Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets - Being A Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry,

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Title: Choyce Drollery: Songs and Sonnets - Being A Collection of Divers Excellent Pieces of Poetry, - of Several Eminent Authors.
Author: Various
Language: English
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Choyce Drollery.

[Illustration: _1661. Vide p. 107._

_J. W. Ebsworth sc. 1876_]

Choyce
DROLLERY:
SONGS & SONNETS.

BEING

_A Collection of Divers Excellent
Pieces of Poetry_,

OF SEVERAL EMINENT AUTHORS.

_Now First Reprinted from the Edition of 1656._

TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE EXTRA SONGS OF
MERRY DROLLERY, 1661,
AND AN
ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY, 1661:

EDITED,

_With Special Introductions, and Appendices of Notes,
Illustrations, Emendations of Text, &c._,

BY J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A., CANTAB.

BOSTON, LINCOLNSHIRE:
Printed by _Robert Roberts_, Strait Bar-Gate.
M,DCCCLXXVI.

TO THOSE

STUDENTS OF ART,

AMONG WHOM HE FOUND

Friendship and Enthusiasm;

BEFORE HE LEFT THEM,

WINNERS OF UNSULLIED FAME,

AND SOUGHT IN A QUIET NOOK

CONTENT, INSTEAD OF RENOWN:

THESE

“DROLLERIES OF THE RESTORATION”

ARE BY THE EDITOR

DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

DEDICATION v

PRELUDE ix

INTRODUCTION TO “CHOICE DROLLERY, 1656” xi

§ 1. HOW CHOICE DROLLERY WAS INHIBITED xi

2. THE TWO COURTS IN 1656 xix

3. SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR xxvi

4. CONCLUSION: THE PASTORALS xxxiii

ORIGINAL “ADDRESS TO THE READER,” 1856

“CHOYCE DROLLERY,” 1656 1

TABLE OF FIRST LINES TO DITTO 101

INTRODUCTION TO “ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY,” 1661

§ 1. REPRINT OF “ANTIDOTE” 105

2. INGREDIENTS OF “AN ANTIDOTE” 108

ORIGINAL ADDRESS “TO THE READER,” 1661 111

” CONTENTS (ENLARGED) 112

“ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY,” 1661 113

EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT TO DITTO: § 1. ON THE “AUTHOR” OF THE
ANTIDOTE. 2. ARTHUR O’BRADLEY 161

“WESTMINSTER DROLLERIES,” EDITION 1674: EXTRA SONGS 177

“MERRY DROLLERY,” 1661:

PART 1. EXTRA SONGS 195

” 2. DITTO 233

APPENDIX OF NOTES, &c., ARRANGED IN FOUR PARTS:

1. “CHOICE DROLLERY” 259

2. “ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY” 305

3. “WESTMINSTER DROLLERY,” 1671-4 333

4. § 1. “MERRY DROLLERY,” 1661 345

2. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO “M. D.,” 1670 371

3. SESSIONS OF POETS 405

4. TABLES OF FIRST LINES 411

FINALE 423

PRELUDE.

Not dim and shadowy, like a world of dreams,
We summon back the past Cromwellian time,
Raised from the dead by invocative rhyme,
Albeit this no Booke of Magick seems:

Now,—while few questions of the fleeting hour
Cease to perplex, or task th’ unwilling mind,—
Lest party-strife our better-Reason blind
To the dread evils waiting still on Power.

We see Old England torn by civil wars,
Oppress’d by gloomy zealots—men whose chain
More galled because of Regicidal stain,
Hiding from view all honourable scars:

We see how those who raved for Liberty,
Claiming the Law’s protection ’gainst the King,
Trampled themselves on Law, and strove to bring
On their own nation tenfold Slavery.

So that with iron hand, with eagle eye,
Stout Oliver Protector scarce could keep
The troubled land in awe; while mutterings deep
Threatened to swell the later rallying cry.

Well had he probed the hollow friends who stood
Distrustful of him, though their tongues spoke praise;
Well read their fears, that interposed delays
To rob him of his meed for toil and blood.

A few brief years of such uneasy strife,
While foreign shores and ocean own his sway;
Then fades the lonely Conqueror away,
Amid success, weary betimes of life.

So passing, kingly in his soul, uncrown’d,
With dark forebodings of th’ approaching storm,
He leaves the spoil at mercy of the swarm
Of beasts unclean and vultures gathering round.

For soon from grasp of Richard Cromwell slips
Semblance of power he ne’er had strength to hold;
And wolves each other tear, who tore the fold,
While lurid twilight mocks the State’s eclipse.

Then, from divided counsels, bitter snarls,
Deceit and broken fealty, selfish aim—
Where promptitude and courage win the game,—
Self-scattered fall they; and up mounts
KING CHARLES.

J. W. E.

_June 1st, 1876._

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TO CHOICE DROLLERY: 1656.

_Charles._—“They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and
a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old
Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to
him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in
the golden world.”

(_As You Like It_, Act i. sc. 1.)

§ 1. _CHOYCE DROLLERY INHIBITED._

We may be sure the memory of many a Cavalier went back to that sweetest
of all Pastorals, Shakespeare’s Comedy of “As You Like It,” while he
clutched to his breast the precious little volume of _Choyce Drollery,
Songs and Sonnets_, which was newly published in the year 1656. He sought
a covert amid the yellowing fronds of fern, in some old park that had
not yet been wholly confiscated by the usurping Commonwealth; where,
under the broad shadow of a beech-tree, with the squirrel watching him
curiously from above, and timid fawns sniffing at him suspiciously a few
yards distant, he might again yield himself to the enjoyment of reading
“heroick Drayton’s” _Dowsabell_, the love-tale beginning with the magic
words “Farre in the Forest of Arden”—an invocative name which summoned
to his view the Rosalind whose praise was carved on many a tree. He
also, be it remembered, had “a banished Lord;” even then remote from his
native Court, associating with “co-mates and brothers in exile”—somewhat
different in mood from Amiens or the melancholy Jacques; and, alas! not
devoid of feminine companions. Enough resemblance was in the situation
for a fanciful enthusiasm to lend enchantment to the name of Arden (p.
73), and recall scenes of shepherd-life with Celia, the songs that echoed
“Under the greenwood-tree;” without needing the additional spell of
seeing “Ingenious Shakespeare” mentioned among “the Time-Poets” on the
fifth page of _Choyce Drollery_.

Not easily was the book obtained; every copy at that time being hunted
after, and destroyed when found, by ruthless minions of the Commonwealth.
A Parliamentary injunction had been passed against it. Commands were
given for it to be burnt by the hangman. Few copies escaped, when spies
and informers were numerous, and fines were levied upon those who
had secreted it. Greedy eyes, active fingers, were after the _Choyce
Drollery_. Any fortunate possessor, even in those early days, knew well
that he grasped a treasure which few persons save himself could boast.
Therefore it is not strange, two hundred and twenty years having rolled
away since then, that the book has grown to be among the rarest of the
_Drolleries_. Probably not six perfect copies remain in the world. The
British Museum holds not one. We congratulate ourselves on restoring it
now to students, for many parts of it possess historical value, besides
poetic grace; and the whole work forms an interesting relic of those
troubled times.

Unlike our other _Drolleries_, reproduced _verbatim et literatim_ in this
series, we here find little describing the last days of Cromwell and the
Commonwealth; except one graphic picture of a despoiled West-Countryman
(p. 57), complaining against both Roundheads and “Cabbaleroes.” The
poems were not only composed before hopes revived of speedy Restoration
for the fugitive from Worcester-fight and Boscobel; they were, in great
part, written before the Civil Wars began. Few of them, perhaps, were
previously in print (the title-page asserts that _none_ had been so, but
we know this to be false). Publishers made such statements audaciously,
then as now, and forced truth to limp behind them without chance of
overtaking. By far the greater number belonged to an early date in the
reign of the murdered King, chiefly about the year 1637; two, at the
least, were written in the time of James I. (viz., p. 40, a contemporary
poem on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; and, p. 10, the Ballad on King James
I.), if not also the still earlier one, on the Defeat of the Scots at
Muscleborough Field; which is probably corrupted from an original so
remote as the reign of Edward VI. “Dowsabell” was certainly among the
_Pastorals_ of 1593, and “Down lay the Shepherd’s swain” (p. 65) bears
token of belonging to an age when the Virgin Queen held sway. These
facts guide to an understanding of the charm held by _Choyce Drollery_
for adherents of the Monarchy; and of its obnoxiousness in the sight
of the Parliament that had slain their King. It was not because of
any exceptional immorality in this _Choyce Drollery_ that it became
denounced; although such might be declared in proclamations. Other books
of the same year offended worse against morals: for example, the earliest
edition known to us of _Wit and Drollery_, with the extremely “free”
_facetiæ_ of _Sportive Wit, or Lusty Drollery_ (both works issued in
1656), held infinitely more to shock proprieties and call for repression.
The _Musarum Deliciæ_ of Sir J[ohn] M[ennis] and Dr. J[ames] S[mith],
in the same year, 1656, cannot be held blameless. Yet the hatred
shewn towards _Choyce Drollery_ far exceeded all the rancour against
these bolder sinners, or the previous year’s delightful miscellany of
merriment and true poetry, the _Wit’s Interpreter_ of industrious J[ohn]
C[otgrave]; to whom, despite multitudinous typographical errors, we owe
thanks, both for _Wit’s Interpreter_ and for the wilderness of dramatic
beauties, his _Wit’s Treasury_: bearing the same date of 1655.

It was not because of sins against taste and public or private morals,
(although, we admit, it has some few of these, sufficient to afford
a pretext for persecutors, who would have been equally bitter had
it possessed virginal purity:) but in consequence of other and more
dangerous ingredients, that _Choyce Drollery_ aroused such a storm. Not
disgust, but fear of its influence in reviving loyalty, prompted the
order of its extermination. Readers at this later day, might easily fail
to notice all that stirred the loyal sentiments of chivalric devotion,
and consequently made the fierce Fifth-Monarchy men hate the small volume
worse than the _Apocrypha_ or _Ikon Basilike_. Herein was to be found
the clever “Jack of Lent’s” account of loyal preparations made in London
to receive the newly-wedded Queen, Henrietta Maria, when she came from
France, in 1625, escorted by the Duke of Buckingham, who compromised her
sister by his rash attentions: Buckingham, whom King Charles loved so
well that the favouritism shook his throne, even after Felton’s dagger
in 1628 had rid the land of the despotic courtier. Here, also, a more
grievous offence to the Regicides, was still recorded in austere grandeur
of verse, from no common hireling pen, but of some scholar like unto
Henry King, of Chichester, the loyal “New-Year’s Wish” (p. 48) presented
to King Charles at the beginning of 1638, when the North was already
in rebellion: wherein men read, what at that time had not been deemed
profanity or blasphemy, the praise and faithful service of some hearts
who held their monarch only second to their Saviour. Referring to their
hope that the personal approach of the King might cure the evils of the
disturbed realm, it is written:—

“You, like our sacred and indulgent Lord,
When the too-stout Apostle drew his sword,
When he mistooke some secrets of the cause,
And in his furious zeale disdained the Lawes,
Forgetting true Religion doth lye
On prayers, not swords against authority:
You, like our substitute of horrid fate,
That are next Him we most should imitate,
Shall like to Him rebuke with wiser breath,
Such furious zeale, but not reveng’d with death.
Like him, the wound that’s giv’n you strait shall heal
Then calm by precept such mistaking zeal.”

Here was a sincere, unflinching recognition of Divine Right, such as the
faction in power could not possibly abide. Even the culpable weakness
and ingratitude of Charles, in abandoning Strafford, Laud, and other
champions to their unscrupulous destroyers, had not made true-hearted
Cavaliers falter in their faith to him. As the best of moralists
declares:—

“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.”

These loyal sentiments being embodied in print within our _Choyce
Drollery_, suitable to sustain the fealty of the defeated Cavaliers to
the successor of the “Royal Martyr,” it was evident that the Restoration
must be merely a question of time. “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it
be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, _yet it will come: the
readiness is all_!”

To more than one of those who had sat in the ill-constituted and
miscalled High Court of Justice, during the closing days of 1648-9, there
must have been, ever and anon, as the years rolled by, a shuddering
recollection of the words written anew upon the wall in characters of
living fire. They had shown themselves familiar, in one sense much too
familiar, with the phraseology but not the teaching of Scripture. To
them the _Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin_ needed no Daniel come to judgment
for interpretation. The Banquet was not yet over; the subjugated people,
whom they had seduced from their allegiance by a dream of winning freedom
from exactions, were still sullenly submissive; the desecrated cups and
challices of the Church they had despoiled, believing it overthrown for
ever, had been, in many cases, melted down for plunder,—in others, sold
as common merchandize: and yet no thunder heard. But, however defiantly
they might bear themselves, however resolute to crush down every
attempt at revolt against their own authority, the men in power could
not disguise from one another that there were heavings of the earth on
which they trod, coming from no reverberations of their footsteps, but
telling of hollowness and insecurity below. They were already suspicious
among themselves, no longer hiding personal spites and jealousies, the
separate ambition of uncongenial factions, which had only united for
a season against the monarchy and hierarchy, but now began to fall
asunder, mutually envenomed and intolerant. Presbyterian, Independent,
and Nondescript-Enthusiast, while combined together of late, had been
acknowledged as a power invincible, a Three-fold Cord that bound the
helpless Victim to an already bloody altar. The strands of it were now
unwinding, and there scarcely needed much prophetic wisdom to discern
that one by one they could soon be broken.

To us, from these considerations, there is intense attraction in the
_Choyce Drollery_, since it so narrowly escaped from flames to which it
had been judicially condemned.

§ 2.—THE TWO COURTS, IN 1656.

At this date many a banished or self-exiled Royalist, dwelling in the
Low Countries, but whose heart remained in England, drew a melancholy
contrast between the remembered past of Whitehall and the gloomy present.
With honest Touchstone, he could say, “Now am I in Arden! the more fool
I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be
content.”

Meanwhile, in the beloved Warwickshire glades, herds of swine were
routing noisily for acorns, dropped amid withered leaves under branches
of the Royal Oaks. They were watched by boys, whose chins would not be
past the first callow down of promissory beards when Restoration-day
should come with shouts of welcome throughout the land.

In 1656 our Charles Stuart was at Bruges, now and then making a visit to
Cologne, often getting into difficulties through the misconduct of his
unruly followers, and already quite enslaved by Dalilahs, syrens against
whom his own shrewd sense was powerless to defend him. For amusement
he read his favourite French or Italian authors, not seldom took long
walks, and indulged himself in field sports:

“_A merry monarch, scandalous and poor_.”

For he was only scantily supplied with money, which chiefly came from
France, but if he had possessed the purse of Fortunatus it could barely
have sufficed to meet demands from those who lived upon him. A year
before, the Lady Byron had been spoken of as being his seventeenth
Mistress abroad, and there was no deficiency of candidates for any vacant
place within his heart. Sooth to say, the place was never vacant, for it
yielded at all times unlimited accommodation to every beauty. Music and
dances absorbed much of his attention. So long as the faces around him
showed signs of happiness, he did not seriously afflict himself because
he was in exile, and a little out at elbows.

Such was the “Banished Duke” in his Belgian Court; poor substitute for
the Forest of Ardennes, not far distant. By all accounts, he felt “the
penalty of Adam, the season’s difference,” and in no way relished the
discomfort. He did not smile and say,

“This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”

For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such counsel, and relished
flattery too well to part with it on cheap terms. He never considered
the “rural life more sweet than that of painted pomp,” and, if all tales
of Cromwell’s machinations be held true, Charles by no means found the
home of exile “more free from peril than the envious court.” On the
other hand, his own proclamation, dated 3rd May, 1654, offering an
annuity of five hundred pounds, a Colonelcy and Knighthood, to any person
who should destroy the Usurper (“a certain mechanic fellow, by name
Oliver Cromwell!”), took from him all moral right of complaint against
reprisals: unless, as we half-believe, this proclamation were one of the
many forgeries. As to any sweetness in “the uses of Adversity,” Charles
might have pleaded, with a laugh, that he had known sufficient of them
already to be cloyed with it.

The men around him were of similar opinion. A few, indeed, like Cowley
and Crashaw, were loyal hearts, whose devotion was best shown in times
of difficulty. Not many proved of such sound metal, but there lived some
“faithful found among the faithless”; and

“He that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place in the story.”

The Ladies of the party scarcely cared for anything beyond
self-adornment, rivalry, languid day-dreams of future greatness, and the
encouragement of gallantry.

There was not one among them who for a moment can bear comparison with
the Protector’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole—perhaps the loveliest female
character of all recorded in those years. Everything concerning her
speaks in praise. She was the good angel of the house. Her father loved
her, with something approaching reverence, and feared to forfeit her
conscientious approval more than the support of his companions in arms.
In worship she shrank from the profane familiarity of the Sectaries,
and devotedly held by the Church of England. She is recorded to have
always used her powerful influence in behalf of the defeated Cavaliers,
to obtain mercy and forbearance. Her name was whispered, with blessing
implored upon it, in the prayers of many whom she alone had saved from
death.[1] No personal ambition, no foolish pride and ostentation marked
her short career. The searching glare of Court publicity could betray
no flaw in her conduct or disposition; for the heart was sound within,
her religion was devoid of all hypocrisy. Her Christian purity was
too clearly stainless for detraction to dare raise one murmur. She is
said to have warmly pleaded in behalf of Doctor Hewit, who died upon
the scaffold with his Royalist companion, Sir Harry Slingsby, the 8th
of June, 1658 (although she rejoiced in the defeat of their plot, as
her extant letter proves). Cromwell resisted her solicitations, urged
to obduracy by his more ruthless Ironsides, who called for terror to
be stricken into the minds of all reactionists by wholesale slaughter
of conspirators. Soon after this she faded. It was currently reported
and believed that on her death-bed, amid the agonies and fever-fits,
she bemoaned the blood that had been shed, and spoke reproaches to
the father whom she loved, so that his conscience smote him, and the
remembrance stayed with him for ever.[2] She was only twenty-nine when
at Hampton Court she died, on the 6th of August, 1658. Less than a month
afterwards stout Oliver’s heart broke. Something had gone from him,
which no amount of power and authority could counter-balance. He was
not a man to breathe his deeper sorrows into the ear of those political
adventurers or sanctified enthusiasts whose glib tongues could rattle off
the words of consolation. While she was slowly dying he had still tried
to grapple with his serious duties, as though undisturbed. Her prayers
and her remonstrances had been powerless of late to make him swerve. But
now, when she was gone, the hollow mockery of what power remained stood
revealed to him plainly; and the Rest that was so near is not unlikely to
have been the boon he most desired. It came to him upon his fatal day,
his anniversary of still recurring success and happy fortune; came, as
is well known, on September 3rd, 1658. The Destinies had nothing better
left to give him, so they brought him death. What could be more welcome?
Very few of these who reach the summit of ambition, as of those other who
most lamentably failed, and became bankrupt of every hope, can feel much
sadness when the messenger is seen who comes to lead them hence,—from a
world wherein the jugglers’ tricks have all grown wearisome, and where
the tawdry pomp or glare cannot disguise the sadness of Life’s masquerade.

“Naught’s had—all’s spent,
When our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

§ 3.—SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR.

It was still 1656, of which we write (the year of _Choyce Drollery_ and
_Parnassus Biceps_, of _Wit and Drollery_ and of _Sportive Wit_); not
1658: but shadows of the coming end were to be seen. Already it was
evident that Cromwell sate not firmly on the throne, uncrowned, indeed,
but holding power of sovereignty. His health was no longer what it had
been of old. The iron constitution was breaking up. Yet was he only nine
months older than the century. In September his new Parliament met; if
it can be called a Parliament in any sense, restricted and coerced alike
from a free choice and from free speech, pledged beforehand to be servile
to him, and holding a brief tenure of mock authority under his favour.
They might declare his person sacred, and prohibit mention of Charles
Stuart, whose regal title they denounced. But few cared what was said or
done by such a knot of praters. More important was the renewed quarrel
with Spain; and all parties rejoiced when gallant Blake and Montague fell
in with eight Spanish ships off Cadiz, captured two of them and stranded
others. There had been no love for that rival fleet since the Invincible
Armada made its boast in 1588; but what had happened in “Bloody Mary’s”
reign, after her union with Philip, and the later cruelties wrought under
Alva against the patriots of the Netherlands, increased the national
hatred. We see one trace of this renewed desire for naval warfare in the
appearance of the Armada Ballad, “In eighty-eight ere I was born,” on
page 38 of our _Choyce Drollery_: the earliest copy of it we have met in
print. Some supposed connection of Spanish priestcraft with the Gunpowder
Plot of 1605 (Guido Faux and several of the Jesuits being so accredited
from the Low Country wars), may have caused the early poem on this
subject to be placed immediately following.

But the chief interest of the book, for its admirers, lay not in
temporary allusions to the current politics and gossip. Furnishing these
were numerous pamphlets, more or less venomous, circulating stealthily,
despite all watchfulness and penalties. Next year, 1657, “Killing no
Murder” would come down, as if showered from the skies; but although
hundreds wished that somebody else might act on the suggestions, already
urged before this seditious tract appeared, not one volunteer felt called
upon to immolate himself to certain death on the instant by standing
forward as the required assassin. Cautious thinkers held it better to
bide their time, and await the natural progress of events, allowing all
the enemies of Charles and Monarchy to quarrel and consume each other.
Probably the bulk of country farmers and their labourers cared not one
jot how things fell out, so long as they were left without exorbitant
oppression; always excepting those who dwelt where recently the hoof
of war-horse trod, and whose fields and villages bore still the trace
of havoc. Otherwise, the interference with the Maypole dance, and such
innocent rural sports, by the grim enemies to social revelry, was felt to
be a heavier sorrow than the slaughter of their King.[3] So long as wares
were sold, and profits gained, Town-traders held few sentiments of favour
towards either camp. It was (owing to the parsimony of Parliament, and
his continual need of supplies to be obtained without their sanction,)
the frequency of his exactions, the ship-money, the forced loans, and the
uncertainty of ever gaining a repayment, which had turned many hearts
against King Charles I., in his long years of difficulty, before shouts
arose of “Privilege.” But for the cost of wasteful revels at Court, with
gifts to favourites, the expense of foreign or domestic wars, there would
have been no popular complaint against tyranny. Citizens care little
about questions of Divine Right and Supremacy, _pro_ or _con_, so long
as they are left unfettered from growing rich, and are not called on to
disgorge the wealth they swallowed ravenously, perhaps also dishonestly.
Some remembrance of this fact possessed the Cavaliers, even before George
Monk came to burst the city gates and chains. The Restoration confirmed
the same opinion, and the later comedies spoke manifold contempt against
time-serving traders; who cheated gallant men of money and land, but in
requital were treated like Acteon.

Although, in 1656, disquiet was general, amid contemporary records we may
seek far before we meet a franker and more manly statement of the honest
Englishman’s opinion, despising every phase of trickery in word, deed, or
visage, than the poem found in _Choyce Drollery_, p. 85,—“The Doctor’s
Touchstone.” There were, doubtless, many whose creed it stated rightly. A
nation that could feel thus, would not long delay to pluck the mask from
sanctimonious hypocrites, and drag “The Gang” from out their saddle.

Here, too, are the love-songs of a race of Poets who had known the
glories of Whitehall before its desecration. Here are the courtly praises
of such beauties as the Lady Elizabeth Dormer, 1st Countess of Carnarvon,
who, while she held her infant in her arms, in 1642, was no less
fascinating than she had been in her virgin bloom. The airy trifling,
dallying with conceits in verse, that spoke of a refinement and graceful
idlesse more than passionate warmth, gave us these relics of such men as
Thomas Carew, who died in 1638, before the Court dissolved into a Camp.
Some of them recal the strains of dramatists, whose only actresses had
been Ladies of high birth, condescending to adorn the Masques in palaces,
winning applause from royal hands and voices. These, moreover, were
“Songs and Sonnets” which the best musicians had laboured skilfully to
clothe anew with melody: Poems already breathing their own music, as they
do still, when lutes and virginals are broken, and the composer’s score
has long been turned into gun-wadding.

