!  
Some Arts we use at Land, and some at Sea.  
The Tailor's Art we need where ere we be.  
Some Arts are only for some kind of Men,  
But yours all sorts doth fully comprehend;  
Without the which, Judges would stand like Blocks,  
And Kings themselves would prove but laughing stocks  
Some Arts are so extinct, nought can persuade,  
But their sad Relics, they a Being had,  
Yet it's acknowledged in every part,  
The Tailors are the eldest Sons of Art;  
Whose Art to the last Judgement shall remain;  
Or Israel in desert be again.  
Your Art was surely precious to the Jews,  
Who rend their clothes on every dismal news.  
Ye're Artificial Powers, that can Create  
The several shapes, both in the Church and State.  
And can them into several Classes vary,  
Politic, Sacred, or the Military.  
It's you makes Cinnamon Trees, of silly Noddies,  
Whose Bark is far more Worthy than their Bodies.  
And though their Head like empty Bottles shows,  
Ye Rhetoric Infuse into their clothes.  
If palliative cures deserve that name,  
Ye are Physicians of Disastrous shame.  
And are preferred before them yet a step, 
This word Hepp is pure Hebrew.   
Defects of nature ye both help and hepp.  
What Lands, what Livings, and what goodly price,  
Would Adam given for you in Paradise.  
It's true from Adam's fall our clothes we name,  
The fairest covers, of the Foulest shame:  
Yet to exalt your Glory, not your Pride,  
Blessed are ye our nakedness can hide.  
It's you can make the outside satisfy  
The expectation of the Curious Eye.  
The Souls the Body's Blade, but then we know  
The Scabbard (next to GOD) to you we owe.  
Nay to the Eternal Honour of your Trade,  
Your Master first was GOD Himself we Read 
* Genesis 3.17.   
Since Reason and the Scriptures both allow,  
All other Trades must needs give place to you.   

A Master of his Trade none him aver,  
In House or Shop who wants this Character.   Aetern●m Floreat ARS VESTIARIA. 
N. PATERSON.  
FINIS.   

EDINBURGH, Printed by John Reid, Anno DOM. 1688.