If Martius in boisterous buffs be drest, In blowing bubbles from an empty shell, Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest, There did he dreame of dreary wars at hand, And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand". Time bids thee raise thine headstrong thoughts on high Pawne thou no gloue for challenge of the deede, &c.2 The fifth, the most obscure of any, exhibits the extremes of prodigality and avarice, and affords the first instance I remember to have seen, of nominal initials with dashes. Yet in his POSTSCRIPT, he professes to have avoided all personal applications". In the sixth, from Juvenal's position that every man is naturally discontented, and wishes to change his proper condition and character, he ingeniously takes occasion to expose some of the new fashions and affectations. Out from the Gades to the eastern morne, And weare curl'd periwigs, and chalk their face, And still are poring on their pocket-glasse; Tyr'd with pinn'd ruffs, and fans, and partlet strips, And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace. Besides what is here said, we have before seen, that perukes were now among the novelties in dress. coaches were now in common use. he alludes to the Schola Salernitana, an old metrical system in rhyming verse, which chiefly describes the qualities of diet. Though neuer haue I Salerne rimes profest, To be some lady's trencher-critick guest. There is much humour in trenchercritick. Coilingborn, mentioned in the beginning of this satire, is the same whose Legend is in the Mirrour for Magistrates, and who was hanged for a distich on Catesby, Ratcliff, Lord Lovel, and king Richard the Third, about the year 1484. See Mirr. Mag. p. 455. edit. 1610. 4to. Our author says, Or lucklesse Collingbourne feeding of the crowes. that is, he was food for the crows when on the gallows. At the end, is the first use I have seen, of a witty apophthegmatical comparison of a libidinous old man. The maidens mocke, and call him withered leeke, That with a greene tayle has an hoary head. [It is used by Boccacio in his introduction to the second part of the Decameron, and most probably was current before his time.-PRICE.] B. iv. 6. Collybist, here used, means a rent or tax-gatherer. Kovßiorns, nummularius. From what follows it appears that battired, dressed, adorned. Of the rapid increase of the number of coaches, but more particularly of Hackney-coaches, we have a curious proof in A pleasant Dispute between Coach and Sedan, Lond. 1636. 4to. "The most eminent places for stoppage are Pawles-gate into Cheapside, Ludgate and Ludgate-hill, especially when the Play is done at the Friers then Holborne Conduit, and Holborne-Bridge, is villainously pestered with them, Hosier-lane, Smithfield, and Cowlane, sending all about their new or old mended coaches. Then about the Stockes, and Poultrie, Temple-Barre, Fetter-lane, and Shoe-lane next to Fleet-streete. But to see their multitude, either when there is a Masque at Whitehall, or a lord Mayor's Feast, or a New Play at some of the playhouses, you would admire to see them how close they stand together, like mutton-pies in a cook's oven," &c. Signat. F. Marston, in 1598, speaks of the joulting Coach of a Messalina. Sc. Villan. B. i. 3. And in Marston's Postscript to Pigmalion, 1598, we are to understand a coach, where he says, Run as sweet street. In Cynthia's Revels, 1600, a spendthrift is introduced, who among other polite extravagances, is "able to maintaine a ladie in her two carroches a day." A. iv. s. 2. Is 't not a shame, to see each homely groome The rustic wishing to turn soldier, is pictured in these lively and poetical colours. The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see And his dim eyes see nought but death and dreare! Another, fired with the flattering idea of seeing his name in print, abandons his occupation, and turns poet. Some drunken rimer thinks his time well spent, If he can liue to see his name in print; Who when he once is fleshed to the presse, However, in the old comedy of RamAlley, or Merry Tricks, first printed in 1611, a coach and a caroche seem different vehicles, a. iv. s. 2. In horslitters, [in] coaches or caroaches, coach. In some old account I have seen of queen Elizabeth's progress to Cambridge, in 1564, it is said, that lord Leicester went in a coach, because he had hurt his leg. In a comedy, so late as the reign of Charles the First, among many studied wonders of fictitious and hyperbolical luxury, a lover promises his lady that she shall ride in a coach to the next door. Cartwright's Love's Convert. a. ii. s. 6. Lond. 1651. Works, p. 125. Thou shalt Take coach to the next door, and as it were Aloof in