Imprimatur:  
Mat. day. And by other Authority. Febr. 21. 1639.   

 bust of Horace 
Q: HORATIVS FLACCUS, his Art of POETRY. englished by Ben: Jonson.  
London. Printed for J. Benson and are sold by W. lay at Paules-Chayne. 1640.    

Q. Horatius Flaccus: His Art of Poetry.  
ENGLISHED By Ben: Jonson.  
With other works of the Author, never Printed before.  
LONDON: Printed by J. oaks, for John Benson. 1640.   

¶ To the Right Honourable THOMAS Lord windsor.  
My Lord:  
THe Extension of your Noble Favours Commands, and my Gratitude no less binds me to present this Elaborate piece, of our learned and judicious Poet Ben jonson his Translation of Horace de Arte Poetica, to your Lordships perusal: which Book amongst the rest of his Strenuous and Sinewy Labours, for its rare profundity, may challenge a just admiration of the Learned in this and future Ages, and crown his name with a lasting memory of never dying glory! You rightly knew( my Lord) the worth and true esteem both of the Author and his Learning, being more perspicuous in the candid judgement of Your Lordship, and other sublime Spirits that rightly knew him, then my capacity can describe. But there is from me a just duty and service due to your Honour, which makes me assume this boldness, yet in some good assurance that your goodness will be pleased to accept of this as a true acknowledgement, and profession of my most humble thankfulness, by which my Lord you shall dignify the purpose of him who shall always study to be accounted  
Your Honours most observant and affectionate servant. I. B.   

Sir Edward Herbert Knight of the Bath, Ordinary ambassador for His Majesty of Great britain with the French King. Upon his Friend Mr. Ben: jonson, and his Translation,  
TWas not enough, Ben: jonson to be thought  
Of English Poets best, but to have brought  
In greater state, to their acquaintance, one  
Made equal to himself and thee; that none  
Might be thy second: while thy glory is  
To be the Horace of our times, and his.   

BARTON holiday, to BEN JONSON.  

EPODE.  
TIs dangerous to praise; besides the task,  
Which to do't well, will ask  
An age of time and judgement; who can then  
Be praised, and by what pen?  
Yet, I know both, whilst thee I safely choose  
My subject, and my Muse.  
For sure, henceforth our Poets shall implore  
Thy aid, which lends them more,  
Then can their tired Apollo, or the nine  
She wits, or mighty wine.  
These Deities are banquerupts, and must be  
Glad to beg art of thee.  
Some they might once perchance on thee bestow:  
But, now, to thee they owe:  
Who dost in daily bounty more wit spend,  
Then they could ever lend.  
Thus thou, didst build the globe, which, but for thee,  
Should want its Axle-tree:  
And, like a careful founder, thou dost now  
Leave Rules for ever, how  
To keep't in reparations, which will do  
More good, than to build two.  
It was an able stock, thou gav'st before;  
Yet, lo, a richer store!  
Which doth, by a prevention, make us quit  
With a dear year of wit:  
Come when it will, by this thy name shall last  
until Fames utmost blast.  
Thou art a wealthy Epigram, which spends  
Most vigour when it ends.  
This full Epiphonema of thy best  
Wit, out-speaks all the rest.  
Me thinks, I see our after nephews gaze,  
And all their time to praise  
Is taken up in wonder; whilst they see  
Ages of wit, in thee  
Collected, and well judged: Charons stout heart  
feels thy new power of Art,  
And, his obedient arms labour amain,  
Whilst he wafts back again  
What Poets shadow, thou dost please to call  
To this thy judgement hall:  
Whiles, at these frightening Sessions, thou dost fit,  
The searching Judge of wit,  
O how the Ghosts do shuffle one behind  
Another, left thou find  
Them, and their errors: but, in vain, they fly  
Thy persecuting eye.  
Bold Aristophanes, shrewd whotfon, now  
More fears thy threatening brow,  
Then his own guilt of libeling, and prays  
He may new writ his plays.  
Plautus so quakes, that he had rather still  
grinned on in his old mill.  
Terence would borrow his own Eunuchs shape,  
By the disguise to scape.  
The Greek Tragoedians droop, as if they played  
The persons whom they made:  
Fearing thou'lt bid them add with more expense  
Of brain, wit to their sense:  
Or whilst their murdered wits thou mayst contemn.  
writ tragedies of them.  
Seneca, would with Hercules be glad  
To scape, by running mad:  
Or at the least, he fears as less a hurt,  
To wear his burning shirt.  
theyed all take care, and if thy Flaccus too  
Writ now, he'd writ all new.  
Yet all at once confess Flaccus does well,  
But thou makst him excel.  
The Morning sun viewing a silver stream,  
So guilds it with his beam.  
Master of Art, and famed! who here makst known  
To all, how all thine own  
Well-bodied works were framed, whilst here we see  
Their fine Anatomee.  
Each nerve and vain of Art, each slender string,  
Thou to our eye dost bring:  
Thus, what thou didst before so well collect,  
Thou dost as well dissect.  
For which skill, poems now thy censure way,  
And thence receive their Fate.  
Thou needst not seek for thē, to thee they're brought,  
And so held good, or nought.  
Thus, doth the eye disdain, with an extreme  
scorn to sand forth a beam:  
But scaly forms from the glad object flow  
By which the eye doth know  
Its subtle image: thus the eye keeps state,  
Thus doth the object wait.  
But here, at this, perchance some one stands by,  
and draws his mouth awry;  
As if his mouth( his mouth he doth so tear)  
Would whisper in his ear;  
When thy soft pitty, if it see his spite,  
But says, set your mouth right.  
Yet in mildred truth, this work hath some defect,  
As now I dare object:  
Thou err'st against a workmans rarest part,  
Which is to hid his Art.  
Next, all thy rules fall short, since none can teach  
A verse, thy worth to reach.  
For which, Ile now judge thee: know thy estate  
Of wit must bear this fate:  
Till jonson teach some Muse a strain yet new,  
jonson shall want his due,    

To Mr. Jonson.  
BEn: the world is much in debt and though it may  
Some petty reck'nings to small Poets pay:  
Pardon if a●●hy glorious sum they stick,  
Being too large for their arithmetic.  
If they could prise the Genius of a Scene,  
The learned sweat that makes a language clean,  
Or understand the faith of ancient skill,  
Drawn from the tragic, comic, lyric quille  
The Greek and Roman denison'd by thee,  
And both made richer in thy Poetry.  
This they may know, and knowing this still grudge  
That yet they are not fit of thee to judge.  
I prophesy more strength to after time,  
Whose joy shall call this Isle the Poets climb,  
Because 'twas thine, and unto thee return  
The borrowed flames, with which thy Muse shal burn.  
Then when the stock of others Fam● is spent,  
Thy Poetry shall keep its own old rent.  
Zouch Tounley.   

ODE. To BEN JONSON Upon his Ode to himself.  

I.  
PRoceed in thy brave rage,  
Which hath raised up our Stage  
Unto that height, as Rome in all her state,  
Or Greece might emulate:  
Whose greatest Senators did silent fit,  
hear and applaud the wit,  
Which those more temperate Times,  
used when it taxed their Crimes:  
Socrates stood, and heard with true delight,  
All that the sharp Athenian Muse could writ.   

II.  
Against his supposed fault;  
And did digest the salt  
That from that full vain did so freely flow:  
And though that we do know  
The Graces jointly striven to make that breast  
A Temple for their rest,  
We must not make thee less  
Than Aristophanes:  
He got the start of thee in time and place,  
But thou hast gained the goal in Art and Grace.   

III.  
But if thou make thy feasts  
For the high relished guests,  
And that a Cloud of shadows shall break in,  
It were almost a sin  
To think that thou shouldst equally delight  
Each several appetite:  
Though Art, and Nature strive  
Thy banquets to contrive:  
Thou art our 
Caesar called Terence Menander half'd, because he wanted so much of his grace and sharpness. Ben: Jonson may well be called our Menander, whole, or more: exceeding him as much in sharpness and grace, as Terence wanted of him.  whole Menander, and dost 
Ben. Jonson is said to be very like the picture we have of Menander, taken from an ancient medal.  look  
Like the old Greek: think then but on his 
Menander in a fragment of one of his comedies, makes his Cook speak after this manner of the diversity of tastes. viz.  Cook.   

What is his usual fare:  
What Country man is he:  
These things 'tis meet the Cook should scan:  
For such nice guests as in the Isles are bread,  
With various sorts of fresh-fish nourished,  
In salt meat take little or no delight,  
But taste them with fastidious appetite.   

IV.  
If thou thy full cups bring  
Out of the Muses spring,  
And there are some foul mouths had rather drink  
Out of the common sink:  
There let 'hem seek to quench th'Hydropick thirst,  
Till the swollen humour burst.  
Let him who daily steals  
From thy most precious meales.  
( Since thy strange plenty finds no loss by it)  
Feed himself with the fragments of thy wit.   

V.  
And let those silken men  
( That know not how, or when  
To spend their money, or their time) maintain  
With their consumed no-braine,  
Their barbarous feeding on such gross base stuff  
As onely serves to puff-  
Up the weak empty mind,  
Like bubbles, full with wind,  
And strive t'ingage the scene with their damned oaths,  
As they do with the privilege of their clothes.   

VI.  
Whilst thou tak'st that high spirit,  
Well purchased by thy merit,  
Great Prince of Poets, though thy head be gray,  
crown it with delphic Bay,  
And from the chief in Apollo's choir,  
Take down thy best tun d lyre,  
Whose sound shall pierce so far  
It shall strike out the star,  
Which fabulous Greece durst fix in heaven, whilst thine  
With all due glory here on earth shall shine.   

VII.  
Sing English Horace, sing  
The wonder of thy King;  
Whilst his triumphant Chariot runs his whole  
Bright course about each Pole:  
Sing down the Roman Harper; he shall rain  
His bounties on thy vain:  
And with his golden rays,  
So guild thy glorious bays:  
That famed shall bear on her unwearied wing,  
What the best Poet sung of the best King.   
I. C.   

Quintus Horatius Flaccus his Book of the Art of Poetry to the PISO'S.  

IF to a womans head, a painter would  
A horse neck join,& sundry plumes or●-fold  
On every limb, ta'en from a several creature,  
Presenting upwards a fair female feature,  
5 Which in a black foul fish uncomely ends:  
Admitted to the sight, although his friends,  
Could you contain your laughter? credit me,  
That Book, my Piso's, and this piece agree,  
Whose shapes like sick mens dreams are formed so vain,  
10 As neither head, nor foot, one form retain●  
But equal power to Painter, and to Poet,  
Of daring ought, hath still been given we know it:  
And both do crave, and give again this leave:  
Yet not as therefore cruel things should cleave  
15 To gentle; not that we should Serpents see  
With Doves; or Lambs with tigers coupled be.  
In grave beginnings, and great things professed  
You have oft-times, that may out-shine the rest,  
A purple piece, or two stitched in: when either  
20 Diana's Grove, and Altar, with the nether  
Bouts of fleet waters, that do intertwine  
The pleasant grounds, or when the River Rhine,  
Or Rain-bow is described; but here was now  
No place for these: And Painter haply thou  
25 Knowst well alone to paint a cypress three,  
What's this, if he whose money hireth thee  
To paint him, hath by swimming, hopeless, scaped,  
The whole Fleet wracked? a great jar to be shaped  
Was meant at first, why, forcing still about  
30 Thy labouring wheel, comes scarce a pitcher out?  
hear, me conclude; let what thou workst upon  
Be simplo quiter throughout, and always one.   

The greater part, that boast the Muses fire  
Father, and sons right worthy of your Sire,  
35 Are with the likeness of the truth beguiled:  
myself for shortness labour, and am styled  
Obscure. Another striving smooth to run,  
Wants strength, and sinews, as his spirits were done;  
His Muse professing height, and greatness, swells;  
40 down close by shore, this other creeping steals,  
Being over-safe, and fearing of the flaw:  
So he that varying still affects to draw  
One thing prodigiously, paints in the woods  
A Dolphin and a boar amid the floods:  
45 The shunning 'vice, to greater 'vice doth led,  
If in th'escape an artless path we tread.  
The worst of statuaries, here about  
Th' Aemilian school, in brass can figure out  
The nailes, and every gentle hair disclose;  
50 Yet in the main work hapless: since he knows  
Not to design the whole. Should I aspire  
To frame a work, I would no more desire  
To be that fellow, then to be marked out  
With faire black eyes, and hair, and some vile snout.  
55 Take therefore, you that writ a subject fit  
unto your strength, and long be turning it:  
Prove what your shoulders will, or will not bear,  
His choice, who's matter to his power doth rear,  
Nor language nor clear order will forsake:  
60 The virtue and grace of which, or I mistake,  
Is now to speak, and even now to differ  
Much that might now be spoken, omitted here  
Till fitter season; now to like of this,  
Lay that aside, the Epicks office is,  
65 In using also of new words, to be  
Right spare, and wary: then thou speakest to me  
Most worthy praise, when words that vulgar grew  
Are by thy cunning placing made mere new.  
Yet, if by chance in uttering things abstruse,  
70 Thou need new terms; thou mayst without excuse,  
feign words un-heard of to the girded Race  
Of the Cethegi; and all men will grace  
And give, being taken modestly, this leave,  
And those thy new, and late-coyn'd words receive,  
75 So they full gently from the graecian spring,  
And came not too much wrested. What's that thing  
A Roman to Coecilius will allow,  
Or Plautus, and in Virgil disavow,  
Or Varius? Why am I now envied so,  
80 If I can give some small increase? when, lo,  
Cato's, and Ennius tongues have lent much worth  
And wealth unto our Language; and brought forth  
New names of things. It hath been ever free,  
And ever will, to utter terms that be  
85 stamped to the time. As woods whose change appears  
Still in their leaves, throughout the sliding years,  
The first born dying; so the aged Fate  
Of words decay, and phrases born but late  
Like tender Buds shoot up, and freshly grow.  
90 ourselves, and all thats ours, to death we owe:  
Whether the Sea received into the shore,  
That from the North the Navy safe doth store,  
A Kingly work; or that long barren Fen  
Once rowable, but now doth nourish men  
95 In neigbour-towns, and feels the weighty plough:  
Or the wild River, who hath changed now  
His course, so hurtful both to grain and seeds,  
Being taught a better way. All mortal deeds  
Shall perish: so far of it is, the Fate  
100 Or grace of speech, should hope a lasting date,  
Much phrase that now is dead shall be revived,  
And much shall die, that now is nobly lived  
If custom please, with whom both choice, and will  
Power, Art, and rule of speaking resteth still.  
105 The deeds of Kings, great Captains,& sad wars,  
What number best can fit, Homer declares,  
In verse unequal matched, first sour laments,  
After mens wishes, crowned in their events  
Were also closed: but who the man should be,  
110 That first sent forth the dapper elegy  
All the Grammarians strive: and yet in Court  
Before the Judge it hangs, and waits report.   

Unto the lyric strings, the Muse gave grace,  
To chant the gods, and all their god like race.  
The conquering champion, the prime horse in course,  
Fresh Lovers business, and the winds free source.   

