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PROLOGUE.

OR bene the Manes of that Cynick spright,
Cloth'd with some stubburn clay and led to light?
Or do the relique ashes of his grave

Revive, and rise from their forsaken cave;
That so, with gall-weet' words and speeches rude,
Controls the manners of the multitude?

Envie belike incites his pining hart,

And bids it sate itselfe with others' smart.
Nay, no despight: but angrie Nemesis,

Whose scourge doth follow all that done amisse ;
That scourge I beare, albe in ruder fist,

And wound, and strike, and pardon whom she list.

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BOOK II.

3

SATIRE I'

FOR shame; write better, Labeo, or write none:
Or better write; or, Labeo, write alone.

Nay, call the Cynick but a wittie foole,

Thence to abjure his handsome drinking bole;
Because the thirstie swaine, with hollow hand,
Convey'd the streame to weet his drie weasand.
Write they, that can; tho' they, that cannot, doe:
But who knowes that; but they, that do not know?
Lo! what it is that makes white rags so deare,
That men must give a teston3 for a queare*.
Lo! what it is that makes goose-wings so scant,
That the distressed semster did them want :
So, lavish ope-tyde causeth fasting-lents',
And starvling Famine comes of large expence.
Might not (so they were pleasd that beene above)
Long Paper-abstinence our death remove?
Then many a Loller would in forfaitment,
Beare Paper-fagots ore the pavement.

But now men wager who shall blot the most,
And each man writes. Ther's so much labour lost.
That's good, that's great: nay much is seldome well :
Of what is bad, a littl's a greate deale.
Better is more: but best is nought at all.
Lesse is the next, and lesser criminall.
Little and good, is greatest good save one:
Then, Labeo, or write little, or write none.
Tush, in small paynes can be but little art,
Or lode full drie-fats" fro' the forren mart,

The author seems, in this Satire, to have had the First of Persius in view. E. weet-wet.

teston—or testerne: a piece of money of the value of ten-pence, as appears from the following passage of one of Latimer's Sermons, quoted by Mr. Holt White, in Reed's Shakespeare: Vol. IV. p. 188. "They brought him a denair, a piece of their current coyne that was worth ten of our usual pence, such another piece as our testerne."

queare-quire. E.

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So lavish O PE-TYDE causeth fasting lents.

Ope-tyde probably means profusion, an open-house.

6

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drie-fats the fat, or vat, is a vessel used for the fermentation of liquors; and also denotes a vessel of eight bushels, for measuring malt.

fro-from.

8

With Folio-volumes, two to an oxe hide;
Or else, ye Pamphleter, go stand aside;
Read in each schoole, in every margent coted',
In every catalogue for an autour noted.

There's happinesse well given and well got:
Lesse gifts, and lesser gaines, I weigh them not.
So may the giant rome and write on high,
Be he a dwarfe that writes not there as I.
But well fare Strabo, which, as stories tell,
Contriv'd all Troy within one walnut shell.
His curious ghost now lately hither came:
Arriving neere the mouth of luckie Tame,
I saw a Pismire strugling with the lode,
Dragging all Troy home towards her abode.
Now dare we hither, if he durst appeare,
The subtile Stithy-man that liv'd while eare':
Such one was once, or once I was mistaught,
A smith at Vulcan's owne" forge up brought,
That made an iron-chariot so light,

The coach-horse was a flea in trappings dight.
The tame-lesse steed could well his wagon wield,
Through downes and dales of the uneven field.
Strive they, laugh we: meane while the black story
Passes new Strabo, and new Straboe's Troy.
Little for great; and great for good; all one:
For shame! or better write; or, Labeo, write none.
But who conjur'd this bawdie Poggie's ghost,
From out the Stewes of his lewde home-bred coast:
Or wicked Rablais' dronken revellings,

To grace the mis-rule of our tavernings ?
Or who put Bayes into blind Cupid's fist,
That he should crowne what laureats him list?
Whose words are those, to remedie the deed,
That cause men stop" their noses when they read?
Both good things ill, and ill things well; all one.
For shame! write cleanly, Labeo, or write none.

SATIRE II.

To what end did our lavish auncestours
Erect of old these stately piles of ours;

coted-quoted.

• The subtile STITHY-man that lived while care.

i. e. ANVIL-man, or Smith: the word is still used in the northern counties. See Reed's Shakespeare: Vol. XV. 422. XVIII. 191. And, I can add, in the midland; as I have frequently heard it in Birmingham.-While eare means just now, a little while ago. See note 1, p. 277.

