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And praise his gentle soule, and wish it well,
And of his friendly facts full often tell.
His father dead! tush, no it was not he,
He finds records of his great pedigree,
And tells how first his famous ancestour
Did come in long since with the Conquerour.
Nor hath some bribed herald first assign'd
His quartered arms and crest of gentle kind;
The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose;
Nathlesse some hungry squire for hope of good
Matches the churl's sonne into gentle blood,
Whose sonne more justly of his gentry boasts
Than who were borne at two py'd painted posts,
And had some traunting merchant to his sire,
That trafick'd both by water and by fire.
O times! since ever Rome did kings create,
Brasse gentlemen, and Cæsars laureate.

SATIRE III. .

Fuimus troes. Vel vix ea nostra.

WHAT boots it, Pontice, though thou could'st discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestours?
Or show their painted faces gayly drest,
From ever since before the last conquest?
Or tedious bead-rolls of descended blood,
From father Japhet since Ducalion's flood?
Or call some old church-windows to record
The age of thy faire armes;-

Or find some figures halfe obliterate

In rain-beat marble near to the church-gate
Upon a crosse-legg'd tombe: what boots it thee
To show the rusted buckle that did tie
The garter of thy greatest grandsires knee?
What to reserve their relicks many yeares,
Their silver-spurs, or spils of broken speares ?
Or cite old Ocland's verse, how they did weild
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field?
And if thou canst in picking strawes engage
In one half day thy father's heritage;
Or hide whatever treasures he thee got,
In some deep cock-pit, or in desp'rate lot
Upon a six-square piece of ivory,
Throw both thy self and thy posterity?
Or if (O shame!) in hired harlot's bed
Thy wealthy heirdome thou have buried:
Then, Pontice, little boots thee to discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestours.
Ventrous Fortunio his farm hath sold,
And gads to Guiane land to fish for gold,
Meeting perhaps, if Orenoque deny,
Some straggling pinnace of Polonian rye :
Then comes home floating with a silken sail,
That Severne shaketh with his cannon-peal:
Wiser Raymundus, in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and adventurement,
When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopeful glasse is broke.
But yet if hap'ly his third fornace hold,
Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold:
So spend thou, Pontice, if thou canst not spare,
Like some stout seaman, or phylosopher.

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And were thy fathers gentle? that 's their praise;
No thank to thee by whom their name decays;
By virtue got they it, and valourous deed;
Do thou so, Pontice, and be honoured.

But else, look how their virtue was their owne,
Not capable of propagation.

Right so their titles beene, nor can be thine,
Whose ill deserts might blanke their golden line.
Tell me, thou gentle Trojan, dost thou prize
Thy brute beasts' worth by their damns' qualities?
Say'st thou this colt shall prove a swift-pac'd steed
Only because a jennet did him breed'

Or say'st thou this same horse shall win the prize,
Because his dam was swiftest Trunchefice,
Or Runcevall his sire? himself a Gallaway?
Whiles like a tireling jade he lags half-way.
Or whiles thou seest some of thy stallion race,
Their eyes bor'd out, masking the miller's maze,
Like to a Scythian slave sworne to the payle,
Or dragging frothy barrels at his tayle?
Albe wise nature in her providence,
Wont in the want of reason and of sense,

Traduce the native virtue with the kind,

Making all brute and senselesse things inclin'd

Unto their cause, or place where they were sowne; That one is like to all, and all like one.

Was never fox but wily cubs begets;

The bear his fiercenesse to his brood besets:
Nor fearful hare falls out of lyon's seed,
Nor eagle wont the tender dove to breed.
Creet ever wont the cypress sad to bear,
Acheron banks the palish popélar:
The palm doth rifely rise in Jury field,
And Alpheus waters nought but olives wild.
Asopus breeds big bullrushes alone,
Meander, heath; peaches by Nilus growne.
An English wolfe, an Irish toad to see,
Were as a chaste man nurs'd in Italy.
And now when nature gives another guide
To human-kind, that in his bosome bides,
Above instinct, his reason and discourse,
His being better, is his life the worse?

