Part 10

_Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,_ _Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet._

HOR. lib. i. sat. 4.

ON MR. RICE, THE MANCIPLE OF CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD.

Who can doubt, Rice, but to th’ eternall place Thy soule is fledd, that did but know thy face? Whose body was soe light, it might have gone To heav’ne without a resurrection. Indeed thou wert all type; thy limmes were signes, Thy arteryes but mathematicke lines: As if two soules had made thy compound good, That both should live by faith, and none by blood.

ON HENRY BOLINGS.

If gentleness could tame the Fates, or wit Deliver man, Bolings had not di’d yet; But One which over us in judgment sits, Doth say our sins are stronger than our wits.

ON JOHN DAWSON, BUTLER OF CHRIST-CHURCH.

Dawson the butler’s dead: Although I think Poets were ne’re infus’d with single drink, I’ll spend a farthing, muse; a watry verse Will serve the turn to cast upon his herse. If any cannot weep amongst us here, Take off his cup, and so squeeze out a tear. Weep, O ye barrels! let your drippings fall In trickling streams; make waste more prodigal Than when our beer was good, that John may float To Styx in beer, and lift up Charons boat With wholsome waves: and, as the conduits ran With claret at the Coronation, So let your channels flow with single tiff, For John, I hope, is crown’d: Take off your whiff, Ye men of rosemary[114], and drink up all, Remembring ’tis a butlers funeral: Had he been master of good double beer, My life for his, John Dawson had been here.

ON GREAT TOM OF CHRIST-CHURCH.

Be dumb, ye infant-chimes, thump not your mettle, That ne’re out-ring a tinker and his kettle; Cease, all you petty larums; for, to-day Is young Tom’s resurrection from the clay: And know, when Tom rings out his knells, The best of you will be but dinner-bells. Old Tom’s grown young again, the fiery cave Is now his cradle, that was erst his grave: He grew up quickly from his mother earth, For, all you see was but an hours birth; Look on him well, my life I dare engage, You ne’re saw prettier baby of his age. Some take his measure by the rule, some by The Jacobs-staff take his profundity, And some his altitude; but some do swear Young Tom’s not like the Old: But, Tom, ne’re fear The critical geometricians line, If thou as loud as e’re thou did ring’st nine. Tom did no sooner peep from under-ground, But straight Saint Maries tenor lost his sound. O how this may-poles heart did swell With full main sides of joy, when that crackt bell Choakt with annoy, and ’s admiration, Rung like a quart-pot to the congregation. Tom went his progress lately, and lookt o’re What he ne’re saw in many years before; But when he saw the old foundation, With some like hope of preparation, He burst with grief; and lest he should not have Due pomp, he’s his own bell-man to the grave: And that there might of him be still some mention, He carried to his grave a new invention. They drew his brown-bread face on pretty gins, And made him stalk upon two rolling-pins; But Sander Hill swore twice or thrice by heaven, He ne’re set such a loaf into the oven. And Tom did Sanders vex, his Cyclops maker, As much as he did Sander Hill, the baker; Therefore, loud thumping Tom, be this thy pride, When thou this motto shalt have on thy side: “Great world! one Alexander conquer’d thee, And two as mighty men scarce conquer’d me.” Brave constant spirit, none could make thee turn, Though hang’d, drawn, quarter’d, till they did thee burn: Yet not for this, nor ten times more be sorry, Since thou was martyr’d for the Churches glory; But for thy meritorious suffering, Thou shortly shalt to heaven in a string: And though we griev’d to see thee thump’d and bang’d, We’ll all be glad, Great Tom, to see thee hang’d.

R. C.

When too much zeal doth fire devotion, Love is not love, but superstition: Even so in civil duties, when we come Too oft, we are not kind, but troublesome. Yet as the first is not idolatry, So is the last but grieved industry: And such was mine, whose strife to honour you By overplus, hath rob’d you of your due.

A PROPER NEW BALLAD, INTITULED THE FAERYES FAREWELL; OR, GOD-A-MERCY WILL.

To be sung or whiseled to the Tune of “The Meddow Brow,” by the Learned; by the Unlearned, to the Tune of “Fortune.”