10

final e. E.

owne-The only instance in our author of the pronunciation of the

"That cause men stopThat cause men to stop.

For thred-bare clearks, and for the ragged muse,
Whom better fit some cotes of sad secluse?
Blush, niggard Age, and be asham'd to see,
These monuments of wiser ancestrie.

And, ye faire heapes, the Muses' sacred shrines,
(In spight of time and envious repines)
Stand still, and flourish till the world's last day,
Upbrayding it with former love's decay.
Here may ye, Muses, our deare Soveraines,
Scorne each base Lordling ever you disdaines";
And every peasant churle, whose smoky roofe
Denied harbour for your deare behoofe".
Scorne ye the world, before it do complaine;
And scorne the world, that scorneth you againe :
And scorne contempt itselfe, that doth incite
Each single-sold squire " to set you at so light.
What needes me care for any bookish skill,
To blot white papers with my restlesse quill;
Or poare on painted leaves, or beat my braine
With far-fetcht thought; or to consume in vaine,
In latter even, or mids of winter nights,
Ill-smelling oyles, or some still-watching lights?
Let them, that meane by bookish businesse
To earne their bread, or hopen to professe
Their hard got skill, let them alone, for me,
Busie their braines with deeper bookerie.

14

Great gaines shall bide you sure, when ye have spent
A thousand lamps, and thousand reames have rent
Of needlesse papers; and a thousand nights
Have burned out with costly candle lights.
Ye palish ghosts of Athens, when at last
Your patrimonie spent in witlesse wast,
Your friends all wearie, and your spirits spent,
Ye may your fortunes seeke, and be forwent 's
Of your kind cosins, and your churlish sires,
Left there alone, mids the fast-folding briers.
Have not I lands of faire inheritance,
Deriv'd by right of long continuance,
To first-borne males, so list the law to grace,
Nature's first fruits in eviternall race "}

12 Scorne each base Lordling ever you disdaines. The relative who is omitted. E.

13

behoofe-advantage, protection.

14 Each single-sold squire

a single-soled shoe was a common, cheap shoe: hence single sol'd squire was a low, contemptible fellow. forwent-abandoned.

15

16 Nature's first fruits in EVITERNALL race.

The first edition reads eniternall, which appears to me to be an error of the press for eviternall. The edition of 1602 alters it to an eternal, and is followed by the

Let second brothers, and poore nestlings,
Whom more injurious nature later brings
Into the naked world; let them assaine"
To get hard peny-worths with so bootlesse paine.
Tush! what care I to be Arcesilas 18,

Or some sad Solon, whose deep-furrowed face,
And sullen head, and yellow-clouded sight,
Still on the stedfast earth are musing pight";
Mutt'ring what censures their distracted minde,
Of brain-sicke paradoxes deeply hath definde :
Or of Parmenides, or of darke Heraclite,
Whether all be one, or ought be infinite?
Long would it be, ere thou hadst purchase bought,
Or welthier wexen 20 by such idle thought.
Fond foole! six feete shall serve for all thy store;
And he, that cares for most, shall find no more.
We scorne that welth should be the finall end,
Whereto the heavenly Muse her course doth bend;
And rather had be pale with learned cares,
Than paunched with thy choyce of changed fares.
Or doth thy glorie stand in outward glee?
A lave-ear'd asse with gold may trapped bee.
Or if in pleasure? live we as we may,
Let swinish Grill delight in dunghill clay.

Oxford editor. Eviternal is elsewhere used by our author: as, The angels are
truly existing, spiritual, intelligent, powerful, eviternal creatures." Works, Vol.
VI. 435: again,-" In a constant state of eviternal evenness.”
VII. 387.

17

assaine-essay, or endeavour.

18 Tush! what care I to be Arcesilas, &c. &c.

From Persius, Sat. 3. 78.

quod satis est sapio mihi: non ego curo

Esse quod Arcesilas, ærumnosique Solones,

Obstipo capite, et figentes lumine terram,
Murmura cùm secum et rabiosa silentia redunt,
Atque exporrecto trutinantur verba labello,
Agroti veterna meditantes somnia:-

Works, Vol.

Where the philosophy of the profound Arcesilaus, and of the ærumnosi Solones, is proved to be of so little use and estimation. W.

19

thus uses it:

pight-placed, or fixed. Often found in Spenser. Shakespeare

When I dissuaded him from his intent,

And found him PIGHT to do it

See Reed, Vol. XVII. 387.

LEAR: Act II. Sc. 1.

20

wexen-waxed, become.

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