The Iambicke armed Archilochus to rave,  
This foot the socks took up, and bufkins grave  
As fit t'exchange discourse, and quell the rings  
120 Of popular noises, born to actuate things.  
If now the changes, and the several hues  
Of poems here described, I can nor use,  
Nor know t'observe; why( i'the Muses name)  
Am I called Poet? wherefore with wrong shane  
125 Perversely modest had I rather owe  
To ignorance still, then yet to learn, or know.  
Yet comic matter shuns to be expressed  
In tragic verse, no less Thyestes feast  
abhors low numbers, and the private strain  
130 Fit for the Sock: Each subject should retain  
The place allotted it, with decent praise:  
Yet sometime both the comedy doth raise  
Her voice, and angry Chremes chafes out-right,  
With swelling throat: and, oft, the tragic wight  
135 complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus  
And Peleus, if he seek to heart-strike us  
That are spectators, with his misery,  
When he is poor, and banished, must throw by  
His Bombard phrase, and foot-and-half-foot words:  
140 Tis not enough the labouring Muse affords  
Her poems beauty, but a sweet delight,  
To work the hearers minds, still to the plight.  
Mens count'nances, with such as laugh, are prove  
To laughter: so they grieve with those that mone:  
145 If thou wouldst have me weep, bee thou first drowned  
thyself in tears, then me thy harms will wound,  
Peleus, or Telephus. If thou speak vile  
And ill-pen'd things, I shall or sleep, or smile.  
Sad language fits sad looks; stuffed menacings,  
150 The angry brow: the sportive, wanton things;  
And the severe, speech ever serious:  
For nature first within doth fashion us  
To every Fortunes habit; she helps on,  
155 Or urgeth us to anger; and anon  
With weighty woes she hurls us all along;  
And tortures us, and after by the tongue,  
Her Truck-man, she reports the minds each throe;  
If now the phrase of him that speaks, shall flow  
In sound, quiter from his fortune; both the rout,  
160 And Roman Gentry, will with laughter shout.  
It much will sway whether a god speak, than;  
Or an hero: If a ripe old man,  
Or some hot youth, yet in his flourishing course;  
Whe'r some great Lady, or her diligent Nurse;  
165 A venturing Merchant, or the husband free  
Of some small thankful land: whether he be  
Of Colchis born: or in Assyria bread;  
Or with the milk of Thebes, or Argus fed:  
Or follow famed, thou that dost writ, or fain  
170 Things in themselves agreeing: if again  
honoured Achilles chance by thee be seized;  
keep him still active, angry, unappeas'd,  
Sharp,& contemning laws at him should aim,  
Be nought so 'bove him, but his bold sword claim.  
175 Medea make wild, fierce, impetuous:  
into bewaild; Ixion treacherous;  
jo still wandring; grieved Orestes sad:  
If something fresh, that never yet was had,  
Unto the Stage thou bringst, and darest create  
180 A mere new person, lock he keep his state  
Unto the last, as when he first went forth,  
Still to be like himself, and hold his worth.   

'tis hard, to speak things common-properly:  
And thou mayst better bring a Rhapsody  
185 Of Homers forth in Acts, then of thine own  
First publish things unspoken, and unknown.  
Yet, common matter thou thine own mayst make,  
If thou the vile, broad-troden ring forsake.  
For, being a Poet, thou mayst feign, create,  
190 Not care, as thou wouldst faithfully translate,  
To reader word for word: nor with thy slight  
Of imitation, leap into a streight  
From whence thy modesty, or poems Law  
Forbids thee forth again thy foot to draw.  
195 Nor so begin, as did that Circler, late,  
I sing a noble war, and Priams fate.  
What doth this promiser, such great gaping worth  
Afford? the Mountains travailed, and brought forth  
A trifling Mouse! O how much better this  
200 Who nought assays, unaptly, or amiss?  
Speak to me, Muse, the man, who after Troy was sacked  
Saw many towns,& men,& could their manners tract,  
He thinks not how to give you smoke from light,  
But light from smoke, that he may draw his bright  
205 Wonders forth after: As Antiphates,  
Scylla, Charybdis, Polypheme, with these.  
Nor from the brand with which the life did burn  
Of Meleager, brings he the return  
Of Diomede, nor Troyes sad wars begins  
210 From the two eggs, that did disclose the twins.  
He ever hastens to the end, and so  
( As if he knew it) rapp's his hearer to  
The middle of his matter: letting go  
What he ●espaires being handled might not show.  
215 And so well feigns, so mixeth cunningly  
falsehood and truth, as no man can spy  
Where the midst differs from the first, or where  
The last doth from the midst dis-joyn'd appear.  
hear, what it is the people, and I desire.  
220 If such a ones applause thou dost require,  
That tarries till the Hangings be tane down,  
And sits till the Epilogue says clap, or crown:  
The customs of each age thou must observe,  
And give their years and natures as they swerve,  
225 Fit deuce. The child that now knows how to say,  
And can tread firm, longs with like lads to play.  
soon angry, and soon pleased, is sweet, or sour,  
He knows not why, and changeth every hour.   

The unbearded youth, his Guardian being gone,  
230 Loves Dogs, and Horses; and is ever one  
I'th open field; is waxe-like to be wrought  
To every 'vice: as hardly to be brought  
To endure counsel: a provider slow  
For his own good, a careless letter-goe  
235 Of money, haughty, to desire soon moved,  
And then as swift to leave what he hath loved.   

These Studies alter now, in one grown Man;  
His bettered mind seeks wealth, and friendships than,  
Looks after honours, and bewares to act  
240 What straightway he must labour to retract.  
The old man many evils do gird round;  
Either because he seeks, and having found,  
Doth, wretchedly the use of things forbear,  
Or does all business coldly, and with fear:  
245 A great differrer, long in hope, grown numbe  
With sloth, yet greedy still of whats to come:  
Froward, complaining; a commender glad  
Of the times past, when he was a young lad,  
And still correcting youth, and censuring.  
250 Mans coming yeares much good with them do bring,  
At his departing take much thence: lest then  
The parts of age to youth be given, or men  
To children, we must always dwell, and stay,  
In fitting proper adjuncts to each day.  
255 The business either on the stage is done,  
Or acted  told: but, ever, things that run  
In at the ear, do stir the mind more slow  
Than those that faithful eyes take in by show,  
And the beholder to himself doth render.  
260 Yet to the Stage at all thou mayst not tender  
Things worthy to be done within, but take  
Much from the sight, which faire Report will make  
Present anon. Medea must not kill  
Her Sons before the people: or the ill-  
265 natured, and wicked Atreus cook to the eye  
His Nephews entrails: nor must Progne fly  
Into a Swallow there: nor Cadmus take  
Upon the stage, the figure of a Snake.  
What so is shown, I not believe, and hate.  
270 Nor must the Fable, that would hope the fate  
Once seen, to be again called for, and played;  
Have more, or less than just five Acts: nor laid  
To have a god come in; except a knot  
Worth his untying happen there: and not  
275 Any fourth man to speak at all desire.   

An Actors part, and office too, the choir  
Must manly keep, and not be heard to sing  
Between the Acts a quiter clean other thing  
Than to the purpose leads, and fitly agrees.  
280 It still must favour good men, and to these  
Be won a friend; it must both sway and bend  
The angry, and love those that fear t'offend.  
Praise the spare diet, wholesome Justice, laws,  
The open ports, and sports that peace doth cause,  
285 hid faults, and pray to th' gods, and wish aloud  
Fortune would love the poor, and leave the proud.  
The Han-boy, not as now with latin bound,  
And rival with the Trumpet for his sound,  
But soft and simplo, at few holes breathed time,  
290 And tune too, fitted to the Chorus rhyme,  
As loud enough to fill the Seats, not yet  
So over-thick, but where the people met,  
They might with case be numbered, being a few  
Chast, thrifty, modest folk, that came to view.  
295 But as they conquered, and enlarged their bound,  
The wider walls imbrac't their City round,  
And they un-censur'd might at feasts, and plays,  
Steep the glad Genius in the Wine, whole dayes,  
Both in their Tunes the licence greater grew,  
300 And in their Numbers; for alas, what knew  
The Idiot, keeping holy day, or drudge,  
clown, townsman, base, and noble, mixed to judge:  
Thus to his ancient art the piper lent  
Gesture, and Riot, whilst he wandring went  
305 In his trained Gown, about the stage, thus grew  
To the grave Harp, and viol voices new;  
The rash and headlong eloquence brought forth,  
Unwonted language; and that sense of worth  
That found out profit, and foretold each thing,  
310 Now differed not from delphic ridling.   

He too, that did in tragic Verse contend  
For the vile Goat, soon after forth did sand  
The rough rude Satyrs naked, and would try,  
Though sour, with safety of his gravity,  
315 How he could jest; because he marked& saw  
The free spectators subject to no law,  
Having well eat and drunk: the Rites being done,  
Were to be stayed with softnesses, and won  
With something, that was acceptably new.  
Yet so the scoffing Satyrs to mens view,  
And so their prattling to present were best,  
And so to turn our earnest into jest,  
As neither any god, be brought in there,  
Or semi-god, that late was seen to wear  
325 A royal Crown, and Scarlet, be made hop  
With poor base terms, through every base shop:  
Or, whilst he shuns the earth, to catch the air,  
And empty clouds. For Tragedy is faire,  
And far unworthy to blurt out light rhymes;  
330 But, as a Matron drawn at solemn times  
To dance, so she should, shamefaced, differ far  
From what th'obsceene, and petulant satires are.   

Nor I, when I writ satires, will so love  
plain phrase, my Piso's, as alone t'approve  
335 mere reigning words: nor will I labour so  
quiter from all face of Tragedy to go,  
As not make difference whether Davus speak,  
And the bold Pythias, having cheated weak  
Simo, and of a talent cleansed his purse;  
340 Or old Silenus, Bacchus Guard, and nurse.  
I can, out of known stuff, a Fable frame,  
And so, as every man may hope the same:  
Yet he that offers at it, may sweat much,  
And toil in vain: the excellence is such  
345 Of order, and connexion; so much grace  
There comes sometimes to things of meanest place;  
But let the fauns, drawn from the groves beware,  
Be I their judge, they do at no time dare,  
Like men Town-born, and near the place rehearse,  
350 Or play young tricks in over-wanton verse;  
Or crack out shameful speeches, or unclean.  
The Roman Gentry; men of birth, and mean,  
Take just offence at this: nor, though it strike  
Him that buys Pulse there, or perhaps may like  
355 The nut-crackers throughout, will they therfore  
Receive, or give it any crown the more.   

Two rests, a short& long, th'Iambicke frame,  
A foot, whose swiftness gave the verse the name  
Of Trimeter, when yet it was sixe-pac'd,  
360 But mere iambics all, from first to last.  
Nor is't long since they did with patience take  
Into their Birth-right, and for fitness sake,  
The steady Spondoees; so themselves to bear  
More slow, and come more weighty to the ear:  
365 Provided, ne're to yield, in any case  
Of fellowship, the fourth, or second place.  
This foot yet in the famous Trimeters  
Of Accius, and Ennius, rare appears;  
So rare as with some tax it doth engage  
370 Those heavy verses sent so to the stage  
Of too much hast, and negligence in part,  
Or a worse crime, the ignorance of art:  
But every Judge hath not the faculty  
To note, in poems breach of harmony;  
375 And there is given too unworthy leave  
To Roman Poets: shall I therefore wove  
My verse at random, and licentiously?  
Or rather thinking all my faults may spy,  
Grow a safe Writer, and be wary-driven  
380 Within the hope of having all forgiven.  
'tis clear, this way I have got off from blame,  
But in conclusion merited no famed.  
Take you the Greeks examples, for your light,  
In hand, and turn them over, day, and night:  
385 Your Ancestors, old Plautus numbers praised,  
And jests, and both to admiration raised;  
Too patiently, that I not fond say;  
If either you, or I know any way.  
To part scurrility from wit: or can  
390 A lawful Verse, by th' ear, or finger scan.   

Thespis is said to be the first, found out  
The Tragoedy, and carried it about,  
Till then unknown, in Carts, wherein did ride  
Those that did sing, and act: their faces died  
395 With lees of Wine. Next Aeschilus more late  
Brought in the visor, and the rob of state,  
Built a small timber'd stage, and taught them talk  
Lofty, and great; and in the ●uskin walk.  
To these succeeded the old comedy,  
400 And not without much praise; till liberty  
Fell into fault so far, as now they saw  
Her force was fit to be restrained by law:  
Which law received, the Chorus held his peace,  
His power of foully hurting made to cease.  
405 Our Poets, too, left nought unproved here:  
Nor did they merit the less crown to wear,  
In daring to forsake the grecian Tracts,  
And celebrating their own home-born facts:  
Whether the guarded Tragoedy they wrought,  
410 Or 'twere the gowned comedy they taught.  
Nor had our Italy more glorious been  
In virtue, and renown of arms, than in  
Her language, if the stay, and care t'have mended  
Had not our every Poet like offended.  
415 But you, Pompilius off-spring spare you not  
To tax that Verse, which many a day and blot  
Have not kept in, and( least perfection fail)  
Not, ten times o'er, corrected to the nail.  
Because Democritus believes a wit  
420 Happier than wretched Art, and doth by it  
Exclude all sober Poets from their share  
In Helicon; a great sort will not pare  
Their nails, nor shave their beards, but seek by-paths  
In secret places, flee the public baths.  
425 For so, they shall not onely gain the worth,  
But famed of Poets, if they can come forth,  
And from the Barber Licinus conceal  
The head that three Anticira's cannot heal.  
O●, left-witted, that purge every spring  
430 For Choler! if I did not, none could bring  
Our better Poems: but I cannot buy  
My title at their rate. I had rather, I,  
Be like a whetstone, that an edge can put  
On steel, though't self be dull, and cannot cut.  
435 I, writing nought myself, will teach them yet  
Their charge, and office, whence their wealth to fit:  
What nourisheth, what formed, what begot  
The Poet, what becometh, and what not:  
Whether truth will, and whether error bring.  
440 The very root of writing well, and spring  
Is to be wise, thy matter first to know,  
Which the Socratick writing best can show:  
And, where the matter is provided still,  
There words will never follow 'gainst their will.  
445 He, that hath studied well the debt, and knows  
What to his Country, what his friends he owes,  
What height of love a Parent will fit best,  
What brethren, what a stranger, and his guest,  
Can tell a States-mans duty, what the Arts  
450 And office of a Judge are, what the parts  
Of a brave chief sent to the warres, he can  
Indeed give fitting deuce to every man.  
And I still bid the learned maker look  
On life, and manners, and make those his book:  
455 Thence draw forth true expressions, for sometimes,  
A Poëm, of no grace, weight, art in rhymes  
With specious places, and being humoured right,  
More strongly takes the people with delight,  
And better stays them there than all fine noise  
460 Of empty Verses, and mere tinkling toys.  
The Muse that onely gave the Greeks a wit  
But a well compassed mouth to utter it,  
Being men were covetous of nought but praise.  
Our Roman youths they learn more thriving ways  
465 How to divide into a hundred parts,  
A pound, or piece, by their long counting Arts;  
There's Albin's son will say, subtract an ounce  
From the five ounces, what remaines? pronounce  
A third of twelve, you may: four ounces: Glad,  
470 He cries, good boy, thou'lt keep thine own: now add  
An Ounce, what makes it then? the half pound just,  
six ounces: O, when once the cankered rust,  
And care of getting thus our minds hath stained  
think we, or hope, there can be verses feigned  
475 In juice of cedar worthy to be steeped,  
And in smooth cypress boxes to be keep'd?  
Poets would either profit, or delight,  
Or mixing sweet, and fit, teach life the right.   

Be brief in what thou wouldst command, that so.  
480 The docill mind may soon thy precepts know,  
And hold them faithfully; for nothing rests  
But flows out, that ore swelleth in full breasts.  
Let what thou feign'st for pleasure sake, be near  
The truth; nor let thy Fable think, what e're  
485 It would, must be: lest it alive would draw  
The child, when Lamia' has dined, out of her maw,  
The poems void of profit, our grave men  
Cast out by voices; want they pleasure, then  
Our gallants give them none, but pass them by:  
490 But he hath every suffrage can apply  
Sweet mixed with four, to his reader, so  
As doctrine and delight together go.  
This book will get thee Socij money; this  
Will pass the Seas; and long as Nature is  
495 With honour make the far-known Author live.  
There are yet faults, which we would well forgive,  
For, neither doth the string still yield that sound,  
The hand, and mind would; but it will rebound  
Oft-times a sharp, when we require a flat:  
500 Nor always doth the loosed bow hit that  
Which it doth threaten: Therefore, where I see  
Much in a Poëm shine, I will not be  
Offended with few spots, which negligence  
Hath  shed, or human frailty not kept thence.  
505 How then? why, as a Scrivener, if h'offend  
Still in the same, and warned, will not mend,  
Deserves no pardon; or who'd play and sing  
Is laughed at, that still jarreth in one string:  
So he that flaggeth much, becomes to me  
510 A Choerilus, in whom if I but see  
Twice, or thrice good, I wonder: but am more  
Angry, if once I hear good Homer snore.  
Though I confess, that, in a long work, sleep  
May, with some right, upon an Author creep.  
515 As Painting, so is Poësie: some mans hand  
Will take you more, the nearer that you stand;  
As some the farther off: this loves the dark.  
This, fearing not the subtlest Judges mark  
Will in the light be viewed: this, once, the sight  
520 Doth please, this ten times over will delight.  
You Sir, the elder brother, though you are  
Informed rightly, by your Fathers care,  
And, of yourself too understand; yet mind  
This saying: to some things there is assigned  
525 A mean, and toleration, which doth well,  
There may a Lawyer be, may not excel;  
Or pleader at the bar; that may come short  
Of eloquent Mesalla's powers in Court;  
Or knows not what Cassellius Aulus can  
530 Yet, there's a value given to this man.  
But neither men, nor gods, not Pillars meant  
Poets should ever be indifferent.  
As jarring music doth at jolly feasts,  
Or thick gross ointment but offend the guests.  
535 Poppy, with hony of Sardus; 'cause without  
These, the glad Meal, might have been well drawn out;  
So any Poëm fancied, or forth-brought  
To bettering of the mind of man in ought,  
If ne're so little it depart the first,  
540 And highest; it sinketh to the lowest,& worst.  
He that not knows the games, nor how to use  
The arms in Mars, his field, he doth refuse;  
Or who's unskilful at the Coyt, or Ball,  
Or trundling wheel, he can sit still from all:  
545 Lest the thronged rings should a free laughter take:  
Yet who's most ignorant, dares Verses make.  
Why not; being honest, and freeborn, doth hate  
'vice, and is known to have a Knights estate.   

