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When it shall grinde thy grating gall for shame,
To see the lands, that beare thy grandsire's name,
Become a dunghill peasant's sommer-hall,
Or lonely Hermit's cage inhospitall

A pining gourmand, an imperious slave,
A hors-leech, barren womb, and gaping grave";
A legal theefe, a blood-lesse murtherer,
A feind incarnate, a false usurer:

96

Albee such mayne extort" scorns to be pent
In the clay walles of thatched tenement:
For, certes, no man of a low degree
May bid two guestes, or gout, or usurie:
Unlesse some base hedge-creeping Collybist
Scatters his refuse scraps on whom he list,
For Easter-gloves, or for a Shroftide hen,
Which, bought to give, he takes to sell agen.
I doe not meane some glozing" merchant's feate,
That laugheth at the cozened world's deceipt,
When as a hundred stocks ly in his fist,

He leakes and sinkes, and breaketh when he list.
But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care
With a base bargaine of his blowen 98 ware
Of fusted hoppes, now lost for lacke of sayle,
Or mo'ld browne-paper that could nought availe;
Or what he cannot utter otherwise,

May pleasure Fridoline for treble price:
Whiles his false broker lyeth in the winde,

And for a present chapman is assign'd,

The cut-throte wretch for their compacted gaine

Buyes all for but one quarter of the mayne";

Whiles, if he chance to breake his deare-bought day,

And forfait, for default of due repay,

His late intangled lands; then, Fridoline,
Buy thee a wallet, and go beg or pyne.

94 A hors-leech, barren womb, and gaping grave.

"The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, Give. There are three things that are never satisfied: yea, four things say not, It is enough :-The grave, and the barren womb &c." Prov. xxx. 15, 16.

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" Unlesse some base hedge-creeping COLLYBIST.

Our author uses this word when speaking of Christ's driving the money-changers out of the Temple." See now, how his eyes sparkle with holy anger, and dart forth beams of indignation in the faces of these guilty Collybists!" Works, vol. ii. p. 458. The word is from the Greek Koλλußins, a Money-changer, Banker, &c.

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If Mammon selfe should ever live with men,
Mammon himselfe shal be a citizen.

SATIRE VI 100.

Quid placet ergo?

101

I WOTE not how the world's degenerate "",
That men or know or like not their estate :
Out from the Gades up to th' easterne morne,
Not one but holds his native state forlorne.
When comely striplings wish it were their chance,
For Canis' distaffe to exchange their lance,
And weare curl'd periwigs, and chalke their face,
And still are poring on their pocket-glasse.

102

105

Tyr'd 1 with pin'd ruffles, and fans, and partlet-strips 103,
And buskes 104 and verdingales tos about their hips ;
And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace,
And make their napkin for their spitting-place,
And gripe their wast within a narrow span :
Fond Canis that would'st wish to be a man!
Whose mannish hus-wives like their refuse state,
And make a drudge of their Uxorious mate;
Who, like a cot-queene 106, freezeth at the rocke,
Whiles his breech't dame doth man the forrein stock.

100 In this Satire our author appears to have had both the First Ode and the First Satire of Horace in view.

101 I wote not how the world's degenerate,

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- partlet-strips.

Juv. Sat. x. E.

Johnson's definition of partlet, after Hanmer, is "A name given to a hen; the original signification being a ruff or band, or covering for the neck": and, in illustration, he quotes this line of our author.

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Pieces of steel or whalebone, worn by women to strengthen their stays.

105

verding ales

Or Fardingales-" A whale-bone circle that ladies formerly wore on their hips, and upon which they ty'd their petticoats." Phillips's New World of Words.

106

cot-queene

"A man that is too busy in meddling with women's affairs". Phillips's New World of Words.

Is't not a shame to see each homely groome
Sit perched in an idle chariot-roome 107,-
That were not meete some pannell to bestride,
Surcingled to a galled hackney's hide?

ΠΟ

Each muck-worme will be rich with lawlesse gaine,
Altho' he smother up mowes of seven years' graine,
And hang'd himselfe when corn grows cheap again;
Altho' he buy whole harvests in the spring,
And foist in false strikes to the measuring;
Altho' his shop he muffled from the light,
Like a day-dungeon or Cimmerian night:
Nor full nor fasting can the carle 108 take rest,
Whiles his George-Nobles rusten 109 in his chest:
He sleeps but once, and dreames of burglarie,
And wakes and castes about his frighted eye,
And gropes for theeves in every darker shade 11°;
And, if a mouse but stirre, he cals for ayde.
The sturdy plough-man doth the soldier see
All scarfed with pide "colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate;
And now he gins to loath his former state:
Now doth he inly scorne his Kendall-Greene "",
And his patch't cockers 3 now despised beene.
Nor list he now go whistling to the carre,
But sells his teme and fetleth 4 to the warre.
O warre! to them that never tryde thee, sweete!
When his dead mate fals groveling at his feete,
And angry bullets whistlen " at his eare,

113

And his dim eyes see nought but death and drere 11.
Oh happy plough-man! were thy weale well knowne :
Oh happy all estates except his owne !