What sweetness and true pathos are found among them, readers can study
once more. The opening poem, by Davenant, is especially beautiful, where
a Lover comforts himself with a thought of dying in his Lady’s presence,
and being mourned thereafter by her, so that she shall deck his grave
with tears, and, loving it, must come and join him there:—

“Yet we hereafter shall be found
By Destiny’s right placing,
Making, like Flowers, Love under ground,
Whose roots are still embracing.”[4]

Seeing, alongside of these tender pleadings from the worshipper of
Beauty, some few pieces where the taint of foulness now awakens our
disgust, we might feel wonder at the contrast in the same volume, and the
taste of the original collector, were not such feeling of wonder long ago
exhausted. Queen Elizabeth sate out the performance of _Love’s Labour’s
Lost_ (if tradition is to be believed), and was not shocked at some free
expressions in that otherwise delightful play;—words and inuendoes,
let us own, which were a little unsuited to a Virgin Queen. Again, if
another tradition be trustworthy, she herself commissioned the comedy
of _Merry Wives of Windsor_ to be written and acted, in order that she
might see Falstaffe in love: but after that Eastcheap Boar’s-Head Tavern
scene, with rollicking Doll Tear-sheet, in the Second Part of _Henry
IV._, surely her sedate Majesty might have been prepared to look for
something very different from the proprieties of “Religious Courtship” or
the refinements of Platonic affection in the Knight, who, having “more
flesh than other men,” pleads this as an excuse for his also having more
frailty.

Suppose we own at once, that there is a great deal of falsehood and
mock-modesty in the talk which ever anon meets us, the Puritanical
squeamishness of each extremely moral (undetected) Tartuffe, acting as
Aristarchus; who cannot, one might think, be quite ignorant of what
is current in the newspaper-literature of our own time.[5] The fact
is this, people now-a-days keep their dishes of spiced meat and their
Barmecide show-fasts separate. They sip the limpid spring before company,
and keep hidden behind a curtain the forbidden wine of Xeres, quietly
iced, for private drinking. Our ancestors took a taste of both together,
and without blushing. Their cup of nectar had some “allaying Tyber” to
abate “the thirst complaint.” They did not label their books “Moral
and Theological, for the public Ken,” or “Vice, _sub rosa_, for our
locked-cabinet!” _Parlons d’autres choses, Messieurs, s’il vous plâit._

§ 4.—ON THE PASTORALS.

There were good reasons for Court and country being associated ideas,
if only in contrast. Thus Touchstone states, when drolling with Colin,
as to a Pastoral employment:—“Truly, shepherd in respect of itself it
is a good life; but in respect it is not in the Court, it is tedious.”
The large proportion of pastoral songs and poems in _Choyce Drollery_
is one other noticeable characteristic. Even as Utopian schemes, with
dreams of an unrealized Republic where laws may be equally administered,
and cultivation given to all highest arts or sciences, are found to be
most popular in times of discontent and tyranny, when no encouragement
for hope appears in what the acting government is doing; even so, amid
luxurious times, with artificial tastes predominant, there is always a
tendency to dream of pastoral simplicity, and to sing or paint the joys
of rural life. In the voluptuous languor of Miladi’s own _boudoir_, amid
scented fumes of pastiles and flowers, hung round with curtains brought
from Eastern palaces, Watteau, Greuze, Boucher, and Bachelier were
employed to paint delicious panels of bare-feeted shepherdesses, herding
their flocks with ribbon-knotted crooks and bursting bodices; while
goatherd-swains, in satin breeches and rosetted pumps, languish at their
side, and tell of tender passion through a rustic pipe. The contrast of
a wimpling brook, birds twittering on the spray, and daintiest hint of
hay-forks or of reaping-hooks, enhanced with piquancy, no doubt, the
every-day delights of fashionable wantonness. And as it was in such later
times with courtiers of _La belle France_ surrounding Louis XV., so in
the reign of either Charles of England—the Revolution Furies crept nearer
unperceived.

Recurrence to Pastorals in _Choyce Drollery_ is simply in accordance
with a natural tendency of baffled Cavaliers, to look back again to all
that had distinguished the earlier days of their dead monarch, before
Puritanism had become rampant. Even Milton, in his youthful “Lycidas,”
1637, showed love for such Idyllic transformation of actual life into a
Pastoral Eclogue. (A bitter spring of hatred against the Church was even
then allowed to pollute the clear rill of Helicon: in him thereafter
that Marah never turned to sweetness.) Some of these Pastorals remain
undiscovered elsewhere. But there can be no mistaking the impression left
upon them by the opening years of the seventeenth, if not more truly the
close of the sixteenth, century. Dull, plodding critics have sneered at
Pastorals, and wielded their sledge-hammers against the Dresden-china
Shepherdesses, as though they struck down Dagon from his pedestal. What
then? Are we forbidden to enjoy, because their taste is not consulted?——

“Fools from their folly ’tis hopeless to stay!
Mules will be mules, by the law of their mulishness;
Then be advised, and leave fools to their foolishness,
What from an ass can be got but a bray?”

Always will there be some smiling _virtuosi_, here or elsewhere, who can
prize the unreal toys, and thank us for retrieving from dusty oblivion a
few more of these early Pastorals. When too discordantly the factions jar
around us, and denounce every one of moderate opinions or quiet habits,
because he is unwilling to become enslaved as a partisan, and fight
under the banner that he deems disgraced by falsehood and intolerance,
despite its ostentatious blazon of “Liberation” or “Equality,” it is
not easy, even for such as “the melancholy Cowley,” to escape into his
solitude without a slanderous mockery from those who hunger for division
of the spoil. Recluse philosophers of science or of literature, men like
Sir Thomas Browne, pursue their labour unremittingly, and keep apart
from politics; but even for this abstinence harsh measure is dealt to
them by contemporaries and posterity whom they labour to enrich. It
is well, no doubt, that we should be convinced as to which side the
truth is on, and fight for that unto the death. Woe to the recreant who
shrinks from hazarding everything in life, and life itself, defending
what he holds to be the Right. Yet there are times when, as in 1656, the
fight has gone against our cause, and no further gain seems promised
by waging single-handedly a warfare against the triumphant multitude.
Patience, my child, and wait the inevitable turn of the already quivering
balance!—such is Wisdom’s counsel. Butler knew the truth of Cavalier
loyalty:—

“For though out-numbered, overthrown,
And by the fate of war run down,
Their Duty never was defeated,
Nor from their oaths and faith retreated:
For Loyalty is still the same
Whether it lose or win the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shone upon.”

Some partizans may find a paltry pleasure in dealing stealthy stabs,
or buffoons’ sarcasms, against the foes they could not fairly conquer.
Some hold a silent dignified reserve, and give no sign of what they
hope or fear. But for another, and large class, there will be solace
in the dreams of earlier days, such as the Poets loved to sing about a
Golden Pastoral Age. Those who best learnt to tell its beauty were men
unto whom Fortune seldom offered gifts, as though it were she envied
them for having better treasure in their birthright of imagination. The
dull, harsh, and uncongenial time intensified their visions: even as
Hogarth’s “Distressed Poet”—amid the squalour of his garret, with his
gentle uncomplaining wife dunned for a milk-score—revels in description
of Potosi’s mines, and, while he writes in poverty, can feign himself
possessor of uncounted riches. Such power of self-forgetfulness was
grasped by the “Time-Poets,” of whom our little book keeps memorable
record.

So be it, Cavaliers of 1656. Though Oliver’s troopers and a hated
Parliament are still in the ascendant, let your thoughts find repose
awhile, your hopes regain bright colouring, remembering the plaints
of one despairing shepherd, from whom his _Chloris_ fled; or of that
other, “sober and demure,” whose mistress had herself to blame, through
freedoms being borne too far. We, also, love to seek a refuge from the
exorbitant demands of myriad-handed interference with Church and State;
so we come back to you, as you sit awhile in peace under the aged trees,
remote from revellers and spies, “Farre in the Forest of Arden”—O take us
thither!—reading of happy lovers in the pages of _Choyce Drollery_. Since
their latest words are of our favourite Fletcher, let our invocation also
be from him, in his own melodious verse:—

“How sweet these solitary places are! how wantonly
The wind blows through the leaves, and courts and plays with ’em!
Will you sit down, and sleep? The heat invites you.
Hark, how yon purling stream dances and murmurs;
The birds sing softly too. Pray take your rest, Sir.”

J. W. E.

_September 2nd, 1875._

Choyce Drollery: Songs & Sonnets.

_Choyce_
DROLLERY:
SONGS & SONNETS.

_BEING_
A Collection of divers excellent
pieces of Poetry,

_OF_
Severall eminent Authors.

_Never before printed._

[Illustration]

_LONDON_,

Printed by _J. G._ for _Robert Pollard_, at the
_Ben. Johnson’s_ head behind the Exchange,
and _John Sweeting_, at the
_Angel_ in Popes-Head Alley.

1656.

To the READER.

Courteous Reader,

_Thy grateful reception of our first Collection hath induced us to a
second essay of the same nature; which, as we are confident, it is not
inferioure to the former in worth, so we assure our selves, upon thy
already experimented Candor, that it shall at least equall it in its
fortunate acceptation. We serve up these Delicates by frugall Messes, as
aiming at thy Satisfaction, not Saciety. But our designe being more upon
thy judgement, than patience, more to delight thee, to detain thee in
the portall of a tedious, seldome-read Epistle; we draw this displeasing
Curtain, that intercepts thy (by this time) gravid, and almost teeming
fancy, and subscribe,_

_R. P._

_Choice_

DROLLERY:

SONGS

_AND_

SONNETS.

_The broken Heart._

Deare Love let me this evening dye,
Oh smile not to prevent it,
But use this opportunity,
Or we shall both repent it:
Frown quickly then, and break my heart,
That so my way of dying
May, though my life were full of smart,
Be worth the worlds envying.

Some striving knowledge to refine,
Consume themselves with thinking,
And some who friendship seale in wine
Are kindly kill’d with drinking:
And some are rackt on th’ Indian coast,
Thither by gain invited,
Some are in smoke of battailes lost,
Whom Drummes not Lutes delighted.

Alas how poorely these depart,
Their graves still unattended,
Who dies not of a broken heart,
Is not in death commended.
His memory is ever sweet,
All praise and pity moving,
Who kindly at his Mistresse feet
Doth dye with over-loving.

And now thou frown’st, and now I dye,
My corps by Lovers follow’d,
Which streight shall by dead lovers lye,
For that ground’s onely hollow’d: [hallow’d]
If Priest take’t ill I have a grave,
My death not well approving,
The Poets my estate shall have
To teach them th’ art of loving.

And now let Lovers ring their bells,
For thy poore youth departed;
Which every Lover els excels,
That is not broken hearted.
My grave with flowers let virgins strow,
For if thy teares fall neare them,
They’l so excell in scent and shew,
Thy selfe wilt shortly weare them.

Such Flowers how much will _Flora_ prise,
That’s on a Lover growing,
And watred with his Mistris eyes,
With pity overflowing?
A grave so deckt, well, though thou art [? will]
Yet fearfull to come nigh me,
Provoke thee straight to break thy heart,
And lie down boldly by me.

Then every where shall all bells ring,
Whilst all to blacknesse turning,
All torches burn, and all quires sing,
As Nature’s self were mourning.
Yet we hereafter shall be found
By Destiny’s right placing,
Making like Flowers, Love under ground,
Whose Roots are still embracing.

_Of a Woman that died for love of a Man._

Nor Love nor Fate dare I accuse,
Because my Love did me refuse:
But oh! mine own unworthinesse,
That durst presume so mickle blisse;
Too mickle ’twere for me to love
A thing so like the God above,
An Angels face, a Saint-like voice,
Were too divine for humane choyce.

Oh had I wisely given my heart,
For to have lov’d him, but in part,
Save onely to have lov’d his face
For any one peculiar grace,
A foot, or leg, or lip, or eye,
I might have liv’d, where now I dye.
But I that striv’d all these to chuse,
Am now condemned all to lose.

You rurall Gods that guard the plains,
And chast’neth unjust disdains;
Oh do not censure him for this,
It was my error, and not his.
This onely boon of thee I crave,
To fix these lines upon my grave,
With _Icarus_ I soare[d] too high,
For which (alas) I fall and dye.

On the _TIME-POETS_.

One night the great _Apollo_ pleas’d with _Ben_,
Made the odde number of the Muses ten;
The fluent _Fletcher_, _Beaumont_ rich in sense,
In Complement and Courtships quintessence;
Ingenious _Shakespeare_, _Massinger_ that knowes
The strength of Plot to write in verse and prose:
Whose easie Pegassus will amble ore
Some threescore miles of Fancy in an houre;
Cloud-grapling _Chapman_, whose Aerial minde
Soares at Philosophy, and strikes it blinde;
_Danbourn_ [_Dabourn_] I had forgot, and let it be,
He dy’d Amphibion by the Ministry;
_Silvester_, _Bartas_, whose translatique part
Twinn’d, or was elder to our Laureat:
Divine composing _Quarles_, whose lines aspire
The April of all Poesy in May, [_Tho. May._]
Who makes our English speak _Pharsalia_;
_Sands_ metamorphos’d so into another [_Sandys_]
We know not _Sands_ and _Ovid_ from each other;
He that so well on _Scotus_ play’d the Man,
The famous _Diggs_, or _Leonard Claudian_;
The pithy _Daniel_, whose salt lines afford
A weighty sentence in each little word;
Heroick _Draiton_, _Withers_, smart in Rime,
The very Poet-Beadles of the Time:
Panns pastoral _Brown_, whose infant Muse did squeak
At eighteen yeares, better than others speak:
_Shirley_ the morning-child, the Muses bred,
And sent him born with bayes upon his head:
Deep in a dump _Iohn Ford_ alone was got
With folded armes and melancholly hat;
The squibbing _Middleton_, and _Haywood_ sage,
Th’ Apologetick Atlas of the Stage;
Well of the Golden age he could intreat,
But little of the Mettal he could get;
Three-score sweet Babes he fashion’d from the lump,
For he was Christ’ned in _Parnassus_ pump;
The Muses Gossip to _Aurora’s_ bed,
And ever since that time his face was red.
Thus through the horrour of infernall deeps,
With equal pace each of them softly creeps,
And being dark they had _Alectors_ torch, [_Alecto’s_]
And that made _Churchyard_ follow from his Porch,
Poor, ragged, torn, & tackt, alack, alack
You’d think his clothes were pinn’d upon his back.
The whole frame hung with pins, to mend which clothes,
In mirth they sent him to old Father Prose;
Of these sad Poets this way ran the stream,
And _Decker_ followed after in a dream;
_Rounce_, _Robble_, _Hobble_, he that writ so high big[;]
Basse for a Ballad, _John Shank_ for a Jig: [_Wm. Basse._]
Sent by _Ben Jonson_, as some Authors say,
_Broom_ went before and kindly swept the way:
Old _Chaucer_ welcomes them unto the Green,
And _Spencer_ brings them to the fairy Queen;
The finger they present, and she in grace
Transform’d it to a May-pole, ’bout which trace
Her skipping servants, that do nightly sing,
And dance about the same a Fayrie Ring.

_The Vow-breaker._

When first the Magick of thine eye
Usurpt upon my liberty,
Triumphing in my hearts spoyle, thou
Didst lock up thine in such a vow:
When I prove false, may the bright day
Be govern’d by the Moones pale ray,
(As I too well remember) this
Thou saidst, and seald’st it with a kisse.

Oh heavens! and could so soon that tye
Relent in sad apostacy?
Could all thy Oaths and mortgag’d trust,
Banish like Letters form’d in dust, [? vanish]
Which the next wind scatters? take heed,
Take heed Revolter; know this deed
Hath wrong’d the world, which will fare worse
By thy example, than thy curse.

Hide that false brow in mists; thy shame
Ne’re see light more, but the dimme flame
Of Funerall-lamps; thus sit and moane,
And learn to keep thy guilt at home;
Give it no vent, for if agen
Thy love or vowes betray more men,
At length I feare thy perjur’d breath
Will blow out day, and waken death.

_The Sympathie._

If at this time I am derided,
And you please to laugh at me,
Know I am not unprovided
Every way to answer thee,
Love, or hate, what ere it be,

Never Twinns so nearly met
As thou and I in our affection,
When thou weepst my eyes are wet,
That thou lik’st is my election,
I am in the same subjection.

In one center we are both,
Both our lives the same way tending,
Do thou refuse, and I shall loath,
As thy eyes, so mine are bending,
Either storm or calm portending.

I am carelesse if despised,
For I can contemn again;
How can I be then surprised,
Or with sorrow, or with pain,
When I can both love & disdain?

_The Red Head and the White._

Come my White head, let our Muses
Vent no spleen against abuses,
Nor scoffe at monstrous signes i’ th’ nose,
Signes in the Teeth, or in the Toes,
Nor what now delights us most,
The sign of signes upon the post.
For other matter we are sped,
And our signe shall be i’ th’ head.

2. [White Head’s ANSWER.]

Oh! _Will: Rufus_, who would passe,
Unlesse he were a captious Asse;
The Head of all the parts is best,
And hath more senses then the rest.
This subject then in our defence
Will clear our Poem of non-sense.
Besides, you know, what ere we read,
We use to bring it to a head.

Why there’s no other part we can
Stile Monarch o’re this Isle of man:
’Tis that that weareth Nature’s crown,
’Tis this doth smile, ’tis this doth frown,
O what a prize and triumph ’twere,
To make this King our Subject here:
Believ’t, tis true what we have sed,
In this we hit the naile o’ th’ head.

2. [W. H.’s ANSWER.]

Your nails upon my head Sir, Why?
How do you thus to villifie
The King of Parts, ’mongst all the rest,
Or if no king, methinks at least,
To mine you should give no offence,
That weares the badge of Innocence;
Those blowes would far more justly light
On thy red scull, for mine is white.

Come on yfaith, that was well sed,
A pretty boy, hold up thy head,
Or hang it down, and blush apace,
And make it like mines native grace.
There’s ne’re a Bung-hole in the town
But in the working puts thine down,
A byle that’s drawing to a head
Looks white like thine, but mine is red.

2. [W. H.’s ANSWER.]

Poore foole, ’twas shame did first invent
The colour of thy Ornament,
And therefore thou art much too blame
To boast of that which is thy shame;
The Roman Prince that Poppeys topt,
Did shew such Red heads should be cropt:
And still the Turks for poyson smite
Such Ruddy skulls, but mine is white.

The Indians paint their Devils so,
And ’tis a hated mark we know,
For never any aim aright
That do not strive to hit the white:
The Eagle threw her shell-fish down,
To crack in pieces such a crown:
Alas, a stinking onions head
Is white like thine, but mine is red.

2. [White’s]

Red like to a blood-shot eye,
Provoking all that see ’t to cry:
For shame nere vaunt thy colours thus
Since ’tis an eye-sore unto us;
Those locks I’d swear, did I not know’t,
Were threds of some red petticoat;
No Bedlams oaker’d armes afright
So much as thine, but mine is white.

Now if thou’lt blaze thy armes Ile shew’t,
My head doth love no petticoat,
My face on one side is as faire
As on the other is my haire,
So that I bear by Herauld’s rules,
Party per pale Argent and Gules.
Then laugh not ’cause my hair is red,
Ile swear that mine’s a noble head.

1. [2. White Head’s Reply.]

The Scutcheon of my field doth beare
One onely field, and that is rare,
For then methinks that thine should yeild,
Since mine long since hath won the field;
Besides, all the notes that be,
White is the note of Chastity,
So that without all feare or dread,
Ile swear that mine’s a maidenhead.

There’s no Camelion red like me,
Nor white, perhaps, thou’lt say, like thee;
Why then that mine is farre above
Thy haire, by statute I can prove;
What ever there doth seem divine
Is added to a Rubrick line,
Which whosoever hath but read,
Will grant that mine’s a lawful head.

2. [White Head.]

Yet adde what thou maist, which by yeares,
Crosses, troubles, cares and feares;
For that kind nature gave to me
In youth a white head, as you see,
At which, though age it selfe repine,
It ne’re shall change a haire of mine;
And all shall say when I am dead,
I onely had a constant head.

Yes faith, in that Ile condescend,
That our dissention here may end,
Though heads be alwaies by the eares,
Yet ours shall be more noble peeres:
For I avouch since I began,
Under a colour all was done.
Then let us mix the White and Red,
And both shall make a beauteous head.

We mind our heads man all this time[,]
And beat them both about this rime;
And I confesse what gave offence
Was but a haires difference.
And that went too as I dare sweare
In both of us against the haire;
Then joyntly now for what is said
Lets crave a pardon from our head.

_SONNET._

Shall I think because some clouds
The beauty of my Mistris shrouds,
To look after another Star?
Those to _Cynthia_ servants are;
May the stars when I doe sue,
In their anger shoot me through;
Shall I shrink at stormes of rain,
Or be driven back again,
Or ignoble like a worm,
Be a slave unto a storm?
Pity he should ever tast
The Spring that feareth Winters blast;
Fortune and Malice then combine,
Spight of either I am thine;
And to be sure keep thou my heart,
And let them wound my worser part,
Which could they kill, yet should I bee
Alive again, when pleaseth thee.

_On the Flower-de-luce in ~Oxford~._

A Stranger coming to the town,
Went to the _Flower-de-luce_,
A place that seem’d in outward shew
For honest men to use;

And finding all things common there,
That tended to delight,
By chance upon the French disease
It was his hap to light.

And lest that other men should fare
As he had done before,
As he went forth he wrote this down
Upon the utmost doore.

All you that hither chance to come,
Mark well ere you be in,
The _Frenchmens_ arms are signs without
Of _Frenchmens_ harms within.

_ALDOBRANDINO, a fat Cardinal._

Never was humane soule so overgrown,
With an unreasonable Cargazon
Of flesh, as _Aldobrandine_, whom to pack,
No girdle serv’d lesse than the zodiack:
So thick a Giant, that he now was come
To be accounted an eighth hill in _Rome_,
And as the learn’d _Tostatus_ kept his age,
Writing for every day he liv’d a page;
So he no lesse voluminous then that
Added each day a leaf, but ’twas of fat.
The choicest beauty that had been devis’d
By Nature, was by her parents sacrific’d
Up to this Monster, upon whom to try,
If as increase, he could, too, multiply.
Oh how I tremble lest the tender maid
Should dye like a young infant over-laid!
For when this Chaos would pretend to move
And arch his back for the strong act of Love,
He fals as soon orethrown with his own weight,
And with his ruines doth the Princesse fright.
She lovely Martyr there lyes stew’d and prest,
Like flesh under the tarr’d saddle drest,
And seemes to those that look on them in bed,
Larded with him, rather than married.
Oft did he cry, but still in vain[,] to force
His fatnesse[,] powerfuller then a divorce:
No herbs, no midwives profit here, nor can
Of his great belly free the teeming man.
What though he drink the vinegars most fine,
They do not wast his fleshy Apennine;
His paunch like some huge Istmos runs between
The amarous Seas, and lets them not be seen;
Yet a new _Dedalus_ invented how
This Bull with his _Pasiphae_ might plow.
Have you those artificial torments known,
With which long sunken Galeos are thrown
Again on Sea, or the dead Galia
Was rais’d that once behinde St. _Peters_ lay:
By the same rules he this same engine made,
With silken cords in nimble pullies laid;
And when his Genius prompteth his slow part
To works of Nature, which he helps with Art:
First he intangles in those woven bands,
His groveling weight, and ready to commands,
The sworn Prinadas of his bed, the Aids
Of Loves Camp, necessary Chambermaids;
Each runs to her known tackling, hasts to hoyse,
And in just distance of the urging voyce,
Exhorts the labour till he smiling rise
To the beds roof, and wonders how he flies.
Thence as the eager Falcon having spy’d
Fowl at the brook, or by the Rivers side,
Hangs in the middle Region of the aire,
So hovers he, and plains above his faire:
Blest _Icarus_ first melted at those beames,
That he might after fall into those streames,
And there allaying his delicious flame,
In that sweet Ocean propogate his name.
Unable longer to delay, he calls
To be let down, and in short measure falls
Toward his Mistresse, that without her smock
Lies naked as _Andromeda_ at the Rock,
And through the Skies see her wing’d _Perseus_ strike
Though for his bulk, more that sea-monster like.
Mean time the Nurse, who as the most discreet,
Stood governing the motions at the feet,
And ballanc’d his descent, lest that amisse
He fell too fast, or that way more than this;
Steeres the Prow of the pensile Gallease,
Right on Loves Harbour the Nymph lets him pass
Over the Chains, & ’tween the double Fort
Of her incastled knees, which guard the Port.
The Burs as she had learnt still diligent,
Now girt him backwards, now him forwards bent;
Like those that levell’d in tough Cordage, teach
The mural Ram, and guide it to the Breach.