Thou, such thy judgement is, thy knowledge too,  
Wilt nothing against Nature speak, or do:  
But, if hereafter thou shalt writ, not fear  
To sand it to be judged by Metius care,  
And to your fathers, and to mine; thought be  
Nine yeares kept by: your papers in, y'are free  
555 To change,& mend, what you not forth do set.  
The word once out, never returned yet.   

Orpheus, a Priest, and speaker for the gods,  
First frighted men, that wildly lived in woods,  
From slaughters, and foul life; and for the same  
Was tigers said, and lions fierce to tame:  
560 Amphion too, that built the Theban towers,  
Was said to move the stones by his Lutes powers,  
And led them with his soft songs, where he would:  
This was the wisdom that they had of old,  
Things sacred from profane to separate;  
565 The public from the private; to abate  
Wild ranging lusts, prescribe the marriage good,  
Build towns, and carve the laws in leaves of wood.  
And thus at first, an honour, and a name  
To divine Poets, and their verses came.  
570 Next these, great Homer, and Tyrtaeus set  
On edge the Masculine spirits, and did whet  
Their minds to wars, with rhymes they did rehearse:  
The Oracles too were given out in verse;  
All way of life was shown; the grace of Kings  
575 Attempted by the Muses tunes, and strings:  
plays were found out; the rest, the end,& crown  
Of their long labours, was in verse set down.  
Lest of the finger Apollo, and Muses famed  
Upon the Lyre, thou chance to be ashamed.  
580 'tis now enquired which makes the nobler verses  
Nature, or Art. My judgement will not pierce  
Into the profits, what a mere rude brain  
Can, or all toil, without a wealthy vain:  
So doth the one, the others help require,  
585 And friendly should unto their end conspire.  
He that's ambitious in the race to touch  
The wished goal, both did and suffered much  
While he was young: he sweat, and freez'd again,  
And both from wine and women did abstain.  
590 Who now to sing the Pythian Rites is heard,  
Did learn them first, and once a Master feared.  
But, now, it is enough to say, I make  
An admirable verse: the great Scab take  
Him that is last, I scorn to be behind,  
595 Or, of the things, that ne're came in my mind,  
Once say I'm ignorant: just as a crier,  
That to the sale of wears calls every buyer,  
So doth the Poet, that is rich in Land,  
Or wealthy in moneys out at use, command  
600 His praisers to their gain: but say he can  
Make a great Supper, or for some poor man  
Will be a surety, or can help him out  
Of an entangling svit, or bring't about,  
I wonder how this happy man should know,  
605 Whether his soothing friend speak truth, or no.  
But, you, my Piso, carefully beware,  
Whether y'are given to, or giver are,  
You do not bring to judge your verses one  
With joy of what is given him over-gone:  
610 For he'll cry good, brave, better, excellent!  
Look pale, distil a due was never meant  
Out at his friendly eyes, leap, beat the ground!  
As those that hired to weep at funerals sound,  
Cry, and do more than the true mourners, so  
615 The scoffer, the true praiser doth outgo.  
Great men are said with many cups to ply,  
And rack with wine the man whom they would try,  
If of their friendship to be worthy, or no;  
When you make verses, with your judge do so:  
look through him, and be sure you take no mocks  
620 For praises, where the mind harbours a Fo●e.  
If to Quinctilius you recited ought,  
He'd say mend this my friend, and this, 'tis nought.  
If you denied, you had no better strain,  
625 And twice, or thrice assayed it, but in vain;  
He'd bid blot all; and to the anvil bring  
Those ill-torn'd verses to new hammering.  
Then, if your fault you rather had defend  
Then change; no word nor work more would he spend  
630 In vain, but you, and yours you should love still  
Alone, without a rival at your will.  
A good and wise man will cry open shane  
On artless Verse; the hard ones he will blame:  
Blot out the careless with his turned pen;  
635 Cut off superfluous ornaments; and, when  
They're dark, bid clear 'hem; al thats doubtful wrote  
Dispute; and what is to be changed, note:  
Become an Aristarchus: And, not say,  
Why should I grieve a friend this trifling way?  
These trifles into serious mischiefs led  
The man once mocked, and suffered wrong to tread.   

Those that are wise, a furious Poet fear,  
And fly to touch him, as a man that were  
Infected with the leprosy, or had  
645 The yellow jaundis, or were truly mad,  
Under the angry Moon: but then the boyes  
They vex, and careless follow him with noise.  
This, while he belcheth lofty Verses out,  
And stalketh, like a Fowler, round about,  
650 busy to catch a Black-bird; if he fall  
Into a pit, or hole, although he call  
And cry aloud, help gentle Country-men;  
There's none will take the care to help him, then,  
For, if one should, and with a rope make hast  
655 To let it down, who knows, if he did cast  
himself there purposely, or no; and would  
Not thence be saved, although indeed he could;  
Ile tell you but the death, and the disease  
Of the Sycilian Poet, Empedocles;  
660 He, while he laboured to be thought a god,  
immortal, took a melancholic, odd  
conceit, and into burning Aetna leap't:  
Let Poets perish that will not be kept.  
He that preserves a man against his will,  
Doth the same thing with him that would him kill.  
Nor did he do this, once; if yet you can  
Now, bring him back, he'll be no more a man,  
Or love of this his famous death lay by.  
Here's one makes verses, but there's none knows why:  
670 Whether h hath pissed upon his Fathers grave:  
Or the sad thunder-strucken thing he have,  
Polluted, touched: but certainly he's mad:  
And as a bear, if he the strength but had  
To force the Grates that hold him in, would fright  
675 All; so this grievous writer puts to flight  
learned, and unlearned; holdeth whom once he takes;  
And there an end of him with reading makes:   

Not letting go the skin, where he draws food,  
Till, horse-leech like, he drop off, full of blood.   
FINIS.   

Ben: Ionson's Execration AGAINST WLCAN.  
LONDON: Printed by J. oaks, for J. Benson, and are to bee sold at his shop in St. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1640.   

Ben: Ionson's Execration AGAINST WLCAN.  
ANd why to me this;( thou lame god of fire)  
What have I done, that might call on thin ire?  
Or urge thy greedy flames, thus to devour  
So many my years labours in one hour!  
I ne're attempted ought against thy life,  
Nor made least line of love to thy loose wife:  
Or in remembrance of thy affront and scorn,  
With clowns and tradesman kept thee closed in horn:  
'twas Jupiter that hurled thee headlong down,  
And Mars that gave thee a lantern for a crown.  
Was it because thou wert of old denied,  
By Jove, to have Minerva for thy Bride,  
That since thou tak'st all envious care and pain,  
To ruin every issue of her brain?  
Had I wrote Treason there, or heresy,  
Impostures, Witch-craft, charms, or Blasphemy,  
I had deserved then thy consuming looks,  
Perhaps to have been burned with my books:  
But on thy malice tell me, didst thou spy.  
Any least loose, or scurrill paper lie  
concealed, or kept there; that was fit to be,  
By thy own vote, a Sacrifice to thee?  
Did I there wound the honour of the crown?  
Or tax the glory of the Church, or gown?  
Itch to defame the State, or brand the Times,  
And myself most in lewd selfe-boasting rhymes?  
If none of these, why then this fire? or find  
A cause before, or leave me one behind,  
Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaule  
Th' Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmarins, and all  
The learned Library of Don Quixot,  
And so some goodlier Monster had begot:  
Or spun out Riddles, or weav'd fifty Tomes  
Of Logographes, or curious Palindromes;  
Or pumped for those hard trifles, Anagrams,  
Or Ecrosticks, or your finer flames  
Of eggs, and halberds, Cradles, and a hearse,  
A pair of Sizers, and a comb in verse;  
acrostics, and Tellesticks, or jump names,  
Thou then hadst had some colour for thy flames,  
On such my serious follies: But thou'lt say,  
There were some pieces of as base a Lay,  
And as false stamp there: parcels of a Play.  
Fitter to see the fire-light, than the day:  
Adulterate moneys, such as would not go,  
Thou shouldst have stayed, till public famed said so.  
She is the Judge, thou Executioner:  
Or if thou needs wilt trench upon her power,  
Thou mightst have yet enjoyed thy cruelty,  
With some more thirst, and more variety!  
Thou mightst, have had me perish piece by piece,  
To light Tobacco, or save roasted goose,  
singed Capons, or crisp pigs, dropping their eyes,  
condemned them to the Ovens with the Pies;  
And so have kept me dying a whole age,  
Not ravished all hence in a minutes rage:  
But that s the mark whereof thy right doth boast,  
To sow Consumption every where thou goest.  
Had I foreknown of this thy least desire,  
T'have held a triumph, or a feast of fire;  
Especially in paper, that that steam  
Had tickled thy large nostrils, many a ream,  
To redeem mine, I had sent in, enough  
Thou shouldst have cried, and all been proper stuff.  
The Talmond and the Alcaron had come  
With pieces of the Legend: the whole sum  
Of errand Knight-hood, with their Dames and Dwarffes,  
The charmed Boats, and their enchanted Wharffes:  
The Tristrams, Lancelots, Turpins, and the peers,  
All the mad Rowlands, and sweet Olivers,  
With Merlins Marvailes, and his cabals loss,  
With the Chimera, of the rosy cross,  
Their charms, their Characters, hermetic Rings,  
Their gems of Riches, and bright ston that brings  
Invisibility, and Strength, and Tongues,  
The art of kindling the true coal be Lungs.  
With Nicholas Pasquills, meddle with your match,  
And the strong Lines that do the times so catch:  
Our captain Pamphlets Horse and foot that sally,  
Upon the Exchange still out of Popes-head Alley,  
The weekly Currants, with Pauls seal, and all  
The admired Discourses of the Prophet Baal:  
These( hadst thou pleased either to dine, or sup)  
Had made a meal for Vulcan to lick up.  
But in my Desk, what was there to excite  
So ravenous and vast an appetite?  
I dare not say a Body, but some parts  
There were of search and mystery in the Arts:  
And the old Venusine in Poëtry,  
And lighted by the Stagarite, could spy,  
Was there made English, with a grammar too,  
To teach some that, their Nurses could not do;  
The purity of Language: and( among  
The rest) my journey into Scotland Sung,  
With all the adventures: three Books not afraid  
To speak the Fate of the Sycilian maid  
For our own ladies: And in story there  
Of our fift Henry, eight of his nine year.  
In which was oil, besides the succours spent,  
Which Noble Cotton, Carew, Selden sent.  
And twice twelve years Stor'd-up-humanitie,  
And humble gleanings in divinity,  
After the Fathers; and those wiser guides,  
Whom Faction had not drawn to study sides.  
How in these ruins Vulcan dost thou lurk:  
All ●oot and Embers, odious, as thy work?  
I now begin to doubt, if ever grace  
Or goddesse could be patient at thy face.  
Thou woe Minerva, or to wit aspire,  
Cause thou canst halt with us in Art, and Fire.  
Son of the Wind; for so thy Mother gone  
With Lust conceived thee, Father thou hadst none:  
When thou wert born, and that thou lookst at best,  
She durst not kiss, but flung thee from her breast.  
And so did Jove, who ne're meant thee his cup:  
No mar'le the Clowns of Lemnos took thee up.  
For none but Smiths would have made thee a god,  
Some alchemist there may be yet, or odd:  
Squire of the Squibs against the Pageant day,  
May to thy name a Vulcanale say,  
And for it lose his eyes by Gun-powder,  
As the other may his brains by Quick-silver:  
Well fare the wise men yet on the Banks-side,  
( Our friends the watermen) they could provide  
Against thy fury, when to serve their needs,  
They made a Vulcan on a sheaf of Reeds.  
Whom they durst handle in their holiday coats,  
And safely trust to dress, not burn their Boats:  
But oh these Reeds, thy mere disdain of them,  
Made thee beget that cruel stratagem:  
( Which some are pleased to style, but thy mad prank)  
Against the Globe, the glory of the bank,  
Which though it were the Fort of the whole parish,  
fenced with a ditch, and forced out of a Marish:  
I saw with two poor Chambers taken in,  
And raised e're thought could urge: this might have been.  
See the Worlds ruins, nothing but the piles  
Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles;  
The brethren they strait nosed it out for news,  
'T was verily some relic of the stews:  
And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,  
That was raked up in th' Winchestrian Goose,  
bread on the bank in time of Popery,  
When Venus there maintained the mystery:  
But others fell with that conceit by th' ears,  
'twas verily a threatening to the bears;  
And that accursed ground, the Paris Garden:  
Nay,( sighed a sister) 'twas the Nun Kate Arden  
Kindled the fire: but then did one return;  
No fool would his own harvest spoil, or burn;  
If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance  
The place that was thy wives inheritance.  
O no, cried all, Fortune, for being a whore,  
scaped not his justice any jot the more.  
He burnt that idol of the revels too:  
Nay let White-hall with revels have to do,  
Though but in Dances, it shall know thy power,  
There was a judgement too shew'd in an hour;  
He was right Vulcan still, he did not spare  
Troy, though it were so much thy Venus care:  
fool wilt thou let that in example come?  
Did she not save from thence to build a Rome?  
And what hast thou done in these petty spights,  
More than advanced the houses, and their Rites,  
I will not argue thee from them of guilt,  
For they were burnt but to be better built:  
Tis true, that in thy wish they were destroyed,  
Which thou hast onely vented, not enjoyed.  
So wouldst th' have run upon the rolls by stealth,  
And didst invade part of the Common-wealth:  
In those Records( which were our Chroniclers gone)  
Would be remembered by six Clerks to one.  
But say all six good men, what answer ye,  
Lye● there no Writ out of the chancery  
Against this Vulcan? no Injunction?  
No Orders? No Decree? though we be gone  
At Common Law, me thinks in his despite,  
A Court of Equity should do us right.  
But to confine him to the Brew-houses,  
The Glasse-house: Dye-fats, and their Furnaces:  
To live in royal; and go out in smoke:  
Or least that vapour might the City choke,  
Confine him to some Brickhills, or some Hill.  
Foot out in Sussex to an Iron-mill:  
Or in small Faggots have him blaze about  
Vile Taverns, and the drunkards piss him out:  
Or in the Bell-mans lantern, like a spy,  
Waste to a snuff, and then stink out and die:  
I could invent a sentence yet more worse,  
But Ile conclude all in a civill curse:  
Pox on your Flame-ship ( Vulcan) if it be  
To all as fatal as t'hath been to me,  
And to Pauls steeple, which had been to us  
'Bove all your fire-works, had at Ephesus,  
Or Alexandria, which( though a Divine  
loss, yet) remains as unrepair'd as mine:  
Would you had kept your Forge at Aetna still,  
And there made Swords, Bills, Glaves, and arms your fill;  
maintained a trade at Bilbo, or elsewhere.  
Struck in at milan with the Cutlers there:  
And stayed but where the friar and you first met,  
That from the Devills Arse did Guns beget:  
Or fixed in the Low-Countries, where you might  
On both sides do your mischiefs with delight:  
Blow up and ruin, Mine, and Counter-mine,  
Use your Petards, and Granads, all your fine  
Engines of murder, and enjoy the praise  
Of Massacring Man-kind so many ways:  
We ask your absence here, we all love peace  
And pray the fruits thereof, and the increase;  
So doth the King, and most of the Kings men  
That have good places: therefore once again  
pox on thee Vulcan; thy Pandora's pox,  
And all the ills that flew out of her box  
Light on thee: or if those plagues will not do,  
Thy wives pox take thee, and Besse Braughtons too.  
FINIS.   

