Trampling the bourse's' marble twice a day,
Tells nothing but stark truths, I dare well say;
Nor would he have them known for any thing,
Tho' all the vault of his loud murmur ring.
Not one man tells a lye of all the yeare,
Except the Almanack or the Chronicler.
But not a man of all the damned crew,

For hills of gold would sweare the thing untrue.
Pansophus now, though all in a cold sweat,
Dares venture through the feared castle-gate,
Albe the faithful oracles have foresayne
The wisest Senator shall there be slaine :
That made him long keepe home, as well it might ;
Till now he hopeth of some wiser wight.

The vale of Stand-gate, or the Suter's hill,
Or westerne2 plaine, are free from feared ill.

Let him, that hath nought, feare nought I areed :
But he, that hath ought, hye him, and God speed!
Nor drunken Dennis doth, by breake of day,
Stumble into blind taverns by the way,
And reel me homeward at the ev'ning starre,
Or ride more eas'ly in his neighbour's chayre.
Well might these checks have fitted former times,
And shoulder'd angry Skelton's breathlesse rhymes:
Ere Chrysalus had barr'd the common boxe,
Which earst he pick'd to store his private stocks;
But now hath all with vantage paid againe,

And locks and plates what doth behind remaine;

1 The Royal Exchange.

2 It is probable the Bishop meant the low land in Lambeth parish, a street in which is still called Stand Gate Street; Shuter's Hill, in Kent; and the ground extending from Millbank to within eight acres of the Uxbridge Road.

When earst our dry-soul'd sires so lavish were,

To charge whole boot's-full to their friend's welfare;
Now shalt thou never see the salt beset

With a big-bellied gallon flagonet.

Of an ebbe cruce must thirsty Silen sip,
That's all forestalled by his upper lip.

Somewhat it was that made his paunch so peare:

His girdle fell ten inches in a yeare.

Or when old gouty bed-rid Euclio

To his officious factor fair could shew

His name in margent of some old cast bill,
And say,
Lo! whom I named in my will;
Whiles he believes, and, looking for the share,
Tendeth his cumbrous charge with busy care
For but a while; for now he sure will die,
By this strange qualme of liberalitie.

Great thanks he gives-but, God him shield and

save

From ever gaining by his master's grave:

Onely live long and he is well repaid,

And weats his forced cheeks whiles thus he said;
Some strong-smell'd onion shall stir his eyes

Rather than no salt teares shall then arise.

So looks he like a marble toward raine,

And wrings, and snites, and weeps, and wipes again :
Then turns his back and smiles, and looks askance,
Seas'ning again his sowred countenance;

Whiles yet he wearies heav'n with daily cries,
And backward death with devout sacrifice,
That they would now his tedious ghost bereav'n,
And wishes well, that wish'd no worse than heav'n.
When Zoylus was sicke, he knew not where,
Save his wrought night-cap, and lawn pillow-bere :

Kind fooles! they made him sick, that made him fine; Take those away, and there's his medicine.

Or Gellia wore a velvet mastick-patch

Upon her temples when no tooth did ache ;
When beauty was her reume I soon espy'd,
Nor could her plaister cure her of her pride.
These vices were; but now they ceas'd of long :
Then why did I a righteous age
that wrong

I would repent me, were it not too late,
Were not the angry world prejudicate.

If all the sevens penitential

?

Or thousand white-wands might me ought availe,
If Trent or Thames could scoure my foule offence,
And set me in my former innocence,

I would at last repent me of my rage :

Now, bear my wrong, I thine, O righteous age.
As for fine wits, an hundreth thousand fold
Passeth our age, whatever times of old.
For, in that puisnè world, our sires of long
Could hardly wag their too unweildy tongue
As pined crowes and parrots can do now,
When hoary age did bend their wrinkled brow :
And now, of late, did many a learned man
Serve thirty yeares' prentiship with Priscian;
But now can every novice speake with ease
The far-fetch'd language of th' antipodes.

Would'st thou the tongues, that earst were learned hight,

Tho' our wise age hath wip'd them of their right;
Would'st thou the courtly three in most request,
Or the two barbarous neighbours of the West?
Bibinus selfe can have ten tongues in one,
Tho' in all ten not one good tongue alone.

And can deep skill lie smothering within,
Whiles neither smoke nor flame discerned bin?
Shall it not be a wild-fig in a wall,

Or fired brimstone in a minerall?

Do thou disdain, O over-learned age!

The tongue-ty'd silence of that Samian sage:
Forth, ye fine wits, and rush into the presse,
And for the cloyed world your works addresse.
Is not a gnat, nor fly, nor seely ant,
But a fine wit can make an elephant.
Should Bandel's throstle die without a song?
Or Adamantius, my dog, be laid along,
Downe in some ditch without his exequies,
Or epitaphs, or mournful elegies?

Folly itself, and baldnesse, may be prais'd;1
And sweet conceits from filthy objects rais'd.
What do not fine wits dare to undertake?
What dare not fine wits do for honour's sake?
But why doth Balbus his dead-doing quill
Parch in his rusty scabbard all the while;
His golden fleece o'ergrowne with mouldy hore,
As tho' he had his witty works forswore ?
Belike, of late, now Balbus hath no need ;
Nor now belike his shrinking shoulders dread
The catch-pole's fist-The presse may still remaine
And breathe, till Balbus be in debt againe.
Soon may that be! so I had silent beene,
And not thus rak'd up quiet crimes unseen.
Silence is safe, when saying stirreth sore
And makes the stirred puddle stink the more.
Shall the controller of proud Nemesis

In lawlesse rage upbraid each other's vice,

1 Erasmus on Folly, &c.

G

While no man seeketh to reflect the wrong,
And curb the raunge of his mis-ruly tongue?
By the two crownes of Parnasse ever-green,
And by the cloven head of Hippocrene,
As I true poet am, I here avow
(So solemnly kiss'd he his laurell bow)
If that bold Satire unrevenged be
For this so saucy and foule injurie.
So Labeo weens it my eternal shame
To prove I never earn'd a poet's name.
But would I be a poet if I might,1

To rub my brow three days, and wake three nights,
And bite my nails, and scratch my dullard head,
And curse the backward Muses on my bed
About one peevish syllable; which, out-sought,
I take up Thales' joy, save for fore-thought
How it shall please each ale-knight's censuring eye,
And hang'd my head for fear they deem awry :
While thread-bare Martiall turns his merry note,
To beg of Rufus a cast winter-coate ;
While hungry Marot2 leapeth at a beane,
And dieth like a starved Cappucien ;
Go, Ariost, and gape for what may fall
From trencher of a flattering cardinall;
And if thou gettest but a pedant's fee,
Thy bed, thy board, and coarser livery,
O honour, far beyond a brazen shrine,
To sit with Tarleton on an ale post's signe!

1 Hor. Ars. Poet. 291.

2 Clement Marot, a French poet.

Hippolito, Cardinal of Este.

3

4 There is still, or was lately, a sign in the Borough of Southwark of Tarleton's portrait, with a pipe and tabor.