BOOK VI. SATIRE I' Semel insanivimus. LABEO reserves a long nayle for the nonce', And makes such faces, that mee seemes I see Threatning her twined snakes at Tantale's ghost; His cheeks change hew like th' ayre-fed vermin's skin, 1 This last Book and Satire is a humorous and ironical recantation of the former Satires: as the author here pretends there can be no just ground for one in such times as his own. In one part he again glances at the sorry poets of his time, and makes some terse allusions to poets of a former day. Afterwards, when enumerating some of the festive tales of our ancestors, he gives a close and spirited imitation from Juvenal: and closes the whole by a few remarks on the prevailing dialect of Poetry, with a vigour of fancy scarcely rivalled by the finest poets of his time. E. 2 Labeo was undoubtedly some contemporary poet, a constant censurer of our author; and who, from pastoral, proceeded to heroic poetry. Warton thought it might be Chapman, though he did not recollect that Chapman wrote any pastorals. Compare Attius Labeo, in Persius. E. 3 - for the nonce—for the purpose, occasion. • Much worse than Aristarchus his blacke pile, That pierc'd olde Homer's side The name of Aristarchus had long been used to express a rigid critic. Cic. Orat. in Pisonem. cap. 30. Hor. Ars Poet. 445. Ausonius: Ludus Septem Sapientum, p. 265. E. Pile is probably from the Latin pilum, the head of an arrow. A picture from the life of the tremendous Gog and Magog, which have been the terror of every successive generation of citizens when children, and their ridicule when men. 6 Now red, now pale; and, swolne above his eyes, Sith now not one of thousand does amisse. As pure as through-fare channels when it raynes; 7 8 Is not one pick-thanke stirring in the court, Smiles on his master for a meale or two; With his disguised cote and ringed eare, through-fare channels i. e. kennels in great thorough-fares, through which a great body of water pours when it rains; not through faire, as the Oxford Editor reads, without authority, and to the destruction of all sense. Marston also reprehends, in a character resembling this of our author, the swag Trampling the burse's marble twise a day ", gerers of his time; who, in their rambles about the town, visited the Royal Exchange as mercantile travellers. The Royal Exchange was also frequented by hungry walkers, as well as St. Paul's. Robert Hayman, in his Quodlibets or Epigrams. Lond. 1628. 4to. Epigr. 35. p. 6. has To Sir Pearce Pennilesse. "Though little coyne thy purselesse pockets lyne, " Trampling the burse's marble twise a day. W. The Royal Exchange received the name of Bourse from Sir Thomas Gresham; and exchanged it for its present name, in 1570, by order of Queen Elizabeth. E. 12 Pansophus now, though all in a cold swatt, The is the reading of the edition of 1599, and the Oxford. 13 The vale of Stand-gate, or the Suter's hill, Or westerne playne, are free from feared ill. Stand-gate vale probably means Stand-gate Street, in Lambeth.-Suter's or Shooter's Hill is well known.-By westerne playne, the site now occupied by St. James's and Hyde Parks was most likely intended. " And shouldred angry Skelton's breath-lesse rimes. So Phillips, in the Theatrum Poetarum, p. 115, says of Skelton, "Methinks he hath a miserable loos rambling style, and galloping measure of verse." E. Ere Chrysalus had bar'd the common boxe, With a big-bellyed gallon flagonet ". To his officious factor fayre could show 18 Great thanks he gives-but, God him shield and save Onely live long and he is well repayd, And weats his forced cheeks whiles thus he said; Rather than no salt teares shall then arise. So lookes he like a marble toward rayne, And wrings, and snites", and weeps, and wipes againe : 16 Now shalt thou never see the sall beset With a big bellyed gallon flagonet. See Note 37, on Book ii. Sat. 6. "Of an EBBE CRUCE must thirsty Silen sip, That's all forestalled by his upper lip. An ebbe cruce probably means a shallow vessel, the contents of which ebbed or returned against the upper lip, and disappointed the drinker. To peer is, to come just in sight. By peare, our author may mean shrunk in. 19 By THIS strange qualme of liberalitie. This is restored from the first edition; his being that of the other editions. 20 snites a term in Falconry. "A hawk is said to smite or snite, when she wipes her beak or bill after feeding". See Phillips's New World of Words. 21 soured-The Oxford editor reads sorrow'd, without authority. |