The mask OF THE GYPSIES.  
Written by BEN: JONSON.  
LONDON: Printed by J. oaks, for J. Benson, and are to bee sold at his shop in St. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1640.   

The mask of THE GYPSIES.  At the Kings Entrance. 

IF for our thoughts there could but speech be found,  
And all that speech be uttred in one sound,  
So that some power above us would afford  
The means to make a language of a word,  
It should be welcome; in that onely voice  
We would receive, retain, enjoy, rejoice,  
And all affects of love, and life, dispense,  
Till it were called a copious eloquence;  
For should we vent our spirits, now you are come  
In other syllables, were as be dumb.  
Welcome, O welcome then, and enter here  
The house your bounty built, and still doth rear,  
With those high favours, and those heap't increases,  
Which shows a hand not grieved, but when it ceases.  
The Master is your creature; as the place;  
And every good about him is your grace:  
Whom, though he stand by silent, think not rude,  
But as a man turned all to gratitude,  
For what he ne're can hope how to restore,  
Since while he meditates one, you poure on more.  
Vouchsafe to think he onely is oppressed  
With their abundance, not that in his breast  
His powers are stupid grown; for please you enter  
Him, and his house, and search him to the center,   

You'l find within, no thanks, or vows, there shorter,  
For having trusted thus much to his Porter.   

The GYPSIES metamorphosed.  Enter a gipsy, leading a Horse laden with five little Children, bound in a trace of Scarffes upon him: a second leading another horse, laden with stolen Poultry, &c. The first leading Gypsy speaks, being the JACKMAN. 
room for the five Princes of egypt, mounted all upon one horse, like the four sons of Ammon, to make the miracle the more by a head, if it may be: Gaze upon them, as on the Off-spring of Ptolemy, begotten upon several Cleopatra's in their several counties; especially on this brave spark, strook out of Flint-shire, upon Iustice Juggs daughter, then sheriff of the County, who running away with a Kinsman of our Captains, and her Father pursuing to the marches, he great with Iustice, she with juggling, they were both for the same time turned ston, upon the sight of each other in Chester, till at the last( see the Wonder) a Iugg of the town Ale reconciling them, the memorial of both their gravities, his in beard, and hers in belly, hath remained ever since preserved in picture, upon the most ston Iuggs in the kingdom. The famous imp yet grew a wretchocke, and though for seven yeares together he was carefully carried at his Mothers back, rocked in a Cradle of welsh Cheese, like a Maggot, and there fed with broken Beer, and blown wine of the best, daily, yet looks he as if he never saw his Quinguinever: 'tis true, he can thread Needles on horseback, or draw a yard of Inkle through his nose; but what's that to a grown gipsy, one of the blood, and of his time, if he had thrived? Therefore( till with his painful Progenitors, he be able to beate it on the hoof to the been bouse, or the stauling Ken, to nip a lan, or clye the Tarke) 'tis thought fit he march in the Infants Equipage, 
With the Convoy, Cheats, and pe●kage,  
Out of clutch of Harman-beckagesTo  
Harman-beckagesTo the Libkins at the Cruckmans,  
O● some skipper of the Black-mans.   2 gipsy. 
WHere the Cacklers, but no Grunters  
Shall uncas'd be for the Hunters;  
Those we still must keep alive,  
I, and put them forth to thrive,  
In the parks and in the chaces,  
And the finer walled places,  
As St. Jamses, Greenwitch, Tibals,  
Where the Akorns plump as Chiballs,  
soon shall change both kind and name,  
And proclaim 'hem the Kings game;  
So the act no harm may be  
Unto their keeper Barnabee:  
It will prove as good a service  
As did ever gipsy Gervice,  
Or our captain Charles, the tall man,  
And a part too of our Salmon.  JACKMAN. 
IF here we be a little obscure, it is our pleasure, for rather than we will offer to be our own Interpreters, we are resolved not to bee understood: yet if any man do doubt of the significancy of the Language, we refer him to the third Volume of reports: set forth by the learned in the laws of Canting, and published in the gipsy tongue. Give me my Guittara: and room for our chief.  

Dance 1.  The captain danceth forth with six more to a stand. After which the Jackman Sings. 

Song. 1.  

FRom the famous Peak of derby,  
And the Devills-Arse there hard by,  
Where we yearly keep our musters,  
Thus th' egyptians throng in clusters.   

Be not frighted with our fashion,  
Though we seem a tattered Nation;  
We account our rags our riches,  
So our tricks exceed our stitches.   

Give us Bacon, rinds of Walnuts,  
Shells of Cockles, or of small-nuts,  
ribbons, Bells, and Saffron'd linen,  
All the world is ours to win in.   

Knacks we have that will delight you,  
sleights of hand that will invite you,  
To endure our tawny faces,  
And not cause you cut your laces.   

All your fortunes we can tell ye,  
Be they for the back, or belly:  
In the Moods too, and the Tenses,  
That may fit your fine five sences.   

Draw but then your Gloves we pray you,  
And sit still, we will not fray you,  
For though we be here at Burly,  
weed be loathe to make a Hurly.    PATRICO. 

STay my sweet singer,  
The touch of thy finger  
A little, and linger  
For me, that am bringer  
Of bound to the border  
The Rule, and Recorder,  
And mouth of your order:  
As Priest of the game,  
And Prelate of the same.   

There's a Gentry Cove here,  
Is the top of the shire,  
Of the Beaver-Ken,  
A man amongst men:  
ye need not to fear,  
I've an eye, and an ear,  
That turns here and there,  
To look to our gear:  
Some say that there be  
One or two, if not three,  
That are greater than he.   

And for the Room-morts,  
I know by their Ports,  
And jolly resorts  
They are of the sorts  
That love the true sports,  
Of King Ptolomaeus,  
Our great Coryphaeus,  
And Queen Cleopatra,  
The Gypsies grand-matra,  
Then if we shall shark it,  
Here Faire is, and Market.   

Leave big by, and Goose,  
And play fast, and loose,  
A short cut, and long,  
With( ever and among)  
Some inch of a Song,  
Pythagoras lot,  
drawn out of a pot;  
With what says Alchindus,  
And Pharaotes Indus.  
John de Indagine,  
With all their Pagina,  
Faces and Palmistry,  
And this is all mystery.   

Lay by your wimbles,  
Your boring for thimbles,  
Or using your nimbles  
In diving the Pockets,  
And sounding the sockets  
Of semper-the-Cockets,  
Or angling the purses  
Of such as will curse us.  
But in the strict duell  
Be merry, and cruel,  
Strike faire at some jewel,  
That mint may accrue well,  
For that is the fuel  
To make the tons brew'ell,  
And the pot ring well,  
And the brain sing well,  
Which we may bring, well  
About, by a string well,  
And do the thing well.  
It is but a strain  
Of true legerdemain,  
Once, twice, and again.   

Or what will you say now,  
If with our fine play now,  
Our Knackets, and Dances,  
We work on the fancies  
Of some o' these Nancies,  
These Trickets, and Tripsies,  
And make 'hem turn Gipsies.   

Here's no Justice Lippus  
Will seek for to nip us  
In Crampring, or Cippus,  
And then for to strip us,  
And after to whip us.  
His Iustice to vary,  
While here we do tarry.   

But be wise and wary  
And we may both carry  
The Kate, and the Mary,  
And all the bright airy  
Away to the Quarry,  
If our brave Ptolomee  
Will but say follow me.   3 gipsy. 

captain, if ever at the bouzing Ken,  
You have in drops of derby drilled your men;  
And we have served thee armed all in Ale,  
With the brown bowl, and charged in Bragot stale:  
If mustered thus, and disciplined in drink,  
In our strict watches we did never wink,  
But, so commanded by you, kept our station,  
As we preserved ourselves a loyal nation:  
And never did yet branch of statute break,  
Made in your famous Palace of the Peak:  
If we have deemed that Mutton, Lamb, or veal,  
Chick, Capon, Turkey, sweetest we did steal,  
As being by our Magna Charta taught,  
To judge no viands wholesome that are bought:  
If for our linen we still used the lift,  
And with the hedge,( our trades-increase) made shift,  
And ever at your solemn feasts and calls,  
We have been ready with th' egyptian brawls,  
To set Kit Callot forth in Prose or rhyme,  
Or who was Cleopatra for the time:   

If we have done this, that, more, such, or so;  
Now lend your ear but to the Patrico.   captain. 
Well, dance another strain, and we'll think how,  1 gipsy. 
mean time in song do you conceive some vow,   

Dance 2.  

Song 2.  

THe faiery beam upon you,  
The stars to glister on you,  
A moon of light,  
In the noon of night,  
Till the Fire-Drake hath o're-gone you.   

The wheel of Fortune guide you,  
The Boy with the Bow beside you,  
run ay in the way  
Till the bide of day,  
And the luckyer lot betid you.    captain goes up to the King. 

bless my sweet Masters, the old and the young  
From the gull of the heart, and the stroke of the tongue.  
With you, lucky bide, I begin; let me see,  
I aim 〈◇〉 the best, and I troe you are he.  
Here's some luck already; if I understand  
The grounds of my art, here's a gentlemans hand,  
Ile kiss it for lucks sake; you should by this time  
Love a horse, and a hound, but no part of a swine,  
To hunt the brave stag, not so much for the food,  
As the weal of the body,& the health of the blood.  
You are a man of good means, and have territory store,  
Both by sea; and by land, but were born sir to more.  
Which you like a Lord, and the Prince of your peace,  
Content with your havings, despise to increase.  
You are no great wencher, I see by your Table,  
Although your mons veneris says you are able.  
You live chast, and single, and have butted your wife,  
And mean not to mary by the line of your life;  
Whence he that conjecture your quality, learns,  
You are an honest good man, and have care of your barns.  
Your Mercuries hill too, a wit doth betoken.  
Some book-craft you have,& are pretty well spoken.  
But stay in your Iupiters mount, what's here?  
A King a Monarch; what wonders appear!  
High, Bountifu l Just: a jove for your parts,  
A Master of men, and that reign in their hearts   

Ile tell it my train,  
And come to you again.   

Song 3.  

TO the old, long life and treasure,  
To the young, all health and pleasure  
To the faire their face  
With eternal grace,  
And the foul to be loved at leisure.   

To the witty all clear mirrors,  
To the foolish their dark errors;  
To the loving spirit,  
A secure delight,  
To the jealous his own false terrors.    After which the Kings fortune is pursued by the captain. 

COuld any doubt that saw this hand,  
Or who you are, or what command  
You have upon the fate of things,  
Or would not say you were let down  
From Heaven, on earth to be the crown,  
And top of all your neighbour Kings.  
To see the ways of truth you take,  
To balance business, and to make  
All Christian differences cease,  
Or till the quarrel, and the cause  
You can compose to give them laws,  
As Arbiter of war and Peace.  
For this, of all the world you shall  
Be styled james the just and all  
Their states dispose, their sons& daughters,  
And for your fortunes you alone,  
Among them all shall work your own,  
By peace, and not by human slaughters.  
But why do I presume, though true,  
To tell a fortune sir, unto you,  
Who are the maker here of all;  
Where none do stand, or sit in view,  
But owe their Forrune unto you,  
At least what they good fortunes call?  
myself a gipsy here do shine,  
Yet are you maker sir, of mine.  
Oh that confession could content  
So high a bounty that doth know  
No part of motion, but to flow,  
And giving never to repent.  
May still the matter wait your hand,  
That it not feel, or stay, or stand,  
But all desert still toothache.  
And may your goodness ever find,  
In me whom you have made, a mind,  
As thankful as your own is large.    

Dance 3. 2 strain.  After which, the Princes Fortune is offered at by the 2 gipsy. 

AS my captain hath begun  
With the Sire, I take the Son,  
Your hand Sir.   

Of your fortune be secure,  
Love, and she, are both at your  
Command Sir.   

See what stars are here at strife,  
Who shall tender you a wife,  
A brave one;   

And a fitter for a man,  
Then is offered here, you can-  
Not have one.   

She is sister of a star,  
One the noblest now that are,  
Bright Hesper.   

Whom the Indians in the East,  
Phosphore call, and in the West,  
Hight Vesper.   

Courses even with the sun,  
Doth her mighty brother run,  
For splendour.   

What can to the marriage night,  
More then morn, and evening light  
Attend her?   

Save the promise before day,  
Of a little james to play  
Hereafter.   

Twixt his Grandsires knees and move  
All the pretty ways of love,  
And laughter.   

whilst with care you strive to please,  
In your giving his cares ease,  
And labours;   

And by being long the aid  
Of the Empire, make afraid  
Ill neighbours.   

Till yourself shall come to see  
What we wish, yet far to be  
Attending.   

For it skills not when, or where  
That begins, which cannot fear  
An ending   

Since your name in peace, or warres,  
Nought shall bound until the stars  
up take you.    

2 Dance. strain 3.  After which, the Lady marquis Buckinghams by the 3 gipsy. 

hurl after an old shoe,  
Ile be merry what e're I do,   

Though I keep no time,  
My words shall chyme,  
Ile overtake the sense with a rhyme.   

Face of a Rose,  
I pray thee d●pose   

Some small piece of silver: It shal be no loss,  
But onely to make the sign of the cross;   

If your hand you hollow,  
Good fortune will follow.   

I swear by these ten,  
You shall have it again,  
I do not say when.   

But Lady, either I am tipsy,  
Or you are to fall in love with a gipsy.   

blushy not Dame Kate,  
For early, or late,   

I do assure you it will be your fate;  
Nor need you be once ashamed of it Madam,  
He's as handsome a Man as ever was Adam,   

A man out of wax,  
As a Lady would axe;  
Yet he's not to wed ye,  
H'has enjoyed you already,  
And I hope he has sped ye.  
A dainty young fellow,  
And though you look yellow,  
He never will be jealous,  
But love you most zealous.   

Ther's never a line in your hand, but doth tell us,  
And you are a soul, so white, and so chased,  
A table so smooth, and so newly ra'ste,   

As nothing called foul,  
Dare approach with a blot,  
Or any least spot;  
But still you control,  
Or make your own lot,   

Preserving love pure as it first was begot:   

But Dame I must tell ye,  
The fruit of your belly,  
Is that you must tender,  
And care so to render;  
That as yourself came  
In blood, and in name,  
From one house of famed,  
So that may remain  
The glory of twain.    

2 Dance. Strain 4.  After which, the countess of Rutlands, by the 3 gipsy. 
YOu sweet Lady have a hand too,  
And a fortune you may stand too,  
Both your brav'ry, and your bounty,  
style you Mistris of the County;  
You will find it from this night,  
Fortune shall forget her spite,  
And heap all the blessings on you,  
That she can poure out upon you:  
To be loved, where most you love,  
Is the worst that you shall prove;  
And by him to be imbrac't,  
Who so long hath known you chased,  
Wise, and faire; whilst you renew  
joys to him, and he to you:  
And when both your yeares are  told,  
Neither think the other old.  And the countess of Exeters by the PATRICO. 

MAdam we know of your coming so late,  
We could not well fit you a nobler fate,  
Then what you have ready made;  
An old mans wife,  
Is the light of his life,  
A young one is but his shade.  
You will not importune,  
The change of your fortune;  
For if you dare trust to my forecasting,  
'tis presently good; and will be lasting.    

Dance 2. strain 5.  After which, the countess of Buckinghams, by the 4 gipsy. 

YOur pardon Lady, here you stand,  
If some should judge you by your hand,  
The greatest felon in the Land  
Detected:   

I cannot tell you by what Arts,  
But you have stolen so many hearts,  
As they would make you at all parts  
Suspected.   

Your very face first, such a one,  
As being viewed it was alone,  
Too slippery to be looked upon;  
And threw men.   

But then your graces they were such,  
As none could e're behold too much;  
Both every taste, and every touch  
So drew men.   