Ah me! how seldome see we sonnes succeed
Their father's praise, in prowesse and great deed?
Yet certes if the sire be ill inclin'd,

His faults befal his sonnes by course of kind.
Scaurus was covetous, his sonne not so;
But not his pared nayle will he forego.
Florian, the sire, did women love alive,
And so his sonne doth too, all but his wife.
Brag of thy father's faults, they are thine own:
Brag of his lands if they are not foregone.
Brag of thine own good deeds, for they are thine
More than his life, or lands, or golden line.

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CAN I not touch some upstart carpet-shield
Of Lolio's sonne, that never saw the field;
Or taxe wild Pontice for his luxuries,
But straight they tell me of Tiresias' eyes?
Or lucklesse Collingborn's feeding of the crowes,
Or hundreth scalps which Thames still overflowes,
But straight Sigalion nods and knits his browes,
And winkes and waftes his warning hand for feare,
And lisp some silent letters in my eare?
Have I not vow'd for shunning such debate?
Pardon, ye satires, to degenerate!
And wading low in the plebeian lake,
That no salt wave shall froth upon my backe.

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Let Labeo, or who else list for me,
Go loose his ears and fall to alchimy:
Only let Gallio give me leave a while
To schoole him once or ere I change my style.
O lawlesse paunch! the cause of much despight,
Through raunging of a currish appetite,
When spleenish morsels cram the gaping maw,
Withouten diet's care or trencher-law;
Though never have I Salerne rhymes profest
To be some lady's trencher-critick guest;
Whiles each bit cooleth for the oracle,
Whose sentence charms it with a rhyming spell.
Touch not this coler, that melancholy,
This bit were dry and hot, that cold and dry.
Yet can I set my Gallio's dieting,
A pestle of a lark, or plover's wing;
And warn him not to cast his wanton eyne
On grosser bacon, or salt haberdine,
Or dried flitches of some smoked beeve,
Hang'd on a writhen wythe since Martin's eve,
Or burnt larke's heeles, or rashers raw and greene,
Or mélancholick liver of an hen,
Which stout Vorano brags to make his feast,
And claps his hand on his brave ostridge breast;
Then falls to praise the hardy janizar

That sucks his horse side, thirsting in the war.
Lastly, to seal up all that he hath spoke,
Quaffes a whole tunnell of tobacco smoke.
If Martius in boist'rous buffs be dress'd,
Branded with iron plates upon the breast,
And pointed on the shoulders for the nonce,
As new come from the Belgian garrisons,
What should thou need to envy ought at that,
Whenas thou smellest like a civet cat?
Whenas thine oyled locks smooth platted fall,
Shining like varnish'd pictures on a wall.
When a plum'd fanne may shade thy chalked face,
And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.
If brabbling Make-fray, at each fair and size,
Picks quarrels for to show his valiantize,
Straight pressed for an hungry Swizzer's pay
To thrust his fist to each part of the fray,
And piping hot puffs toward the pointed plaine
With a broad Scot, or proking spit of Spaine;
Or hoyseth sayle up to a forraine shore,
That he may live a lawlesse conquerour.
If some such desp'rate hackster shall devise
To rouze thine hare's-heart from her cowardice,
As idle children striving to excell

In blowing bubbles from an empty shell;
Oh, Hercules! how like to prove a man,
That all so rath thy warlike life began?
Thy mother could thee for thy cradle set
Her husband's rusty iron corselet;
Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest,
That never plain'd of his uneasy nest:
There did he dreame of dreary wars at hand,
And woke, and fought, and won, ere he could stand.
But who hath seene the lambs of Tarentine,
May guesse what Gallio his manners beene;.
All soft as is the falling thistle-downe,
Soft as the fumy ball, or Morrian's crowne.
Now Gallio, gins thy youthly heat to raigne
In every vigorous limb and swelling vaine; [high,
Time bids thee raise thine headstrong thoughts on
To valour and adventrous chivalry:
Pawne thou no glove for challenge of the deed,
Nor make thy quintaine others armed head
T'enrich the waiting berald with thy shame,
And make thy losse the scornful scaffold's game.

