And tels how first his famous ancestor
Did come in long since with the Conquerour.
Nor hath some bribed herald first assign'd
His quartered armes and crest of gentle kinde,
The Scottish barnacle, (if I might choose,)
That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose;
Nathelesse some hungry squire for hope of good
Matches the churles sonne into gentle blood,
Whose sonne more iustly of his gentry boasts
Than who were borne at two pide painted postes ;
And had some traunting merchant to his syre,
That trafiqu'd both by water and by fyre.
O times! since euer Rome did kings create,
Brasse gentlemen, and Caesars laureate.
FUIMUS TROËS; VEL VIX EA NOSTRA.
WHAT boots it, Pontice, tho thou could'st discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestors?
Or shew their painted faces gaylie drest,
From euer since before the last conquest;
Or tedious bead-roles of descended blood,
From father Iaphet since Deucalions flood;
Or call some old church-windowes to record
The age of thy fayre armes ;
Or find some figures halfe obliterate
In rain-beat marble neare to the church-gate,
Vpon a crosse-leg'd toombe? What boots it thee
To shew the rusted buckle that did tie
The garter of thy greatest grand-sires knee?
What to reserue their reliques many yeares,
Their siluer-spurs, or spils of broken speares ;
Or cyte olde Oclands verse, how they did weild
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field?
And if thou canst, in picking strawes, engage
In one halfe day thy fathers heritage ;
Or hide what euer treasures he the got,
In some deepe cock-pit; or in desperate lot,
Vpon a sixe-square peece of iuorie,
Throw both thy selfe and thy posteritie?
Or if (O shame!) in hired harlots bed
Thy wealthie heyre-dome thou haue buried ;
Then, Pontice, little boots thee to discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestors.
Ventrous Fortunio his farme hath sold,
And gads to Guiane land to fish for gold,
Meeting, perhaps, if Orenoque denye,
Some stragling pinnace of Polonian rie.
Then comes home floting with a silken sayle,
That Seuerne shaketh with his canon-peale ;
Wiser Raymundus in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and aduenturement;
When halfe his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopefull glasse is broke.
But yet, if haply his third fornace hold,
Deuoteth all his pots and pans to gold;
So spend thou, Pontice, if thou canst not spare,
Like some stout sea-man, or philosopher;
And were thy fathers gentle ? that's their praise,
No thanke to thee by whom their name decays;
By vertue got they it, and valourous deed,
Do thou so, Pontice, and be honoured:
But else looke how their vertue was their owne,
Not capable of propagation;
Right so their titles beene, nor can be thine,
Whose ill deserts might blanke their golden line.
Tell me, thou gentle Troian, dost thou prise
Thy brute beasts worth by their dams qualities?
Say'st thou this colt shall prooue a swift-pac'd steed,
Onely because a Iennet did him breed?
Or say'st thou this same horsse shall win the prize,
Because his dame was swiftest Trunchefice,
Or Runceuall his syre; himselfe a Gallaway?
Whiles like a tireling iade he lags half-way;
Or whiles thou seest some of thy Stallion-race,
Their eyes boar'd out, masking the millers-maze,
Like to a Scythian slaue sworne to the payle;
Or dragging froathy barrels at his tayle?
Albee wise Nature in her prouidence,
Wont in the want of reason and of sence,
Traduce the natiue vertue with the kind,
Making all brute and sencelesse things inclin'd
Vnto their cause, or place where they were sowne ;
That one is like to all, and all like one.
Was neuer foxe, but wylie cubs begets,
The beare his feirce-nesse to his brood besets;
Nor fearefull hare fals out of lyons seed,
Nor eagle wont the tender doue to breed ;
Creet euer wont the cypresse sad to beare,
Acheron banks the palish popelare ;
The palme doth rifely rise in Iury field,
And Alpheus waters nought but oliues wild.
Asopus breeds big bul-rushes alone,
Meander heath; peaches by Nilus growne;
An English wolfe, an Irish toad to see,
Were as a chast-man nurs❜d in Italy.
And now when Nature giues another guide
To humane kind that in his bosome bides;
Aboue instinct, his reason and discourse,
His beeing better, is his life the worse?
Ah, me! how seldome see we sonnes succeed
Their fathers praise in prowesse and great dead? 85
Yet certes if the syre be ill inclin’d,
His faults befal his sonnes by course of kind.
Scaurus was couetous; his sonne not so,
But not his pared nayle will hee foregoe.
Florian the syre did women loue alife,
And so his sonne doth too, all but his wife.
Brag of thy fathers faults, they are thine owne;
Brag of his lands, if those be not forgone;
Brag of thine owne good deeds, for they are thine,
More than his life, or lands, or golden line.
CAN I not touch some vpstart carpet-shield
Of Lolio's sonne, that neuer saw the field,
Or taxe wild Pontice for his luxuries,
But straight they tell mee of Tiresias eyes?
Or lucklesse Collingborns feeding of the crowes,
Or hundreth Scalps which Thames still vnderflowes,
But straight Sigalion nods and knits his browes,
And winkes and waftes his warning hand for feare,
And lisps some silent letters in my eare?
Haue I not vow'd for shunning such debate
(Pardon ye satyres) to degenerate ?
And wading low in this plebeian lake
That no salt waue shall froath vpon my backe,
Let Labeo, or who else list for mee,
Go loose his eares and fall to Alchymie.
Onely let Gallio giue me leaue a while
To schoole him once, or ere I change my style.
O lawlesse paunch, the cause of much despight,
Through raunging of a currish appetite,
When splenish morsels cram the gaping maw,
Withouten diets care, or trencher-law;
Tho neuer haue I Salerne rimes profest,
To be some ladies trencher-criticke guest;
Whiles each bit cooleth for the oracle,
|