Still blessed in all you think, or do,  
Two of your sons are Gypsies too,  
You shall our queen be, and he who  
Importunes   

The heart of either yours, or you;  
And doth not wish both George, and Sue,  
And every barn besides, all new  
Good fortunes.   The Lady Purbecks, by the 2 gipsy. 

help me wonder, here's a book,  
Where I would for ever look;  
Never yet did gipsy trace,  
smother lines in hand, or face:  
Venus here doth Saturne move,  
That you should be Queen of Love;  
And the other stars consent,  
Onely Cupid's not content;  
For though you the theft disguise,  
You have  told him of his eyes:  
And to show his envy further,  
Here he chargeth you with murder;  
says, although that at your fight  
He must all his torches light,  
Though your either cheek discloses,  
Mingled baths of milk and Roses,  
Though your lips be banks of blisses,  
Where he plants, and gathers kisses;  
And yourself the reason why,  
Wisest men for love may die;  
You will turn all hearts to tinder  
And shall make the world one Cinder.   And the Lady Elizabeth Hattons by the 5 gipsy. 

MIstris of a fairer Table,  
Hath no History, nor Fable;  
Others Fortunes may be shown,  
You are builder of your own,  
And what ever heaven hath given you,  
You preserve the state still in you,  
That which time would have depart,  
Youth without the help of Art,  
You do keep still, and the glory  
Of your sex, is but your story.   The Lord chamberlain, by the IACKMAN. 

THough you sir be chamberlain, I have a Key  
To open your Fortune a little by the way:  
You are a good man,  
Deny it that can;  
And faithful you are  
Deny it that dare.  
You know how to use your sword and your pen,  
And you love not alone the arts, but the men;  
The Graces and Muses every where follow  
You, as you were their second Apollo;  
Onely your hand here tells you to your face  
You have wanted one grace  
To perform, what has been a right of your place;  
For by this Line, which is Mars his Trench,  
You never yet helped your Master to a Wench:  
is well for your honour, he's pious& chased,  
Or you had most certainly been displaste.    

Dance 2. strain 3.  The Lord Keepers Fortune, by the PATRJCO. 

AS happy a palm sir, as most i'the Land,  
It should be a pure,& an innocent hand;   

And worthy the trust,  
For it says you'll be just,  
And carry the purse,  
Without any curse  
Of the Publicke-weale,  
When you take out the seal,  
You do not appear,  
A Judge of a year.  
Ile venture my life,  
You never had wise,  
But Ile venture my skill,  
You may when you will.   

You have the Kings Conscience too in your breast,   

And that's a good guest;  
Which you will have true touch of,  
And yet not make much of;   

More then by truth yourself forth to bring,  
The man that you are, for God, and the King.   The Lord Treasurers fortune, by the 3 gipsy. 

I Come to borrow, and you'll grant my demand sir;  
Since tis for no money, pray lend me your hand sir;  
And yet this good hand; if you please to stretch it,  
Had the errand been money, could easily fetch it;  
You command the Kings Treasure, and yet on my soul  
You handle not much, for your palm is not foul,  
Your fortune is good, and will be to set  
The Office upright, and the King out of debt;  
To put all that have Pensions soon out their pain,  
By bringing th'Exchequer in credit again.   The Lord Privy-Seales, 2 gipsy. 

HOnest, and old,  
In those the good part of a fortune is  
God sand you your health,  
The rest is provided; honour, and we  
All which you possess,  
Without the making of any man less,  
Nor need you my warrant, enjoy it shall,  
For you haue a good Privy-Seale for it all   The earl marshals, 3 gipsy, 

NExt the great Master, who is the Donor,  
I red you here the preserver of honour,  
And spy it in all your singular parts,  
What a Father you are, and a Nurse of the Arts.  
By cherishing which, a way you have found,  
How the free to all, to one may be bound,  
And they again love their bonds; for to be  
Obliged to you, is the way to be free:  
But this is their fortune: Hark to your own,  
Yours shall be to make true Gentry known  
From the fictitious, not to prise blood  
So much by the greatness, as by the good:  
To show and to open clear virtue the way,  
Both whither she should, and how far she may;  
And whilst you do judge twixt valour, and noise,  
T'extinguish the race of the roaring boyes.   The Lord Stewards, by the 4 gipsy. 

I find by this hand,  
You have the command  
Of the very best mans house i'the Land:  
Our captain, and wee,  
Ere long will see  
If you keep a good table;  
Your Master's able.  
And here be bountiful Lines, that say,  
You'll keep no part of his bounty away.  
Thus written to frank,  
On your Venus bank;  
To prove a false steward you'll find much ado,  
Being a true one by blood, and by office too   Lord marquis Hamiltons, by the 3 gipsy. 

ONely your Hand, and welcome to Court,  
Here is a man both for earnest, and sport.   

You were lately employed,  
And your Master is joyed,  
To have such in his train,  
So well can sustain  
His person abroad;  
And not shrink for the load:  
But had you been here,  
You should have been a gipsy I swear,   

Our captain had summoned you by a doxy,  
To whom you would not have answered by proxy,  
One, had shee come in the way of your sceptre,  
Tis odds, you had laid it by to have leaped her.   The earl of Buckclougs, by the PATRICO. 

A Hunter you have been heretofore,   

And had game good store;  
But ever you went  
Upon a new scent,  
And shifted your loves   

As often as they did their Smocks, or their Gloves.  
But since that your brave intendments are   

Now bent for the war,  
The world shall see  
You can constant bee,  
One Mistris to prove,  
And court her for your love.   

Pallas, shall be both your Sword, and your gauge;  
Truth, bear your Shield, and fortune your page..     
Patr. 
WHy this is a sport,  
See it North, see it South,  
For the taste of the Court,  jack. 
For the Courts own mouth.  
Come Windsor the town,  
With the mayor, and oppose,  
Wee'll put them all down,  Patr. 
Do— do— down like my hose.  
A gipsy in his shape,  
More calls the beholder,  
Then the fellow with the Ape.  jack. 
Or the Ape on his shoulder.  
H'is a sight that will take  
An old Judge from his wench,  
I, and keep him awake,  Pat. 
Yes, awake on the Bench:  
And has so much worth,  
Though he sit i'the stocks,  
He will draw the girls forth,  jack. 
I, forth i'their smocks.  
Tut, a man's a man;  
Let the clowns with their Sluts,  
Come mend us if they can,  Pat. 
If they can for their guts.  
Come mend us, come lend us, their shouts,  
and their noise,  Both. 
Like Thunder, and wonder at Ptolomies Boyes.   


2 Dance. 6 strain, which leads into Dance 3.  During which, enter the clowns, Cockrell, Clod, Townshed, to them PUPPY. Cock. 
O The Lord! what bee these Tom! dost thou know? come hither, come hither Dick, didst thou ever see such? the finest Olive-coloured spirits: they have so danced and gingled here, as if they had been a set of overgrown fairies.  Clod. 
They should bee Morris dancers by their jingle, but they have no Napkins.  Cock. 
No, nor a Hobby horse.  Clod. 
O, he's often forgotten, that's no rule, but there is no Maid-marrian, nor Friar amongst them, which is the surer mark.  Cock. 
Nor a fool, that I see.  Clod. 
unless they be all fools.  Town. 
Well said Tom fool, why thou simplo parish ass thou, didst thou never see any Gypsies: these are a Covy of Gypsies, and the bravest new Covy that ever Constable flew at: Goodly! Game Gypsies! they are Gypsies o' this year, o' this moon in my Conscience.  Clod. 
O they are called the Moon-men, I remember now.  Cock. 
One shall hardly see such Gentleman-like Gypsies, though under a hedge in a whole Summers day, if they be Gypsies.  Clod. 
Male-Gypsies all! not a Mort amongst them.  Pup. 
Where, where, I could never endure the sight of one of these rogue Gypsies, which be they? I would fain see' hem.  Clod. 
Yonder they are.  Pup. 
They can Cant, and Mill, are they Masters in their Arts?  Town. 
No Batchellours these, they cannot have proceeded so far, they have scarce had the time to be lousy yet.  Pup. 
All the better, I would be acquainted with them while they are in clean life, they will do their tricks the cleanlier.  Cock. 
We must have some music then.  Pup. 
music! we'll have a whole poverty of Pipers, call Cheeks upon the Bag-pipes,& Tom Ticklefoot with his Tabor; he could have mustered up the smocks o'th two shires; and set the Cod pieces and they by the ears, I wusse, here's my two-pence towards it: Clod will you gather the Pipe money?  Clod. 
Ile gather't an you will, but Ile give none.  Pup. 
Why well said; claw a churl by the Arse, and he will shit in your fift.  Cock. 
I, or whistle to a Jade, and he'll pay you with a fart.  Clod. 
That's all one, I have a wife, and a child in reversion, you know it well enough,& I cannot fat pigeons with Cherry-stones: Ile venture my penny with you.  Cock. 
Well, theres my two-pence; Ile bee jovy: my name Cockrell, and I am true bread.  Town. 
Come, there's my groat, never stand drawing Indentures for the matter; we'll make a boult, or a Shaft on't now.  Clod. 
Let me see, here's nine-pence in the whole.  Pup. 
Why there's a whole nine-pence for it: put it all in a piece for memory, and strike up for mirth sake.  Town. 
do, and they'll presently come about us for lucke sake. But look to our pockets and purses for our own sake.  Clod. 
That's warning for me, I have the greatest charge I am sure.  PIPERS. A Country Dance. During which the Gypsies come about them prying: and after the PATRICO. 
SWeet Doxes and Dells,  
My Roses and Nells,  
Your hands, nothing ells,  
We ring you no knells  
With our Ptolemy Bells;  
Though we come from the fells,  
And bring you good spells,  
And tell you some chances  
In midst of your Dances,  
That Fortune advances▪  
To Prudence or Francis,  
To Sisley or Harry,  
To Roger, or Mary,  
Or Meg of the dairy.  
To Maudlin, or Thomas,  
Then do not run from us,  
Although we look tawny,  
We are healthy and brawny,  
What e're your demand is,  
We'll give you no Iaundis.  Pup. 
Say you so old gipsy? 'slid these go to't in rhyme, this is better then Canting by t'one half.  Town. 
Nay, you shall hear them, peace! they begin with Prudence, mark that.  Pup. 
The wiser Gypsies they  Town. 
Are you advised.  Pup. 
Yes, and Ile stand to't, that a w● gipsy( take him i'th time o'th' year) politic a piece of Flesh, as most Iustices i● the County where he mands.  3 GYPSJE. 
To love a Keeper your fortune will be.  
But the Dowcets better than him or his fee.  Town. 
Ha, Pru', has he hit you in the teeth with the sweet bit?  Pup. 
Let it alone; she'll swallow it well enough: a learned gipsy.  Town. 
You'll hear more hereafter.  Pup. 
mary and Ile listen, who's next, Jack Cockrell.  2 GYPSJE: 
You'l steal yourself drunk, I find it here true,  
As you rob the pot, the pot will rob you.  Pup. 
A Prophet, a Prophet: no gipsy, or if he must be a gipsy, a divine gipsy.  Town. 
mark Frances now; she's going to't, the virginity of the parish.  PATRICO. 
fear not, in hell you'll never led Apes,  
A mortified maiden of five escapes.  Pup. 
Bir-Lady he touched the Virgin string there a little too hard, they are arrant learned men all I see. What say they upon Tom Clod: list.  4. gipsy. 
Clods feet in Christmas will go near to be bare,  
When he has lost all his Hobnails at post and pare.  Pup. 
●'has hit the Hobnaile o'the head, his own ga●●●  Town. 
And the very mettle he deals in at play, if you mark it.  Pup. 
Peace, who's this Long Meg?  Town. 
Long and foul Meg, if she be a Meg, as ever I saw of her Inches: Pray God they fit her with a faire Fortune, shee hangs an Arse terribly.  PATRICO. 
She'l have a tailor take measure of her britch.  
And ever after be troubled with a stitch.  Town. 
That's as homely as she.  Pup. 
The better: a Turd's as good for a Sow as a Pan-cake.  Town. 
hark, now they treat upon Tickle-foot.  4 gipsy. 
On sundays you rob the poores box with your Tabor,  
The Collecters would do it, you save them a labour.  Pup. 
Faith but little, they do it notwithstanding. Here's my little Christian forgot, ha you any fortune left for her, a straight laced Christian of sixteen?  PATRICO. 
Christian shall get her a loose bodied Gown,  
In trying how a Gentleman differs from a clown.  Pup. 
Is that a fortune for a Christian? a turk gipsy could not have  told her worse.  Town. 
Come, Ile stand myself, and once venture the poor head o'th' town. do your worst, my name is Townshead, and heres my hand Ile not be angry.  2 gipsy. 
A cuckolded you must be,& that for three lives,  
Your own, the Parsons, and your wives.  Town. 
I swear Ile never mary for that, an't be but to give Fortune my foe the lie: Come Paul Puppy you must in too.  Pup. 
No, I am well enough: I would have no good Fortune an I might.  4 gipsy. 

Yet look to yourself, you'l ha' some ill luck  
And shortly, for I have his purse with a pluck,   

Away Birds mum,  
I hear by the hum,  
If Beck-Harman come,  
He'll strike us all dumb,  
With a noise like a drum.  
Lets give him our room  
Here, this way some,  
And that way others,  
We are not all brothers:  
Leave me to the cheats,  
Ile show 'hem some feats.   Pup. 
What are they gone, flown all of a sudden; this is fine i'faith: a Covy call ye' hem? they are a Covy soon scattered me thinks, who sprung 'hem I mar'le?  Town. 
mary yourself Puppy for ought I know, you quested last.  Clod. 
Would he had quested first, and sprung 'hem an hour ago for me.  Town. 
Why, what's the matter?  Clod. 
'Slid, they sprung my purse and all I had about me.  Town. 
They ha' not, ha' they?  Clod. 
As I am true Tom Clod ha' they, and ransackled me of every penny: out cept I were with child of an owl( as they say) I never saw such luck: Its enough to make a man a whore.  Pup. 
Hold thy peace, thou talkst as if thou hadst a Licence to loaf thy purse alone in this company: 'slid here be those can lose a purse in honour of the Gypsies, as well as thou for thy heart, and never make word of it: I ha' lost my purse too, and more in it that Ile speak of, but e're I'd cry for't as thou dost— Much good do 'hem with all my heart, I do reverence 'hem for't.  Cock. 
What was there i'thy purse? was the Lease of thy house in it?  Pup. 
Or thy Granams silver Ring?  Clod. 
No, but a Mill-sixpence of my Mothers, I loved as dearly— and two pence I had to spend over and above, beside the Harper that was gathered amongst us, to pay the Piper.  Town. 
Our whole stock, is that gone? how will Tom Ticklefoot do to whet his whistle then?  Pup. 
mary a new Collection, there's no music else: Masters he can ill pipe that wants his upper lip.  Town. 
Yes, a Bag-piper may want both.  Cock. 
Why they have robbed Prudence of a Race of Ginger, and a jet ring she had to draw jack Straw hither a holidays.  Town. 
Is't possible, fine fingered Gypsies i'faith.  Cock. 
And Maudlin has lost an enchanted Nutmeg, all guilded over, she had to put in her Sweet-hearts Ale a mornings; with a row of pins, which pricks the poor soul to the heart, the loss of' hem.  Clod. 
And I have lost( beside my purse) my best Bridelace, and a halpworth of Hobnails, and Francis her thimble, with a skeane of Coventry blew she had to work Will: Litchfields Handkerchiffe.  Cock. 
And Christian her practise of Piety, with a bowed Groat, and the Ballad of whoop Barnabee, which grieves her worst of all.  Clod. 
And Ticklefoote has lost his Clout he says, with a three-pence and four tokens in it, beside his Tabouring stick, even now.  Cock 
And I my knife and sheathe, and a pair of Dogs leather gloves.  Town. 
Have we left ne're a Dog amongst us? where's Puppy gone?  Pup. 
Here goodman Townshead: you ha nothing to lose it seems but the towns brains you're trusted with.  PATRICO. 
O My dear Marrowes,  
No shooting of arrows,  
Or shafts of your wit,  
Each oth'r to hit,  
In your skirmishing fit:  
Your store is but small,  
Then venture not all;  
Remember each mock  
Doth spend o' the stock;  
And what was here done,  
Being under the moon,  
And at afternoon,  
Will prove right soon  
Deceptio visus,  
Done gratia risus.  
There's no such thing,  
As the loss of a Ring,  
Or what ye count worse,  
The miss of a purse:  
But, hey for the main,  
And pass o'the strain,  
Here's both come again.  
And there's an old twinger,  
Can show you the Ginger:  
The Pins and the Nutmeg,  
Are safe here with Slutmeg.  
Then strike up your tabor,  
And there's for your labour.  
The sheathe and the knife,  
Ile venture my life,  
Shall breed you no strife,  
But like man and wife,  
Or sister and brother,  
Keep one with another,  
And light as a feather,  
Make hast to come hither.  
The Coventry blew  
Hangs there upon Prue.  
And here one opens  
The clout and the Tokens;  
Deny the bowed groat,  
And you lie in your throat,  
Or the Tabourers nine-pence,  
Or the six fine pence.  
As for the Ballet,  
Or Book what ye call it,  
Alas our Society  
Mells not with Piety:  
himself hath forsook it,  
That first undertook it.  
For thimble or bridelace,  
Search yonder side-lasse.  
All's to be found,  
If you look yourselves round:  
We scorn to take from ye,  
weed rather spend on ye:  
If any man wrong ye,  
The thiefe's among ye.  Town. 
Excellent i'faith, a most restorative gipsy: all's here again, and yet by his learning of legerdemain he would make us believe we had robbed ourselves, for the Hobnailes are come to me.  Coc. 
May be he knew whose shoes lacked clouting.  Pup. 
I, he knows more then that, or Ile ne're trust my judgement in a gipsy again.  Cock. 
A gipsy of quality believe it, one of the Kings Gypsies this: a Drink●lian, or a Drinkebragatan, ask him: the King hath a noise of Gypsies, as well as of Bearewards.  Pup. 
What sort or order of Gipsies I pray Sir?  PATRICO. 
A Flagonfcakian,  
A devils Arse a Peakian:  
born first at Ninglington,  
bread up at Filchington.  
boarded at Tappington.  
Bedded at Wappington.  Town. 
Fore me a dainty derived gipsy.  Pup. 
But I pray sir, if a man might ask on you, how came your Captaines place first to be called the Devills Arse?  PATRICO. 
For that take my word,  
We have a record  
That doth it afford,  
And says our first Lord,  
Cock laurel he hight,  
On a time did invite  
The devil to a feast;  
The tail of the jest,  
Though since it be long,  
Lives yet in a Song,  
Which if you would hear,  
Shall plainly appear.  
Ile call in my clerk  
Shall sing like a lark,  
Come in my long shark,  
With thy face brown and dark;  
With thy tricks and thy toys,  
Make a merry merry noise,  
To those mad Country boyes.  
And chant out the fart of the Grand-devills Arse.  