Wars, God forefend! nay God defend from war;
Soone are sonnes spent, that not soon reared are.
Gallio may pull me roses ere they fall,

Or in his net entrap the tennis-ball,
Or tend his spar-hawke mantling in her mew,
Or yelping beagles busy heeles pursue,
Or watch a sinking corke upon the shore,
Or halter finches through a privy doore,
Or list he spend the time in sportful game,
In daily courting of his lovely dame,
Hang on her lips, melt in her wanton eye,
Dance in her hand, joy in her jollity;
Here's little perill, and much lesser paine,
So timely Hymen do the rest restraine.
Hye, wanton Gallio, and wed betime,
Why should'st thou leese the pleasures of thy prime?
Seest thou the rose-leaves fall ungathered?
Then hye thee, wanton Gallio, to wed.
Let ring and ferule meet upon thine hand,
And Lucine's girdle with her swathing-band.
Hye thee, and give the world yet one dwarfe more,
Such as it got when thou thy selfe wast bore:
Looke not for warning of thy bloomed chin,
Can ever happinesse too soone begin?
Virginius vow'd to keep his maidenhead,
And eats chast lettice, and drinks poppy-seed,
And smells on camphire fasting; and that done,
Long hath he liv'd, chaste as a vailed nunne;
Free as a new-absolved damosell
That frier Cornelius shrived in his cell,
Till now he wax'd a toothlesse bachelour,
He thaws like Chaucer's frosty Januere,
And sets a month's mind upon smiling May,
And dyes his beard that did his age bewray;
Biting on annys-seede and rosemarine,
Which might the fume of his rot lungs refine :
Now he in Charon's barge a bride doth seeke,
The maidens mocke, and call him withered leeke,
That with a greene tayle hath an hoary head,
And now he would, and now he cannot wed.

SATIRE V.
Stupet albius ære.

WOULD now that Matho were the satyrist,
That some fat bride might grease him in the fist,
For which he need not brawl at any bar,
Nor kisse the booke to be a perjurer;
Who else would scorne his silence to have sold,
And have his tongue tyed with strings of gold?
Curius is dead, and buried long since,
And all that loved golden abstinence.
Might he not well repine at his old fee,
Would he but spare to speake of usury?
Though we should scorne each bribing varlet's brasse:
Hirelings enow beside can be so base,
Yet he and I could shun each jealous head,
Sticking our thumbs close to our girdle-stead.
Though were they manicled behind our backe,
Another's fist can serve our fees to take.
That my sharp words might curtail their side trade:
Yet pursy Euclio cheerly smiling pray'd
For thousands beene in every governall
That live by losse, and rise by others fall.
Whatever sickly sheepe so secret dies,
But some foule raven hath bespoke his eyes?
What else makes N- when his lands are spent,
Go shaking like a threadbare malecontent,

Whose bandlesse bonnet vailes his o'ergrown chin,
And sullen rags bewray his morphew'd skin:
So ships he to the wolfish western isle
Among the savage kernes in sad exile;
Or in the Turkish wars at Cæsar's pay
To rub his life out till the latest day.
Another shifting gallant to forecast
To gull his hostess for a month's repast,
With some gall'd trunk, ballast with straw and stone,
Left for the pawn of his provision.

