Nor then can rest, but volumes vp bodg'd rimes,
To haue his name talk't of in future times.
The brainsicke youth that feeds his tickled eare
With sweet-sauc'd lies of some false traueiler,
Which hath the Spanish Decades red a while,
Or whetstone leasings of old Maundeuile;
Now with discourses breakes his mid-night sleepe,
Of his aduentures through the Indian deepe,
Of all their massy heapes of golden mines,
Or of the antique toombs of Palestine,
Or of Damascus magike wall of glasse,
Of Salomon his sweating piles of brasse,
Of the bird Ruc that beares an elephant,
Of mer-maids that the southerne seas do haunt,
Of headlesse men, of sauage cannibals,
The fashion of their liues and gouernals;
What monstrous cities there erected bee,
Cayro, or the Citie of the Trinitie.
Now are they dung-hill cocks that haue not seene The bordering Alpes, or else the neighbour Rhene; 75 And now he plyes the newes-full grashopper,
Of voyages and ventures to enquire.
His land morgag'd, he sea-beat in the way,
Wishes for home a thousand sithes a day;
And now he deemes his home-bred fare as leefe
As his parch't bisket, or his barreld beefe.
Mong'st all these sturs of discontented strife,
Oh let me lead an academicke life;
To know much, and to thinke we nothing know,
Nothing to haue, yet thinke we haue enough,
In skill to want, and wanting seeke for more,
In weale not want, nor wish for greater store;
Enuye, ye monarchs, with your proud excesse,
At our low sayle, and our hye happinesse.
WHO say's these Romish pageants bene too hy
To be the scorne of sportfull poesy?
Certes not all the world such matters wist
As are the seuen hils, for a Satiryst.
Perdy, I loath an hundreth Mathoes tongues,
An hundreth gamsters shifts, or land-lords wrongs,
Or Labeos poems, or base Lolios pride,
Or euer what I thought or wrote beside;
When once I thinke if carping Aquines spright
To see now Rome, were licenc'd to the light;
How his enraged ghost would stampe and stare
That Caesars throne is turn'd to Peters chayre.
To see an old shorne Lozell perched hy,
Crossing beneath a golden canopy,
The whiles a thousand hairelesse crownes crouch
To kisse the precious case of his proud toe;
And for the lordly Fasces borne of old,
To see two quiet crossed keyes of gold,
Or Cybeles shrine, the famous Pantheons frame
Turn'd to the honour of our Ladies name.
But that he most would gaze and wonder at,
Is th❜horned miter, and the bloudy hat,
The crooked staffe, their coules strange forme and store, Saue that he saw the same in hell before;
To see their broken nuns with new-shorne heads, 25 In a blind cloyster tosse their idle beades,
Or louzy coules come smoking from the stewes,
the leud rent to their lord accrewes,
(Who with ranke Venice doth his pompe aduance,
By trading of ten thousand curtizans,)
Yet backward must absolue a females sinne,
Like to a false dissembling Theatine,
Who, when his skin is red with shirts of male,
And rugged haire-cloth scoures his greazy nayle,
Or wedding garment tames his stubborne backe,
Which his hempe girdle dies all blew and blacke;
Or of his almes-boule three daies sup'd and din'd,
Trudges to open stewes of eyther kinde;
Or takes some cardinals stable in the way,
And with some pampered mule doth weare the day, 40
Kept for his lords owne sadle when him list.
Come Valentine, and play the satyrist,
To see poore sucklings welcom'd to the light
With searing yrons of some sowre Iacobite,
Or golden offers of an aged foole,
To make his coffin some Franciscans coule,
To see the Popes blacke knight, a cloked frere,
Sweeting in the channell like a scauengere.
Whom earst thy bowed hamme did lowly greete,
When at the corner-crosse thou didst him meete, 50
Tumbling his Rosaries hanging at his belt,
Or his Barretta, or his towred felt;
To see a lasie dumbe Acholithile
Armed against a deuout flyes despight,
Which at th❜hy altar doth the Chalice vaile
With a broad flie-flappe of a Peacockes tayle,
The whiles the likerous priest spits euery trice,
With longing for his morning sacrifice,
Which he reres vp quite perpendiculare,
That the mid-church doth spite the Chancels fare, 60 Beating their emptie mawes that would be fed, With the scant morsels of the Sacrists bread :
Would he not laugh to death, when he should heare The shamelesse legends of S. Christopher,
S. George, the sleepers, or S. Peters well,
Or of his daughter good S. Petronell.
But had he heard the Female Fathers grone,
Yeaning in mids of her procession;
Or now should see the needlesse tryall-chayre,
(When ech is proued by his bastard heyre,)
Or saw the churches and new calendere,
Pestred with mungrell saints and reliques dere,
Should hee cry out on Codro's tedious toomes,
When his new rage would aske no narrower rooms?
PARDON ye glowing eares, needs will it out,
Tho brazen wals compas'd my tongue about,
As thicke as wealthy Scrobioes quicke-set rowes
In the wide common that he did inclose.
Pull out mine eyes, if I shall see no vice,
Or let me see it with detesting eyes.
Renowmed Aquine, now I follow thee,
Farre as I may for feare of ieopardie;
And to thy hand yeeld vp the iuye-mace,
From crabbed Persius, and more smooth Horace; 10
Or from that shrew, the Roman poetesse,
That taught her gossips learned bitternesse,
Or Luciles Muse whom thou didst imitate,
Or Menips olde, or Pasquillers of late ;
Yet name I not Mutius or Tigilline,
Tho they deserue a keener stile then mine;
|