SONG.  

COck-lorrel would needs have the devil his guest,  
And bad him once into the Peak to dinner.  
Where never the Fiend had such a feast,  
Provided him yet at the charge of a sinner.   

His stomach was queasy( for coming there Coacht)  
The jogging had caused some crudities rise;  
To help it he called for a Puritan poacht,  
That used to turn up the egg's of his eyes.   

And so recovered unto his wish,  
He sate him down, and he fell to eat;  
promoter in Plum-broth was the first dish,  
His own privy kitchen had no such meate.   

Yet though with this he much were taken,  
Vpon a sudden he snifted his trencher,  
As soon as he spied the Bawd, and Bacon,  
By which you may note the devil's a wencher.   

six pickled tailors sliced and cut,  
Sempsters, Tyre-women, fit for his pallet,  
With Feathermen, and Perfumers put,  
Some 12 in a Charger to make a grand salad.   

A rich fat usurer stewed in his marrow,  
And by him a Lawyers head and Green-sawce  
Both which his belly took in like a Barrow,  
As if till then he had never seen sauce.   

Then Carbonado'd, and Cook't with pains,  
Was brought up a cloven Serjeants face;  
The sauce was made of his Yeomans brains,  
That had been beaten out with his own mace.   

Two roasted Sheriffes came whole to the board,  
( The feast had nothing been without' him)  
Both living, and dead, they were foxed and fured,  
Their Chaines-like sausages hung about' him.   

The very next dish was a mayor of a town,  
With a pudding of maintenance thrust in his belly,  
Like a Goose in the Feathers dressed in his gown,  
And his couple of Hinch-boyes boiled to a jelly.   

A London cuckolded, hot from the spit,  
And when the Carver up had broken him;  
The devil chopped up his head at a bit,  
But the horns were very near like to have choked him.   

The Chine of a Lecher too there was roasted,  
With a plump Harlots haunch and garlic;  
A Panders Pettitoes, that had boasted  
himself for a captain, yet never was warlike.   

A large fat pastry of a Midwife hot,  
And for a could baked meate into the story,  
A reverend painted Lady was brought,  
And coffined in crust, till now she was hoary.   

To these an overgrown Iustice of peace,  
With a clerk like a gizzard thrust under each arm;  
And warrants for sippets, laid in his own grease,  
Set o'er a Chaffing-dish to be kept warm.   

The jowl of a jailor served for fish,  
A Constable sous'd with vinegar by;  
Two Aldermen Lobsters a sleep in a dish,  
A D●puty Tart, a Churchwarden pie.   

All which devoured, he then for a close,  
Did for a full draft of derby call;  
He heaved the huge vessel up to his nose,  
And left not till he had drunk up all.   

Then from the table he gave a start,  
Where banquet, and wine were nothing scarce;  
All which he fli●ted away with a fart,  
From whence it was called the Devills Arse.   

And there he made such a breach with the wind,  
The hole too standing open the while,  
That the scent of the vapour, before,& behind,  
Hath foully perfumed most part of the Isle.   

And this was Tobacco, the learned suppose;  
Which since in Country, Court, and town,  
in the Devils Glister-pipe smokes at the nose  
Of Polcat, and Madam, of Gallant, and Clown.   

From which wicked weed, with Swines flesh,& Ling,  
Or any thing else thats feast for the Fiend:  
Our captain and wee, cry God save the King,  
And sand him good meate,& mirth without end.    PVPPY. 
AN excellent Song, and a sweet Songster, and would have done rarely in a Cage, with a dish of water, and Hempseed; a fine breast of his own: Sir you are a Prelate of the Order I understand, and I have a terrible grudging upon me to be one of your Company: will your captain take a prentice Sir? I would bind myself to him body and soul, either for one and twenty yeares, or as many lives as he would.  Clo. 
I, and put in my life for one, for I am come about too: I am sorry I had no more money i' my purse when you came first upon us sir: If I had known you would have picked my pocket so like a gentleman, I would have been better provided; I shall bee glad to venture a purse with your worship any time you'll appoint, so you would prefer me to your Captain; Ile put in security for my truth, and serve out my time, though I die to morrow.  Cock 
I, upon those terms sir, and in hope your captain keeps better cheer than he made for the devil, for my stomach will ne're agree with that diet, we'll be all his followers: Ile go home and fetch a little money sir, all I have, and you shall pick my pocket to my face, and Ile avouch it: A man would not desire to have his pocket picked in better company.  Pup. 
Tut, they have other manner of gifts, than telling Fortunes, or picking pockets.  Cock. 
I, and they would bee pleased to show 'hem, or thought us poor mortal country folkes worthy of them.  Pup. 
What might a man do to be a gentleman of your company sir?  Cock. 
I, a gipsy in ordinary, or nothing.  PATRICO. 
FRiends not to refel ye,  
Or any way quell ye,  
To buy or to sell ye,  
I onely must tell ye,  
You aim at a mystery,  
Worthy a History.  
There's much to be done,  
E're ye can be a son,  
Or brother o'the moon,  
'tis not so soon  
acquired as desired;  
You must be beane-bowzy,  
And sleepy and drouzy,  
And lazy, and lousy,  
Before ye can rouse ye,  
In shape that avows ye,  
And then ye may stalk  
The Gypsies walk:  
To the coops and the Pens,  
And bring in the Hens,  
Though the cock be left sullen,  
For loss of the Pullen,  
Take Turkey and Capon,  
And Gammons of Bacon:  
Let nought be forsaken,  
We'll let you go loose,  
Like a fox to a Goose,  
And show you the sty  
Where the little pigs lie,  
Whence if you can take  
One, two, and not wake  
The Sow in her dreams,  
But by the Moone-beames,  
So warily hye,  
As neither do cry,  
You shall the next day  
Have a Licence to play  
At the hedge a flirt,  
For a sheet, or a shirt.  
If your hand be light,  
Ile show you the slight  
Of our Ptolomies knot,  
It is, and tis not.  
To change your Complexion,  
With the noble confection,  
Of walnuts and Hogges-grease:  
Better then Dogs grease:  
And milk the Kine,  
Ere the Milke-maid fine,  
Have opened her eyne.  
Or if you desire  
To spit or fart fire,  
Ile teach you the knacks  
Of eating of flax,  
And out of your noses,  
Draw Ribbons for Posies,  
As for example,  
Mine own is as ample,  
And fruitful a nose,  
As wit can suppose.  
Yet it shall go hard,  
But there will be spared  
Each of you a yard,  
And worth your regard,  
When the colour and size,  
Arrive at your eyes:  
And if you incline  
To a cup of good wine,  
When you sup or dine:  
If you chance it to lack,  
Be it claret or ●ack,  
Ile make this snout,  
To deal it about,  
Or this to run out,  
As it were from a spout.  Town. 
Admirable tricks, and he does 'hem all se d●fen●endo, as if he would not be taken in the tr●p of authority by a frail fleshy Constable.  Clod. 
Without the aid of a Cheese.  Pup. 
Or help of a Fl●tch of Bacon.  Cock. 
O he would chirpe in a pair of Stocks sumptuously: I'd give any thing to see him play loose with his hands, when his feet are fast.  Pup. 
O' my conscience he fears not that an the Marshall himself were here: I protest I admire him.  PATRICO. 
IS this worth your wonder?  
Nay then you shall under-  
Stand more of my skill,  
For I can( for I will)  
Here at Burlye o'th' Hill,  
Give you all your fill,  
Each jack with his Gill,  
And show you the King,  
The Prince too and bring,  
The Gypsies were here,  
Like Lords to appear,  
And such their attenders,  
As you thought offenders,  
Who now become new men,  
Youle know 'hem for true men;  
For he we call chief,  
( Ile tell you in brief)  
Is so far from a thief,  
He gives you relief,  
With his beer and his beef,  
And tis not long sine  
ye drank of his wine,  
And it made you fine,  
Both claret and Sherry;  
Then let us be merry,  
And help with your call,  
For a Hall, a Hall,  
Stand up to the wall,  
Both good men and tall,  
We are one mans all;  beaver. 
THe fift of August,  
Will not let Saw dust  
lye in your throats,  
Or cob-webs, or oats;  
But help to scour ye,  
This is no Gowrie  
Has drawn james hither.  
But the good man of Beve,  
Our Buckinghams Father;  
Then so much the rather  
Make it a jolly night,  
For tis a holy night,  
spite of the Constable,  
Or Mas dean of Dunstable.  All. 
A Hall, a hall, a hall.  The Gypsies changed. Dance. PATRICO. 

WHy now ye behold,  
Twas truth that I  told,  
And no device;  
They are changed in a trice,  
And so will I,  
Be myself by and by.   

I onely now  
Must study how   

To come off with a grace,  
With my Patrico's place:  
Some short kind of blessing,  
itself addressing  
Unto my good Master,  
Which light on him faster.  
Than wishes can fly,  
And you that stand by  
Be as jocund as I;  
Each man with his voice,  
Give his heart to rejoice,  
Which Ile requited,  
If my heart hit right,  
Though late now at night,  
Each clown here in sight,  
Before day light,  
Shall prove a good Knight:  
And your Lasses Pages,  
Worthy their wages,  
Where fancy engages  
girls to their ages.   clown. 
Oh any thing for the Patrico, what is't? what is't?  Pat. 
Nothing but bear the bob of the close,  
It will be no burden, you well may suppose.  
But bless the sovereign, and his sences,  
And to wish away offences.  clown. 
Let us alone, bless the sovereign, and his sences  Pat. 
We'll take them in order, as they have being: And first of seeing.  Pat. 

1.  
FRom a gipsy in the morning,  
Or a pair of squint-eyes turning:  
From the Goblin, and the Spectre,  
Or a Drunkard, though with Nectar;  
From a woman true to no man,  
which is ugly, besides common;  
A smock rampant, and the itches,  
To be putting on the breeches;  
whatsoe'er they ha' their being,  
bless the sovereign and his seeing.   

2  
From a fool, and serious toys;  
From a Lawyer, three parts noise;  
From impertinence, like a Drum  
Beate at dinner in his room:  
From a tongue without a file,  
heaps of Phrases, and no style.  
From a Fiddle out of tune,  
As the cuckoo is in june.  
From the Candlesticks of Lothbury,  
And the loud pure wives of Banbury:  
Or a long pretended fit,  
Meant for mirth, but is not it:  
Onely time, and cares out-wearing,  
bless the sovereign, and his hearing.   

3  
From a strolling Tinkers sheet,  
Or a pair of Carriers feet:  
From a Lady that doth breath,  
Worse above than underneath.  
From the Diet, and the knowledge  
Of the Students in bears college▪  
From Tobacco, with the type  
Of the Devills Glister-pipe;  
Or a stink all stinks excelling  
A Fish-mongers dwelling,  
bless the sovereign, and his smelling.   

4  
From an Oyster, and fried fish,  
A sows Baby in a dish:  
From any portion of a Swine.  
From bad Venison, and worse wine.  
Ling, what cook soe'er it boil,  
Though with Mustard sauc'd and oil,  
Or what else would keep man fasting,  
bless the sovereign, and his tasting.   

5  
Both from bide lime, and from pitch,  
From a doxy and her itch.  
From the Brisles of a hog,  
Or the ring-worme in a dog.  
From the courtship of a briar,  
Or St. Anthonies old fire.  
From a Needle, or a thorn;  
It be bed at even, or morn.  
Or from any Gowts least grutching,  
bless the sovereign, and his touching.   

6  
bless him too from all offences,  
In his sports, as in his sences.  
From a Boy to cross his way,  
From a fall, or a foul day.  
bless him, o bless him heaven, and lend him long  
To be the sacred burden of al song;  
The acts, and years, of all our Kings t'out-go,  
And while he's mortal we not think him so.   After which, ascending up, the Jackman sings. 

Song 1.  
THe sports are done, yet do not let  
Your joys in sudden silence set:  
Delight and dumbness never met.  
In one selfe subject yet.  
If things opposed must mixed appear,  
Then add a boldness to your fear,  
And speak a hymn to him,  
Where all your duties do of right b●long,  
Which I will sweeten with an under song.   captain. 
Glory of ours, and grace of all the earth,  
How well your figure doth become your birth.  
As if your form, and fortune equal stood,  
And onely virtue got above your blood.  

Song. 2.  
Vertue; his Kingly virtue which did merit  
This Isle entire, and you are to inherit.   4 gipsy. 
How right he doth confess him in his face?  
His brow, his eye, and every mark of state;  
As if he were the issue of each grace,  
And bore about him both his famed, and fate.  

Song 3.  
look, look, is he not faire,  
And fresh, and fragrant too,  
As Summer sky, or purged air,  
And looks as lilies do,  
That were this morning blown.   4 Gyp. 
Oh more! that more of him were known.  3 gipsy. 
Look how the winds upon the waves grown tame,  
Take up Land sounds upon their purple wings;  
And catching each from other, bear the same  
To every angle of their sacred springs:  
So will we take his praise, and hurl his name  
About the Globe, in thousand ay'ry rings,  
If his great virtue be in love with famed,  
For that contemned, both are neglected things.  Song 4. 
Good Princes soare above their famed,  
And in their worth,  
Come greater forth,  
Then in their name.  
Such, such the Father is,  
Whom every title strives to kiss:  
Who on his royal grounds unto himself doth raise,  
The work to trouble famed,& to astonish praise.  4 gipsy. 
Indeed he's not Lord alone of all the State,  
But of the love of men,& of the Empires fate.  
The Muses Arts, the schools commerce, our Honours laws,  
And virtues hang on him, as on their working cause.  2 Gip. 
His Hand-maid Iustice is.  3 Gip. 
wisdom his Wife:  4 Gip. 
His mistress, Mercy:  5 Gip. 
Temperance his life.  2 Gip. 
His Pages bounty, and grace, which many prove,  3 Gip. 
His Guards are magnanimity& love.  4 
His Ushers, counsel, Truth, and Piety.  5 Gip. 
And all that follows him, Felicity.  