Had F's shop layn fallow but from hence,
His doores close seal'd as in some pestilence,
Whiles his light heeles their fearful flight can take,
To get some badgelesse blue upon his back.
Tocullio was a wealthy usurer,

Such store of incomes had he every year,
By bushels was he wont to mete his coine,
As did the olde wife of Trimalcion.
Could he do more that finds an idle roome
For many hundreth thousands on a tombe?
Or who rears up four free-schooles in his age
Of his old pillage, and damn'd surplusage?
Yet now he swore by that sweete crosse he kiss'd
(That silver crosse, where he had sacrific'd
His coveting soule, by his desire's owne doome,
Daily to die the Devil's martyrdome)
His angels were all flowne up to their sky,
And had forsooke his naked treasury.
Farewell Astrea, and her weights of gold,
Untill his lingring calends once be told;

Nought left behind but wax and parchment scroles,
Like Lucian's dreame that silver turn'd to coals.
Should'st thou him credit that nould credit thee?
Yes, and may'st sweare he swore the verity.
The ding-thrift heir his shift-got summe mispent,
Comes drooping like a penlesse penitent,
And beats his faint fist on Tocullio's doore,
It lost the last, and now must call for more.
Now hath the spider caught a wand'ring fly,
And draws her captive at her cruel thigh:
Soon is his errand read in his pale face,
Which bears dumb characters of every case.
So Cyned's dusky cheeke, and fiery eye,
And hairlesse brow, tells where he last did lye.
So Matho doth bewray his guilty thought,
While his pale face doth say his cause is nought.
Seest thou the wary angler trayle along
His feeble line, soone as some pike too strong
Hath swallowed the baite that scornes the shore,
Yet now near-hand cannot resist no more?
So lieth he aloofe in smooth pretence,
To hide his rough intended violence;
As he that under name of Christmas cheere
Can starve his tenants all th' ensuing yeare.
Paper and wax, (God wot!) a weake repay
For such deepe debts and downcast sums as they :
Write, seale, deliver, take, go spend and speede,
And yet full hardly could his present need
Part with such sum; for but as yester-late
Did Furnus offer pen-worths at easy rate,
For small disbursment; he the bankes hath broke,
And needs mote now some further playne o'erlook;
Yet ere he go faine would he be releast,
Hye ye, ye ravens, hye you to the feast.
Provided that thy lands are left entire,
To be redeem'd or ere thy day expire:
Then shalt thou teare those idle paper bonds
That thus had fettered thy pawned lands.
Ah, foole! for sooner shalt thou sell the rest
Than stake ought for thy former interest;

When it shall grind thy grating gall for shame, To see the lands that beare thy grandsire's name Become a dunghill peasant's summer-hall,

Or lonely hermit's cage inhospitall;

A pining gourmand, an imperious slave,

An horse-leech, barren wombe, and gaping grave;

A legal thiefe, a blood!esse murtherer,
A fiend incarnate, a false usurer:
Albe such mayne extort scorns to be pent
In the clay walls of thatched tenement.
For certes no man of a low degree
May bid two guests, or gout, or usury:
Unlesse some base hedge-creeping Collybist
Scatters his refuse scraps on whom he list
For Easter gloves, or for a shrove-tide hen,
Which bought to give, he takes to sell again.
I do not meane some glozing merchant's feate,
That laugheth at the cozened world's deceit,
When as an hundred stocks lie in his fist,
He leaks and sinks, and breaketh when he list.'
But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care
With a base bargain of his blowen ware
Of fusted hops, now lost for lack of sale,
Or mould brown paper that could nought availe;
Or what he cannot utter otherwise,

May pleasure Fridoline for treble price;
Whiles his false broker lieth in the wind,
And for a present chapman is assign'd,
The cut-throat wretch for their compacted gaine
Buys all but for one quarter of the mayne;
Whiles if he chance to breake his deare-bought day
And forfeit, for default of due repay,
His late entangled lands; then, Fridoline,
Buy thee a wallet, and go beg or pine.
If Mammon's selfe should ever live with men,
Mammon himself shall be a citizen.

SATIRE VI. Quid placet ergo?