107 Sit perched in an idle chariot-roome.

Mr. Warton has adduced some very curious anecdotes of coaches; which had, by this time, got into common use. They were introduced, I believe, about 1564. É.

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110 And gropes for THEEVES in every darker shade.

The Oxford Editor, ridiculously enough, has converted this word into th' eves.

111 pide-or pied, spotted, speckled.

112 Now doth he inly scorne his Kendall-Greene.

113

See Statute of Rich. II. an. 12. A. D. 1389. E.

-patch't cockers

I know not what these mean.

114

- fetleth-prepareth for, or enters upon. The word is still used in the midland counties to signify adjusting, preparing, &c.

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117

118

Some drunken Rimer thinks his time well spent,
If he can live to see his name in print;
Who when he is once fleshed" to the presse,
And sees his handsell 18 have such fayre successe,
Sung to the wheele, and sung unto the payle,
He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale "9.
Nor then can rest, but volumes up bodg'd rimes,
To have his name talk't of in future times.
The brainsicke youth, that feeds his tickled eare
With sweet-sauc'd lies of some false Traveiler,
Which hath the Spanish Decades 120 red awhile,
Or whet-stone leasings of old Maundevile "";
Now with discourses breakes his midnight sleepe,
Of his adventures through the Indian deepe,
Of all their massy heapes of golden mine,
Or of the antique toombs of Palestine;
Or of Damascus' magicke 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 head-lesse men", of savage Cannibals,
The fashions of their lives and governals 14:
What monstrous cities there erected bee,
Cayro, or the City of the Trinitie.

fleshed-initiated, introduced.
handsell-earnest, first-fruits.

119 He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.

Supposed to have been levelled at Elderton, a celebrated drunken ballad W.

writer.

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An old black-letter quarto, translated from the Spanish into English about 1590: and more than once alluded to in the satirical productions of the time. W.

121 Or WHET-STONE LEASINGS of old Maundevile

i. e. with his amusing and interesting fabrications.

122 Of the bird Ruc that beares an elephant.

-"in eâdem ipsâ orbis parte, in quâ monstrosissimus ales RUC elephantum integrum unguibus suis rapiens deglutiendum."-Mundus Alter et Idem. See p. 142 of this vol. The author of the English Translation of this piece adds in a note, "This bird's picture is to be seen in the largest Maps of the World, with an Elephant in his pounces." See a large account of this fabulous creature Lib. i. c. 10. of the same work, at p. 153 of this vol. The author mentions it again, p. 238, in his Censure of Travel; where there occurs a similar reprehension of the marvellous stories of travellers with that in this Satire.

123 Of head-lesse men

"We can tell.... of those headless eastern people, that have their eyes in their breast; a mis-conceit arising from their fashion of attire which I have sometimes seen". See Censure of Travel, p. 238 of this vol.

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Now are they dung-hill cocks, that have not seene
The bordering Alpes, or else the neighbour Rhene :
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 126 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 128!

To know much, and to thinke we nothing know;
Nothing to have, yet think we have enow:
In skill to want, and wanting seeke for more;
In weale, nor want nor wish for greater store.
Envy, ye monarchs, with your proud excesse,
At our low sayle 19, and our hye happinesse.

SATIRE VII 139.

POMH PYMH.

WHO says these Romish pageants bene too hy
To be the scorne of sportfull poesy ?
Certes not all the worlde such matter wist (1
As are the Seven Hills, for a Satyrist.
Perdy", I loath a hundreth Mathoes' tongues,

A hundreth gamesters' shifts or landlords' wrongs,

125 And now he plyes the newes-full Grashopper.

The Exchange, having the Grashopper as a vane; the crest of Sir Thomas Gresham, its founder.

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Our author appears from his "Specialities" to have been warmly attached to the academic life which he here praises. Speaking of his election as a Fellow of Emanuel College, he says-" I was with a cheerful unanimity chosen into that Society; which if it had any equals, I dare say had none beyond it for good order, studious carriage, strict government, austere piety: in which I spent six or seven years more with such contentment, as the rest of my life hath in vain striven to yield."

129 At our low sayle

This expression was proverbial. In "The Return from Parnassus", Act iv. Sc. 5. we find Scholars must frame to live at a low sayle. E.

130 Compare this Satire with Mundus Alter et Idem, Lib. iii. c. 8, 9.

131

wist-knows.

132 Perdy-Fr. par Dieu, an old oath.

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