Song 5  
Oh that we understood  
Our good;  
There's happiness indeed in blood,  
And st●re,  
But how much more,  
When vertu's flood  
In the same stream doth hit?  
As that grows high with yeares, so happiness with it.   captain. 
Love, love his fortune then,& virtues known,  
Who is the top of men,  
But makes the happiness our own;  
Since where the Prince for goodness is renowned,  
The Subject with felicity is crowned.    

The Epilogue.  
AT Burley, beaver, and now last at Windsor,  
Which shows we are Gipsies of no common kind sir.  
You have beholded(& with delight) their change,  
And how they came transformed, may think it strange.  
It being a thing not touched at by our Poet,  
Good Ben slept there, or else forgot to show it;  
But least it prove like wonder to the sight,  
To see a gipsy, as an aethiop, white:  
Know, that what died our faces was an ointment  
Made, and laid on by Mr. dwarves appointment;  
The Court Licanthropos yet without spells,  
By ● mere Barber, and no magic ells:  
It was setcht off with water and a Ball,  
And to our transformation this is all,  
Save what the Master Fashioner calls his,  
For ●o Gypsies Metamorphosis;  
Who doth disguise his habit, and his face,  
And takes on a false person by his place:  
The power of Poetry can ever fail her,  
Assisted by a Barber, and a tailor.   
FINIS.   

EPIGRAMS TO several Noble Personages in this kingdom.  
The Author Ben: jonson.  
LONDON: Printed by J. oaks, for J. Benson, and are to bee sold at his shop in St. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleet-street. 1640.   

EPIGRAMS TO several Noble Personages in this kingdom.  

Upon King CHARLES his Birth-day.  

THis is King Charles his birth day, speak it the Tower  
Unto the ships,& they from tyre to tyre;  
Discharging about the iceland in an hour,  
As loud as thunder, and as swift as fire.   

Let Ireland meet it out at Sea half way,  
Repeating al great Brittaines joy and more,  
Adding her own glad accents to this day,  
Like echo playing from another shore.   

What Drums, or Trumpets, or great Ordnance can,  
The Poetry of Steeples with the Bells.  
Three kingdoms mirth in light and ayery man,  
Made loftier by the winds all noises else.   

At bonfires, squibs, and mirth, with all their shouts,  
That cry the gladness which their hearts would pray,  
If they had leisure, at these lawful routs,  
The often coming of this Holy day:  
And then noise forth the burden of their song;  
Still to have such a Charles, but this Charles long.    

To the Queen on her Birth-day.  

UP public joy, remember  
The sixteenth of November,  
Some brave uncommon way.  
And though the parish Steeple  
Be silent to the people,  
Ring thou it Holy day.   

What though the thirsty tower,  
And Guns there spare to power  
Their noises out in thunder:  
As fearful to awake  
The City, as to shake  
Their guarded gates asunder.   

Yet let the Trumpets sound,  
And shake both air and ground  
With beating of their Drums:  
Let every lyre be strung,  
harp, Lute, Theorbo sprung  
With touch of learned thumbs:   

That when the quiter is full.  
The harmony may pull  
The Angels from their spheres:  
And each intelligence,  
May wish itself a sense,  
Whilst it the Ditty hears.   

Behold the royal Mary,  
The daughter of great Harry,  
And sister to just Le●ia,  
Comes in the pomp and glory  
Of all her fathers story,  
And of her brothers Prowis.   

She shows so far above  
The feigned Queen of Love,  
This Sea-girt ground upon,  
As here no Venus were,  
But that she reigning here,  
Had put the Ceston on.   

See, see our active King,  
Hath taken twice the Ring  
Upon the pointed Lance,  
Whilst all the ravished rout,  
do mingle in a shout,  
Hey for the floure of France.   

This day the Court doth measure  
Her joy in state and pleasure:  
And with a reverend fear,  
The revels and the play  
Make up this crwoned day  
Her one and twenty year.    

An Epgram to the Queens Health.  
hail MARY, full of grace, it once was said,  
And by an angel, to the blessed Maid,  
The mother of our Lord: and why not I,  
Without profaneness, as a Poet, cry,  
hail Mary full of honours, to my queen,  
The Mother of our Prince? when was there seen  
( Except the joy that the first Mary brought,  
Whereby the safety of the world was wrought)  
So general a gladness to an Isle,  
To make the hearts of a whole Nation smile,  
As in this Prince? let it be lawful so  
To compare small with great, as still we owe  
Our thanks to God; then hail to Mary spring  
Of so much health, both to our Land and King.   

On the Princes Birth-day. An Epigram.  

ANd art thou born, brave babe? blessed be thy birth  
That so hath crowned our hopes, our spring on earth;  
The bed of the chast lily, and the Rose,  
What month than May was fitter to disclose  
This Prince of flowers? soon shoot thou up,& grow  
The same that thou art promised; but be slow  
And long in changing: let our Nephews see  
Thee quickly come, the Gardens eye to bee,  
And still to stand so: hast now envious moon,  
And interpose thyself, care not how soon,  
And threat the great eclipse, two houres but run,  
Sol will reshine; if not, Charles hath a son.   

— Non Displicuisse meretur,  
Festinat Caesar, qui placuisse tibi.    

Another on the Birth of the Prince.  
ANother Phoenix, though the first is dead,  
A second's flown from his immortal bed,  
To make this our Arabia to be  
The nest of an eternal progeny.  
choice nature framed the former, but to find,  
What error might be mended in Man-kind:  
Like some industrious workmen, which affect  
Their first endeavours onely to correct:  
So this the buildings, that the model was,  
The type of all that now as come to pass:  
That but the shadow, this the substance is,  
All that was but the prophesy of this:  
And when it did this after birth fore-runne,  
'twas but the morning star unto this sun;  
The dawning of this day, when Sol did think,  
We having such a light, that he might wink,  
And we ne're miss his lustre: nay so soon  
As Charles was born, he, and the pale faced moon,  
With envy then did copulate, to try  
If such a birth might be produced ith' sky.  
What heavenly favour made a star appear,  
To bid wise Kings to do their homage here,  
And prove him truly Christian? long remain  
On earth, sweet Prince, that when great Charles shall reign  
In heaven above, our little Charles may be  
As great on earth, because as good as he.   

A Parallel of the Prince to the King.  
SO Peleus, whom he faire The●●● got,  
As thou thy Sea Queen; so to him she brought.  
A blessed Babe, as thine hath done to thee:  
His worthiest proved of those times, ours may be  
Of these; his had a Pallas for his guide,  
Thy wisdom will as well for ours provide:  
His conquered Countries, Cities, Castles, Towers,  
A worthy foe; hereafter so may ours.  
His all his time but once Patroclus finds,  
But this of ours a world of faithful friends  
He's vulnerable in no place but one,  
And this of ours( we hope) be hurt of none.  
His had his Phoenix, ours no teacher needs,  
But the example of thy life and deeds.  
His Nestor knew, in arms his fellow was,  
But not in yeares,( too soon run out his glass)  
Ours, though not Nestor knew, we trust, shall bee  
As wise in arms, as old in yeares as he.  
His, after death, had Homer his reviver:  
And ours may better merit to live ever,  
By Deeds farre-passing: but( oh sad despair)  
No hope of Homer, his wit left no heir.   

An Elegy on the Lady Jane Paulet, Marchionesse of Winchester.  
WHat goodly Ghost, besprint with april due,  
Hale's me so solemnly to yonder Yew?  
And beckoning, wooes me, from the fatal three,  
To pluck a Garland for herself, or me,  
I do obey you beauty; for in death  
You seem a faire one; O that I had breath  
To give your shade a name! stay! stay! I feel  
A horror in me, all my blood is steel,  
stiff stark; my joints 'gainst one another knock:  
Whose daughter? ha! great Savage of the Rock!  
He's good, as great! I am almost a ston,  
And ere I can ask more of her she's gone!  
Alas I am all Marble: writ the rest,  
Thou wouldst have written famed upon my breast,  
It is a large faire Table, and a true,  
And the disposure will be somewhat new:  
When I, who would her Poet have become,  
At least may bear th'inscription to her tomb:  
She was the Lady jane, and Marchionesse  
Of Winchester; the Heralds can tell this:  
earl Rivers grand-child, serve not titles, famed  
Sound thou her virtues, give her soul a name.  
Had I a thousand mouths, as many tongues,  
And voice to raise them from my brazen Lungs,  
I durst not aim at, the Dotes thereof were such,  
No Nation can express how much  
Their carat was: I or my trump must break,  
But rather I, should I of that part speak,  
It is too near of kin to God; the soul  
To be described, Fames fingers are too foul  
To touch those mysteries; we may admire  
The heat and splendour, but not handle fire:  
What she did by a great example well,  
T'inlive posterity, her famed may tell;  
And calling truth to witness, make it good  
From the inherent graces in her blood.  
Else who doth praise a person by a new,  
But a feigned way doth spoil it of the true:  
Her sweetness, softness, her faire courtesy,  
Her wary guards, her wise simplicity,  
Were like a ring of virtues about her set,  
And piety the Center where all met:  
A reverend state she had, an awful eye;  
A darling( yet inviting) Majesty;  
What Nature, Fortune, Institution, Fact,  
Could heap to a perfection, was her act:  
How did she leave the world, with what contempt?  
Just as she in it lived, and so exempt  
From all affection: when they urged the Cure  
Of her disease, how did her soul assure  
Het sufferings, as the body had been away:  
And to the torturers, her Doctors say,  
Stick on your Cupping-glasses, fear not, put  
Your hottest caustics to burn, lance, or cut:  
Tis but a body which you can torment,  
And I into the world with my soul was sent.  
Then comforted her Lord, and blessed her son,  
cheered her faire sisters, in her race to run.  
Which gladness tempered her sad parents tears,  
Made her friends joys to get above their fears.  
And in her lust act caught the standards by,  
With admiration and applause to die:  
Let Angels sing her glories, who did call  
Her spirit home to her original;  
That saw the way was made it, and were sene  
To carry and conduct the compliment  
'Twixt death and life: where her mortality  
Became her birth-day to eternity.  
And now through circumfused lights she looks  
On Natures secrets there, as her own books;  
Speaks heavens language, and discourses free  
To every Order, every Hierarchy.  
Beholds her Maker, and in him doth see  
What the beginning of all beauties be:  
And all beatitudes that thence doth flow,  
Which the Elect of God are sure to know.  
go now her happy parents, and be sad,  
If ye not understand what child you had;  
If you dare quarrel heaven, and repent  
To have paid again a blessing was but lent:  
And trusted so, as it deposited lay  
At pleasure to be called for every day.  
If you can envy your own daughters bliss;  
And wish her state less happy than it is;  
If you can cast about your either eye,  
And see all dead here, or about to die:  
The stars that are the jewels of the night,  
The day deceasing with the Prince of light,  
The sun. Great Kings, and mightiest kingdoms fall,  
Whole Nations; nay, Man kind, the World and all  
That ever had beginning to have end;  
With what injustice can one soul pretend  
T'escape this common known necessity,  
When we were all born, we began to die:  
And but for that brave contention and strife,  
The Christian hath to enjoy a future life,  
He were the wretchedst of the race of men;  
But as he soars at that, he br●●eth then  
The serpents head; gets above death and sin,  
And sure of heaven rides triumphing in.   

ODE PINDARICK To the Noble Sir Lucius carry.  

The turn of ten.  
BRave Infant of Saguntum clear,  
Thy coming forth in that great year,  
When the prodigious hannibal did crown  
His rage, with razing your immortal town.  
Thou looking then about,  
E're thou wert half got out:  
Wise child didst hastily return,  
And madst thy Mothers womb thine urn,  
How summed a circled didst thou leave man-kind,  
Of deepest lore, could we the center find.   

The Counter-turne of ten.  
Did wiser nature draw thee back,  
From out the horror of that sack?  
Where shane, faith, honour, and regard of right,  
Lay trampled on the deeds of death and night.  
urged, hurried forth, and hurled  
Upon th'affrighted world:  
Sword, fire, famine, with full fury me,  
And all on utmost ruin set:  
As could they but lives miseries fore-see,  
No doubt all Infants would return like thee.   

The Stand, of twelve.  
For what is life, if measured by the space,  
Not by the Act?  
Or masked man, if valued by his face,  
Above his Fact?  
Here's one outlived his peers,  
And  told forth fourscore yeeres,  
He vexed time, and busied the whole State,  
Troubled both foes and friends,  
But ever to no ends:  
What did this stirrer but die late?  
How well at twenty had he fallen or stood,  
For three of his fourscore he did no good.   

The second turn of ten.  
He entred well by virtuous parts,  
Got up and thrived with honest Arts,  
He purchased friends, and famed, and honours then,  
And had his noble Name advanced with men.  
But weary of that flight,  
He stooped in all mens sight  
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,  
And sunk in that dead Sea of life  
Too deep: as he did then deaths waters sup,  
But that the cork of title, boy'd him up.   

The second Counter-turne, of ten.  
Alas, but Morison fell young;  
He never fell, thou tripst my tongue:  
He stood a soldier to the last night end,  
A perfect Patriot, and a noble friend.  
But most a virtuous son,  
All Offices were done  
By him so ample, full and round,  
In weight, and measure number sound,  
As though his age imperfect might appear,  
His life was of humanity the sphere.   

The second Stand of twelve.  
go now and tell out dayes, summed up with fears,  
And make them yeares:  
Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,  
To swell thine Age;  
repeat of things a throng,  
To show thou hast been long,  
Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell,  
By what was done, and wrought  
In season, and so brought  
To light: her measures are how well:  
Each sillib' answered, and was formed how faire;  
These make the lines of life, and that's her air.   

The third turn of ten.  
It is not growing, like a three,  
In bulk, doth make man better bee,  
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,  
To fall a Log at last, dry, bald, and sear:  
A lily of a day,  
Is fairer far in May,  
Although it fall and die at night,  
It was the plant and flower of light;  
In small proportions we just beauty see,  
And in short measures life may perfect be.   

The third Counter-turne of ten.  
Call noble Lucius then for Wine,  
And let thy looks with gladness shine,  
Accept this Garland, plant it on thy head,  
And think, nay know thy Morison's not dead:  
He leaped the present age,  
possessed with holy rage,  
To see the bright eternal day,  
Of which we Priests and Poets say  
Such truths as we expect for happy men,  
And there he lives with memory: and Ben:   

The third Stand of twelve.  
jonson! who sung this of him e're he went  
himself to rest:  
Or taste a part of that full joy he meant  
To have expressed,  
In this bright Asterisme,  
Where it was friendships schism.  
Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,  
To separate these twi-  
Lights, the Dioscuri,  
And keep the one half from his Harry;  
But fate doth so alternate the design,  
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.   

The fourth turn of ten.  
And shine as you exalted are,  
Two names of friendship, but one star  
Of hearts the union: and those not by chance  
Made or indentur'd, or leas'd out t'advance  
The profits for a time,  
No pleasures vain, did chime  
Of rhymes, or riots at your feasts.  
Orgies of drink, or feigned protests;  
But simplo love, of greatness and of good,  
That knits brave minds& mannersmore than blood.   

The fourth Counter-turne of ten.  
This made you first to know the why  
You liked, than after to apply  
That liking; and approach so one the tother,  
Till either grew a portion of the other;  
Each styled by his end,  
The copy of his fiend;  
You lived to be the great surnames,  
And titles by which all made claims  
Unto the virtue: nothing perfect done,  
But as a carry, or a Morison.   

The fourth, and last Stand, of twelve.  
And such a force the faire example had,  
As they that saw  
The good, and durst not practise it, were glad  
That such a Law  
Was left yet to man-kind,  
Where they might red, and find  
Friendship indeed was written not in words:  
And with the heart, not pen,  
Of two so early men,  
Whose Lines her Rowles were, and records  
Who e're the first down, bloomed on the Chin,  
Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.    

To Hierom Lord Weston, upon his return from his embassy.  