I wor not how the world's degenerate,
That men or know, or like not their estate:
Out from the Gades up to th' castern morne,
Not one but holds his native state forlorne.
When comely striplings wish it were their chance,
For Canis' distaffe to enchange their lance,
And weare curl'd perriwigs, and chalk their face,
And still are poring on their pocket-glasse.
Tyr'd with pinn'd ruffs and fans, and partlet strips,
And busks and verdingales about their hips;
And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace,
And make their napkin for their spitting place,
And gripe their waist within a narrow span:
Fond Cænis, that would'st wish to be a man!
Whose manish housewives like their refuse state,
And make a drudge of their uxorious mate,
Who like a cot-queene freezeth at the rock,
Whiles his breech't dame doth man the forren stock.
Is 't not a shame to see each homely groome
Sit perched in an idle chariot roome,
That were not meete some pannel to bestride,
Sursingled to a galled hackney's hide?
Each muck-worme will be rich with lawlesse gaine,
Although he smother up mowes of seven years graine,
And hang'd himself when corne grows cheap again;
Although he buy whole harvests in the spring,
And foyst in false strikes to the measuring:

Although his shop be muffled from the light
Like a day dungeon, or Cimmerian night:
Nor full nor fasting can the carle take rest,
While his George-Nobles rusten in his chest,
He sleeps but once, and dreames of burglary,
And wakes and casts about his frighted eye,
And gropes for th' eves in ev'ry darker shade;
And if a mouse but stirre he calls for ayde.
The sturdy plough-man doth the soldier see
All scarfed with py'd colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate,
And now he gins to loathe his former state:
Now doth he inly scorne his Kendall-Greene,
And his patch'd cockers now despised beene.
Nor list he now go whistling to the carre,
But sells his teeme and setleth to the warre.
O warre! to them that never try'd thee, sweete!
When his dead mate falls groveling at his feete,
And angry bullets whistlen at his eare,

And his dim eyes see nought but death and drere.
Oh, happy ploughman! were thy weale well knowne:
Oh, happy all estates except his owne !
Some drunken rhymer thinks his time well spent,
If he can live to see his name in print;
Who when he is once fleshed to the presse,
And sees his handsell have such faire successe,
Sung to the wheele, and sung unto the payle,
He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.
Nor then can rest, but volumes up bodg'd rhymes,
To have his name talk'd of in future times.
The brain-sick youth, that feeds his tickled eare
With sweet-sauc'd lies of some false traveller,
Which hath the Spanish decades read awhile,
Or whet-stone leasings of old Mandeville;
Now with discourses breakes his mid-night sleepe,
Of his adventures through the Indian deepe,
Of all their massy heapes of golden mine,
Or of the antique toombes of Palestine;
Or of Damascus' magick wall of glasse,
Of Solomon his sweating piles of brasse,
Of the bird Ruc that bears an elephant,

Of mermaids that the southerne seas do haunt;
Of headlesse men of savage cannibals,
The fashions of their lives and governals:
What monstrous cities there erected be,
Cayro, or the city of the Trinity.

Now are they dung-hill cocks that have not seene
The bordering Alpes, or else the neighbour Rhine:
And now he plies the newes-full grashopper,

Of voyages and ventures to inquire.
His land mortgag'd, he, sea-beat in the way,
Wishes for home a thousand sighs a day.

And now he deems his bome-bred fare as leefe
As his parcht bisket, or his barrel'd beefe.
Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,
Oh, let me lead an academick life;
To know much, and to think we nothing know;
Nothing to have, yet think we have enowe;
In skill to want, and wanting seek for more;
In weale nor want, nor wish for greater store.
Envy, ye monarchs, with your proud excesse,
At our low sayle, and our high happinesse,

SATIRE VII.

ΡΟΜΗ ΡΥΜΗ,

WHO says these Romish pageants been too high To be the scorne of sportful poesy?