_Jack of Lent’s Ballat._

[On the welcoming of Queen Henrietta Maria, 1625].

List you Nobles, and attend,
For here’s a Ballat newly penn’d
I took it up in _Kent_,
If any ask who made the same,
To him I say the authors name
Is honest _Jack of Lent_.

But ere I farther passe along,
Or let you know more of my Song,
I wish the doores were lockt,
For if there be so base a Groom,
As one informes me in this room,
The Fidlers may be knockt.

Tis true, he had, I dare protest,
No kind of malice in his brest,
But Knaves are dangerous things;
And they of late are grown so bold,
They dare appeare in cloth of Gold,
Even in the roomes of Kings.

But hit or misse I will declare
The speeches at London and elsewhere,
Concerning this design,
Amongst the Drunkards it is said,
They hope her dowry shall be paid
In nought but Clarret wine.

The Country Clowns when they repaire
Either to Market or to Faire,
No sooner get their pots,
But straight they swear the time is come
That England must be over-run
Betwixt the French and Scots.

The Puritans that never fayle
’Gainst Kings and Magistrates to rayle,
With impudence aver,
That verily, and in good sooth,
Some Antichrist, or pretty youth,
Shall doubtlesse get of her.

A holy Sister having hemm’d
And blown her nose, will say she dream’d,
Or else a Spirit told her,
That they and all these holy seed,
To Amsterdam must go to breed,
Ere they were twelve months older.

And might but _Jack Alent_ advise,
Those dreams of theirs should not prove lies,
For as he greatly feares,
They will be prating night and day,
Till verily, by yea, and nay,
They set’s together by th’ ears.

The Romish Catholiques proclaim,
That _Gundemore_, though he be lame,
Yet can he do some tricks;
At _Paris_, he the King shall show
A pre-contract made, as I know,
Five hundred twenty six.

10.

But sure the State of _France_ is wise,
And knowes that _Spain_ vents naught but lies,
For such is their Religion;
The Jesuits can with ease disgorge
From that their damn’d and hellish forge,
Foule falshood by the Legion.

11.

But be it so, we will admit,
The State of _Spain_ hath no more wit,
Then to invent such tales,
Yet as great _Alexander_ drew,
And cut the Gorgon Knot in two,
So shall the Prince of Wales.

12.

The reverend Bishops whisper too,
That now they shall have much adoe
With Friers and with Monks,
And eke their wives do greatly feare
Those bald pate knaves will mak’t appeare
They are Canonical punks.

13.

At _Cambridge_ and at _Oxford_ eke,
They of this match like Schollers speak
By figures and by tropes,
But as for the Supremacy,
The Body may King _James’s_ be,
But sure the Head’s the _Pope’s_.

14.

A Puritan stept up and cries,
That he the major part denies,
And though he Logick scorns,
Yet he by revelation knows
The Pope no part o’ th’ head-piece ows
Except it be the horns.

15.

The learned in Astrologie,
That wander up and down the sky,
And their discourse with stars, [there]
Foresee that some of this brave rout
That now goes faire and soundly out,
Shall back return with scars.

16.

Professors of Astronomy,
That all the world knows, dare not lie
With the Mathematicians,
Prognosticate this Somer shall
Bring with the pox the Devil and all,
To Surgeons and Physitians.

17.

The Civil Lawyer laughs in’s sleeve,
For he doth verily believe
That after all these sports,
The Cit[i]zens will horn and grow,
And their ill-gotten goods will throw
About their bawdy Courts.

18.

And those that do _Apollo_ court,
And with the wanton Muses sport,
Believe the time is come,
That Gallants will themselves addresse
To Masques & Playes, & Wantonnesse,
More than to fife and drum.

19.

Such as in musique spend their dayes,
And study Songs and Roundelayes,
Begin to cleare their throats,
For by some signes they do presage,
That this will prove a fidling age
Fit for men of their coats.

20.

But leaving Colleges and Schools,
To all those Clerks and learned Fools,
Lets through the city range,
For there are Sconces made of Horn,
Foresee things long ere they be born,
Which you’l perhaps think strange.

21.

The Major and Aldermen being met, [Mayor]
And at a Custard closely set
Each in their rank and order,
The Major a question doth propound,
And that unanswer’d must go round,
Till it comes to th’ Recorder.

22.

For he’s the Citys Oracle,
And which you’l think a Miracle,
He hath their brains in keeping,
For when a Cause should be decreed,
He cries the bench are all agreed,
When most of them are sleeping.

23.

A Sheriff at lower end o’ th’ board
Cries Masters all hear me a word,
A bolt Ile onely shoot,
We shall have Executions store
Against some gallants now gone o’re,
Wherefore good brethren look to’t.

24.

The rascall Sergeants fleering stand,
Wishing their Charter reacht the Strand,
That they might there intrude;
But since they are not yet content,
I wish that it to Tyburn went,
So they might there conclude.

25.

An Alderman both grave and wise
Cries brethren all let me advise,
Whilst wit is to be had,
That like good husbands we provide
Some speeches for the Lady bride,
Before all men go mad.

26.

For by my faith if we may guesse
Of greater mischiefs by the lesse,
I pray let this suffice,
If we but on men’s backs do look,
And look into each tradesmans book
You’l swear few men are wise.

27.

Some thred-bare Poet we will presse,
And for that day we will him dresse,
At least in beaten Sattin,
And he shall tell her from this bench,
That though we understand no French,
At _Pauls_ she may hear Lattin.

28.

But on this point they all demurre,
And each takes counsell of his furre
That smells of Fox and Cony,
At last a Mayor in high disdain,
Swears he much scorns that in his reign
Wit should be bought for mony.

29.

For by this Sack I mean to drink,
I would not have my Soveraign think
for twenty thousand Crownes,
That I his Lord Lieutenant here,
And you my brethren should appear
Such errant witlesse Clownes.

30.

No, no, I have it in my head,
Devises that shall strike it dead,
And make proud _Paris_ say
That little _London_ hath a Mayor
Can entertain their Lady faire,
As well as ere did they.

31.

S. _Georges_ Church shall be the place
Where first I mean to meet her grace,
And there St. George shall be
Mounted upon a dapple gray,
And gaping wide shall seem to say,
Welcome St. _Dennis_ to me.

32.

From thence in order two by two
As we to _Pauls_ are us’d to goe,
To th’ Bridge we will convey her,
And there upon the top o’ th’ gate,
Where now stands many a Rascal’s pate,
I mean to place a player.

33.

And to the Princess he shall cry,
May’t please your Grace, cast up your eye
And see these heads of Traytors;
Thus will the city serve all those
That to your Highnesse shall prove foes,
For they to Knaves are haters.

34.

Down Fishstreet hill a Whale shall shoot,
And meet her at the Bridges foot,
And forth of his mouth so wide a
Shall _Jonas_ peep, and say, for fish,
As good as your sweet-heart can wish,
You shall have hence each Friday.

35.

At Grace-church corner there shall stand
A troop of Graces hand in hand,
And they to her shall say,
Your Grace of _France_ is welcome hither,
’Tis merry when Graces meet together,
I pray keep on your way.

36.

At the Exchange shall placed be,
In ugly shapes those sisters three
That give to each their fate,
And _Spaine’s Infanta_ shall stand by
Wringing their hands, and thus shall cry,
I do repent too late.

37.

There we a paire of gloves will give,
And pray her Highnesse long may live
On her white hands to wear them;
And though they have a _Spanish_ scent,
The givers have no ill intent,
Wherefore she need not feare them.

38.

Nor shall the Conduits now run Claret,
Perhaps the _Frenchman_ cares not for it,
They have at home so much,
No, I will make the boy to pisse
No worse then purest Hypocris,
Her Grace ne’re tasted such.

39.

About the Standard I think fit
Your wives, my brethren, all should sit,
And eke our Lady Mayris,
Who shall present a cup of gold,
And say if we might be bold,
We’l drink to all in _Paris._

40.

In _Pauls_ Church-yard we breath may take,
For they such huge long speeches make,
Would tire any horse;
But there I’le put her grace in minde,
To cast her Princely head behind
And view S. _Paul’s_ Crosse.

41.

Our Sergeants they shall go their way,
And for us at the Devil stay,
I mean at Temple-barre,
And there of her we leave will take,
And say ’twas for King _Charls_ his sake
We went with her so farre.

42.

But fearing I have tir’d the eares,
Both of the Duke and all these Peeres,
Ile be no more uncivill,
Ile leave the Mayor with both the Sheriffs,
With Sergeants, hanging at their sleeves,
For this time at the Devill.

_A SONG._

A Story strange I will you tell,
But not so strange as true,
Of a woman that danc’d upon the ropes,
And so did her husband too.
_With a dildo, dildo, dildo,_
_With a dildo, dildo, dee,_
_Some say ’twas a man, but it was a woman_
_As plain report may see._

She first climb’d up the Ladder
For to deceive men’s hopes,
And with a long thing in her hand
She tickled it on the ropes.
_With a dildo, dildo, dildo,_
_With a dildo, dildo, dee,_
_And to her came Knights and Gentlemen_
_Of low and high degree._

She jerk’d them backward and foreward
With a long thing in her hand,
And all the people that were in the yard,
She made them for to stand.
_With a dildo, &c._

They cast up fleering eyes
All under-neath her cloaths,
But they could see no thing,
For she wore linnen hose.
_With a dildo, &c._

The Cuckold her husband caper’d
When his head in the sack was in,
But grant that we may never fall
When we dance in the sack of sin.
_With a dildo, &c._

And as they ever danc’t
In faire or rainy weather,
I wish they may be hang’d i’ th’ rope of Love,
And so be cut down together.
_With a dildo, &c._

_Upon a House of Office over a River, set on fire by a coale of TOBACCO._

Oh fire, fire, fire, where?
The usefull house o’re Water cleare,
The most convenient in a shire,
_Which no body can deny,_

The house of Office that old true blue
Sir-reverence so many knew[,]
You now may see turn’d fine new. [? fire]
_Which no body, &c._

And to our great astonishment
Though burnt, yet stands to represent
Both mourner and the monument,
_Which no body, &c._

_Ben Johnson’s_ Vulcan would doe well,
Or the merry Blades who knacks did tell,
At firing _London Bridge_ befell.
_Which no body, &c._

They’l say if I of thee should chant,
The matter smells, now out upon’t;
But they shall have a fit of fie on’t.
_Which no body_, &c.

And why not say a word or two
Of she that’s just? witness all who
Have ever been at thy Ho go,[6]
_Which no body_, &c.

Earth, Aire, and Water, she could not
Affront, till chollerick fire got
Predominant, then thou grew’st hot,
_Which no body_, &c.

The present cause of all our wo,
But from Tobacco ashes, oh!
’Twas s...n luck to perish so,
_Which no body_, &c.

’Tis fatall to be built on lakes,
As Sodom’s fall example makes;
But pity to the innocent jakes,
_Which no body_, &c.

Whose genius if I hit aright,
May be conceiv’d Hermophrodite,
To both sex common when they sh...
_Which no body_, &c.

Of severall uses it hath store,
As Midwifes some do it implore,
But the issue comes at Postern door:
_Which no body_, &c.

Retired mortalls out of feare,
Privily, even to a haire,
Did often do their business there,
_Which no body_, &c.

For mens and womens secrets fit
No tale-teller, though privy to it,
And yet they went to’t without feare or wit,
_Which no body_, &c.

A Privy Chamber or prison’d roome,
And all that ever therein come
Uncover must, or bide the doome,
_Which no body_, &c.

A Cabinet for richest geare
The choicest of the Ladys ware,
And pretious stones full many there.
_Which no body_, &c.

And where in State sits noble duck,
Many esteem that use of nock,
The highest pleasure next to oc-
_Which no body_, &c.

And yet the hose there down did goe,
The yielding smock came up also,
But still no Bawdy house I trow,
_Which no body_, &c.

There nicest maid with naked r...,
When straining hard had made her mump,
Did sit at ease and heare it p...,
_Which no body_, &c.

Like the Dutch Skipper now may skit,
When in his sleeve he did do it,
She may skit free, but now plimp niet,
_Which no body_, &c.

Those female folk that there did haunt,
To make their filled bellies gaunt,
And with that same the brook did launt,
_Which no body_, &c.

Are driven now to do’t on grasse,
And make a sallet for their A...
The world is come to a sweet passe,
_Which no body_, &c.

Now farewell friend we held so deare,
Although thou help’st away with our cheare,
An open house-keeper all the yeare,
_Which no body_, &c.

The Phœnix in her perfumed flame,
Was so consum’d, and thou the same,
But the Aromaticks were to blame,
_Which no body_, &c.

That Phœnix is but one thing twice,
Thy Patron nobler then may rise,
For who can tell what he’l devise?
_Which no body_, &c.

_Diana’s_ Temple was not free,
Nor that world _Rome_, her Majesty
Smelt of the smoke, as well as thee,
_Which no body_, &c.

And learned Clerks whom we admire,
Do say the world shall so expire,
Then when you sh... remember fire.
_Which no body_, &c.

Beware of fire when you scumber,
Though to sh... fire were a wonder,
Yet lightning oft succeeds the thunder,
_Which no body_, &c.

We must submit to what fate sends,
’Tis wholsome counsel to our friends,
Take heed of smoking at both ends,
_Which no body can deny._

_Upon the Spanish Invasion in Eighty eight._

In _Eighty eight_, ere I was born,
As I do well remember a,
In _August_ was a Fleet prepar’d
The month before _September_ a.

_Lisbone_, _Cales_ and _Portugall_ [_Cales_, i.e. _Cadiz_.]
_Toledo_ and _Grenada_;
They all did meet, & made a Fleet,
And call’d it their _Armada_.

There dwelt a little man in _Spain_
That shot well in a gun a;
_Don Pedro_ hight, as black a wight
As the Knight of the Sun a.

King _Philip_ made him Admirall,
And charg’d him not to stay a,
But to destroy both man and boy,
And then to come his way a.

He had thirty thousand of his own,
But to do us more harm a,
He charg’d him not to fight alone,
But to joyn with the Prince of _Parma_.

They say they brought provision much
As Biskets, Beans and Bacon,
Besides, two ships were laden with whips,
But I think they were mistaken.

When they had sailed all along,
And anchored before _Dover_,
The English men did board them then,
And heav’d the Rascalls over.

The queen she was at _Tilbury_,
What could you more desire a?
For whose sweet sake Sir _Francis Drake_
Did set the ships on fire a.

Then let them neither brag nor boast,
For if they come again a,
Let them take heed they do not speed
As they did they know when a.

_Upon the Gun-powder Plot._

And will this wicked world never prove good?
Will Priests and Catholiques never prove true?
Shall _Catesby_, _Piercy_ and _Rookwood_
Make all this famous Land to rue?
With putting us in such a feare,
_With huffing and snuffing and guni-powder,_
_With a Ohone hononoreera tarrareera, tarrareero hone._

’Gainst the fifth of _November_, Tuesday by name,
_Peircy_ and _Catesby_ a Plot did frame,
_Anno_ one thousand six hundred and five,
In which long time no man alive
Did ever know, or heare the like,
Which to declare my heart growes sike.
_With a O hone_, &c.

Under the Parliament-house men say
Great store of Powder they did lay,
Thirty six barrels, as is reported,
With many faggots ill consorted,
With barres of iron upon them all,
To bring us to a deadly fall.
_With a O hone_, &c.

And then came forth Sir _Thomas Knyvet_,
You filthy Rogue come out o’ th’ doore,
Or else I sweare by Gods trivet
Ile lay thee flatlong on the floore,
For putting us all in such a feare,
_With huffing and snuffing_, &c.

Then _Faux_ out of the vault was taken
And carried before Sir _Francis Bacon_,
And was examined of the Act,
And strongly did confesse the Fact,
And swore he would put us in such a feare.
_With huffing_, &c.

Now see it is a miraculous thing,
To see how God hath preserv’d our King,
The Queen, the Prince, and his Sister dear,
And all the Lords, and every Peere,
And all the Land, and every shire,
_From huffing_, &c.

Now God preserve the Council wise,
That first found out this enterprise;
Not they, but my Lord _Monteagle_,
His Lady and her little Beagle,
His Ape, his Ass, and his great Beare,
_From huffing, and snuffing, and gunni-powder._

[8.]

Other newes I heard moreover,
If all was true that’s told to me,
Three Spanish ships landed at _Dover_,
Where they made great melody,
But the Hollanders drove them here and there,
_With huffing_, &c.

_A CATCH._

Drink boyes, drink boyes, drink and doe not spare,
Troule away the bowl, and take no care.
So that we have meat and drink, and money and clothes
What care we, what care we how the world goes.

_A pitiful Lamentation._

My Mother hath sold away her Cock
And all her brood of Chickins,
And hath bought her a new canvasse smock
And righted up the Kitchin.
And has brought me a Lockeram bond
With a v’lopping paire of breeches,
Thinking that _Jone_ would have lov’d me alone,
But she hath serv’d me such yfiches.
Ise take a rope and drowne my selfe,
Ere Ist indure these losses:
Ise take a hatchet and hang my selfe
Ere Ist indure these crosses.
Or else Ile go to some beacon high,
Made of some good dry’d furzon[,]
And there Ile seeme in love to fry
Sing hoodle a doodle Cuddon.

_A Woman with Child that desired a Son, which might prove a Preacher._

A maiden of the _pure Society_,
Pray’d with a passing piety
That since a learned man had o’re-reacht her,
The child she went withall should prove [a] Preacher.
The time being come, and all the dangers past,
The Goodwife askt the Midwife
What God had sent at last.
Who answer’d her half in a laughter,
Quoth she the Son is prov’d a Daughter.
But be content, if God doth blesse the Baby,
She has a _Pulpit_ where a _Preacher_ may be.

_The Maid of ~Tottenham~._

As I went to _Totnam_
Upon a Market-day,
There met I with a faire maid
Cloathed all in gray,
Her journey was to _London_
With Buttermilk and Whay,
_To fall down, down, derry down,_
_down, down, derry down,_
_derry, derry dina_.

God speed faire maid, quoth one,
You are well over-took;
With that she cast her head aside,
And gave to him a look.
She was as full of Leachery
As letters in a book.
_To fall down_, &c.

And as they walk’d together,
Even side by side,
The young man was aware
That her garter was unty’d,
For feare that she should lose it,
Aha, alack he cry’d,
Oh your garter that hangs down!
_Down, down, derry down_, &c.

Quoth she[,] I do intreat you
For to take the pain
To do so much for me,
As to tye it up again.
That will I do sweet-heart, quoth he,
When I come on yonder plain.
_With a down, down, derry down_, &c.

And when they came upon the plain
Upon a pleasant green,
The fair maid spread her l...s abroad,
The young man fell between,
Such tying of a Garter
I think was never seen.
_To fall down_, &c.

When they had done their businesse,
And quickly done the deed,
He gave her kisses plenty,
And took her up with speed.
But what they did I know not,
But they were both agreed
_To fall down together, down_
_Down, down, derry down,_
_Down, down, derry dina_.

She made to him low curtsies
And thankt him for his paine,
The young man is to High-gate gone[,]
The maid to _London_ came
To sell off her commodity
She thought it for no shame.
_To fall downe_, &c.

When she had done her market,
And all her money told
To think upon the matter
It made her heart full cold[:]
But that which will away, quoth she,
Is very hard to hold.
_To fall down_, &c.

This tying of the Garter
Cost her her Maidenhead,
Quoth she it is no matter,
It stood me in small stead,
But often times it troubled me
As I lay in my bed.
_To fall down_, &c.

_To the King on New-yeares day, 1638._

This day inlarges every narrow mind,
Makes the Poor bounteous, and the Miser kind;
Poets that have not wealth in wisht excesse,
I hope may give like Priests, which is to blesse.
And sure in elder times the Poets were
Those Priests that told men how to hope and feare,
Though they most sensually did write and live,
Yet taught those blessings, which the Gods did give,
But you (my King) have purify’d our flame,
Made wit our virtue which was once our shame;
For by your own quick fires you made ours last,
Reform’d our numbers till our songs grew chast.
Farre more thou fam’d _Augustus_ ere could doe
With’s wisdome, (though it long continued too)
You have perform’d even in your Moon of age;
Refin’d to Lectures, Playes, to Schooles a stage.
Such vertue got[,] why is your Poet lesse
A Priest then his who had a power to blesse?
So hopefull is my rage that I begin
To shew that feare which strives to keep it in:
And what was meant a blessing soars so high
That it is now become a Prophesie.
Your selfe (our _Plannet_ which renewes our year)
Shall so inlighten all, and every where,
That through the Mists of error men shall spy
In the dark North the way to Loyalty;
Whilst with your intellectuall beames, you show
The knowing what they are that seeme to know.
You like our Sacred and indulgent Lord,
When the too-stout Apostle drew his sword,
When he mistooke some secrets of the cause,
And in his furious zeale disdain’d the Lawes,
Forgetting true Religion doth lye
On prayers, not swords against authority.
You like our substitute of horrid fate
That are next him we most should imitate,
Shall like to him rebuke with wiser breath,
Such furious zeale, but not reveng’d with death.
Like him the wound that’s giv’n you strait shall heal,
Then calm by precept such mistaking zeal.

_In praise of a deformed woman._

I love thee for thy curled haire,
As red as any Fox,
Our forefathers did still commend
The lovely golden locks.
_Venus her self might comelier be,_
_Yet hath no such variety._

I love thee for thy squinting eyes,
It breeds no jealousie,
For when thou do’st on others look,
Methinks thou look’st on me,
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy copper nose,
Thy fortune’s ne’re the worse,
It shews the mettal in thy face
Thou should’st have in thy purse,
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy Chessenut skin,
Thy inside’s white to me,
That colour should be most approv’d,
That will least changed be.
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy splay mouth,
For on that amarous close
There’s room on either side to kisse,
And ne’re offend the nose.
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy rotten gummes,
In good time it may hap,
When other wives are costly fed,
Ile keep thy chaps on pap.
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy blobber lips,
Tis good thrift I suppose,
They’re dripping-pans unto thy eyes,
And save-alls to thy nose.
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy huncht back,
’Tis bow’d although not broken,
For I believe the Gods did send
Me to Thee for a Token.
_Venus her self_, &c.

I love thee for thy pudding wast,
If a Taylor thou do’st lack,
Thou need’st not send to _France_ for one,
Ile fit thee with a sack.
_Venus her self_, &c.

10.

I love thee for thy lusty thighes
For tressels thou maist boast,
Sweet-heart thou hast a water-mill,
And these are the mill-posts.
_Venus her self_, &c.

[11.] 10.

I love thee for thy splay feet,
They’re fooles that thee deride,
Women are alwaies most esteem’d,
When their feet are most wide.
_Venus her self may comelier be_, &c.

_On a TINKER._

He that a Tinker, a Tinker, a Tinker will be,
Let him leave other Loves, and come follow me.
Though he travells all the day,
Yet he comes home still at night,
And dallies, dallies with his Doxie,
And dreames of delight.
His pot and his tost in the morning he takes,
And all the day long good musick he makes;
He wanders up and down to Wakes & to Fairs,
He casts his cap, and casts his cap at the Court and its cares;
And when to the town the Tinker doth come,
Oh, how the wanton wenches run,
Some bring him basons, and some bring him bowles,
All maids desire him to stop up their holes.
_Prinkum Prankum_ is a fine dance, strong Ale is good in the winter,
And he that thrumms a wench upon a brass pot,
The child may prove a Tinker.
With tink goes the hammer, the skellit and the scummer,
Come bring me thy copper kettle,
For the Tinker, the Tinker, the merry merry Tinker
Oh, he’s the man of mettle.