indignation of the earth. Stowe says, "In the yeare 1564, Guylliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the Queene's coachmanne, and was the first that brought the vse of coaches into En gland. And after a while, diuers great ladies, with as great iealousie of the queene's displeasure, made them coaches, and rid in them vp and downe the countries to the great admiration of all the behoulders, but then by little and little they grew vsuall among the nobilitie, and others of sort, and within twenty yeares became a great trade of coachmaking. And about that time began long wagons to come in vse, such as now come to London, from Caunterbury, Norwich, Ipswich, Glocester, &c. with passengers and commodities. Lastly, euen at this time, 1605, began the ordinary vse of caroaches." Edit. fol. 1615. p. 867. col. 2. From a comparison of the former and latter part of the context, it will perhaps appear that Coaches and Caroaches were the same. This sort of stuff is mentioned in a statute of Richard the Second, an. 12. A.D. 1389. maid. By the knife-grinder and the milk f A thrave of straw is a bundle of straw, of a certain quantity, in the midland counties. These lines seem to be levelled at William Elderton, a celebrated drunken Having traced various scenes of dissatisfaction, and the desultory pursuits of the world, he comes home to himself, and concludes, that real happiness is only to be found in the academic life. This was a natural conclusion from one who had experienced no other situation. 'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife, Oh, let me lead an academick life! To know much, and to think we nothing knowe, The last of this Book, is a satire on the pageantries of the papal chair, and the superstitious practices of popery, with which it is easy to make sport. But our author has done this, by an uncommon quickness of allusion, poignancy of ridicule, and fertility of burlesque invention. Were Juvenal to appear at Rome, he says, How his enraged ghost would stamp and stare, The crooked staffe', the coule's strange form and store", ballad-writer. Stowe says, that he was I have seen Colwell, 1575. 12mo. A Ballad on the Earthquake by Elderton, beginning Quake, Quake, Quake, is entered to R. Jones, Apr, 25, 1579. Registr. Station. B. f. 168 a. In 1561, are entered to H. Syngleton, "Elderton's Jestes with his mery toyes." Registr. Station. A. f. 74 a. Again, in 1562, "Elderton's Parrat answered." Ibid. f. 84 a. Again, a poem as I suppose, in 1570, "Elderton's ill fortune." Ibid. f. 204 a. Hervey says, that Elderton and Greene were "the ringleaders of the riming and scribbling crew." Lett. ubi supr. p. 6. Many more of his pieces might be recited. h In this Satire, among the lying narratives of travellers, our author, with Mandeville and others, mentions the Spanish Decads. It is an old black-letter quarto, a translation from the Spanish into English, about 1590. In the old anonymous play of Lingua, 1607, Mendacio says, "Sir John Mandeviles trauells, and great part of the Decads, were of my doing." A. ii. s. 1. i B. iv. 6. k cardinal's scarlet hat. m and multitude of them. The following ludicrous ideas are annexed to the exclusive appropriation of the eucharistic wine to the priest in the mass. The whiles the liquorous priest spits every trice, That the mid church doth spight the chancel's fare." But this sort of ridicule is improper and dangerous. It has a tendency, even without an entire parity of circumstances, to burlesque the celebration of this awful solemnity in the reformed church. In laughing at false religion, we may sometimes hurt the true. Though the rites of the papistic eucharist are erroneous and absurd, yet great part of the ceremony, and above all the radical idea, belong also to the protestant communion. SECTION LXIV. Hall's Satires continued. His Mundus alter et idem. His Epistles. THE argument of the first satire of the fifth Book, is the oppressive exaction of landlords, the consequence of the growing decrease of the value of money. One of these had perhaps a poor grandsire, who grew rich by availing himself of the general rapine at the dissolution of the monasteries. There is great pleasantry in one of the lines, that he Begg'd a cast abbey in the church's wayne. In the mean time, the old patrimonial mansion is desolated; and even the parish-church unroofed and dilapidated, through the poverty of the inhabitants, and neglect or avarice of the patron. " B. iv. 7. Would it not vex thee, where thy sires did keep2, louver, or turret, usually placed between the chancel and body of the church. Marston has "pitch-black loueries." Sc. of Villan. B. ii. 5. с Just to keep up the appearance of a church. |