Certes not all the world such matter wist
As are the seven hills, for a satyrist.
Perdie. I loath an hundred Mathoes tongues,
An hundred gamesters shifts, or landlords wrongs,
Or Labeo's poems, or base Lolio's pride,
Or ever what I thought or wrote beside.
When once I thinke if carping Aquine's spright
To see now Rome, were licenc'd to the light,
How his enraged ghost would stamp and stare,
That Cæsar's throne is turn'd to Peter's chayre.
To see an old shorne lozell perched high,
Crossing beneath a golden canopy;

The whiles a thousand hairlesse crownes crouch low

To kisse the precious case of his proud toe;
And for the lordly fasces borne of old,
To see two quiet crossed keyes of gold,
Or Cybele's shrine, the famous Pantheon's frame,
Turn'd to the honour of our Lady's name.
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th' horned mitre, and the bloody hat,
The crooked staffe, their coule's strange form and
store,

Save that he saw the same in Hell before;
To see the broken nuns, with new-shorne heads,
In a blind cloyster tosse their idle beades,
Or louzy coules come smoking from the stewes,
To raise the lewd reut to their lord accrewes,
(Who with ranke Venice doth his pompe advance
By trading of ten thousand courtezans)
Yet backward must absolve a female's sinne,
Like to a false dissembling Theatine,
Who when his skin is red with shirts of male
And rugged haire-cloth scoures his greasy nayle;
Or wedding garment tames his stubborne backe,
Which his hempe girdle dies all blew and blacke.
Or of his almes-boule three dayes supp'd and din'd,
Trudges to open stewes of either kinde:

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Or takes some cardinal's stable in the way,
And with some pampered mule doth weare the day,
Kept for his lord's own saddle when him list.
Come, Valentine, and play the satyrist,

To see poor sucklings welcom'd to the light
With searing irons of some soure Jacobite,
Or golden offers of an aged foole,

To make his coffin some Franciscan's coule;
To see the pope's blacke knight, a cloaked frere,
Sweating in the channel like a scavengere.
Whom erst thy bowed hamme did lowly greete,
When at the corner-crosse thou didst him meete,
Tumbling his rosaries hanging at his belt,
Or his baretta, or his towred felt:

To see a lazy dumb acholithite
Armed against a devout flye's despight,
Which at th' high altar doth the chalice vaile
With a broad flie-flappe of a peacocke's tayle,
The whiles the liquorous priest spits every trice
With longing for his morning sacrifice,
Which he reares up quite perpendiculare,
That the mid church doth spighte the chancel's fare,
Beating their empty mawes that would be fed si
With the scant morsels of the sacrists' bread:
Would he not laugh to death when he should heare
The shamelesse legends of St. Christopher,
St. George, the Sleepers, or St. Peter's well,

Or of his daughter good St. Petronell?
But had he heard the female father's groane,
Yeaning in mids of her procession;

Or now should see the needlesse tryal-chayre,
(When each is proved by his bastard heyre)

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Or saw the churches, and new calendere
Pester'd with mongrel saints and relicks deare,
Should be cry out on Codro's tedious toombes
When his new rage would ask no narrower roomes?

SATIRES.

BOOK V.

SATIRE I.

Sit pæna merenti.

PARDON, ye glowing eares; needs will it out,
Though brazen walls compass'd my tongue about
As thick as wealthy Scrobio's quick-set rowes
In the wide common that he did euclose.
Pull out mine eyes, if I shall see no vice,
Or let me see it with detesting eyes.
Renowned Aquine, now I follow thee,
Far as I may for feare of jeopardy;
And to thy hand yield up the ivy-mace