_Upon his Mistris’s black Eye-browes._

Hide, oh hide those lovely Browes,
_Cupid_ takes them for his bowes,
And from thence with winged dart
He lies pelting at my heart,
Nay, unheard-of wounds doth give,
Wounded in the heart I live;
From their colour I descry,
Loves bowes are made of Ebony;
Or their Sable seemes to say
They mourn for those their glances slay;
Or their blacknesse doth arise
From the Sun-beams of your eyes,
Where _Apollo_ seemes to sit,
As he’s God of Day and Wit;
Your piercing Rayes, so bright, and cleare,
Shewes his beamy Chariots there.
Then the black upon your brow,
Sayest wisdomes sable hue, [? sagest]
Tells to every obvious eye,
There’s his other Deity.
This too shewes him deeply wise,
To dwell there he left the skies;
So pure a black could _Phœbus_ burn,
He himself would _Negro_ turn,
And for such a dresse would slight
His gorgeous attire of light;
Eclipses he would count a blisse,
Were there such a black as this:
Were Night’s dusky mantle made
Of so glorious a shade,
The ruffling day she would out-vie
In costly dresse, and gallantry:
Were Hell’s darknesse such a black,
For it the Saints would Heaven forsake;
So pure a black, that white from hence
Loses its name of innocence;
And the most spotlesse Ivory is
A very stain and blot to this:
So pure a black, that hence I guesse,
Black first became a holy dresse.
The Gods foreseeing this, did make
Their Priests array themselves in Black.

_To my Lady of ~Carnarvon~, January 1._

Idol of our Sex! Envy of thine own!
Whom not t’ have seen, is never to have known,
What eyes are good for; to have seen, not lov’d,
Is to be more, or lesse then man, unmov’d;
Deigne to accept, what I i’ th’ name of all
Thy Servants pay to this dayes Festival,
Thanks for the old yeare, prayers for the new,
So may thy many dayes to come seeme few,
So may fresh springs in thy blew rivolets flow,
To make thy roses, and thy lillies grow.
So may all dressings still become thy face,
As if they grew there, or stole thence their grace.
So may thy bright eyes comfort with their rayes
Th’ humble, and dazle those that boldly gaze:
So may thy sprightly motion, beauties best part,
Shew there is stock enough of life at heart.
So may thy warm snow never grow more cold,
So may they live to be, but not seem old.
So may thy Lord pay all, yet rest thy debtor,
And love no other, till he sees a better:
So may the new year crown the old yeares joy,
By giving us a Girle unto our Boy;
I’ th’ one the Fathers wit, and in the other
Let us admire the beauty of the Mother,
That so we may their severall pictures see,
Which now in one fair Medall joyned be:
Till then grow thus together, and howe’re
You grow old in your selves, grow stil young here;
And let him, though he may resemble either,
Seem to be both in one, and singly neither.
Let Ladies wagers lay, whose chin is this,
Whose forehead that, whose lip, whose eye, then kiss
Away the difference, whilst he smiling lies,
To see his own shape dance in both your eyes.
Sweet Babe! my prayer shall end with thee,
(Oh may it prove a Prophecy!)
May all the channels in thy veynes
Expresse the severall noble straines,
From whence they flow; sweet _Sydney’s_ wit,
But not the sad, sweet fate of it;
The last great _Pembroke’s_ learning, sage
_Burleigh’s_ both wisdome and his age;
Thy Grandsires honest heart expresse
The _Veres_ untainted noblenesse.
To these (if any thing there lacks)
Adde _Dormer_ too, and _Molenax_.
Lastly, if for thee I can woo
Gods, and thy Godfathers grace too,
Together with thy Fathers Thrift:
Be thou thy Mothers New-years gift.

_The Western Husband-man’s Complaint in the late Wars._

Uds bodykins! Chill work no more:
Dost think chill labour to be poor?
No ich have more a do:
If of the world this be the trade,
That ich must break zo knaves be made,
Ich will a blundering too. [plundering]

Chill zel my cart and eke my plow,
And get a zword if ich know how,
For ich mean to be right:
Chill learn to zwear, and drink, and roar,
And (Gallant leek) chill keep a whore, [like]
No matter who can vight.

God bless us! What a world is here,
It can ne’re last another year,
Vor ich can’t be able to zoe:
Dost think that ever chad the art,
To plow the ground up with my cart,
My beasts be all a go.

But vurst a Warrant ich will get
From Master Captaine, that a vet
Chill make a shrewd a do:
Vor then chave power in any place,
To steal a Horse without disgrace,
And beat the owner too.

Ich had zix oxen tother day,
And them the Roundheads vetcht away,
A mischiefe be their speed:
And chad zix horses left me whole,
And them the Cabbaleroes stole:
Chee voor men be agreed.

Here ich doe labour, toyl and zweat,
And dure the cold, with dry and heat,
And what dost think ich get?
Vaith just my labour vor my pains,
The garrisons have all the gains,
Vor thither all’s avet.

There goes my corne and beanes, and pease,
Ich doe not dare them to displease,
They doe zo zwear and vapour:
When to the Governour ich doe come,
And pray him to discharge my zum,
Chave nothing but a paper.

U’ds nigs dost think that paper will
Keep warme my back and belly fill?
No, no, goe vange thy note:
If that another year my vield
No profit doe unto me yield,
Ich may goe cut my throat.

When any money chove in store,
Then straight a warrant comes therefore,
Or ich must blundred be:
And when chave shuffled out one pay,
Then comes another without delay,
Was ever the leek azee? [like]

If all this be not grief enow,
They have a thing cald quarter too,
O’ts a vengeance waster:
A pox upon’t they call it vree, [“free quarters”]
Cham zure they make us zlaves to be,
And every rogue our master.

_The High-way man’s Song._

I keep my Horse, I keep my Whore,
I take no Rents, yet am not poore,
I traverse all the land about,
And yet was born to never a foot;
With Partridge plump, and Woodcock fine,
I do at mid-night often dine;
And if my whore be not in case,
My Hostess daughter has her place.
The maids sit up, and watch their turnes,
If I stay long the Tapster mourns;
The Cook-maid has no mind to sin,
Though tempted by the Chamberlin;
But when I knock, O how they bustle;
The hostler yawns, the geldings justle;
If maid be sleep, oh how they curse her!
And all this comes of, _Deliver your purse sir_.

_Against Fruition_, &c.

There is not half so warme a fire
In the Fruition, as Desire.
When I have got the fruit of pain,
Possession makes me poore again,
Expected formes and shapes unknown,
Whet and make sharp tentation;
Sense is too niggardly for Bliss,
And payes me dully with what is;
But fancy’s liberall, and gives all
That can within her vastnesse fall;
Vaile therefore still, while I divine
The Treasure of this hidden Mine,
And make Imagination tell
What wonders doth in Beauty dwell.

_Upon Mr. ~Fullers~ Booke, called ~Pisgah-sight~._

Fuller of wish, than hope, methinks it is,
For me to expect a fuller work than this,
Fuller of matter, fuller of rich sense,
Fuller of Art[,] fuller of Eloquence;
Yet dare I not be bold, to intitle this
The fullest work; the Author fuller is,
Who, though he empty not himself, can fill
Another fuller, yet continue still
Fuller himself, and so the Reader be
Alwayes in hope a fuller work to see.

_On a Sheepherd that died for Love._

_Cloris_, now thou art fled away,
_Aminta’s_ Sheep are gone astray,
And all the joyes he took to see
His pretty Lambs run after thee.
_Shee’s gone, shee’s gone, and he alway,_
_Sings nothing now but welladay._

His Oaten pipe that in thy praise,
Was wont to play such roundelayes,
Is thrown away, and not a Swaine
Dares pipe or sing within this Plaine.
_’Tis death for any now to say_
_One word to him, but welladay._

The May-pole where thy little feet
So roundly did in measure meet,
Is broken down, and no content
Came near _Amintas_ since you went.
_All that ere I heard him say,_
_Was ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, welladay._

Upon those banks you us’d to tread,
He ever since hath laid his head,
And whisper’d there such pining wo,
That not one blade of grasse will grow.
_Oh ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, come away,_
_And hear ~Aminta’s~ welladay._

The embroyder’d scrip he us’d to weare
Neglected hangs, so does his haire.
His Crook is broke, Dog pining lyes,
And he himself nought doth but cryes,
_Oh ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, come away,_
_And hear_, &c.

His gray coat, and his slops of green,
When worn by him, were comely seen,
His tar-box too is thrown away,
There’s no delight neer him must stay,
_But cries, oh ~Cloris~ come away,_
_~Aminta’s~ dying, welladay_.

_The Shepheards lamentation for the losse of his Love._

Down lay the Shepheards Swain,
So sober and demure,
Wishing for his wench again,
So bonny and so pure.
With his head on hillock low,
And his armes on kembow;
And all for the losse of her Hy nonny nonny no.

His teares fell as thin,
As water from a Still,
His haire upon his chin,
Grew like tyme upon a hill:
His cherry cheeks were pale as snow,
Testifying his mickle woe;
And all was for the loss of her hy nonny nonny no.

Sweet she was, as fond of love,
As ever fettred Swaine;
Never such a bonny one
Shall I enjoy again.
Set ten thousand on a row,
Ile forbid that any show
Ever the like of her, hy nonny nonny no.

Fac’d she was of Filbard hew,
And bosom’d like a Swanne:
Back’t she was of bended yew,
And wasted by a span.
Haire she had as black as Crow,
From the head unto the toe,
Down down, all over, hy nonny nonny no.

With her Mantle tuck’t up high,
She foddered her Flocke,
So buckesome and alluringly,
Her knee upheld her smock;
So nimbly did she use to goe,
So smooth she danc’d on tip-toe,
That all men were fond of her, hy nonny nonny no.

She simpred like a Holy-day,
And smiled like a Spring,
She pratled like a Popinjay,
And like a Swallow sing.
She tript it like a barren Doe,
And strutted like a Gar-crowe:
Which made me so fond of her, hy, &c.

To trip it on the merry Down,
To dance the lively Hay,
To wrastle for a green Gown,
In heat of all the day,
Never would she say me no.
Yet me thought she had though
Never enough of her, hy, &c.

But gone she is[,] the blithest Lasse
That ever trod on Plain.
What ever hath betided her,
Blame not the Shepheard Swain.
For why, she was her own foe,
And gave her selfe the overthrowe,
By being too franke of her hy nonny nonny no.

_A Ballad on Queen ~Elizabeth~; to the tune of Sallengers round._

I tell you all both great and small,
And I tell you it truely,
That we have a very great cause,
Both to lament and crie,
Oh fie, oh fie, oh fie, oh fie,
Oh fie on cruell death;
For he hath taken away from us
Our Queen _Elizabeth_.

He might have taken other folk,
That better might have been mist,
And let our gratious Queen alone,
That lov’d not a Popish Priest.
She rul’d this Land alone of her self,
And was beholding to no man.
She bare the waight of all affaires,
And yet she was but a woman.

A woman said I? nay that is more
Nor any man can tell,
So chaste she was, so pure she was,
That no man knew it well.
For whilst that she liv’d till cruel death
Exposed her to all.
Wherefore I say lament, lament,
Lament both great and small.

She never did any wicked thing,
Might make her conscience prick her,
And scorn’d for to submit her self to him
That calls himself Christ’s Vicker:
But rather chose couragiously
To fight under Christ’s Banner,
Gainst Turk and Pope, I and King of _Spain_,
And all that durst withstand her.

She was as Chaste and Beautifull,
And Faire as ere was any;
And had from forain Countreys sent
Her Suters very many.
Though _Mounsieur_ came himself from _France_,
A purpose for to woe her,
Yet still she liv’d and dy’d a Maid,
Doe what they could unto her.

And if that I had _Argus_ eyes,
They were too few to weep,
For our sweet Queen _Elizabeth_,
Who now doth lye asleep:
Asleep I say she now doth lye,
Untill the day of Doome:
But then shall awake unto the disgrace
Of the proud Pope of _Rome_.

_A Ballad on King ~James~; to the tune of When ~Arthur~ first in Court
began._

When _James_ in _Scotland_ first began,
And there was crowned King,
He was not much more than a span,
All in his clouts swadling.

But when he waxed into yeares,
And grew to be somewhat tall,
And told his Lords, a Parliament
He purposed to call.

That’s over-much[,] quoth _Douglas_ though,
For thee to doe[,] I feare,
For I am Lord Protector yet,
And will be one halfe yeare.

It pleaseth me well, quoth the King,
What thou hast said to me,
But since thou standest on such tearmes,
Ile prove as strict to thee.

And well he rul’d and well he curb’d
Both _Douglas_ and the rest;
Till Heaven with better Fortune and Power,
Had him to _England_ blest.

Then into _England_ straight he came
As fast as he was able,
Where he made many a Carpet Knight,
Though none of the Round Table.

And when he entered _Barwicke_ Town,
Where all in peace he found:
But when that roaring Megge went off,
His Grace was like to swound.

Then up to _London_ straight he came,
Where he made no long stay,
But soon returned back again,
To meet his Queen by th’ way.

And when they met, such tilting was,
The like was never seen;
The Lords at each others did run,
And neer a tilt between.

Their Horses backs were under them,
And that was no great wonder,
The wonder was to see them run,
And break no Staves in sunder.

They ran full swift and coucht their Speares,
O ho quoth the Ladies then,
They run for shew, quoth the people though,
And not to hurt the men.

They smote full hard at Barriers too,
You might have heard the sound,
As far as any man can goe,
When both his legges are bound.

_Upon the death of a ~Chandler~._

The Chandler grew neer his end,
Pale Death would not stand his friend;
But tooke it in foul snuff,
As having tarryed long enough:
Yet left this not to be forgotten,
Death and the Chandler could not Cotton.

Farre in the Forrest of _Arden_,
There dwelt a Knight hight _Cassimen_,
As bold as _Isenbras_:
Fell he was and eager bent
In battaile and in Turnament,
As was the good Sr. _Topas_.

He had (as Antique stories tell)
A daughter cleped _Dowsabell_,
A Maiden faire and free,
Who, cause she was her fathers heire,
Full well she was y-tought the leire
Of mickle courtesie.

The Silke well could she twist and twine,
And make the fine Marchpine,
And with the needle work.
And she could help the Priest to say
His Mattins on a Holy-day,
And sing a Psalme in Kirk.

Her Frocke was of the frolique Green,
(Mought well become a Mayden Queen)
Which seemely was to see:
Her Hood to it was neat and fine,
In colour like the Columbine,
y-wrought full featuously.

This Maiden in a morne betime,
Went forth when _May_ was in her prime,
To get sweet Scettuall,
The Honysuckle, the Horelock,
The Lilly, and the Ladies-Smock,
To dight her summer Hall.

And as she romed here, and there,
Y-picking of the bloomed brier,
She chanced to espie
A Shepheard sitting on a bank,
Like Chanticleere—he crowed crank,
And piped with merry glee.

He leerd his Sheep as he him list,
When he would whistle in his fist,
To feed about him round,
Whilst he full many a Caroll sung,
That all the fields, and meadowes rung,
And made the woods resound.

In favour this same Shepheard Swaine
Was like the Bedlam Tamerlaine,
That kept proud Kings in awe.
But meek he was as meek mought be,
Yea like the gentle _Abell_, he
Whom his lewd brother slew.

This Shepheard ware a freeze-gray Cloake,
The which was of the finest locke,
That could be cut with Sheere:
His Aule and Lingell in a Thong,
His Tar-box by a broad belt hung,
His Cap of Minivere.

10.

His Mittens were of Bausons skin,
His Cockers were of Cordowin,
His Breech of country blew:
All curle, and crisped were his Locks,
His brow more white then _Albion_ Rocks:
So like a Lover true.

11.

And piping he did spend the day,
As merry as a Popinjay,
Which lik’d faire _Dowsabell_,
That wod she ought, or wod she nought,
The Shepheard would not from her thought,
In love she longing fell:

12.

With that she tucked up her Frock,
(White as the Lilly was her Smock,)
And drew the Shepheard nigh,
But then the Shepheard pip’d a good,
That all his Sheep forsook their food,
To heare his melody.

13.

Thy Sheep (quoth she) cannot be lean,
That have so faire a Shepheard Swain,
That can his Pipe so well:
I but (quoth he) the Shepheard may,
If Piping thus he pine away,
For love of _Dowsabell_.

14.

Of love (fond boy) take thou no keep,
Look well (quoth she) unto thy Sheep;
Lest they should chance to stray.
So had I done (quoth he) full well,
Had I not seen faire _Dowsabell_,
Come forth to gather May.

15.

I cannot stay (quoth she) till night,
And leave my Summer Hall undight,
And all for love of men.
Yet are you, quoth he, too unkind,
If in your heart you cannot find,
To love us now and then.

16.

And I will be to thee as kind,
As _Collin_ was to _Rosalinde_,
Of courtesie the flower.
And I will be as true (quoth she)
As ever Lover yet mought be,
Unto her Paramour.

17.

With that the Maiden bent her knee,
Down by the Shepheard kneeled she,
And sweetly she him kist.
But then the Shepheard whoop’d for joy,
(Quoth he) was never Shepheards boy,
That ever was so blist.

_Upon the ~Scots~ being beaten at ~Muscleborough~ field._

On the twelfth day of _December_,
In the fourth year of King _Edwards_ reign[,]
Two mighty Hosts (as I remember)
At _Muscleborough_ did pitch on a Plain.
For a down, down, derry derry down, Hey down a,
Down, down, down a down derry.

All night our English men they lodged there,
So did the Scots both stout and stubborn,
But well-away was all their cheere,
For we have served them in their own turn.
For a downe, &c.

All night they carded for our _English_ mens Coats,
(They fished before their Nets were spun)
A white for Six-pence, a red for two Groats;
Wisdome would have stayd till they had been won.
For a down, &c.

On the twelfth day all in the morn,
They made a fere as if they would fight;
But many a proud _Scot_ that day was down born,
And many a rank Coward was put to his flight.
For a down, &c.

And the Lord _Huntley_, we hadden him there,
With him he brought ten thousand men:
But God be thanked, we gave him such a Banquet,
He carryed but few of them home agen.
For a down, &c.

For when he heard our great Guns crack,
Then did his heart fall untill his hose,
He threw down his Weapons, he turned his back,
He ran so fast that he fell on his nose.
For a down, &c.

We beat them back till _Edenbrough_,
(There’s men alive can witnesse this)
But when we lookt our English men through,
Two hundred good fellowes we did not misse.
For a down, &c.

Now God preserve _Edward_ our King,
With his two Nuncles and Nobles all,
And send us Heaven at our ending:
For we have given _Scots_ a lusty fall.
For a down, down, derry derry down, Hey,
Down a down down, down a down derry.

_Lipps and Eyes._

In _Celia_ a question did arise,
Which were more beautifull her Lippes or Eyes.
We, said the Eyes, send forth those pointed darts,
Which pierce the hardest Adamantine hearts.
From us, (reply’d the Lipps) proceed the blisses
Which Lovers reape by kind words and sweet kisses.
Then wept the Eyes, and from their Springs did powre
Of liquid Orientall Pearle a showre:
Whereat the Lippes mov’d with delight and pleasure,
Through a sweet smile unlockt their pearly Treasure:
And bad Love judge, whether did adde more grace,
Weeping or smiling Pearles in _Celia’s_ face.

_On black Eyes._

Black Eyes; in your dark Orbs do lye,
My ill or happy destiny,
If with cleer looks you me behold,
You give me Mines and Mounts of Gold;
If you dart forth disdainfull rayes,
To your own dy, you turn my dayes.
Black Eyes, in your dark Orbes by changes dwell.
My bane or blisse, my Paradise or Hell.

That Lamp which all the Starres doth blind,
Yeelds to your lustre in some kind,
Though you do weare, to make you bright,
No other dresse but that of night:
He glitters only in the day.
You in the dark your Beames display.
Black Eyes, &c.

The cunning Theif that lurkes for prize,
At some dark corner watching lyes;
So that heart-robbing God doth stand
In the dark Lobbies, shaft in hand,
To rifle me of what I hold
More pretious farre then _Indian_ Gold.
Black Eyes, &c.

Oh powerful Negromantick Eyes,
Who in your circles strictly pries,
Will find that _Cupid_ with his dart,
In you doth practice the blacke Art:
And by th’ Inchantment I’me possest,
Tryes his conclusion in my brest.
Black Eyes, &c.

Look on me though in frowning wise,
Some kind of frowns become black eyes,
As pointed Diamonds being set,
Cast greater lustre out of Jet.
Those pieces we esteem most rare,
Which in night shadowes postur’d are.
Darknesse in Churches congregates the sight,
Devotion strayes in glaring light.
Black Eyes, in your dark Orbs by changes dwell,
My bane, or blisse, my Paradise or Hell.

_CRVELTY._

We read of Kings, and Gods that kindly took
A Pitcher fill’d with Water from the Brook.
But I have dayly tendred without thanks,
Rivers of tears that overflow their banks.
A slaughtred Bull will appease angry Jove,
A Horse the Sun, a Lamb the God of Love.
But she disdains the spotlesse sacrifice
Of a pure heart that at her Altar lyes:
Vesta [i]’s not displeas’d if her chaste Urn
Doe with repaired fuell ever burn;
But my Saint frowns, though to her honoured name
I consecrate a never dying flame:
Th’ _Assyrian_ King did none i th’ furnace throw,
But those that to his Image did not bow:
With bended knees I dayly worship her,
Yet she consumes her own Idolater.
Of such a Goddesse no times leave record,
That burnt the Temple where she was ador’d.

_A Sonnet._

What ill luck had I, silly Maid that I am,
To be ty’d to a lasting vow;
Or ere to be laid by the side of a man,
That woo’d, and cannot tell how;
Down didle down, down didle me.
Oh that I had a Clown that he might down diddle me,
With a courage to take mine down.

What punishment is that man worthy to have,
That thus will presume to wedde,
He deserves to be layd alive in his grave,
That woo’d and cannot in bed;
Down didle down[,] down didle me.
Oh that I had a Lad that he might down didle me,
For I feare I shall run mad.

_The ~Doctors~ Touchstone._

I never did hold, all that glisters is Gold,
Unless by the Touch it be try’d;
Nor ever could find, that it was a true signe,
To judge a man by the outside.
A poor flash of wit, for a time may be fit
To wrangle a question in Schools.
Good dressing, fine cloathes, with other fine shews,
May serve to make painted fools.

That man will beguile, in your face that will smile,
And court you with Cap and with knee:
And while you’re in health, or swimming in wealth,
Will vow that your Servant hee’l be.
That man Ile commend, and would have to my friend
If I could tell where to choose him,
That wil help me at need, and stand me in stead,
When I have occasion to use him.

I doe not him fear, that wil swagger & sweare,
And draw upon every cross word,
And forthwith again if you be rough & plain,
Be contented to put up his sword.
Him valiant I deem, that patient can seem,
And fights not in every place,
But on good occasion, without seeking evasion[,]
Durst look his proud Foe in the face.

That Physician shal pass that is all for his glass
And no other sign can scan,
Who to practice did hop, from ‘Apothecaries’ shop,
Or some old Physitians man.
He Physick shal give to me whilst I live,
That hath more strings to his Bow,
Experience and learning, with due deserving,
And will talk on no more then he know.

That Lawyer I hate, that wil wrangle & prate,
In a matter not worth the hearing:
And if fees do not come, can be silent & dumb,
Though the cause deserves but the clearing.
That Lawyers for me, that’s not all for his fee,
But will do his utmost endeavour
To stand for the right, and tug against might,
And lift the truth as with a Leaver.

The Shark I do scorn, that’s only well born,
And brags of his antient house,
Yet his birth cannot fit, with money nor wit,
But feeds on his friends like a Louse,
That man I more prize, that by vertue doth rise
Unto some worthy degree,
That by breeding hath got, what by birth he had not,
A carriage that’s noble and free.

I care not for him, that in riches doth swimme,
And flants it in every fashion,
That brags of his Grounds and prates of his Hounds,
And his businesse is all recreation.
For him I will stand, that hath wit with his Land,
And will sweat for his Countreys good,
That will stick to the Lawes, and in a good cause
Will adventure to spend his heart-blood.

