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Fond wit-wal* that wouldst load thy witless head
With timely horns, before thy bridal bed!

Then can he term his dirty ill-fac❜d bride
Lady and Queen, and virgin deify'd:
Be she all sooty black, or berry brown,

She's white as morrow's milk, or flakes new blown :
And though she be some dunghill drudge at home,
Yet can he her resign some refuse room
Amidst the well known stars; or if not there,
Sure will he saint her in his Kalendere.

SATIRE VIII.

HENCE†, ye profane! mell not with holy things,
That Sion's Muse from Palestina brings.
Parnassus is transform'd to Sion Hill,

And Jury-palms ‡ her steep ascents done fill.
Now good St. Peters weeps pure Helicon,
And both the Maries make a music|| moan:
Yea, and the prophet of the heav'nly lyre,
Great Solomon, sings in the English Quire;

* 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,
Singing his love, the Holy Spouse of Christ:
Like as she were some light-skirts of the rest,
In mightiest inkhornisms he can thither wrest.
Ye Sion Muses shall by my dear will,
For this your zeal and far-admired skill,
Be straight transported from Jerusalem,
Unto the holy house of Bethlehem *.

*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

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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

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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*,
Cupid hath crowned a new laureat :

"after having mentioned another poem, probably of the same "cast, he proceeds,

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Yea, and the prophet of the heavenly lyre,

Great Solomon, singes in the English quire,
And is become a new found sonnetist,

Singing his love, the holie spouse of Christ;
Like as she were some light skirtes' of the rest,
In mightiest Inkhornisms he can thither wrest.
Ye Sion's Muses' shall, by my dear will,
For this your zeel, and self-admired skill,
Be straight transported from Jerusalem
Unto the holie house of Bethlehem.'

"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
Some syllabub, whilst he doth swetely singe

'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.

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I saw his statue gayly 'tyr'd in green,

As if he had some second Phoebus been.
His statue trimm'd with the venerean tree,
And shrined fair within your sanctuary.
What, he, that erst to gain the rhyming goal,
The worn Recital-post of Capitol,
Rhymed in rules of stewish ribaldry,

Teaching experimental bawdery?

Whiles th' itching vulgar, tickled with the song,
Hanged on their unready poet's tongue.

Take this, ye patient Muses; and foul shame
Shall wait upon your once profaned name.
Take this, ye Muses, this so high despite,
And let all hateful luckless birds of night;
Let screeching owls nest in your razed roofs,
And let your floor with horned satyres' hoofs
Be dinted, and defiled every morn;
And let your walls be an eternal scorn.
What if some Shoreditch fury should incite
Some lust-stung lecher, must he needs indite
The beastly rites of hired venery,

The whole world's universal bawd to be?
Did never yet no damned libertine,
Nor elder heathen, nor new Florentine*,
Though they were famous for lewd liberty,
Venture upon so shameful villany.

*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,
And handsomely leave off with cleanly speed.
But arts of whoring, stories of the stews,
Ye Muses will ye bear, and may refuse?
Nay, let the Devil and St. Valentine
Be gossips to those ribald rhymes of thine.

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