SUch pleasures as the teeming earth  
Doth take in easy Natures birth,  
When she puts forth the life of every thing,  
And in a due of sweetest rain,  
She lies delivered without pain,  
Of the prime beauty of the year and spring.   

That Rivers in their shores do run,  
The clouds rack clear before the sun,  
The rudest winds obey the calmestaire;  
Rate plants from every bank do rise,  
And every plant the sense surprise,  
Because the order of the whole is faire.   

The very verdure of her nest,  
Wherein she sits so richly dressed,  
As all the wealth of season there were spread,  
Have shew'd the graces, and the houres,  
Have multiplied their arts and powers,  
In making soft her Aromaticke bed.   

Such joys, such sweets doth your return  
Bring all your friends, faire Lord, that burn  
With joy to hear your modesty relate  
The business of your blooming wit,  
With all the fruits that follow it,  
Both to the honour of the King, and state.   

O how will the Court be pleased,  
To see great CHARLES of travel eased:  
When he beholds a graft of his own hand,  
Spring up an Olive, fruitful, faire,  
To be a shadow of the air;  
And both a strength and beauty to the Land.    

To the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer. An Epigram.  
IF to my mind, great Lord, I had a state,  
I would present you with some curious Plate  
Of Norimberg, or turkey; hang your rooms,  
Not from the Arras, but the Persian Looms:  
I would( if price or prayer could them get)  
sand in what Romans famous Tintaret,  
Titian, or raphael, michael Angelo,  
Have left in famed, to equal, or outgo  
The old greek hands in picture or in ston;  
This would I do, could I think Weston one  
catched with these Arts; wherein the judge is wise,  
As far as sense, and onely by his eyes.  
But you I know, my Lord, and know you can  
discern between a Statue, and a Man:  
Can do the things that Statue do deserve,  
And act the business which these paint or carve.  
What you have studied are the Arts of life,  
To compose men and manners, stint the strife  
Of froward Citizens; make Nations know  
What world of blessings to good Kings they owe;  
And mightiest Monarchs feel what large increase  
Of famed and honour you possess by peace.  
These look I up at with a measuring eye,  
And strike Religion in the standards by.  
Which though I cannot, like as an Architect,  
In glorious Piles and Pyramids erect  
Unto your honour; I can voice in song  
Aloud; and( haply) it may last as long.   

To Mr. Jonson upon these Verses.  
YOur Verses were commended, as 'tis true,  
That they were very good, I mean to you:  
For they return'd you Ben I have been  told,  
The seld seen sum of forty pound in gold.  
These Verses then, being rightly understood.  
His Lordship, not Ben: jonson, made them good.   

To my Detractor.  
MY Verses were commended, thou didst say,  
And they were very good; yet thou thinkest nay.  
For thou objectest, as thou hast been  told,  
Th' envied return of forty pound in gold.  
fool do not rate my rhymes, I have found thy 'vice  
Is to make cheap the Lord, the Lines, the Price:  
But bark thou on; I pitty thee poor Cur,  
That thou shouldst lose thy noise, thy foam, thy stir,  
To be known what thou art, thou blatent beast:  
But writing against me, thou thinkest at least  
I now would writ on thee: no wretch, thy name  
Cannot work out unto it such a famed:  
No man will tarry by thee as he goes  
To ask thy name, if he have half a nose;  
But fly thee like the Pest. Walk not the street  
Out in the Dog-dayes, least the Killer meet  
Thy Noddle with his Club; and dashing forth  
Thy dirty brains, men see thy want of worth.   

To William earl of New-Castle on the backing of his Horse.  
WHen first, my Lord, I saw you back your horse,  
Provoke his mettle, and command his force  
To all the uses of the field and race,  
Me thought I red the ancient Art of Thrace,  
And saw a centaur past those tales of Greece;  
So seemed your horse and You, both of a piece:  
You shew'd like Perseus upon Pegasus,  
Or Castor mounted on his Cillarus:  
Or what we hear our home-born Legend tell,  
Of bold Sir Bevis, and his arundel,  
And so your seat his beauties did endorse,  
As I began to wish myself a horse.  
And surely had I but your stable seen  
Before, I think my wish absolv d had been:  
For never saw I yet the Muses dwell,  
Nor any of their household half so well.  
So well! as when I saw the floor and room,  
I looked for Hercules to be the groom.  
And cried, away with the Caesarian bread,  
At these immortal Mangers Virgil fed.   

To William earl of New-Castle. An Epigram on his Fencing.  
THey talk of Fencing, and the use of arms,  
The Art of urging, and avoiding harms;  
The Noble Science, and the mastring skill  
Of making just approaches, how to kill,  
To hit in Angles, and to clash with time,  
As all defence, or offence, were a Chime.  
I hate this measured: give me mettled fire,  
That trembles i'the blaze, but then mounts-higher  
A swift and darling motion, when a pair  
Of men do meet like rarefied air:  
Their weapons darted with that flamme and force,  
As they out-did the lightning in the course,  
This were a spectacle, a sight to draw  
Wonder to valour; no, it is a Law  
Of daring, not to do a wrong: tis true,  
Next to despise, it being done to you:  
To know all heads of danger: where tis fit  
To bend, to break, provoke, or suffer it:  
And this my Lord is valour: this is yours,  
And was your fathers, and your ancestors;  
Who durst live great, when death appeared, or bands,  
And valiant were with, or without, their hands.   

To Sir kenelm Digby. An Epigram.  
THough happy Muse thou know my Digby well,  
Yet take him in these Lines: he doth excel  
In Honours, courtesy, and all the parts  
Court can call hers, or man would call his Arts:  
He's prudent, valiant, just, and temperate,  
In him all action is beholded in state.  
And he is built, like some imperial room,  
For those to dwell in, and be still at home.  
His breast is a brave Pallas, a broad street,  
Where all heroic ample thoughts do meet.  
Where nature such a large survey hath tane,  
As others souls, to his, dwell in a lane:  
witness his birth-day, the eleventh of june,  
And his great action done at Scanderoone.  
That day, which I predestined am to sing,  
For Brittains honour, and to Charles my King  
go Muse in, and salute him, say he be  
busy, or frown at first, when he sees thee,  
He will cheer up his fore-head, think thou bring'st  
Good fortune to him in the Note thou singest:  
For he doth love my verses, and will look  
Upon them, next to Spencers noble book;  
And praise them too: O what a famed 'twill be?  
What reputation to my lines, and me,  
When he doth red them at the Treasurers board,  
The knowing Weston, and that learned Lord  
allows them? then what Copies will be had?  
What transcripts made? how cried up, and how glad  
Wilt thou be Muse, when this shall then be fall,  
Being sent to one, they will be red of all.   

His mistress drawn.  

SItting, and ready to be drawn,  
What make these Velvets, Silks,& Lawn?  
Imbroyderies, Feathers, Fringe and Lace,  
When every limb takes like a face?   

sand these suspected helps to aid  
Some form defective, and decayed:  
This beauty without falsehood faire,  
Needs nought to cloath it but the air.   

Yet something to the Painters view,  
Were fitly interposed, so new  
He shall( if he can understand)  
work by my fancy with his hand.   

Draw first a Cloud, all save her neck,  
And out of that make day to break:  
Till like her face it do appear,  
And men may think all light rose there.   

Then let the beams of that disperse  
The Cloud, and show the Universe:  
But at such distance, as the eye  
May rather it adore than spy.   

The heavens designed, draw next a spring,  
With all that youth, or it may bring:  
four Rivers branching forth like seas,  
And Paradise confined in these.   

Last draw the circled of this Globe,  
And let there be a starry rob  
Of Constellations about her hurled,  
And thou hast painted beauties world.   

But Painter, see you do not sell  
A copy of this Piece nor tell  
Whose 'tis: but if it favour find,  
Next sitting we will draw her mind.    

Her mind.  

PAinter y'are come, but may be gone,  
Now I have better thought thereon,  
This work I can perform alone,  
And give you reasons more than one:   

Not that your Art I do refuse,  
But here I may no colours use;  
Besides, your hand will never hit  
To draw the thing that cannot sit.   

You could make shift to paint an eye,  
An Eagle towering in the sky,  
A sun, a Sea, a soundlesse pit;  
But these are like a Mind, not it.   

No, to express a mind to sense,  
Would ask a heavens intelligence,  
Since nothing can report that flamme,  
But what's of kin to whence it came:   

Sweet Mind then speak yourself, and say  
As you go on, by what brave way,  
Our sense you do with knowledge fill,  
And yet remain our wonder still.   

I call you Muse, now make it true,  
Henceforth may every line be you,  
That all may say that see the frame,  
This is no picture, but the same.   

A Mind? so pure, so perfect fine,  
As 'tis not radiant, but divine:  
And so disdaining any trier,  
'tis got where it can try the fire.   

There( high exalted in the sphere,  
As it another nature were)  
It moveth all, and makes a flight,  
As circular as infinite,   

Whose Notions when it will express  
In speech, it is with that excess  
Of grace and music to the ear,  
As what it spake it planted there.   

The voice so sweet, the words so faire,  
As some soft chime had stroked the air:  
And though the sound were partend thence.  
Still left an echo in the sense.   

But that a mind so rapt, so high,  
So swift, so pure, should yet apply  
itself to us, and come so nigh  
Earths grossness! there's the how,& why?   

Is it because it sees us dull,  
And stuck in day here; it would pull  
us forth by some celestial slight,  
up to her own sublimed height.   

Or hath she here upon the ground,  
Some Paradise or palace found  
In all the bounds of beauty, fit  
For heart' inhabit? there is it.   

Thrice happy house that hast receipt  
For this so softly form, so streight,  
So polished, perfect, and so even,  
As it slid moulded off from Heaven.   

Not swelling like the Ocean proud,  
But stooping gently as a Cloud;  
As smooth as oil powred forth and calm  
As showers, and sweet as drops of balm:   

Smooth, soft, and sweet, in all a flood,  
Where it may run to any good,  
And where it stays it there becomes,  
A nest of Odours, Spice, and gums.   

In action winged as the wind,  
In rest like spirits left behind  
Upon a bank or field of flowers,  
Begotten by the wind and showers.   

In thee faire mansion let it rest,  
Yet know with what thou art possessed,  
Thou entertaining in thy breast,  
But such a mind makest God thy Guest.    

Sir WILLIAM BURLASE The Painter to the Poet.  

TO paint thy worth, if rightly I did know it,  
And were but Painter half like thee a Poet,  
Ben: I would show it.   

But in this art my unskillfull pen will tyre;  
Thou and thy worth will still be found far higher,  
And I a liar.   

Then what a Painter's here? and what an eater  
Of great attempts? whereas his skill's no greater,  
And he a Cheater.   

Then what a Poet's here, whom by confession  
Of all with me, to paint without digression,  
There's no expression.    

BEN: JONSON The Poet to the Painter.  

WHy though I seem of a prodigious waste,  
I am not so voluminous, and vast,  
But there are lines, wherewith I might b'embrast.   

Tis true, as my womb swells, so my back stoops,  
And the whole part grows round, deformed, and droops,  
But yet the Tun at heidelberg had hoops.   

You were not tied by any Painters Law,  
To square my circled,( I confess) but draw  
My superficies, that was all you saw.   

Which if in compass of no Art it came,  
To be described by a Monogram,  
With one great blot y'had formed me as I am.   

But since you curious were to have it be  
An Archetype for all the world to see,  
You made it a brave piece, but not like me.   

O had I now your Manner, Majesty, Might,  
Your power of handling, shadow, air, and spirit,  
How I could draw, and take hold, and delight!   

But you are he can paint, I can but writ,  
A Poet hath no more than black, and white;  
Ne knows he flattering colours, or false light.   

But when of friendship, I would draw the face,  
A lettered mind, and a large heart would place,  
To all posterity, I would writ Burlase.    

Upon my Picture left in Scotland.  

I Now think Love is rather deaf than blind,  
For else it could not bee  
That shee.  
Whom I adore so much, should so flight me,  
And cast my svit behind.  
I'm sure my Language to her was as sweet,  
And every close did meet,  
In sentence of as subtle feet,  
As hath the wisest he,  
That sits in shadow of Apollo's three.   

O but my conscious fears that fly my thoughts between,  
Tells me that she hath seen  
My hundreds of gray hairs,  
 told six and forty yeares,  
red so much waste, as she could not embrace  
My mountain belly, and my rocky face.  
And all these through her eyes have stopped her ears.    

On a Gentlewoman working by an hourglass.  
do but consider this small dust,  
Here running in the glass,  
By atoms moved:  
Would you believe that it the body was  
Of one that loved?  
And in his Mistris flames playing like a fly,  
Was turned into Cynders by her eye?  
Yes; as in life, so in their deaths unblessed:  
A Lovers ashes never can find rest.   

To the Ladies of the Court. An Ode.  

COme Noble Nymphs, and do not hide:  
The joys for which you so provide;  
If not to mingle with us men,  
What do you here? go home again:  
Your dressings do confess,  
By what we see, so curious arts,  
Of Pallas and Arachnes Arts,  
That you could mean no less.   

Why do you wear the Silke-worms toils?  
Or glory in the shell-fish spoils?  
Or strive to show the grains of Ore,  
That you have gathered long before,  
Whereof to make a stock  
To graft the green Emerald on,  
Or any better watered ston,  
Or Ruby of the Rock?   

Why do you smell of ambergris?  
Whereof was formed Neptunes niece,  
The Queen of Love, unless you can  
Like Sea-borne Venus love a man?  
Try, put yourselves unto't.  
Your looks, your smiles, and thoughts that meet:  
Ambrosian hands, and silver feet,  
do promise you will do't.    

ODE To himself.  

I.  
COme leave the loathed Stage,  
And the more loathsome age,  
Where pride and Impudence in faction knit,  
usurp the chair of wit:  
Inditing and arraigning every day,  
Something they call a play.  
Let their fastidious vain  
Commission of the brain,  
run on, and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn,  
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.   

II.  
Say that pour'st 'hem wheat,  
And they would Akornes eat:  
Twere simplo fury still thyself to waste  
On such as have no taste:  
To offer them a surfeit of pure bread;  
Whose appetites are dead:  
No, give them grains their fill,  
husks, draff to drink, and swill:  
If they love Lees, and leave the lusty Wine,  
Envy them not, their pallat's with the swine.   

III.  
No doubt a moldy Tale,  
Like Pericles, and Stale  
As the Shrieves crusts, and nasty as his fish,  
Scraps out of every Dish,  
thrown forth and raked into the common Tub,  
May keep up the Play Club.  
Brooms sweepings do as well  
There, as his Masters meal:  
For who the relish of these guests will fit,  
Needs set them but the Almes-basket of wit.   

IV.  
And much good do't ye then,  
Brave Plush and Velvet men  
Can feed on Orts; and safe in your sceene clothes,  
Dare quit upon your oaths  
The Stagers, and the stage-writes too; your Peers,  
Of stuffing your large ears  
With rage of comic socks,  
Wrought upon twenty blocks;  
Which if they're torn,& foul, and patched enough,  
The gamesters share your gilded, and you their stuff.   

V.  
Leave things so prostitute,  
And take th' Alcaike Lute;  
Or thine own Horace; or Anacreons Lyre;  
warm thee by Pindars fire;  
And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be could  
Ere yeares have made thee old,  
Strike that disdainful heat  
Throughout, to their defeat:  
As curious fools, and envious of thy strain,  
May blushing swear, no Palsie's in thy brain.   

VI.  
But when they hear thee sing  
The glories of thy King;  
His zeal to God, and his just awe of men,  
They may be blood shaken, then  
feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers,  
That no tuned harp like ours,  
In sound of peace or wars,  
Shall truly hit the stars:  
When they shall red the Acts of Charles his reign,  
And see his Chariot triumph 'bove his wain.    

A Sonnet.  

THough I am young, and cannot tell  
Either what death, or Love is well,  
Yet I have heard they both bear Darts,  
And both do aim at human hearts:  
And then again I have been  told,  
Love wounds with heat, and death with could;  
So that I fear they do but bring  
extremes, to touch and mean one thing.   

As in a ruin we it call,  
One thing to be blown up and fall;  
Or to our end like way may have  
By a flash of lightning, or a wave:  
So Loves inflamed shaft, or band,  
Will kill as soon as deaths could hand:  
Except loves fires the virtue have  
To fright the frost out of the grave.    
FINIS.