That man I despise, that thinks himself wise,
Because he can talk at Table,
And at a rich feast break forth a poor jest,
To the laughter of others more able.
No, he hath more wit, that silent can sit,
Yet knowes well enough how to do it,
That speaks with reason, & laughs in due seaso[n,]
And when he is mov’d unto it.

I care not a fly, for a house that’s built high,
And yeelds not a cup of good beer,
Where scraps you may find, while Venison’s in kind
For a week or two in a yeare.
He a better house keeps, that every night sleeps
Under a Covert of thatch,
Where’s good Beef from the Stall, and a fire in the Hall,
Where you need not to scramble nor snatch.

Then lend me your Touch, for dissembling there’s much,
Ile try them before I do trust.
For a base needy Slave, in shew may be brave,
And a sliding Companion seem just.
The man that’s down right, in heart & in sight,
Whose life and whose looks doth agree,
That speaks what he thinks, and sleeps when he winks,
O that’s the companion for me.

_A copy of Verses of a mon[e]y Marriage._

No Gypsie nor no Blackamore,
No Bloomesbery, nor Turnbald whore,
Can halfe so black, so foule appeare,
As she I chose to be my Deare.
She’s wrinkled, old, she’s dry, she’s tough,
Yet money makes her faire enough.

Nature’s hand shaking did dispose,
Her cheeks faire red unto her nose,
Which shined like that wanton light,
Misguideth wanderers in the night.
Yet for all this I do not care,
Though she be foul, her money’s faire.

Her tangled Locks do show to sight,
Like Horses manes, whom haggs affright.
Her Bosome through her vaile of Lawne,
Shews more like Pork, her Neck like Brawn.
Yet for all this I do not care,
Though she be foul, her money’s faire.

Her teeth, to boast the Barbers fame,
Hang all up in his wooden frame.
Her lips are hairy, like the skin
Upon her browes, as lank as thin.
Yet for all this I do not care,
Though she be foul, her money’s faire.

Those that her company do keep,
Are rough hoarse coughs, to break my sleep.
The Palsie, Gout, and Plurisie,
And Issue in her legge and thigh.
Yet me it grieves not, who am sure
That Gold can all diseases cure.

Then young men do not jeere my lot,
That beauty left, and money got:
For I have all things having Gold,
And beauty too, since beautie’s sold.
For Gold by day shall please my sight,
When all her faults lye hid at night.

_The baseness of Whores._

Trust no more, a wanton Whore,
If thou lov’st health and freedom,
They are so base in every place,
It’s pity that bread should feed ’um.
All their sence is impudence,
Which some call good conditions.
Stink they do, above ground too,
Of Chirurgions and Physitians.

If you are nice, they have their spice,
On which they’le chew to flout you,
And if you not discern the plot,
You have no Nose about you.
Furthermore, they have in store,
For which I deadly hate ’um,
Perfum’d geare, to stuffe each eare,
And for their cheeks Pomatum.

Liquorish Sluts, they feast their guts,
At Chuffs cost, like Princes,
Amber Plumes, and Mackarumes,
And costly candy’d Quinces.
Potato plump, supports the Rump,
Eringo strengthens Nature.
Viper Wine, so heats the chine,
They’le gender with a Satyr.

Names they own were never known
Throughout their generation,
Noblemen are kind to them,
At least by approbation:
Many dote on one gay Coat,
But mark what there is stampt on ’t,
A stone Horse wild, with toole defil’d,
Two Goats, a Lyon rampant.

Truth to say, Paint and Array,
Makes them so highly prized.
Yet not one well, of ten can tell,
If ever they were baptized.
And if not, then tis a blot
Past cure of Spunge or Laver:
And we may sans question say
The Divel was their God-father.

Now to leave them, he receive them,
Whom they most confide in,
Whom that is, aske _Tib_ or _Sis_,
Or any whom next you ride in.
If in sooth, she speaks the truth,
She sayes excuse I pray you,
The beast you ride, where I confide,
Will in due time convey you.

_A Lover disclosing his love to his ~Mistris~._

Let not sweet _St._ let not these eyes offend you,
Nor yet the message, that these lines impart,
The message my unfeined love doth send you,
Love that your self hath planted in my heart.

For being charm’d by the bewitching art
Of those inveigling graces that attend you:
Love’s holy fire kindled hath in part
These never-dying flames, my breast doth send you.

Now if my lines offend, let love be blam’d,
And if my love displease, accuse my eyes,
And if mine eyes sin, their sins cause only lyes
On your bright eyes, that hath my heart inflam’d.

Since eyes[,] love, lines erre, then by your direction,
Excuse my eyes, my lines, and my affection.

_The contented Prisoner his praise of ~Sack~._

How happy’s that Prisoner
That conquers his fates,
With silence, and ne’re
On bad fortune complaines,
But carelessely playes
With his Keyes on the Grates,
And makes a sweet consort
With them and his chayns.
He drowns care with Sack,
When his thoughts are opprest,
And makes his heart float,
Like a Cork in his Breast.

_The Chorus._

Then,
Since we are all slaves,
That Islanders be,
And our Land’s a large prison,
Inclos’d with the Sea:
Wee’l drink up the Ocean,
To set our selves free,
For man is the World’s Epitome.

Let Pirates weare Purple,
Deep dy’d in the blood
Of those they have slain,
The scepter to sway.
If our conscience be cleere,
And our title be good,
With the rags we have on us,
We are richer then they.
We drink down at night,
What we beg or can borrow,
And sleep without plotting
For more the next morrow.

Since we, &c.

Let the Usurer watch
Ore his bags and his house,
To keep that from Robbers,
He hath rackt from his debtors,
Each midnight cries Theeves,
At the noyse of a mouse,
Then see that his Trunks
Be fast bound in their Fetters.
When once he’s grown rich enough
For a State plot,
Buff in an hower plunders
What threescore years got.

Since we, &c.

Come Drawer fill each man
A peck of Canary
This Brimmer shall bid
All our senses good-night.
When old _Aristotle_
Was frolick and merry,
By the juice of the Grape,
He turn’d Stagarite.
_Copernicus_ once
In a drunken fit found,
By the coruse [course] of his brains,
That the world turn’d round.

Since we, &c.

Tis Sack makes our faces
Like Comets to shine,
And gives beauty beyond
The Complexion mask,
_Diogenes_ fell so
In love with this Wine,
That when ’twas all out,
He dwelt in the Cask.
He liv’d by the s[c]ent
Of his Wainscoated Room;
And dying desir’d
The Tub for his Tombe.

Since we, &c.

_Of DESIRE._

Fire, Fire!
O how I burn in my desire.
For all the teares that I can strain
Out of my empty love-sick brain,
Cannot asswage my scorching pain.
Come Humber, Trent, and silver Thames,
The dread Ocean haste with all thy streames,
And if thou can’st not quench my fire,
Then drown both me and my Desire.

Fire, Fire!
Oh there’s no hell to my desire.
See how the Rivers backward lye,
The Ocean doth his tide deny,
For fear my flames should drink them drye.
Come heav’nly showers, come pouring down,
You all that once the world did drown.
You then sav’d some, and now save all,
Which else would burn, and with me fall.

_Upon kinde and true Love._

’Tis not how witty, nor how free,
Nor yet how beautifull she be,
But how much kinde and true to me.
Freedome and Wit none can confine,
And Beauty like the Sun doth shine,
But kinde and true are onely mine.

Let others with attention sit,
To listen, and admire her wit,
That is a rock where Ile not split.
Let others dote upon her eyes,
And burn their hearts for sacrifice,
Beauty’s a calm where danger lyes.

But Kinde and True have been long try’d,
And harbour where we may confide, [? An]
And safely there at anchor ride.
From change of winds there we are free,
And need not fear Storme’s tyrannie,
Nor Pirat, though a Prince he be.

_Upon his Constant Mistresse._

She’s not the fairest of her name,
But yet she conquers more than all the race,
For she hath other motives to inflame,
Besides a lovely face.
There’s Wit and Constancy
And Charms, that strike the soule more than the Eye.
’Tis no easie lover knowes how to discover
Such Divinity.

And yet she is an easie book,
Written in plain language for the meaner wit,
A stately garb, and [yet] a gracious look,
With all things justly fit.
But age will undermine
This glorious outside, that appeares so fine,
When the common Lover
Shrinks and gives her over,
Then she’s onely mine.

To the Platonick that applies
His clear addresses onely to the mind;
The body but a Temple signifies,
Wherein the Saints inshrin’d,
To him it is all one,
Whether the walls be marble, or rough stone;
Nay, in holy places, which old time defaces,
More devotion’s shown.

_The Ghost-Song._

’Tis late and cold, stir up the fire,
Sit close, and draw the table nigher,
Be merry, and drink wine that’s old,
A hearty medicine ’gainst the cold;
Your bed[’s] of wanton down the best,
Where you may tumble to your rest:
I could well wish you wenches too,
But I am dead, and cannot do.
Call for the best, the house will ring,
Sack, White and Claret, let them bring,
And drink apace, whilst breath you have,
You’l find but cold drinking in the grave;
Partridge, Plover for your dinner,
And a Capon for the sinner,
You shall finde ready when you are up,
And your horse shall have his sup.
Welcome, welcome, shall flie round,
And I shall smile, though under ground.

_You that delight in Trulls and Minions,_
_Come buy my four ropes of St. ~Omers~ Onions._

_FINIS._

Table of First Lines

_To the Songs and Poems in_

CHOICE DROLLERY, 1656.

(NOW FIRST ADDED.)

page.

_A Maiden of the Pure Society_ 44

_A story strange I will you tell_ 31

_A Stranger coming to the town_ 16

_And will this wicked world never prove good?_ 40

_As I went to ~Totnam~_ 45

_Blacke eyes, in your dark orbs do lye_ 81

_~Cloris~, now thou art fled away_ 63

_Come, my White-head, let our Muses_ 10

_Deare Love, let me this evening dye_ 1

_Down lay the Shepheards Swain_ 65

_Drink boyes, drink boyes, drink and doe not spare_ 42

_Farre in the Forrest of ~Arden~_ 73

_Fire! Fire! O, how I burn_ 97

_Fuller of wish, than hope, methinks it is_ 62

_He that a Tinker, a Tinker, a Tinker will be_ 52

_Hide, oh hide those lovely Browes_ 53

_How happy’s that Prisoner that conquers, &c._ 93

_I keep my horse, I keep my W_ 60

_I love thee for thy curled hair_ 49

_I never did hold, all that glisters is gold_ 85

_I tell you all, both great and small_ 68

_Idol of our sex! Envy of thine own!_ 55

_If at this time I am derided_ 9

_In ~Celia~ a question did arise_ 80

_In Eighty-eight, ere I was born_ 38

_Let not, sweet saint, let not these eyes offend you_ 92

_List, you Nobles, and attend_ 20

_My Mother hath sold away her Cock_ 43

_Never was humane soule so overgrown_ 17

_No Gypsie nor no Blackamore_ 88

_Nor Love, nor Fate dare I accuse_ 4

_Oh fire, fire, fire, where?_ 33

_On the twelfth day of December_ 78

_One night the great ~Apollo~, pleas’d with ~Ben~_ 5

_Shall I think, because some clouds_ 15

_She’s not the fairest of her name_ 99

_The Chandler grew neer his end_ 72

_There is not halfe so warme a fire_ 61

_This day inlarges every narrow mind_ 48

_’Tis late and cold, stir up the fire_ 100

_’Tis not how witty, nor how free_ 98

_Trust no more a wanton Wh—_ 90

_Uds bodykins, Chill work no more_ 57

_We read of Kings, and Gods that kindly took_ 83

_What ill luck had I, silly maid that I am_ 84

_When first the magick of thine eye_ 8

_When ~James~ in Scotland first began_ 70

AN
ANTIDOTE
AGAINST
MELANCHOLY:

Made up in PILLS.

Compounded of _Witty Ballads_, _Jovial
Songs_, and _Merry Catches_.

_These witty Poems though some time [they] may seem to halt on crutches,_
_Yet they’l all merrily please you for your Charge, which not much is._

Printed by _Mer. Melancholicus_, to be sold in _London_
and _Westminster_, 1661.

[Aprill, 18.]

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY, 1661.

_Adalmar._—“An Antidote!
Restore him whom thy poisons have laid low.” ...

_Isbrand._—“A very good and thirsty melody;
What say you to it, my Court Poet?”

_Wolfram._—“Good melody! When I am sick o’ mornings,
With a horn-spoon tinkling my porridge pot,
’Tis a brave ballad.”

(_T. L. Beddoes: Death’s Jest Book, Acts_ iv. & v.)

§ 1. REPRINT OF AN ANTIDOTE.

Having found that sixty-five of our previous pages, in the second
volume of the _Drolleries Reprint_, were filled with songs and poems
that also appear in the _Antidote against Melancholy_, 1661; and that
all the remaining songs and poems of the _Antidote_ (several being only
obtainable therein) exceed not the compass of three additional sheets,
or forty-eight pages, the Editor determined to include this valuable
book. Thus in our three volumes are given four entire works, to exemplify
this particular class of literature, the Cavalier Drolleries of the
Restoration.[7]

To that portion of our present Appendix which is devoted to _Notes to
the Antidote against Melancholy_, 1661, we refer the reader for the
admirable brief Introduction written by John Payne Collier, Esq.; to
whose handsome Reprint of the work we owe our first acquaintance with its
pages. His knowledge of our old literature extends over nearly a century;
his opportunities for inspecting private and public libraries have been
peculiarly great; and he has always been most generous in communicating
his knowledge to other students, showing throughout a freedom from
jealousy and exclusiveness reminding us of the genial Sir Walter
Scott. He states:—“We have never seen a copy of an ‘_Antidote against
Melancholy_’ that was not either imperfect, or in some places illegible
from dirt and rough usage, excepting the one we have employed: our
single exemplar is as fresh as on the day it was issued from the press.
There is an excellent and highly finished engraving on the title-page,
of gentlemen and boors carousing; but as the repetition of it for our
purpose would cost more than double every other expense attending our
reprint, we have necessarily omitted it. The same plate was afterwards
used for one of Brathwayte’s pieces; and we have seen a much worn
impression of it on a Drollery near the end of the seventeenth century.
It does not at all add to our knowledge of the subject of our reprint. J.
P. C.”

Nevertheless, the copper-plate illustration is so good, and connects
so well with the Bacchanalian and sportive character of the “_Antidote
against Melancholy_,” and other _Drolleries_, that the present Editor not
unwillingly takes up the graver to reproduce this frontispiece for the
adornment of the volume and the service of subscribers. Our own Reprint
and our engraving are made from the _perfect_ specimen contained in the
Thomason Collection, and dated 1661 (with “Aprill 18” in MS.; see p.
161). We make a rule always to go to the fountain-head for our draughts,
howsoever long and steep may be the ascent. Flowers and rare fossils
reward us as we clamber up, and in good time other students learn to
trust us, as being pains-taking and conscientiously exact. The first duty
of one who aspires to be honoured as the Editor of early literature is to
faithfully reproduce his text, unmutilated and undisguised. To amend it,
and elucidate it, so far as lies in his power, can be done befittingly
in his notes and comments, while he gives his readers a representation of
the original, so nearly in _fac-simile_ as is compatible with additional
beauty of typography. Throughout our labours we have held this principle
steadily in view; and, whatever nobler work we may hereafter attempt, the
same determination must guide us. There may be debate as to our wisdom
in reproducing some questionable _facetiæ_, but there shall be none
regarding our fidelity to the original text.

§ 2. INGREDIENTS OF AN “ANTIDOTE.”

A pleasant book it appeared to Cavaliers and all who were not quite
strait-laced. It is almost unobjectionable, except for a few ugly words,
and bears comparison honourably with “_Merry Drollery_” or “_Wit and
Drollery_,” both of the same date, 1661. Unlike the former, it is almost
uninfected with political rancour or impurity. It is a jovial book,
that roysters and revellers loved to sing their Catches from; nay, if
some laughing nymphs did not drop their eyes over its pages we are no
conjurors. A vulgar phrase or two did not frighten them. Lucy Hutchinson
herself, the Colonel’s Puritan wife, fires many a volley of coarse
epithets without blushing; and, indeed, the Saintly Crew occasionally
indulged in foul language as freely as the Malignants, though it was
condoned as being theologic zeal and controversial phraseology.

In “The Ex-Ale-tation of Ale” we forgive the verbosity, for the sake of
one verse on the noted Ballad-writer (see note in Appendix):—

“For _ballads_ ELDERTON never had peer;
How went his wit in them, with how merry a gale,
And with all the sails up, had he been at the Cup,
And washed his beard with a _pot of good ale_.”

We find the character of the songs to be eminently festive: almost every
one could be chanted over a cup of burnt Sack, and there was not entire
forgetfulness of eating: witness “The Cold Chyne,” on page 55 (our p.
148). The Love-making is seldom visible. Such glimpses as we gain of
Puritans (Bishop Corbet’s Hot-headed Zealot, Cleveland’s “Rotundos rot,”)
are only suggestive of playful ridicule. The Sectaries, being no longer
dangerous, are here laughed at, not calumniated. The odd jumble of
nations brought together in those disturbed times is seen in the crowd of
lovers around the “blith Lass of Falkland town” (p. 133) who is constant
in her love of a Scottish blue bonnet:—“_If ever I have a man, blew-Cap
for me!_” But, sitting at ease once more, not hunted into bye-ways or
exile, and with enough of ready cash to wipe off tavern scores, or pay
for braver garments than were lately flapping in the wind, the Cavaliers
recall the exploits of their patron-saint, “St. George for England,”
the gay wedding of Lord Broghill, as described by Sir John Suckling in
1641, the still noisier marriage of Arthur o’ Bradley, or that imaginary
banquet afforded to the Devil, by Ben Jonson’s Cook Lorrell, in the Peak
of Derbyshire. Early contrasts, drawn by their own grandsires, between
the Old Courtier of Queen Elizabeth and the New Courtier of King James,
are welcomed to remembrance. They forgive “Old Noll,” while ridiculing
his image as “The Brewer,” and they repeat the earlier Ulysses song of
the “Blacksmith,” by Dr. James Smith, if only for its chorus, “Which no
body can deny.” The grave solemnity wherewith Dr. Wilde’s “Combat of
Cocks” was told; the light-hearted buffoonery of “Sir Eglamore’s Fight
with the Dragon;” the spluttering grimaces of Ben Jonson’s “Welchman’s
praise of Wales;” and the sustained humour as well as enthusiasm of Dr.
Henry Edwards’s “On the Vertue of Sack” (“Fetch me Ben Jonson’s scull,”
&c.), are all crowned by the musical outburst of “The Green Gown:”—

“Pan leave piping, the Gods have done feasting,
There’s never a goddess a hunting to-day,” &c.

(see Appendix to _Westminster Drollery_, p. liv.) Our readers may thus
additionally enjoy a full-flavoured bumper of the “_Antidote against
Melancholy_.”

J. W. E.

August, 1875.

_To the Reader._

There’s no Purge ’gainst _Melancholly_,
But with _Bacchus_ to be jolly:
All else are but Dreggs of Folly.

_Paracelsus_ wanted skill
When he sought to cure that Ill:
No _Pectorals_ like the _Poets_ quill.

Here are _Pills_ of every sort,
For the _Country_, _City_, _Court_,
Compounded and made up of sport.

If ’gainst _Sleep_ and _Fumes_ impure,
Thou, thy _Senses_ would’st secure;
Take this, Coffee’s not half so sure.

Want’st thou _Stomack_ to thy Meat,
And would’st fain restore the heat,
This does it more than _Choccolet_.

Cures the _Spleen_[,] Revives the _blood_[,]
Puts thee in a _Merry_ Mood:
Who can deny such _Physick_ good?

Nothing like to Harmeles _Mirth_,
’Tis a Cordiall On earth
That gives _Society_ a Birth.

Then be wise, and buy, not borrow,
Keep an _Ounce_ still for to Morrow,
Better than a _pound_ of _Sorrow_.

N. D.

_Ballads, Songs, and Catches in this Book._

Original: Our
page. vols, page

1. The Exaltation of a _Pot of Good Ale_, 1 iii. 113

2. The Song of _Cook-Lawrel_, by Ben Johnson 9 ii. 214

3. The Ballad of _The Black-smith_, 11 225

4. The Ballad of _Old Courtier and the New_ 14 iii. 125

5. The Ballad of the Wedding of _Arthur of Bradley_, 16 ii. 312

6. The Ballad of the _Green Gown_, 20 i. Ap. 54

7. The Ballad of the _Gelding of the Devil_, 21 ii. 200

8. The Ballad of _Sir Eglamore_, 25 257

9. The Ballad of _St. George for England_, 26 iii. 129

10. The Ballad of _Blew Cap for me_, 29 133

11. The Ballad of the _Several Caps_, 31 135

12. The Ballad of the _Noses_, 33 ii. 143

13. The Song of the _Hot-headed Zealot_, 35 234

14. The Song of the _Schismatick Rotundos_, 37 iii. 139

15. A Glee in praise of _Wine_ [_Let souldiers_], 39 ii. 218

16. Sir John Sucklin’s Ballad of the _Ld. L. Wedding_. 40 101

17. The _Combat of Cocks_, 44 242

18. The _Welchman’s prayse of Wales_, 47 iii. 141

19. The _Cavaleer’s Complaint_ [and _Answer_], 49 ii. 52

20. Three several Songs in praise of _Sack_
[: _Old Poets Hipocrin_, &c. 52 iii. 143
_Hang the Presbyter’s Gill_, 53 144
_’Tis Wine that inspires_, 54 145
[A Glee to the Vicar, W.D. Int.
[On a Cold Chyne of Beef, 55 iii. 146
[A Song of _Cupid_ Scorned, 56 147

21. On the _Vertue of Sack_, by Dr. Hen. Edwards 57 ii. 293

22. The _Medly of Nations_, to several tunes, 59 127

23. The Ballad of the Brewer, 62 221

24. A Collection of 40 [34] more Merry
Catches and Songs. 65-76 iii. 149
[Of these 34, ten are given in Merry
Drollery, Complete, on pages 296, 304,
308, 232, 337, 300, 280, 318, 348, and 341.
The others are added in this volume iii. 52

Pills to Purge Melancholly.

[p. 1.]

_The Ex-Ale-tation of ALE._

Not drunken, nor sober, but neighbour to both,
I met with a friend in _Ales-bury_ Vale;
He saw by my Face, that I was in the Case
To speak no great harm of a _Pot of good Ale_.

Then did he me greet, and said, since we meet
(And he put me in mind of the name of the Dale)
For _Ales-burys_ sake some pains I would take,
And not _bury_ the praise of a _Pot of good Ale_.

The more to procure me, then he did adjure me
If the _Ale_ I drank last were nappy and stale,
To do it its right, and stir up my sprite,
And fall to commend a _pot_ [_of good ale_]. [_passim._]

Quoth I, To commend it I dare not begin,
Lest therein my Credit might happen to fail;
For, many men now do count it a sin,
But once to look toward a _pot of good ale_.

Yet I care not a pin, For I see no such sin,
Nor any thing else my courage to quail:
For, this we do find, that take it in kind,
Much vertue there is in a _pot of good ale_.

And I mean not to taste, though thereby much grac’t,
Nor the _Merry-go-down_ without pull or hale,
Perfuming the throat, when the stomack’s afloat,
With the Fragrant sweet scent of a _pot of good ale_.

Nor yet the delight that comes to the _Sight_
To see how it flowers and mantles in graile,
As green as a _Leeke_, with a smile in the cheek,
The true Orient colour of a _pot of good ale_.

But I mean the _Mind_, and the good it doth find,
Not onely the _Body_ so feeble and fraile;
For, _Body_ and _Soul_ may blesse the _black bowle_,
Since both are beholden to a _Pot of good ale_.

For, when _heavinesse_ the mind doth oppresse,
And _sorrow_ and _grief_ the heart do assaile,
No remedy quicker than to take off your Liquor,
And to wash away _cares_ with a _pot of good ale_.

