Satires.

BOOK VI.

SATIRE I*.

SEMEL INSANIVIMUS.

LABEO reserves a long naile for the nonce,

To wound my margent thro' ten leaves at once;
Much worse than Aristarchus + his blacke pile,
That pierc'd old Homer's side:-

And makes such faces that me seems I see
Some foul Megara in the tragedy,

Threat'ning her twined snakes at Tantale's ghost;

Or the grim visage of some frowning post,
The crab-tree porter of the Guild-Hall gates,
While he his frightful beetle elevates,

His angry eyne look all so glaring bright,
Like th' hunted badger in a moonlesse night,

Or like a painted staring Saracen:

His cheeks change hue like th' air-fed vermin's skin,

*This book is evidently a humorous and ironical recantation of the former satires. On which refer to Mr. Ellis's admirable notes in Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 378, et seq.

+ Ibid.-Cic. Orat. in Pisonem. c. 30.-Hors. Ars. Poet. 446.Ausonius, Lud. Sept. Sap. p. 265.

Now red, now pale; and swol'n above his eyes,
Like to the old Colossian imageries.

But, when he doth of my recanting heare,
Away, ye angry fires, and frosts of feare:
Give place unto his hopeful temper'd thought,
That yields to peace, ere ever peace be sought.
Then let me now repent me of

my rage, For writing Satires, in so righteous age:

Whereas I should have stroak'd her tow'rdly head,

And cry'd EvÆE in my Satires stead,

Sith now not one of thousand does amisse.
Was never age I weene so pure as this.
As pure as old Labulla from the baynes,
As pure as through-fare channels when it raines;
As pure as is a black-moor's face by night,
As dung-clad skin of dying Heraclite.
Seeke over all the world, and tell me where
Thou find'st a proud man, or a flatterer;
A theif, a drunkard, or a paricide,
A lecher, liar, or what vice beside?
Merchants are no whit covetous of late,
Nor make no mart of time, gain of deceit.
Patrons are honest now, ore they of old:
Can now no benefice be bought or sold?
Give him a gelding, or some two yeares' tithe,
For he all bribes and simony defy'the.
Is not one pick-thank stirring in the court,
That seld was free till now, by all report.

But some one, like a claw-back parasite,

Pick'd mothes from his master's cloake in sight;
Whiles he could pick out both his eyes for need,
Mought they but stand him in some better stead.
Nor now no more smell-feast Vitellio

Smiles on his master for a meal or two;

And loves him in his maw, loaths in his heart,
Yet soothes, and yeas and nays on either part.
Tattelius, the new-come traveller *,

With his disguised coate and ringed eare,
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 westerne + plaine, are free from feared ill.

* See Marston, Robert Hayman's Epigrams, Warton, &c. †The Royal Exchange.

It is probable the Bishop meant the low-land in Lambeth

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;
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;

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.

* See Phillip's Theatrum Poetarum, p. 115. + See Pratt's Hall, vol. 10, p. 376.

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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.