If Martius in boisterous buffs be drest,
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 enuy aught at that,
When as thou smellest like a ciuet-cat?
When as thine oyled locks smooth-platted fall,
Shining like varnish'd pictures on a wall?
When a plum'd fanne' may shade thy chalked m face,
And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace?
If brabbling Makefray, at each fair and 'size",
Picks quarrels for to shew his valiantize,
Straight pressed for an hvngry Switzer's pay
To thrust his fist to each part of the pray;
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 liue a lawlesse conquerour.
If some much desperate huckster should devise
To rowze thine hare's-heart from her cowardice,
As idle children, striving to excell

P

In blowing bubbles from an empty shell.

O Hercules, how likes to prove a man,
That all so rath thy warlike life began!
Thy mother could for thee thy cradle set
Her husband's rusty iron corselet;

Whose jargling sound might rock her babe to rest,
That neuer 'plain'd of his vneasy 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,
Must guess
what Gallio his manners beene;
All soft, as is the falling thistle-downe,
Soft as the fumy ball, or morrion's crowne*.
Now Gallio gins thy youthly heat to raigne,
In every vigorous limb, and swelling vaine:

Time bids thee raise thine headstrong thoughts on high

To valour, and adventurous chivalry.

Pawne thou no glouey for challenge of the deede, &c."

with tags, or shoulder-knots.

1 Fans of feathers were now common. See Harrington's Epigr. i. 70. and Steevens's Shakspeare, i. p. 273.

M

painted. n assize.

• full of pikes.

a Scotch broadsword.

reared must certainly prove a hero! You,
Hercules, was nursed in your father's
shield for a cradle, &c. But the tender
Gallio, &c.
a ball of perfume.
Morrion is the fool in a play.

W

He says with a sneer, Do not play with the character of a soldier. Be not contented only to shew your courage in tilting. But enter into real service, &c. z. B. iv. 4. In a couplet of this satire,

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 applicationsa.

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,
Not one but holds his native state forlorne.
When comely striplings wish it were their chance,
For Cenis' distaffe to exchange their lance;
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 buskes and verdingales about their hips:
And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace.

Besides what is here said, we have before seen, that perukes were From what follows it appears that

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. Collingborn, 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. Koλvßiorns, nummularius,

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

As doth a tumbrell through the paved

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
Sit perched in an idle chariot-roome?

The rustic wishing to turn soldier, is pictured in these lively and poetical colours.

The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see
All scarfed with pied colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate;
And nowe he gins to loathe his former state:
Nowe doth he inly scorne his Kendal-greened,
And his patch'd cockers nowe despised beene:
Nor list he nowe go whistling to the carre,
But sells his teeme, and settleth to the warre.
O warre, to them that neuer 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 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,
And sees his handsell have such faire successe,
Sung to the wheele, and sung vnto the paylee,
He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.

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, Unless the poet means a synonyme for 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.

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.

By the knife-grinder and the milkmaid.

f A thrave of straw is a bundle of straw, of a certain quantity, in the midland coun

ties.

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,
Nothing to haue, yet think we haue enowe:
In skill to want, and wanting seeke for more;
In weale nor want, nor wish for greater store.i

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,
That Cesar's throne is turn'd to Peter's chaire:
To see an old shorne lozel perched high,
Crouching beneath a golden canopie!
And, for the lordly Fasces borne of old,
To see two quiet crossed keyes of gold!—
But that he most would gaze, and wonder at,
Is, th' horned mitre, and the bloody hatk;

The crooked staffe', the coule's strange form and storeTM,
Saue that he saw the same in hell before.

ballad-writer. Stowe says, that he was an attorney of the Sheriff's court in the city of London about the year 1570, and quotes some verses which he wrote about that time, on the erection of the new portico with images, at Guildhall. Surv. Lond. edit. 1599. p. 217. 4to. He has two epitaphs in Camden's Remains, edit. 1674. p. 533. seq. Hervey in his Four Letters, printed in 1592, mentions him with Greene. "If [Spenser's] Mother Hubbard, in the vaine of Chawcer, happen to tell one Canicular tale, Father Elderton and his son Greene, in the vaine of Skelton or Skoggin, will counterfeit an hundred dogged fables, libels," &c. p. 7. Nash, in his Apology of Piers Pennilesse, says that "Tarleton at the theater made jests of him [Hervey,] and W. Elderton consumed his ale-crammed nose to nothing, in bear-baiting him with whole bundles of ballads." Signat. E. edit. 1593. 4to. and Hervey, ubi supr. p. 34. I have seen "Elderton's Solace in time of his sickness containing sundrie sonnets upon many pithie parables," entered to R. Jones, Sept. 25, 1578. Registr. Station. B. f. 152 a. Also "A ballad against marriage, by Wilam Elderton ballad-maker." For T.

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 "the ringleaders of the riming and scribbling crew." Lett. ubi supr. p. 6. Many more of his pieces might be recited.

were

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.

cardinal's scarlet hat.

I bishop's crosier.

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,
With longing for his morning sacrifice:
Which he reares vp quite perpendiculare,

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.
Ascham's Letters. Howell's Letters.

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.

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 said,
Whose free-stone walls the thatched roofe vpbraid;
Whose shrill saints-bell hangs on his lovery,
While the rest are damned to the plumbery":
Yet pure devotion lets the steeple stand,
And idle battlements on either hand, &c.c

n B. iv. 7.
2 live, inhabit.

His Epistles.

The bells were all sold, and melted down; except that for necessary use the Saints-bell, or sanctus-bell, was only suffered to remain within its lovery, that is, VOL. III.

2 F

louver, or turret, usually placed between the chancel and body of the church. Marston has "pitch-black loueries." Sc. of Villan. B. ii. 5.

Just to keep up the appearance of a church.