The _Widow_ that buried her Husband of late,
Will soon have forgotten to weep and to waile,
And think every day twain, till she marry again,
If she read the contents of a _pot of good ale_.

It is like a _belly-blast_ to a _cold heart_,
And warms and engenders the _spirits vitale_:
To keep them from domage all sp’rits owe their homage
To the _Sp’rite of the buttery_, a _pot of good ale_.

And down to the _legs_ the vertue doth go,
And to a bad _Foot-man_ is as good as a _saile_:
When it fill the Veins, and makes light the Brains,
No _Lackey_ so nimble as a _pot of good ale_.

The naked complains not for want of a coat,
Nor on the cold weather will once turn his taile;
All the way as he goes, he cuts the wind with his Nose,
If he be but well wrapt in a _pot of good ale_.

The hungry man takes no thought for his meat,
Though his stomack would brook a _ten-penny_ naile;
He quite forgets hunger, thinks on it no longer,
If he touch but the sparks of a _pot of good ale_.

The _Poor man_ will praise it, so hath he good cause,
That all the year eats neither _Partridge_ nor _Quaile_,
But sets up his rest, and makes up his Feast,
With a crust of _brown bread_, and a _pot of good ale_.

The _Shepherd_, the _Sower_, the _Thresher_, the _Mower_,
The one with his _Scythe_, the other with his _Flaile_,
Take them out by the poll, on the peril of my soll,
All will hold up their hands to a _pot of good ale_.

The _Black-Smith_, whose bellows all Summer do blow,
With the fire in his Face still, without e’re a vaile,
Though his throat be full dry, he will tell you no lye,
But where you may be sure of a _pot of good ale_.

Who ever denies it, the Pris’ners will prayse it,
That beg at [the] Grate, and lye in the _Goale_,
For, even in their _fetters_ they thinke themselves better,
May they get but a two-penny black _pot of Ale_.

The begger, whose portion is alwayes his prayers,
Not having a tatter to hang on his taile,
Is rich in his rags, as the churle in his bags,
If he once but shakes hands with a _pot of good ale_.

It drives his poverty clean out of mind,
Forgetting his _brown bread_, his _wallet_, and _maile_;
He walks in the house like a _six footed Louse_,
If he once be inricht with a _pot of good ale_.

And he that doth _dig_ in the _ditches_ all day,
And wearies himself quite at the _plough-taile_,
Will speak no less things than of _Queens_ and of _Kings_,
If he touch but the top of a _pot of good ale_.

’Tis like a Whetstone to a _blunt wit_,
And makes a supply where Nature doth fail:
The dullest wit soon will look quite through the Moon,
If his temples be wet with a _pot of good ale_.

Then DICK to his _Dearling_, full boldly dares speak,
Though before (silly Fellow) his courage did quaile,
He gives her the _smouch_, with his hand on his pouch,
If he meet by the way with a _pot of good ale_.

And it makes the _Carter_ a _Courtier_ straight-way;
With Rhetorical termes he will tell his tale;
With _courtesies_ great store, and his Cap up before,
Being school’d but a little with a _pot of good ale_.

The _Old man_, whose tongue wags faster than his teeth,
(For old age by Nature doth drivel and drale)
Will frig and will fling, like a Dog in a string,
If he warm his cold blood with a _pot of good ale_.

And the good _Old Clarke_, whose sight waxeth dark,
And ever he thinks the Print is to[o] small,
He will see every Letter, and say Service better,
If he glaze but his eyes with a _pot of good ale_.

The _cheekes_ and the _jawes_ to commend it have cause;
For where they were late but even wan and pale,
They will get them a colour, no _crimson_ is fuller,
By the true die and tincture of a _pot of good ale_.

Mark her Enemies, though they think themselves wise,
How _meager_ they look, with how low a waile,
How their cheeks do fall, without sp’rits at all,
That alien their minds from a _pot of good ale_.

And now that the grains do work in my brains,
Me thinks I were able to give by retaile
Commodities store, a dozen and more,
That flow to Mankind from a _pot of good ale_.

The MUSES would muse any should it misuse:
For it makes them to sing like a _Nightingale_,
With a lofty trim note, having washed their throat
With the _Caballine_ Spring of a _pot of good ale_. [? Castalian]

And the _Musician_ of any condition,
It will make him reach to the top of his _Scale_:
It will clear his pipes, and moisten his lights,
If he drink _alternatim_ a _pot of good ale_.

The _Poet_ Divine, that cannot reach Wine,
Because that his money doth many times faile,
Will hit on the vein to make a good strain,
If he be but _inspir’d_ with a _pot of good ale_.

For _ballads_ ELDERTON never had Peer;
How went his wit in them, with how merry a Gale,
And with all the Sails up, had he been at the Cup,
And washed his beard with a _pot of good ale_.

And the power of it showes, no whit less in _Prose_,
It will file one’s Phrase, and set forth his Tale:
Fill him but a Bowle, it will make his Tongue troul,
For _flowing speech_ flows from a _pot of good ale_.

And _Master Philosopher_, if he drink his part,
Will not trifle his time in the _huske_ or the _shale_,
But go to the _kernell_ by the depth of his Art,
To be found in the bottom of a _pot of good ale_.

Give a _Scholar_ of OXFORD a pot of _Sixteen_,
And put him to prove that an _Ape_ hath no _taile_,
And sixteen times better his wit will be seen,
If you fetch him from _Botley_ a _pot of good ale_.

Thus it helps _Speech_ and _Wit_: and it hurts not a whit,
But rather doth further the _Virtues Morale_;
Then think it not much if a little I touch
The good moral parts of a _pot of good ale_.

To the _Church_ and _Religion_ it is a good Friend,
Or else our Fore-Fathers their wisedome did faile,
That at every mile, next to the _Church_ stile,
Set a _consecrate house_ to a _pot of good ale_.

But now, as they say, _Beer_ bears it away;
The more is the pity, if right might prevaile:
For, with this same _Beer_, came up _Heresie_ here,
The old _Catholicke drink_ is a _pot of good ale_.

The _Churches_ much ow[e], as we all do know,
For when they be drooping and ready to fall,
By a _Whitson_ or _Church-ale_, up again they shall go,
And owe their _repairing_ to a _pot of good ale_.

_Truth_ will do it right, it brings _Truth_ to light,
And many bad matters it helps to reveal:
For, they that will drink, will speak what they think:
TOM _tell-troth_ lies hid in a _pot of good ale_.

It is _Justices_ Friend, she will it commend,
For all is here served by _measure_ and _tale_;
Now, _true-tale_ and _good measure_ are _Justices_ treasure,
And much to the praise of a _pot of good ale_.

And next I alledge, it is _Fortitudes_ edge[,]
For a very Cow-heard, that shrinks like a Snaile,
Will swear and will swagger, and out goes his Dagger,
If he be but arm’d with a _pot of good ale_.

Yea, ALE hath her _Knights_ and _Squires_ of Degree,
That never wore Corslet, nor yet shirts of Maile,
But have fought their fights all, twixt the pot and the wall,
When once they were dub’d with a _pot of good ale_.

And sure it will make a man suddenly _wise_,
Er’e-while was scarce able to tell a right tale:
It will open his jaw, he will tell you the _Law_,
As make a right _Bencher_ of a _pot of good ale_.

Or he that will make a _bargain_ to gain,
In _buying_ or _setting_ his goods forth to _sale_,
Must not plod in the mire, but sit by the fire,
And seale up his Match with a _pot of good ale_.

But for _Soberness_, needs must I confess,
The matter goes hard; and few do prevaile
Not to go too deep, but _temper_ to keep,
Such is the _Attractive_ of a _pot of good ale_.

But here’s an amends, which will make all Friends,
And ever doth tend to the best availe:
If you take it too deep, it will make you but sleep;
So comes no great harm of a _pot of good ale_.

If (reeling) they happen to fall to the ground,
The fall is not great, they may hold by the Raile:
If into the water, they cannot be drown’d,
For that gift is given to a _pot of good ale_.

If drinking about they chance to fall out,
Fear not that _Alarm_, though flesh be but fraile;
It will prove but some blowes, or at most a bloody nose,
And Friends again straight with a _pot of good ale_.

And _Physic_ will favour ALE, as it is bound,
And be against _Beere_ both tooth and naile;
They send up and down, all over the town
To get for their Patients a _pot of good ale_.

Their _Ale-berries_, _cawdles_, and _Possets_ each one,
And _Syllabubs_ made at the Milking-pale,
Although they be many, _Beere_ comes not in any,
But all are composed with a _pot of good ale_.

And in very deed the _Hop’s_ but a Weed,
Brought o’re against Law, and here set to sale:
Would the Law were renew’d, and no more _Beer_ brew’d,
But all men betake them to a _Pot of good ale_.

The _Law_ that will take it under his wing,
For, at every _Law-day_, or _Moot of the hale_,
One is sworn to serve our _Soveraigne_ the KING,
In the ancient _Office_ of a CONNER of ALE.

There’s never a Lord of _Mannor_ or of a Town,
By strand or by land, by hill or by dale,
But thinks it a _Franchise_, and a _Flow’r_ of the CROWN,
To hold the _Assize_ of a _pot of good ale_.

And though there lie _Writs_ from the _Courts Paramount_,
To stay the proceedings of _Courts Paravaile_;
_Law_ favours it so, you may come, you may go,
There lies no _Prohibition_ to a _pot of good ale_.

They talk much of _State_, both early and late,
But if _Gascoign_ and _Spain_ their _Wine_ should but faile,
No remedy then, with us _Englishmen_,
But the _State_ it must stand by a _pot of good ale_.

And they that sit by it are good men and quiet,
No dangerous _Plotters_ in the Common-weale
Of _Treason_ and _Murder_: For they never go further
Than to call for, and pay for a _pot of good ale_.

To the praise of GAMBRIVIUS that good _Brittish King_
That devis’d for his Nation (by the _Welshmen’s_ tale)
Seventeen hundred years before CHRIST did spring,
The happy invention of a _pot of good ale_.

The _North_ they will praise it, and praise with passion,
Where every _River_ gives name to a _Dale_:
There men are yet living that are of th’ old fashion,
No _Nectar_ they know but a _pot of good ale_.

The PICTS and the SCOTS for ALE were at lots,
So high was the skill, and so kept under seale;
The PICTS were undone, slain each mothers son,
For not teaching the SCOTS to make _Hether Eale_.

But hither or thither, it skils not much whether:
For Drink must be had, men live not by _Keale_,
Not by _Havor-bannocks_ nor by _Havor-jannocks_,
The thing the SCOTS live on is a _pot of good ale_.

Now, if ye will say it, I will not denay it,
That many a man it brings to his bale:
Yet what fairer end can one wish to his Friend,
Th an to dye by the part of a _pot of good ale_.

Yet let not the innocent bear any blame,
It is their own doings to break o’re the pale:
And neither the _Malt_, nor the good wife in fault,
If any be potted with a _pot of good ale_.

They tell whom it kills, but say not a word,
How many a man liveth both sound and hale,
Though he drink no _Beer_ any day in the year,
By the _Radical humour_ of a _pot of good ale_.

But to speak of _Killing_, that am I not willing,
For that in a manner were but to raile:
But _Beer_ hath its name, ’cause it brings to the _Biere_,
Therefore well-fare, say I, to a _pot of good ale_.

Too many (I wis) with their deaths proved this,
And, therefore (if ancient Records do not faile),
He that first brew’d the _Hop_ was rewarded with a _rope_,
And found his _Beer_ far more _bitter_ than ALE.

O ALE[!] _ab alendo_, the _Liquor_ of LIFE,
That I had but a mouth as big as a _Whale_!
For mine is too little to touch the least tittle
That belongs to the praise of a _pot of good ale_.

Thus (I trow) some _Vertues_ I have mark’d you out,
And never a _Vice_ in all this long traile,
But that after the _Pot_ there cometh the _Shot_,
And that’s th’ onely _blot_ of a _pot of good ale_.—

With that my Friend said, that _blot_ will I bear,
You have done very well, it is time to strike saile,
Wee’l have six pots more, though I dye on the score,
To make all this good of a _Pot of good ALE_.

[Followed by Ben Jonson’s Cook Lorrel, and by The Blacksmith: for which
see _Merry Drollery, Complete_, pp. 214-17, 225-30.]

[p. 14.]

_An Old Song of an Old Courtier and a New._

With an Old Song made by an Old Ancient pate,
Of an Old worshipful Gentleman who had a great Estate;
Who kept an old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old Porter to relieve the Poore at his Gate,
_Like an old Courtier of the Queens_.

With an old Lady whose anger and [? one] good word asswages,
Who every quarter payes her old Servants their wages,
Who never knew what belongs to Coachmen, Footmen, & Pages,
But kept twenty thrifty old Fellows, with blew-coats and badges,
_Like an old Courtier of the Queens_.

With an old Study fill’d full of Learned books,
With an old Reverent Parson, you may judge him by his looks,
With an old Buttery hatch worn quite off the old hooks,
And an old Kitching, which maintains half a dozen old cooks;
_Like an old Courtier of the Queens_.

With an old Hall hung round about with Guns, Pikes, and Bowes,
With old swords & bucklers, which hath born[e] many shrew’d blows,
And an old Frysadoe coat to cover his Worships trunk hose,
And a cup of old Sherry to comfort his Copper Nose;
_Like an old Courtier of the Queens_.

With an old Fashion, when _Christmas_ is come,
To call in his Neighbours with Bag-pipe and Drum,
And good chear enough to furnish every old Room,
And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and a wise man dumb;
_like an Old_ [_Courtier of the Queens_.]

With an old Hunts-man, a Falkoner, and a Kennel of Hounds;
Which never Hunted, nor Hawked but in his own Grounds;
Who like an old wise man kept himself within his own bounds,
And when he died gave every child a thousand old pounds;
_like an Old_ [_Courtier of the Queens_.]

But to his eldest Son his house and land he assign’d,
Charging him in his Will to keep the same bountiful mind,
To be good to his Servants, and to his Neighbours kind,
But in th’ ensuing Ditty you shall hear how he was enclin’d;
_like a young Courtier of the Kings_.

[Part Second.]

Like a young Gallant newly come to his Land,
That keeps a brace of Creatures at’s own command,
And takes up a thousand pounds upon’s own Band,
And lieth drunk in a new Tavern, till he can neither go nor stand;
_like a young_ [_Courtier of the Kings_].

With a neat Lady that is fresh and fair,
Who never knew what belong’d to good housekeeping or care,
But buyes several Fans to play with the wanton ayre,
And seventeen or eighteen dressings of other womens haire;
_like a young_ [_Courtier of the Kings_].

With a new Hall built where the old one stood,
Wherein is burned neither coale nor wood,
And a new Shuffel-board-table where never meat stood,
Hung Round with Pictures, which doth the poor little good.
_like a young_ [_Courtier of the Kings_].

With a new study stuff’t full of Pamphlets and playes,
With a new Chaplin, that swears faster then he prayes,
With a new Buttery hatch that opens once in four or five dayes,
With a new _French-Cook_ to make Kickshawes and Tayes;
_like a young Courtier of the Kings_.

With a new Fashion, when _Christmasse_ is come,
With a journey up to _London_ we must be gone,
And leave no body at home but our new Porter _John_,
Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone;
_Like a young_ [_Courtier of the Kings_].

With a Gentleman-Vsher whose carriage is compleat,
With a Footman, a Coachman, a Page to carry meat,
With a waiting Gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat,
Who when the master hath dyn’d gives the servants litle meat;
_Like a young_ [_Courtier of the Kings_].

With a new honour bought with his Fathers Old Gold,
That many of his Fathers Old Manors hath sold,
And this is the occasion that most men do hold,
That good Hous[e]-keeping is now-a-dayes grown so cold;
_Like a young Courtier of the Kings_.

[Here follow, Arthur of Bradley (see _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, p. 312);
The Green Gown: “Pan leave piping,” (see _Westm. Droll._, Appendix, p.
54); Gelding of the Devil: “Now listen a while, and I will you tell” (see
_Merry D., C._, p. 200); Sir Egle More (_ibid_, p. 257); and St. George
for England (_ibid_, p. 309). But, as the variations are great, in the
last of these, it is here given from the _Antidote ag. Mel._, p. 26.]

[p. 26.]

_The Ballad of St. George for England._

Why should we boast of _Arthur_ and his Knights?
Know[ing] how many men have perform’d fights;
Or why should we speak of Sir _Lancelot du Lake_,
Or Sir _Trestram du Leon_, that fought for the Lady’s sake;
Read old storyes, and there you’l see
How St. _George_, St. _George_, did make the Dragon flee:
St. _George_ he was for _England_, St. _Denis_ was for _France_,
Sing _Hony soitt qui Mal y pense_.

To speak of the Monarchy, it were two Long to tell;
And likewise of the _Romans_, how far they did excel,
_Hannibal_ and _Scipio_, they many a field did fight;
_Orlando Furioso_ he was a valiant Knight;
_Romulus_ and _Rhemus_ were those that ROME did build,
But St. _George_, St. _George_, the Dragon he hath kill’d;
St. _George_ he was, _&c._

_Jephtha_ and _Gidion_ they led their men to fight
The _Gibeonites_ and _Amonites_, they put them all to flight;
Hercul’es Labour was in the Vale of Brass,
And _Sampson_ slew a thousand with the Jaw-bone of an Asse,
And when he was blind pull’d the Temple to the ground:
But St. _George_, St. _George_, the Dragon did confound.
St. _George_ he was, _&c._

_Valentine_ and _Orson_ they came of _Pipins_ blood,
_Alphred_ and _Aldrecus_ they were brave Knights and good,
The four sons of _Amnon_ that fought with _Charlemaine_,
Sir _Hugh de Burdeaux_ and _Godfray_ of _Bolaigne_,
These were all _French_ Knights the _Pagans_ did Convert,
But St. _George_, St. _George_, pull’d forth the Dragon’s heart:
St. _George_ he was, _&c._

_Henry_ the fifth he Conquered all _France_,
He quartered their Armes, his Honour to advance,
He razed their Walls, and pull’d their Cities down,
And garnished his Head with a double treble Crown;
He thumbed the _French_, and after home he came!
But St. _George_, St. _George_, he made the Dragon _tame_:
St. _George_ he was, _&c._

St. _David_ you know, loves _Leeks_ and tosted _Cheese_,
And _Jason_ was the Man, brought home the _Golden_ Fleece;
St. _Patrick_ you know he was St. _Georges_ Boy,
Seven years he kept his Horse, and then stole him away,
For which Knavish act, a slave he doth remain;
But St. _George_, St. _George_, he hath the Dragon slain:
St. _George_ he was, &c.

_Tamberline_, the Emperour, in Iron Cage did Crown,
With his bloody Flag’s display’d before the Town;
_Scanderbag_ magnanimous _Mahomets Bashaw_ did dread,
Whose Victorious Bones were worn when he was dead;
His _Bedlerbegs_, his Corn like drags, _George Castriot_ was he call’d,
But St. _George_, St. _George_, the Dragon he hath maul’d:
St. _George_ he was for _England_, St. _Denis_ was for _France_,
Sing _Hony soit qui mal y pense_.

_Ottoman_, the _Tartar_, _Cham_ of _Persia’s_ race,
The great _Mogul_, with his Chests so full of all his Cloves and Mace,
The _Grecian_ youth _Bucephalus_ he manly did bestride,
But those with all their Worthies Nine, St. _George_ did them deride,
_Gustavus Adolphus_ was _Swedelands_ Warlike King,
But St. _George_, St. _George_, pull’d forth the Dragon’s sting.
St. _George_ he was for _England_, St. _Dennis_ was for _France_,
Sing _Hony soit qui mal y pense_.

_Pendragon_ and _Cadwallader_ of _British_ blood doe boast,
Though _John_ of _Gant_ his foes did daunt, St. _George_ shal rule the
roast;
_Agamemnon_ and _Cleomedon_ and _Macedon_ did feats,
But, compared to our Champion, they were but merely cheats;
Brave _Malta_ Knights in _Turkish_ fights, their brandisht swords
out-drew,
But St. _George_ met the Dragon, and ran him through and through:
St. _George_ he was, &c.

_Bidea_, the Amazon, _Photius_ overthrew,
As fierce as either _Vandal_, _Goth_, _Saracen_, or _Jew_;
The potent _Holophernes_, as he lay in his bed,
In came wise _Judith_ and subtly stool[e] his head;
Brave _Cyclops_ stout, with _Jove_ he fought, Although he showr’d down
Thunder;
But St. _George_ kill’d the Dragon, and was not that a wonder:
St. _George_ he was, &c.

_Mark Anthony_, Ile warrant you Plaid feats with _Egypts_ Queen,
Sir _Egla More_ that valiant Knight, the like was never seen,
Grim _Gorgons_ might, was known in fight, old _Bevis_ most men frighted,
The _Myrmidons_ & _Presbyter John_, why were not those men knighted?
Brave _Spinola_ took in _Breda_, _Nasaw_ did it recover,
But St. _George_, St. _George_, he turn’d the Dragon over and over:
St. _George_ he was for _England_, St. _Denis_ was for _France_,
Sing, _Hony soit qui mal y pense_.

_A Ballad ~call’d~ Blew Cap for me._

Come hither thou merriest of all the Nine, [p. 29.]
Come, sit you down by me, and let us be jolly;
And with a full Cup of _Apollo’s_ wine,
Wee’l dare our Enemy mad Melancholly;
And when we have done, wee’l between us devise
A pleasant new Dity by Art to comprise:
And of this new Dity the matter shall be,
_If ever I have a man, blew cap for me_.

There dwells a blith Lass in _Falkland_ Town
And she hath Suitors I know not how many,
And her resolution she had set down
That she’l have a _Blew Cap_, if ever she have any.
An _Englishman_ when our geod Knight was there,
Came often unto her, and loved her dear,
Yet still she replyed, Geod Sir, La be,
_If ever I have a man, blew cap for me_.

A _Welchman_ that had a long Sword by his side,
Red Doublet, red Breech, and red Coat, and red Peard,
Was made a great shew of a great deal of pride,
Was tell her strange tales te like never heard;
Was recon her pedegree long pefore _Prute_[,]
No body was near that could her Confute;
But still she reply’d, Geod Sir la be,
_If ever I have a man, blew Cap for me_.

A _Frenchman_ that largely was booted and spurr’d,
Long Lock with a ribbon, long points and long preeshes,
Was ready to kisse her at every word,
And for the other exercises his fingers itches;
You be prety wench _a Metrel, par ma Foy_,
Dear me do love you, be not so coy;
Yet still replyed, Geod Sir, la be;
_If ever I have a man, blew Cap for me_.

An _Irishman_, with a long skeen in his Hose,
Did think to obtain her, it was no great matter,
Up stairs to the chamber so lightly he goes,
That she never heard him until he came at her,
Quoth he, I do love thee, by Fait and by Trot,
And if thou wilt know it, experience shall sho’t,
Yet still she reply’d, Geod sir, la be,
_If ever I have a man, blew Cap for me_.

A _Netherland_ Mariner came there by chance,
Whose cheekes did resemble two rosting pome-watters,
And to this Blith lasse this sute did advance;
Experience had taught him to cog, lie, and flatter;
Quoth he, I will make thee sole Lady of the sea,
Both _Spanyard_ and _English_ man shall thee obey:
Yet still she replyed, [Geod sir, La be,
_If ever I have a man, blew cap for me_].

At last came a _Scotchman_ with a _blew Cap_,
And that was the man for whom she had tarryed,
To get this Blyth lass it was his Giud hap,
They gan to _Kirk_ and were presently married;
She car’d not whether he were Lord or Leard,
She call’d him sick a like name as I ne’r heard,
To get him from aw she did well agree,
And still she cryed, _blew Cap_ thou art welcome to mee.

[p. 30.]

