Fond wit-wal* that wouldst load thy witless head Then can he term his dirty ill-fac❜d bride She's white as morrow's milk, or flakes new blown : SATIRE VIII. HENCE†, ye profane! mell not with holy things, And Jury-palms ‡ her steep ascents done fill. * See Ford, in the Merry Wives of Windsor; also post, Book 4, Sat. 1. + See Markham's Sion Muse.-Also History of English Poetry, 3 vol. p. 318. See Pratt's Hall, 10 vol. p. 292. § Robert Southwell's St. Peter's Complaint. See Spenser, in his Tears of the Muses, 1. vi. And is become a new-found sonnetist, *See Andrew's Continuation of Dr. Henry's England, 1 vol. p. 530. b. 7, c. 2, from which the following extract is made." As "the High Commission Court had an unlimited power over all "publications, it exerted that power most severely in 1599, by sweeping away from Stationers' Hall, Marston's Pygmalion, "Marlowe's Ovid, THE SATIRES OF HALL and Marston, with the "Caltha Poetarum! These, by the direction of the Prelates 66 'Whitgift and Bancroft, were ordered (together with The "Shadow of Truth,' ' Snarling Satires,' The Booke agaynt "Women,' and The XV Joyes of Marriage,') to be instantly "burnt. The Books of Nash and Gabriel Harvey were at the same time anathematized; and Satires and Epigrams were for"bidden to be printed any more. That Hall and Marston should "both be included in the same prohibition seems a sentence "grounded in rigour rather than justice, since as they darted the 66 stings of their Satires at parties precisely opposite, they could "not easily be both in the wrong." "The enthusiastic attachment of the puritans to the Song of "Solomon, and one particular version among many, styled 'the "Poem of Poems, or Sion's Muse, contayning the divine Song of "King Solomon, divided into Eight Eclogues,' dedicated to 'the "Sacred Virgin, divine Mistress Elizabeth Sydney, sole daughter "of the ever-admired Sir Philip Sydney,' were intolerable to the "keen spirit of Dr. Hall (afterwards Bishop of Norwich; and SATIRE IX. ENVY, ye Muses, at your thriving mate*, "after having mentioned another poem, probably of the same "cast, he proceeds, Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre, Great Solomon, singes in the English quire, Singing his love, the holie spouse of Christ; "But John Marston, a sober bard, of whom little is known, "but of whom Langbaine speaks with great respect and con"sideration, answered the caustic bard in no contemptible verse; 'Come daunce, ye stumbling satyres, by his syde, If he list once the Sion muse deride, Ye, Granta's white nymphs, come, and with you bring 'Gainst Peter's tears, and Marie's moving moan; And, like a fierce enraged bore, doth foame At sacred sonnets.-O dire hardiment! At Barta's sweet remains, rail impudent! At Hopkins, Sternhold, at the Scottish King, At all translators that do strive to bring That stranger language to our vulgar tongue,' &c. &c. I saw his statue gayly 'tyr'd in green, As if he had some second Phoebus been. Teaching experimental bawdery? Whiles th' itching vulgar, tickled with the song, Take this, ye patient Muses; and foul shame The whole world's universal bawd to be? *Peter Aretine. Our epigrammatorians, old and late, Were wont be blam'd for too licentiate. Chaste men! they did but glance at Lesbia's deed, |