From crabbed Persius, and more smooth Horace;
Or from that shrew the Roman poetesse,
That taught her gossips learned bitternesse;
Or Lucile's Muse whom thou didst imitate,
Or Menips old, or Pasquillers of late.
Yet name I not Mutius, or Tigilline,
Though they deserve a keener style than mine;
Nor meane to ransack up the quiet grave;
Nor burn dead bones, as he example gave:
I taxe the living: let the dead ashes rest,
Whose faults are dead, and nailed in their chest.
Who can refrain that 's guiltlesse of their crime,
Whiles yet he lives in such a cruel time?
When Titio's grounds, that in his grandsire's dayes
But one pound fine, one penny rent did raise,
A summer snow-ball, or a winter rose,
Is growne to thousands as the world now goes.
So thrift and time sets other things on floate,
That now his sonne soups in a silken coate,
Whose grandsire happily, a poore hungry swaine,
Begg'd some cast abbey in the church's wayne:
And but for that, whatever he may vaunt,
Who knows a monk had been a mendicant?
While freezing Matho, that for one lean fee
Won't term each term the term of Hilary,
May now instead of those his simple fees,
Get the fee-simples of faire manneries.
What, did he counterfeat his prince's hand,
For some streaye lordship of concealed land?
Or on each Michael and Lady-day,
Tooke he deepe forfeits for an hour's delay?
And gain'd no lesse by such injurious brawl,
Then Gamius by his sixth wife's burial?
Or hath he wonne some wider interest,
By hoary charters from his grandsire's chest,
Which late some bribed scribe for slender wage,
Writ in the characters of another age,
That Plowdon selfe might stammer to rehearse,
Whose date o'erlooks three centuries of years.
Who ever yet the tracks of weale so try'd,
But there hath been one beaten way beside?
He, when he lets a lease for life, or yeares,
(As never he doth until the date expires;

For when the full state in his fist doth lie,
He may take vantage of the vacancy)
His fine affords so many treble pounds
As he agreeth yeares to lease his grounds:
His rent in fair respondence must arise
To double trebles of his one yeare's price.
Of one baye's breadth, God wot! a silly coate,
Whose thatched spars are furr'd with sluttish
soote

A whole inch thick, shining like black-moor's brows,
Through smoke that down the headlesse barrel blows.
At his bed's feet feeden his stalled teeme;

His swine beneath, his pullen o'er the beame.
A starved tenement, such as I guesse

Stands straggling in the wastes of Holdernesse ;
Or such as shiver on a peake hill side,

When March's lungs beate on their turf-clad hide;
Such as nice Lipsius would grudge to see
Above his lodging in wild Westphalye;

Or as the Saxon king his court might make,
When his sides playned of the neat-heard's cake.
Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord's hall
With often presents at each festivall:
With crammed capons every new-yeare's morne,
Or with green cheeses when his sheep are shorne:
Or niany maunds full of his mellow fruite,
To make some way to win his weighty suite.
Whom cannot gifts at last cause to relent,
Or to win favour, or flee punishment?
When griple patrons turn their sturdie steele
To waxe, when they the golden flame do feele:
When grand Mæcenas casts a glavering eye
On the cold present of a poesy:

And lest he might more frankly take than give,
Gropes for a French crowne in his empty sleeve.
Thence Clodius hopes to set his shoulders free
From the light burden of his napery.
The smiling landlord showes a sun-shine fase,
Feigning that he will grant him further grace,
And leers like Æsop's foxe upon a crane
Whose neck he craves for his chirurgian:
So lingers off the lease until the last,
What recks he then of paines or promise past?
Was ever feather, or fond woman's mind
More light than words? the blasts of idle wind!
What's fib or fire, to take the gentle slip,
And in th' exchequer rot for surety-ship?
Or thence thy starved brother live and die,
Within the cold Coal-harbour sanctuary?
Will one from Scots-bank bid but one groate
more,

My old tenant may be turned out of doore,
Though much he spent in th' rotten roof's repaire,
In hope to have it left unto his heir:

Though many a load of marle and manure layd,
Reviv'd his barren leas, that erst lay dead.
Were he as Furius, he would defy
Such pilfering slips of petty landlordry:
And might dislodge whole colonies of poore,
And lay their roofe quite level with their floore,
Whiles yet he gives as to a yielding fence,
Their bag and baggage to his citizens,

And ships them to the new-nam'd virgin-lond, .
Or wilder Wales where never wight yet wonn'd.
Would it not vex thee where thy sires did keep,
To see the dunged folds of dag-tayl'd sheep?
And ruin'd house where holy things were sald,
Whose free-stone walls the thatched roofe upbraid,
Whose shrill saint's-bell hangs on his lovery,
While the rest are damned to the plumbery?

L

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