_The Ballad of the Caps._

The Wit hath long beholding been
Unto the Cap to keep it in;
But now the wits fly out amain,
In prayse to quit the Cap again;
The Cap that keeps the highest part
Obtains the place by due desert:
_For any Cap, &c._ [_what ere it bee,_
_Is still the signe of some degree._]

The _Monmouth_ Cap, the Saylors thrumbe,
And that wherein the Tradesmen come,
The Physick Cap, the Cap Divine,
And that which Crownes the Muses nine,
The Cap that fooles do Countenance,
The goodly Cap of Maintenance.
_For any Cap, &c._

The sickly Cap both plain and wrought,
The Fudling cap, how ever bought,
The worsted, Furr’d, the Velvet, Sattin,
For which so many pates learn Latin;
The Cruel cap, the Fustian Pate,
The Perewig, a Cap of late:
_For any Cap, &c._

The Souldiers that the _Monmoth_ wear,
On Castles tops their Ensigns rear;
The Sea-man with his Thrumb doth stand
On higher parts then all the Land;
The Tradesmans Cap aloft is born,
By vantage of a stately horn.
_For any Cap, &c._

The Physick Cap to dust can bring
Without controul the greatest King:
The Lawyers Cap hath Heavenly might
To make a crooked action straight;
And if you’l line him in the fist,
The Cause hee’l warrant as he list.
_For any Cap, &c._

Both East and West, and North and South,
Where ere the Gospel hath a mouth
The Cap Divine doth thither look:
Tis Square like Scholars and their Books:
The rest are Round, but this is Square
To shew their Wits more stable are:
_For any Cap, &c._

The Jester he a Cap doth wear,
Which makes him Fellow for a Peer,
And ’tis no slender piece of Wit
To act the Fool, where great Men sit,
But O, the Cap of _London_ Town!
I wis, ’tis like a goodly Crown.
_For any Cap, &c._

The sickly Cap[,] though wrought with silk,
Is like repentance, white as milk;
When Caps drop off at health apace,
The Cap doth then your head uncase,
The sick mans Cap (if wrought can tell)
Though he be sick, his cap is well.
_For any Cap, &c._

The fudling Cap by _Bacchus_ Might,
Turns night to day, and day to night;
We know it makes proud heads to bend,
The Lowly feet for to Ascend:
It makes men richer then before,
By seeing doubly all their score.
_For any Cap, &c._

The furr’d and quilted Cap of age
Can make a mouldy proverb sage,
The Satin and the Velvet hive
Into a Bishoprick may thrive,
The Triple Cap may raise some hope,
If fortune serve, to be a Pope;
_For any Cap, &c._

The Perewig, O, this declares
The rise of flesh, though fall of haires,
And none but Grandsiers can proceed
So far in sin, till they this need,
Before the King who covered are,
And only to themselves stand bare.
_For any Cap, what ere it bee,_
_Is still the signe of some degree._

[Next follow A Ballad of the Nose (see _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, p.
143), and A Song of the Hot-headed Zealot: _to the tune of “~Tom a
Bedlam~”_ (Dr. Richard Corbet’s, _Ibid_, p. 234).]

[p. 37.]

_A Song On the Schismatick Rotundos._

Once I a curious Eye did fix,
To observe the tricks
Of the _schismatics_ of the Times,
To find out which of them
Was the merriest Theme,
And best would befit my Rimes.
_Arminius_ I found solid,
_Socinians_ were not stolid,
Much Learning for Papists did stickle.
_But ah, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ~Rotundos~ rot,_
_Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ~Rotundos~ rot,_
_’Tis you that my spleen doth tickle._

And first to tell must not be forgot,
How I once did trot
With a great Zealot to a Lecture,
Where I a Tub did view,
Hung with apron blew:
’Twas the Preachers, as I conjecture.
His life and his Doctrine too
Were of no other hue,
Though he spake in a tone most mickle;
_But ah, ha, ha, ha, &c._

He taught amongst other prety things
That the Book of _Kings_
Small benefit brings to the godly,
Beside he had some grudges
At the Book of _Judges_,
And talkt of _Leviticus_ odly.
_Wisedome_ most of all
He declares _Apocryphal_,
Beat _Bell_ and the _Dragon_ like _Michel_:
_But, ah, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, &c._

Gainst Humaine Learning next he enveyes
and most boldly say’s,
’Tis that which destroyes Inspiration:
Let superstitious sence
And wit be banished hence,
With Popish Predomination:
Cut _Bishops_ down in hast,
And _Cathedrals_ as fast
As corn that’s fit for the sickle:
_But ah, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ~Rotundos~, rot,_
_ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ~Rotundos~ rot,_
_’Tis you that my spleen doth tickle._

[The three next in the _Antidote_, respectively by Aurelian Townshend
(?), Sir John Suckling, and “by T. R.” (or Dr. Thomas Wild?), are to be
found also in our _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp. 218, 101, and 242. See
Appendix Notes.]

[p. 47.]

_The Welshmans Song, in praise of Wales._

I’s not come here to tauke of _Prut_,
From whence the _Welse_ dos take hur root;
Nor tell long Pedegree of Prince _Camber_,
Whose linage would fill full a Chamber,
Nor sing the deeds of ould Saint _Davie_,
The Ursip of which would fill a Navie,
But hark me now for a liddell tales
Sall make a great deal to the creddit of _Wales_:
For her will tudge your eares,
With the praise of hur thirteen Seers,
And make you as clad and merry,
As fourteen pot of Perry.

’Tis true, was wear him Sherkin freize,
But what is that? we have store of seize, [_i.e._ cheese,]
And Got is plenty of Goats milk
That[,] sell him well[,] will buy him silk
Inough, to make him fine to quarrell
At _Herford_ Sizes in new apparrell;
And get him as much green Melmet perhap,
Sall give it a face to his Monmouth Cap.
But then the ore of _Lemster_;
Py Cot is uver a Sempster;
That when he is spun, or did[,]
Yet match him with hir thrid.

Aull this the backs now, let us tell yee,
Of some provision for the belly:
As Kid and Goat, and great Goats Mother,
And Runt and Cow, and good Cows uther.
And once but tast on the Welse Mutton,
Your _Englis_ Seeps not worth a button.
And then for your Fisse, shall choose it your disse,
Look but about, and there is a Trout,
A Salmon, Cot, or Chevin,
Will feed you six or seven,
As taull man as ever swagger
With _Welse_ Club, and long dagger.

But all this while, was never think
A word in praise of our _Welse_ drink:
And yet for aull that, is a Cup of _Bragat_,
Aull _England_ Seer may cast his Cap at.
And what say you to Ale of _Webly_[?],
Toudge him as well, you’ll praise him trebly,
As well as _Metheglin_, or _Syder_, or _Meath_,
Sall sake it your dagger quite out o’ th seath.
And Oat-Cake of _Guarthenion_,
With a goodly Leek or Onion,
To give as sweet a rellis
As e’r did Harper _Ellis_.

And yet is nothing now all this,
If our Musicks we do misse;
Both Harps, and Pipes too; and the Crowd
Must aull come in, and tauk aloud,
As lowd as _Bangu_, _Davies_ Bell,
Of which is no doubt you have hear tell:
As well as our lowder _Wrexam_ Organ,
And rumbling Rocks in the Seer of _Glamorgan_;
Where look but in the ground there,
And you sall see a sound there:
That put her all to gedder,
Is sweet as measure pedder.

[Followed, in _An Antidote_, by the excellent poems, The Cavalier’s
Complaint; to the tune of (Suckling’s) _I’le tell thee, Dick, &c._, with
The Answer. For these, see _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp. 52-56, and
367.]:

[p. 52.]

_On a Pint of SACK._

Old poets Hipocrin admire,
And pray to water to inspire
Their wit and Muse with heavenly fire;
Had they this Heav’nly Fountain seen,
Sack both their Well and Muse had been,
And this Pint-pot their Hipocrin.

Had they truly discovered it
They had like me thought it unfit
To pray to water for their wit.
And had adored Sack as divine,
And made a Poet God of Wine,
And this pint-pot had been a shrine.

Sack unto them had been in stead
Of Nectar, and their heav’nly bread,
And ev’ry boy a Ganimed;
Or had they made a God of it,
Or stil’d it patron of their wit,
This pot had been a temple fit.

Well then Companions is’t not fit,
Since to this Jemme we ow[e] our wit,
That we should praise the Cabonet,
And drink a health to this divine,
And bounteous pallace of our wine[?]:
Die he with thirst that doth repine!

[p. 53.]

_A Song in Praise of SACK._

Hang the _Presbyters_ Gill, bring a pint of Sack, _Will_,
More _Orthodox_ of the two,
Though a slender dispute, will strike the Elf mute,
Here’s one of the honester Crew.

In a pint there’s small heart, Sirrah, bring a Quart;
There is substance and vigour met,
’Twill hold us in play, some part of the day,
But wee’l sink him before Sun-set:

The daring old Pottle, does now bid us battle,
Let us try what our strength can do;
Keep your ranks and your files, and for all his wiles,
Wee’l tumble him down stayrs too.

Then summon a Gallon, a stout Foe and a tall one,
And likely to hold us to’t;
Keep but Coyn in your purse, the word is Disburse,
Ile warrant he’le sleep at your foot.

Let’s drain the whole Celler, Pipes, Buts, and the Dweller,
If the Wine floats not the faster;
_Will_, when thou dost slack us, by warrant from _Bacchus_,
We will cane thy tun-belli’d Master.

[p. 54.]

_In the praise of WINE._

’Tis Wine that inspires,
And quencheth Loves fires,
Teaches fools how to rule a S[t]ate:
Mayds ne’re did approve it
Because those that doe love it,
Despise and laugh at their hate.

The drinkers of beer
Did ne’re yet appear
In matters of any waight;
’Tis he whose designe
Is quickn’d by wine
That raises things to their height.

We then should it prize
For never black eyes
Made wounds which this could not heale,
Who then doth refuse,
To drink of this Juice
Is a foe to the Comon weale.

[Followed by A Glee to the Vicar, beginning, “Let the bells ring, and the
boys sing:” for which see the Introduction to our edition of _Westminster
Drollery_, pp. xxxvii-viii.]

[p. 55.]

_On a Cold Chyne of BEEF._

Bring out the Old Chyne, the Cold Chyne to me,
And how Ile charge him come and see,
Brawn tusked, Brawn well sowst and fine,
With a precious cup of Muscadine:

CHORUS.

_How shall I sing, how shall I look,_
_In honour of the Master-Cook?_

The Pig shall turn round and answer me,
Canst thou spare me a shoulder[?], a wy, a wy.
The Duck, Goose and Capon, good fellows all three
Shall dance thee an antick[,] so shall the turkey;
But O! the cold Chyne, the cold Chyne for me:

CHORUS.

_How shall I sing, how shall I look,_
_In honour of the Master-Cook?_

With brewis Ile noynt thee from head to th’ heel,
Shal make thee run nimbler then the new oyld wheel[;]
With Pye-crust wee’l make thee
The eighth wise man to be;
But O! the cold Chyne, the cold Chyne for me:

CHORUS.

_How shall I sing, how shall I look,_
_In honour of the Master-Cook?_

[p. 56.]

_A Song of Cupid Scorn’d._

In love[?] away, you do me wrong,
I hope I ha’ not liv’d so long
Free from the Treachery of your eyes,
Now to be caught and made a prize,
No, Lady, ’tis not all your art,
Can make me and my freedome part.

CHORUS.

_Come, fill’s a cup of sherry, and let us be merry,_
_There shall nought but pure wine_
_Make us love-sick or pine,_
_Wee’l hug the cup and kisse it, we’l sigh when ere we misse it;_
_For tis that, that makes us jolly,_
_And sing hy trololey lolly._

In love, ’tis true, with _Spanish_ wine,
Or the _French_ juice _Incarnadine_;
But truly not with your sweet Face,
This dimple, or that hidden grace,
Ther’s far more sweetnesse in pure Wine,
Then in those Lips or Eyes of thine.

CHORUS (_Come, fill’s a cup of sherry, &c._

Your god[,] you say, can shoot so right,
Hee’l wound a heart ith darkest night:
Pray let him throw away a dart,
And try if he can hit my heart.
No _Cupid_, if I shall be thine,
Turn _Ganimed_ and fill us Wine.

CHORUS (_Come, fill’s a cup of sherry, &c._

[The three next are common to the _Antidote_ and _Merry Drollery,
Compleat_, with a few verbal differences: On the Vertue of Sack, by Dr.
Henry Edwards; The Medley of the Nations; and The Brewer, A Ballad made
in the Year 1657, To the Tune of _The Blacksmith_. For them, see _M. D.,
C._, pp. 293, 127, 221. These three poems are followed by “A Collection
of Merry Catches,” thirty-four in number, of which only ten are found
in _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, (viz., 3. “Now that the Spring;” 5.
“Call _George_ again;” 9. “She that will eat;” 13. “The Wise-men were
but Seven;” 14. “Shew a room!” 15. “O! the wily wily Fox;” 17. “Now I
am married;” 19. “There was three Cooks in Colebrook;” 22. “If any so
wise is;” and 29. “What fortune had I,”) on pp. 296, 304, 308, 232, 337,
300, 280, 318, 348, and 341, respectively. See notes on them, also, in
Appendix to _M. D., C._ One other, first in the _Antidote_, had appeared
earlier in _Choice Drollery_, p. 52: “He that a Tinker,” &c., _q.v._]

[p. 65.]

A CATCH.

2. You merry Poets[,] old Boyes
Of _Aganippes_ Well,
Full many tales have told boyes
Whose liquor doth excell,
And how that place was haunted
By those that love good wine;
Who tipled there, and chaunted
Among the _Muses_ nine:
Where still they cry’d[,] drink clear, boyes,
And you shall quickly know it,
That ’tis not lowzy Beer, boyes,
But wine, that makes a Poet.

[p. 66.]

A CATCH.

4. Mong’st all the precious Juices
Afforded for our uses,
Ther’s none to be compar’d with Sack:
For the body or the mind,
No such Physick you shall find,
Therefore boy see we do not lack.

Would’st thou hit a lofty strain,
With this Liquor warm thy brain,
And thou Swain shalt sing as sweet as _Sidney_;
Or would’st thou laugh and be fat,
Ther’s not any like to that
To make _Jack Sprat_ a man of kidney.

[It] Is the soul of mirth
To poor Mortals upon Earth;
It would make a coward bold as _Hector_,
Nay I wager durst a Peece,
That those merry Gods of _Greece_
Drank old Sack and _Nector_.

[p. 67.]

A CATCH.

6. Come, come away to the Tavern I say,
For now at home ’tis washing day:
Leave your prittle prattle, and fill us a pottle[;]
You are not so wise as _Aristotle_:
Drawer come away, let’s make it Holy day.
Anon, Anon, Anon, Sir: what is’t you say[?]

A CATCH.

7. There was an old man at _Walton_ cross, [Waltham]
Who merrily sung when he liv’d by the loss;
_Hey tro-ly loly lo_.
He never was heard to sigh a hey ho,
But he sent it out with _Hey troly loly lo_.
He chear’d up his heart,
When his goods went to wrack[,]
With a hem, boy, Hem!
And a cup of old Sack;
Sing, _hey troly loly lo_.

A CATCH.

8. Come, let us cast _Dice_ who shall drink,
Mine is _twelve_, and his _sice sink_,
_Six_ and _Fowr_ is thine, and he threw _nine_.
Come away, _Sink tray_; _Size ace_, fair play;
_Quater-duce_ is your throw Sir; [p. 68.]
_Quater-ace_, they run low, sir:
_Two Dewces_, I see; _Dewce ace_ is but three:
Oh! where is the Wine? Come, fill up his glasse,
For here is the man has thrown _Ams-ace_.

A CATCH.

10. Never let a man take heavily the clamor of his wife,
But be rul’d by me, and lead a merry life;
Let her have her will in every thing,
If she scolds, then laugh and sing,
_Hey derry, derry, ding_.

A CATCH.

11. Let’s cast away care, and merrily sing,
There is a time for every thing;
He that playes at work, and works at his play,
Neither keeps working, nor yet Holy day:
Set business aside, and let us be merry,
And drown our dull thoughts in Canary and Sherry.

A CATCH.

12. Hang sorrow, and cast away care,
And let us drink up our Sack:
They say ’tis good to cherish the blood,
And for to strengthen the back:
Tis Wine that makes the thoughts aspire,
And fills the body with heat;
Besides ’tis good, if well understood [p. 69.]
To fit a man for the feat;
_Then call, and drink up all,_
_The drawer is ready to fill:_
_Pox take care, what need we to spare,_
_My Father has made his will._

[p. 70.]

A CATCH.

16. My lady and her Maid, upon a merry pin,
They made a match at F—ting, who should the wager win.
_Jone_ lights three candles then, and sets them bolt upright;
With the first f—— she blew them out,
With the next she gave them light:
In comes my Lady then, with all her might and main,
And blew them out, and in and out, and out and in again.

A CATCH.

18. An old house end, an old house end,
And many a good fellow wants mon[e]y to spend.
If thou wilt borrow
Come hither to morrow
I dare not part so soon with my friend[.]
But let us be merry, and drink of our sherry,
But to part with my mon[e]y I do not intend[.]
Then a t—d in thy teeth, and an old house end.

[p. 71.]

A CATCH.

20. Wilt thou lend me thy Mare to ride a mile
No; she’s lame going over a stile,
But if thou wilt her to me spare
Thou shalt have mony for thy mare:
Oh say you so, say you so,
Mon[e]y will make my mare to go.

THE ANSWER.

21. Your mare is lame; she halts downe right,
Then shall we not get to _London_ to night:
You cry’d ho, ho, mon[e]y made her go,
But now I well perceive it is not so[.]
You must spur her up, and put her to’t
Though mon[e]y will not make her goe, your spurs will do’t.

[p. 72.]

A CATCH.

23. Good _Symon_, how comes it your Nose looks so red,
And your cheeks and lips look so pale?
Sure the heat of the tost your Nose did so rost,
When they were both sous’t in Ale.
It showes like the Spire of _Pauls_ steeple on fire,
Each Ruby darts forth (such lightning) Flashes,
While your face looks as dead, as if it were Lead
And cover’d all over with ashes.
Now to heighten his colour, yet fill his pot fuller
And nick it not so with froth,
Gra-mercy, mine Host! it shall save the[e] a Toast
Sup _Simon_, for here is good broth.

A CATCH.

24. Wilt thou be Fatt, Ile tell thee how,
Thou shalt quickly do the Feat;
And that so plump a thing as thou
Was never yet made up of meat:
Drink off thy Sack, twas onely that
Made _Bacchus_ and _Jack Falstafe_, Fatt.

Now, every Fat man I advise,
That scarce can peep out of his eyes,
Which being set, can hardly rise; [p. 73.]
Drink off his Sack, and freely quaff:
’Twil make him lean, but me [to] laugh
To tell him how —— ’tis on a staff.

A CATCH.

25. Of all the _Birds_ that ever I see,
The _Owle_ is the fairest in her degree;
For all the day long she sits in a tree,
And when the night comes, away flies she;
To whit, to whow, to whom drink[’st] thou,
Sir Knave to thou;

This song is well sung, I make you a vow, [p. 73.]
And he is a knave that drinketh now;
Nose, Nose, Nose, and who gave thee that jolly red Nose?
[Cinnamon and gin-ger,]
Nutmegs and Cloves, and that gave thee thy jolly red Nose.

A CATCH.

26. This Ale, my bonny Lads, is as brown as a berry,
Then let us be merry here an houre,
And drink it ere its sowre
Here’s to the[e], lad,
Come to me, lad;
Let it come Boy, To my Thumb boy.
Drink it off Sir; ’tis enough Sir;
Fill mine Host, _Tom’s_ Pot and Toast.

A CATCH.

27. What! are we met? come, let’s see
If here’s enough to sing this Glee.
Look about, count your number,
Singing will keep us from crazy slumber;
1, 2, and 3, so many there be that can sing,
The rest for wine may ring:
Here is _Tom_, _Jack_ and _Harry_;
Sing away and doe not tarry,
Merrily now let’s sing, carouse, and tiple,
Here’s _Bristow_ milk, come suck this niple,
There’s a fault sir, never halt Sir, before a criple.

A CATCH.

28. Jog on, jog on the Foot path-way,
And merrily hen’t the stile-a;
Your merry heart go’es all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Your paltry mony bags of Gold,
What need have we to stare-for,
When little or nothing soon is told,
And we have the less to care-for?
Cast care away, let sorrow cease, [p. 74.]
A Figg for Melancholly;
Let’s laugh and sing, or if you please,
We’l frolick with sweet _Dolly_.

A SONG.

_Translated out of Greek._

30. The parcht _Earth_ drinks the _Rain_,
_Trees_ drink it up again;
The _Sea_ the _Ayre_ doth quaff,
_Sol_ drinks the _Ocean_ off;
And when that Health is done,
Pale _Cinthia_ drinks the sun:
Why, then, d’ye stem my drinking Tyde,
Striving to make me sad, I will, I will be mad.

[p. 75.]

A CATCH.

31. Fly, Boy, Fly, Boy, to the Cellars bottom:
View well your Quills and Bung, Sir.
Draw Wine to preserve the Lungs Sir;
Not rascally Wine to Rot u’m.
If the Quill runs foul,
Be a trusty soul, and cane it;
For the Health is such
An ill drop will much profane it.

UPON A WELCHMAN.

32. A Man of _Wales_, a litle before _Easter_
Ran on his Hostes score for Cheese a teaster:
His Hostes chalkt it up behind the doore,
And said, For Cheese (good Sir) Come pay the score:
Cod’s _Pluternails_ (quoth he) what meaneth these?
What dost thou think her knows not Chalk from Cheese?

A SONG.

33. Drink, drink, all you that think
To cure your souls of sadnesse;
Take up your Sack, ’tis all you lack,
All worldly care is madness.
Let Lawyers plead, and Schollars read,
And Sectaries still conjecture,
Yet we can be as merry as they,
With a Cup of _Apollo’s_ nectar.

Let gluttons feed, and souldiers bleed,
And fight for reputation,
Physicians be fools to fill up close stools,
And cure men by purgation:
Yet we have a way far better than they,
Which _Galen_ could never conjecture,
To cure the head, nay quicken the dead,
With a cup of _Apollo’s_ Nectar.

We do forget we are in debt
When we with liquor are warmed;
We dare out-face the Sergeant’s Mace, [p. 76.]
And Martiall Troops though armed.
The _Swedish_ King much honour did win,
And valiant was as _Hector_;
Yet we can be as valiant as he,
With a cup of _Apollo’s_ Nectar.

Let the worlds slave his comfort have,
And hug his hoards of treasure,
Till he and his wish meet both in a dish,
So dies a miser in pleasure.
’Tis not a fat farm our wishes can charm,
We scorn this greedy conjecture;
’Tis a health to our friend, to whom we commend
This cup of _Apollo’s_ Nectar.

The Pipe and the Pot, are our common shot,
Wherewith we keep a quarter;
Enough for to choak with fire and smoak
The Great _Turk_ and the _Tartar_.
Our faces red, our ensignes spread,
_Apollo_ is our Protector:
To rear up the Scout, to run in and out,
And drink up this cup of Nectar.

A CATCH.

34. Welcome, welcome again to thy wits,
This is a Holy day:
I’le have no plots nor melancholly fits,
But merrily passe the time away:
They are mad that are sad;
Be rul’d, by me,
And none shall be so merry as we;
The Kitchin shall catch cold no more,
And we’l have no key to the Buttery dore,
The fidlers shall sing,
And the house shall ring,
And the world shall see
What a merry couple,
Merry couple,
We will be.

_FINIS._

EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT: 1.—ON THE “AUTHOR” OF _AN ANTIDOTE AGAINST
MELANCHOLY_, 1661.

Thanks be to the worthy bookseller, George Thomason,[8] for prudence in
laying aside the “tall copy” of this amusing book, from which we make
our transcript of text and engraving. Probably it did not exceed two
shillings, in price; (at least, we have seen that Anthony à Wood’s
uncropt copy of “_Merry Drollery_,” 1661, is marked in contemporary
manuscript at “1s. 3d.,” each part). The title says:—

_These witty Poems, though sometime [they]_
_may seem to halt on crutches,_
_Yet they’l all merrily please you_
_for your charge, which not much is._

Who was the “N. D.” to whose light labours we are indebted for the
compounding of these “Witty Ballads, jovial Songs, and merry Catches” in
Pills warranted to cure the ills of Melancholy, had not hitherto been
ascertained[9]; or whether he wrote anything beside the above couplet,
and the humorous address To the Reader, beginning,

_There’s no Purge ’gainst ~Melancholy~,_
_But with ~Bacchus~ to be jolly:_
_All else are but dreggs of Folly, &c._ (p. 111.)

As we suspected (flowing though his verse might be), he was more of
bookseller than ballad-maker. His injunctions for us to “be wise and
_buy_, not _borrow_,” had a terribly tradesman-like sound. Yet he was
right. Book-borrowing is an evil practice; and book-lending is not much
better. Woeful chasms, in what should be the serried ranks of our Library
companions, remind us pathetically, in too many cases (book-cases,
especially,) of some Coleridge-like “lifter” of Lambs, who made a raid
upon our borders, and carried off plunder, sometimes an unique quarto,
on other days an irrecoverable duodecimo: With Schiller, we bewail the
departed,—

“_The beautiful is vanished, and returns not._”

The title of “_Pills to Purge Melancholy_” was by Playford and Tom
D’Urfey afterwards employed, and kept alive before the public, in many a
volume from before 1684 until 1720, if not later. Whether “N. D.” himself
were the “Mer[cury] Melancholicus” whose name appears as printer, for
the book to be “sold in London and Westminster,” is to us not doubtful.
By April 18, 1661,[10] Thomason had secured his copy, and there need
be no question that it was for sport, and not through any fear of rigid
censorship or malicious pettifogging interference by the law, that,
instead of printer’s name, this pseudonym or nickname was adopted.

We believe that the mystery shrouding the personality of “N. D.” can be
dispelled. The discovery helps us in more ways than one, and connects
the _Antidote against Melancholy_, of 1661, in an intelligible and
legitimate manner, with much jocular literature of later date. To us
it seems clear that N. D. was no other than [HE]N[RY] [PLAYFOR]D. The
triplets addressed in 1661 To the Reader, beginning “There’s no purge
’gainst Melancholy,” are repeated at commencement of the 1684 edition of
“_Wit and Mirth; or, an Antidote to Melancholy_” (the third edition of
“_Pills to Purge Melancholy_”) where they are entitled “The Stationer to
the Reader,” and signed, not “N. D.,” but “H. P.;” for Henry Playford,
whose name appears in full as publisher “near the Temple Church.” Thus,
the repetition or alteration of the original title, “_An Antidote against
Melancholy, made up in Pills_,” or, as the head-line puts it, “_Pills to
Purge Melancholy_,” was, in all probability, a perfectly business-like
reproduction of what Playford had himself originated. What relation
Henry Playford was to John Playford, the publisher of “_Select Ayres_,”
“_Choice Ayres_,” 1652, &c., we are not yet certain. Thirteen of the
longest and most important poems from the 1661 _Antidote_[11] re-appear
in that of 1684, beside four of the Catches. Indeed, the transmission of
many of these Lyrics (by the editions of 1699, 1700, 1706, 1707) to the
six volume edition, superintended by Tom D’Urfey in 1719-20, is unbroken;
though we have still to find the edition published between 1661 and 1684.

But even the 1661 _Antidote_ is not entitled to bear the credit of
originating the phrase: _Pills to purge Melancholy_. So far as we know,
by personal search, this belongs to Robert Hayman, thirty years earlier.
Among his _Quodlibets_, 1628, on p. 74, we find the following epigram:—

“To one of the elders of the Sanctified Parlour of Amsterdam.

_Though thou maist call my merriments, my folly,_
_They are my Pills to purge my melancholy;_
_They would purge thine too, wert thou not foole-holy._”

EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT: 2.—ARTHUR O’ BRADLEY.

(_Merry Drollery, Compleat_, p. 312, 395; _Antidote ag. Mel._, p. 16.)

“Before we came in we heard a great shouting,
And all that were in it look’d madly;
But some were on Bull-back, some dancing a morris,
And some singing Arthur-a-Bradley.”

—(ROBIN HOOD’S BIRTH, &c. Printed by Wm. Onlen, about 1650.
In _Roxburghe Collection of Black-Letter Ballads_, i., 360.)

So long ago as the Editor can remember, the words and music of
“Arthur o’ Bradley’s Wedding” rang pleasantly in his ears. The jovial
rollicking strain prepared him to feel interest in the bridal attire of
Shakespeare’s Petruchio; who, not improbably, when about to be married
unto “Kate the Curst,” borrowed the details of costume and demeanour
from this popular hero of song. Or _vice versa_. To this day, the
_lilt_ of the tune holds a fascination, and we sometimes behold, under
favourable planetary aspects, the long procession of dancing couples who
have, during three centuries, footed the grass, the rashes, or chalked
floor, to that jig-melody, accompanied by the bagpipes or fiddle of
some rustic Crowdero. Can it be possible? Yes, the line is headed by the
venerable Queen Elizabeth, holding up her fardingale with tips of taper
fingers, and looking preternaturally grim, to show that dancing is a
serious undertaking for a virgin sovereign (especially when the Spanish
Ambassador watches her, with comments of wonder that the Head of the
Church can dance at all). Yet is there a sly under-glance that tells
of fun, to those who are her Majesty’s familiars. Her “Cousin James”
is not the neatest figure as a partner (which accounts for her having
chosen Leicester instead, let alone chronology); but we see him, close
behind, with Anne of Denmark, twirling his crooked little legs about in
obedience to the music, until his round hose swell like hemispheres on
school-maps. “Baby Charles and Steenie,” half mockingly, follow after
with the Infanta. We did once catch a glimpse of handsome Carr and
his wicked paramour, Frances Howard, trying to join the Terpsichorean
revellers; but, beautiful as they both were, it was felt necessary to
exclude them, “for the honour of Arthur o’ Bradley,” since they possessed
none of their own. What a gallant assemblage of poets and dramatists
covered the buckle and snapped their fingers gleefully to the merry
notes! Foremost among them was rare Ben Jonson (unable to resist clothing
Adam Overdo in Arthur’s own mantle); and honest Thomas Dekker “followed
after in a dream” (as had been memorably printed on our seventh page
of _Choyce Drollery_), thinking of Bellafront’s repentance, and her
quotation of the well-known burden, “O brave Arthur o’ Bradley, then!” A
score of poets are junketting with merry milkmaids and Wives of Windsor.
Richard Brathwaite (the creator of Drunken Barnaby) is not absent from
among them; although he sees, outside the circle that for a moment has
formed around a Maypole, an angry crowd of schismatic Puritans, who are
scowling at them with malignant eyes, and denunciations misquoted from
Scripture. Many a fair Precisian, nevertheless, yields to the honeyed
pleading of a be-love-locked Cavalier, and the irresistible charms of
“Arthur o’ Bradley, ho!” showing the prettiest pair of ankles, and the
most delightful mixture of bashfulness and enjoyment; until the Roundhead
Buff-coats prove too numerous, and whisk her off to a conventicle, where,
the sexes sitting widely apart, for aught we know, the crop-eared rout
sing unpoetic versions of the Psalmist to the tune of Arthur o’ Bradley,
“godlified” and eke expurgated.

Cromwell, we know, loved music, withal, and it is not unlikely that those
two ladies are his daughters, whom we behold dancing somewhat stiffly
in John Hingston’s music-chamber; Mrs. Claypole and her sister, Mrs
Rich: there are L’Estrange, who fiddles to them, and Old Noll, smiling
pleasantly, though the tune be Arthur o’ Bradley. Our Second Charles
(not yet “Restored”) is also dancing to it, at the Hague (as we see
in Janssen’s Windsor picture), with the Princess Palatine Elizabeth,
and such a bevy of bright faces round them, that we lose our heart
entirely. Can we not see him again—crowned now, and self-acknowledged as
“Old Rowley”—at one of the many balls in Whitehall recorded by Samuel
Pepys,[12] entering gaily into all the mirth with that grave, swarthy
face of his; not noticing the pouts of Catherine, who sits neglected
while The Castlemaine laughs loudly, the fair Stewart simpers, and
the little spaniels bark or caper through the palace, snapping at the
dancers’ heels? Be sure that pretty Nelly and saucy Knipp were also well
acquainted with the music of “rare Arthur o’ Bradley,” as indeed were
thousands of the play-goers to whom the former once sold oranges.

And lower ranks delighted in it. Pierce, the Bagpiper, is himself the
central figure, when we look again, “with cheeks as big as a mitre,” such
time as that table-full of Restoration revellers (whom we catch sight of
in our frontispiece to the _Antidote_, 1661) are beginning to shake a toe
in honour of the music.

So it continues for two centuries more, with all varieties of costume
and feature. Certain are we that plump Sir Richard Steele whistled
the tune, and Dean Swift gave the Dublin ballad-singer a couple of
thirteens for singing it. Dr. Johnson grunted an accompaniment whenever
he heard the melody, and James Boswell insisted on dancing to it, though
a little “overtaken,” and got his sword entangled betwixt his legs,
which cost him a fall and a plastered head-piece, by no means for the
only time on record. It is reported that good old George the Third
was seen endeavouring to persuade Queen Charlotte to accompany him
on the Spinnet, while he set their numerous olive-branches jigging it
delightedly “_for the honour of ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~_.” But whenever
Dr. John Wolcot was reported to be prowling near at hand, with Peter
Pindaresque eyes, the motion ceased. Well was it loved by honest Joseph
Ritson, _impiger, iracundus inexorabilis, acer_—better than vegetable
diet and eccentric spelling, or the flagellation of inexact antiquarian
Bishops. We ourselves may have beheld him in high glee perusing the
black-letter ballad, and rectifying its corrupt text by the _Antidote
against Melancholy’s_. How lustily he skipped, shouting meanwhile the
burden of “_brave ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~!_” so that unconsciously he
joined the ten-mile train of dancers. They are still winding around us,
some in a Nineteenth-Century garb (a little tattered, but it adds to the
picturesqueness), blithe Hop-pickers of West-Bridge Deanery. There are a
few New Zealanders, we understand, waiting to join the throng, (including
Macaulay’s own particular circumnavigating meditator, yet unborn); so
that as long as the world wags no welcome may be lacking to the mirth and
melody, jigging and joustling,

“_For the honour of ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_
_O rare ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_
_O brave ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_
_~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~. O!_”

Having relieved our feelings, for once, we resume the sober duties of
Annotation in a chastened spirit:—

In _Merry Drollery Compleat_, Reprint (Appendix, p. 401), we gave the
full quotation from a Sixteenth Century Interlude, _The Contract of
Marriage between Wit and Wisdom_, the point being this:—

“_For the honour of ~Artrebradley~,_
_This age would make me swear madly_!”

Arthur o’ Bradley is mentioned by Thomas Dekker, near the end of the
first part of his _Honest Whore_, 1604; when Bellafront, assuming to be
mad, hears that Mattheo is to marry her, she exclaims—

“_Shall he? O brave ~Arthur~ of ~Bradley~, then?_”

In Ben Jonson’s _Bartholomew Fair_, 1614, (which covers the Puritans
with ridicule, for the delight of James 1st.), Act ii. Scene 1, when
Adam Overdo, the Sectary, is disguised in a “garded coat” as Arthur o’
Bradley, to gesticulate outside a booth, Mooncalf salutes him thus:—“O
Lord! do you not know him, Mistress? _’tis mad ~Arthur~ of ~Bradley~ that
makes the orations_.—Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you
do? Welcome to the Fair! When shall we hear you again, to handle your
matters, _with your back against a booth_, ha?”

In Richard Brathwaite’s _Strappado for the Diuell_, 1615, p. 225 (in
a long poem, containing notices of Wakefield, Bradford, and Kendall,
addressed “to all true-bred Northerne Sparks, of the generous Society of
the Cottoneers,” &c.) is the following reference to this tune, and to
other two, viz. “Wilson’s Delight,” and “Mal Dixon’s Round:”

“_So each (through peace of conscience) rapt with pleasure_
_Shall ioifully begin to dance his measure._
_One footing actiuely ~Wilson’s~ delight, ..._
_The fourth is chanting of his Notes so gladly,_
_Keeping the tune for th’ honour of ~Arthura Bradly~;_
_The ~5[th]~ so pranke he scarce can stand on ground,_
_Asking who’le sing with him ~Mal Dixon’s~ round._”

(By the way: The same author, Richard Brathwaite, in his amusing
_Shepherds Tales_, 1621, p. 211, mentions as other Dance-tunes,

_Roundelayes_, || _~Irish~-hayes,_
_Cogs and rongs and ~Peggie Ramsie~,_
_Spaniletto_ || _The Venetto,_
_~John~ come kisse me, ~Wilson’s~ Fancie._)

Again, Thomas Gayton writes concerning the hero:—“’Tis not alwaies sure
that _’tis merry in hall when beards Wag all_, for these men’s beards
wagg’d as fast as they could tag ’em, but mov’d no mirth at all: They
were verifying that song of—

_Heigh, brave ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,_
_A beard without hair looks madly._”

(_Festivous Notes on Don Quixot_, 1654, p. 141.)

On pp. 540, 604, of William Chappell’s excellent work, _The Popular Music
of the Olden Time_, are given two tunes, one for the _Antidote_ version,
and the other for the modern, as sung by Taylor, “Come neighbours, and
listen a while.” He quotes the two lines from Gayton, and also this from
Wm. Wycherley’s _Gentleman Dancing Master_, 1673, Act i, Sc. 2, where
Gerrard says:—“Sing him ‘_Arthur of Bradley_,’ or ‘_I am the Duke of
Norfolk_.’”

It is quite evident, from such passages, that during a long time a
proverbial and popular character attached to this noisy personage: such
has not yet passed away. The earliest complete imprint of “Arthur o’
Bradley” as a Song, (from a printed original, of 1656, beginning “_All
you that desire to merry be_,”) in our present APPENDIX, Part iv. Quite
distinct from this hitherto unnoticed examplar, not already reprinted, is
“_Saw you not ~Pierce~, the piper_,” &c., the ballad reproduced by us,
from _Merry Drollery_, 1661, Part 2nd., p. 124, (and ditto, _Compleat_
1670, 1691, p. 312); which agrees with the _Antidote against Melancholy_,
same date, 1661, p. 16. More than a Century later, an inferior rendering
was common, printed on broadsheets. It was mentioned, in 1797, by
Joseph Ritson, as being a “much more modern ballad [than the _Antidote_
version] upon this popular subject, in the same measure intitled _Arthur
o’ Bradley_, and beginning ‘All in the merry month of May.’” (_Robin
Hood_, 1797, ii. 211.) Of this we already gave two verses, (in Appendix
to _M. Drollery C._, p. 400), but as we believe the ballad has not been
reprinted in this century, we may give all that is extant, from the only
copy within reach, of ARTHUR O’ BRADLEY:—

“_All in the merry month of May,_
_The maids [they will be gay,_
_For] a May-pole they will have, &c._”

(See the present Appendix, Part iv.)

In this, doubtless, we detect two versions, garbed together. What is
now the final verse is merely a variation of the sixth: probably the
broadsheet-printer could not meet with a genuine eighth verse. Robert
Bell denounced the whole as “a miserable composition” (even as he had
declared against the amatory Lyrics of Charles the Second’s time): but
then, he might have added, with Goldsmith, “My Bear dances to none but
the werry genteelest of tunes.”

Far superior to this was the “Arthur o’ Bradley’s Wedding:

“_Come, neighbours, and listen awhile, If ever you wished to smile_,”
&c., which was sung by ... Taylor, a comic actor, about the beginning of
this century. It is not improbable that he wrote or adapted it, availing
himself of such traditional scraps as he could meet with. Two copies of
it, duplicate, on broadsheets, are in the Douce Collection at Oxford,
vol. iv. pp. 18, 19. A copy, also, in J. H. Dixon’s _Bds. and Sgs. of the
Peasantry_, Percy Soc., 1845, vol. xvii. (and in R. B.’s _Annotated Ed.
B. P._, p. 138.)

There is still another “Arthur o’ Bradley,” but not much can, or need, be
said in its favour; except that it contains only three verses. Yet even
these are more than two which can be spared. Its only tolerable lines are
borrowed from the Roxburghe Ballad. It is the _nadir_ of Bradleyism, and
has not even a title, beyond the burden “_O rare ~Arthur~ o’ ~Bradley~,
O!_” Let us, briefly, be in at the death: although Arthur makes not a
Swan-like end, with the help of his Catnach poet. It begins thus:

_’Twas in the sweet month of May, I walked out to take the air,_
_My Father he died one day, and he left me his son and heir;_
_He left me a good warm house, that wanted only a thatch,_
_A strong oak door to my chamber, that only wanted a latch;_
_He left me a rare old cow, I wish he’d have left me a sow,_
_A cock that in fighting was shy, and a horse with a sharp wall eye, &c._

(_Universal Songster_, 1826, i. 368.)

Even Ophelia could not ask, after Arthur sinking so low, “And will he not
come again?”

J. W. E.

_September, 1875._

[So far as possible, to give completeness to our Reprint of _Westminster
Drollery_ of 1671-2, and _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, 1670-1691, we now
add the Extra Songs belonging to the former work, edition 1674; and
to the latter, in its earlier edition, 1661: with their respective
title-pages.]

_Westminster-Drollery._

Or, A Choice
COLLECTION
of the Newest
SONGS & POEMS
BOTH AT
Court and Theaters.

BY
A Person of Quality.

_The third Edition, with many more
Additions._

LONDON,
Printed for _H. Brome_, at the _Gun_ in St. _Paul’s_
Church Yard, near the West End.
MDCLXXIV.

_ADDITIONAL SONGS_

FROM THE

WESTMINSTER-DROLLERY:

Edition 1674.

[p. 111.]

_A Song._

1. So wretched are the sick of Love,
No Herb has vertue to remove
The growing ill:
But still,
The more we Remedies oppose
The Feaver more malignant grows.
Doubts do but add unto desire,
Like Oyl that’s thrown upon the fire,
Which serves to make the flame aspire;
And not t’ extinguish it:
Love has its trembling, and its burning fit.

2. Fruition which the sick propose [p. 112.]
To end, and recompence their woes,
But turns them o’re
To more.
And curing one, does but prepare
A new, perhaps a greater care.
Enjoyment even in the chaste,
Pleases, not satisfies the taste,
And licens’d Love the worst can fast.
Such is the Lovers state,
Pining and pleas’d, alike unfortunate.

3. _Sabina_ and _Camilla_ share
An equal interest in care,
Fear hath each brest
Possest.
In different Fortunes, one pure flame
Makes their unhappiness the same.
Love begets fear, fear grief creates,
Passion still passion animates,
Love will be love in all estates:
His power still is one
Whether in hope or in possession.

[p. 113.]

_A Song._

1. To Arms! to Arms! the Heroes cry,
A glorious Death, or Victory.
Beauty and Love, although combin’d,
And each so powerful alone,
Cannot prevail against a mind
Bound up in resolution.
Tears their weak influence vainly prove,
Nothing the daring breast can move
Honour is blind, and deaf, ev’n deaf to Love.

2. The Field! the Field! where Valour bleeds,
Spurn’d into dust by barbed steeds,
Instead of wanton Beds of Down
Is now the Scene where they must try,
To overthrow, or be o’rethrown;
Bravely to overcome, or dye.
Honour in her interest sits above
What Beauty, Prayers, or tears can move:
Were there no Honour, there would be no Love.

[p. 114.]

_A Song._

1. Beauty that it self can kill,
Through the finest temper’d steel,
Can those wounds she makes endure,
And insult it o’re the brave,
Since she knows a certain cure,
When she is dispos’d to save:
But when a Lover bleeding lies,
Wounded by other Arms,
And that she sees those harms,
For which she knows no remedies;
Then Beauty Sorrows livery wears,
And whilst she melts away in tears,
Drooping in Sorrow shews
Like Roses overcharg’d with morning dews.

2. Nor do women, though they wear
The most tender character,
Suffer in this case alone:
Hearts enclos’d with Iron Walls,
In humanity must groan
When a noble Hero falls.
Pitiless courage would not be [p. 115.]
An honour, but a shame;
Nor bear the noble name
Of valour, but barbarity;
The generous even in success
Lament their enemies distress:
And scorn it should appear
Who are the Conquer’d, with the Conqueror.

_A Song._

1. The young, the fair, the chaste, the good,
The sweet _Camilla_, in a flood
Of her own Crimson lies
A bloody, bloody sacrifice
To Death and man’s inhumane cruelties.
Weep Virgins till your sorrow swells
In tears above the Ivory Cells
That guard those Globes of light;
Drown, drown those beauties of your eyes.
Beauty should mourn, when beauty dies;
And make a general night,
To pay her innocence its Funeral rite.

2. Death since his Empire first begun, [p. 116.]
So foul a conquest never won,
Nor yet so fair a prize:
And had he had a heart, or eyes,
Her beauties would have charm’d his cruelties.
Even Savage Beasts will Beauty spare,
Chaft Lions fawn upon the fair; [Fierce lions]
Nor dare offend the chaste:
But vitious man, that sees and knows
The mischiefs his wild fury does,
Humours his passions haste,
To prove ungovern’d man the greatest beast.

_A Song._

1. How frailty makes us to our wrong
Fear, and be loth to dye,
When Life is only dying long
And Death the remedy!
We shun eternity,
And still would gravel her beneath, [_Scil._, grovel]
Though still in woe and strife,
When Life’s the path that leads to Death,
And Death the door to Life.

2. The Fear of Death is the disease [p. 117.]
Makes the poor patient smart;
Vain apprehensions often freeze
The vitals in the heart,
Without the dreaded Dart.
When fury rides on pointed steel
Death’s fear the heart doth seize,
Whilst in that very fear we feel
A greater sting than his.

3. But chaste _Camilla’s_ vertuous fear
Was of a noble kind,
Not of her end approaching near
But to be left behind,
From her dear Love disjoyn’d;
When Death in courtesie decreed,
To make the fair his prize,
And by one cruelty her freed
From humane cruelties.

CHORUS.

Thus heav’n does his will disguise,
To scourge our curiosities,
When too inquisitive we grow
Of what we are forbid to know.
Fond humane nature that will try [p. 118.]
To sound th’ Abiss of Destiny!
Alas! what profit can arise
From those forbidden scrutinies,
When Oracles what they foretel
In such Ænigma’s still conceal,
That self indulging man still makes
Of deepest truths most sad mistakes!
Or could our frailty comprehend
The reach those riddles do intend:
What boots it us when we have done,
To foresee ills we cannot shun?
But ’tis in man a vain pretence,
To know or prophesie events,
Which only execute, and move,
By a dependence from above.
’Tis all imposture to deceive
The foolish and inquisitive,
Since none foresee what shall befal,
But providence that governs all.
Reason wherewith kind Heav’n has blest
His creature man above the rest,
Will teach humanity to know
All that it should aspire unto;
And whatsoever fool relies
On false deceiving prophesies,
Striving by conduct to evade
The harms they threaten, or perswade,
Too frequently himself does run [p. 119.]
Into the danger he would shun,
And pulls upon himself the woe
Fate meant he should much later know.
By such delusions vertue strays
Out of those honourable ways
That lead unto that glorious end,
To which the noble ever bend.
Whereas if vertue were the guide,
Mens minds would then be fortified
With constancy, that would declare
Against supineness, and despair.
We should events with patience wait,
And not despise, nor fear our Fate.

[p. 120.]

_WICKHAM WAKENED_,

_The Quakers Madrigall In Rime Dogrell_.

The Quaker and his Brats,
Are born with their Hats,
Which a point with two Taggs,
Ty’s fast to their Craggs,
Nor King nor Kesar,
To such Knaves as these are,
Do signifie more than a Tinker.
His rudeness and pride
So puffs up his hide
That He’s drunk though he be no drinker.

_Chorus._

_Now since Mayor and Justice_
_Are assured that thus ’tis_
_To abate their encrease and redundance_
_Let us send them to WICKHAM_
_For there’s one will kick ’um_
_Into much better manners by abundance._

Once the Clown at his entry [p. 121.]
Kist his golls to the Gentry:
When the Lady took upon her,
’Twas God save your Honor:
But now Lord and Pesant,
Do make but one messe on’t
Then farewel distinction ’twixt Plowman and Knight.
If the world be thus tost
The old Proverb is crost,
For Joan’s as good as my Lady in th’ Light.

_Chorus._