Farewell rewards and Faeries, Good houswives now may say, For now foule slutts in daries Doe fare as well as they. And though they sweepe theyr hearths no less Then maydes were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleaneliness, Finds sixe-pence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old abbies, The Faries lost command; They did but change priests babies, But some have changd your land: And all your children sprung from thence Are now growne Puritanes; Who live as changelings ever since For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both You merry were and glad, So little care of sleepe or sloth These prettie ladies had; When Tom came home from labour, Or Ciss to milking rose, Then merrily merrily went theyre tabor, And nimbly went theyre toes.

Wittness those rings and roundelayes Of theirs, which yet remaine, Were footed in queene Maries dayes On many a grassy playne; But since of late, Elizabeth, And later, James came in, They never daunc’d on any heath As when the time hath bin.

By which wee note the Faries Were of the old profession; Theyre songs were Ave Maryes; Theyre daunces were procession: But now, alas! they all are dead, Or gone beyond the seas; Or farther for religion fled, Or elce they take theyre ease.

A tell-tale in theyre company They never could endure, And whoe so kept not secretly Theyre mirth was punisht sure; It was a just and christian deed To pinch such blacke and blew: O how the common welth doth need Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters A register they have, Who looketh to theyre charters, A man both wise and grave; An hundred of theyre merry prancks By one that I could name Are kept in store, conn twenty thanks To William for the same.

I marvell who his cloake would turne When Pucke had led him round[115], Or where those walking-fires would burne, Where Cureton would be found; How Broker would appeare to be, For whom this age doth mourne; But that theyre spiritts live in thee, In thee, old William Chourne.

To William Chourne of Stafford shire Give laud and prayses due, Who every meale can mend your cheare With tales both old and true: To William all give audience, And pray yee for his noddle, For all the Faries evidence Were lost, if that were addle.

A NON SEQUITUR.

(From “Wit Restored,” 8vo. 1658.)

Marke! how the lanterns clowd mine eyes, See where a moon-drake ’gins to rise; Saturne crawls much like an iron catt, To see the naked moone in a slipshott hatt. Thunder-thumping toadstools crock the pots To see the mermaids tumble; Leather cat-a-mountaines shake their heels, To heare the gosh-hawke grumble. The rustic threed Begins to bleed, And cobwebs elbows itches; The putrid skyes Eat mulsacke pyes, Backed up in logicke breches. Munday trenchers made good hay, The lobster weares no dagger; Meale-mouthed she-peacocke powle the starres, And made the lowbell stagger. Blew crocodiles foame in the toe, Blind meale-bagges do follow the doe; A ribb of apple braine spice Will follow the Lancashire dice. Harke! how the chime of Plutoes pispot cracks, To see the rainbowes wheele-gann made of flax.

NONSENCE.

(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 37.)

Like to the thundring tone of unspoke speeches, Or like a lobster clad in logicke breeches, Or like the graye-furre of a crimson catt, Or like the moone-calfe in a slip-shodde hatt: Even such is hee who never was begotten Untill his children were both dead and rotten.

Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage, Or like a crabbe-louse with its bag and baggage, Or like the four square circle of a ring, Or like to hey dinge, dingea dingea dinge: Even such is he who spake, and yet no doubt Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out.

Like to a fairs, fresh, faiding, withered rose, Or lyke to rhyming verse that runs in prose, Or lyke the stumbles of a tynder box, Or lyke a man that’s sound yet hath the pox: Even such is he who dyed, and yet did laugh To see these lines writt for his epitaph.

THE COUNTRY LIFE[116].

Thrice and above blest (my souls halfe!) art thou In thy though last yet better vowe, Canst leave the Cyttye with exchange to see The Country’s sweet simplicitie, And to knowe and practise, with intent To growe the sooner innocent, By studdyinge to knowe vertue, and to ayme More at her nature than her name. The last is but the least, the first doth tell Wayes not to live, but to live well. And both are knowne to thee, who now canst live, Led by thy conscience, to give Justice[117] to soon pleas’d Nature, and to showe Wisdome and she togeather goe, And keepe one center: this with that conspires To teach man to confine’s desires; To knowe that riches have their proper stint In the contented minde, not mint; And canst instruct, that those that have the itch Of cravinge more, are never rich. These thinges thou knowst to th’ height, and dost prevent The mange, because thou art content With that Heaven gave thee with a sparinge hand, More blessed in thy brest than land, To keepe but Nature even and upright, To quench not cocker appetite. The first is Nature’s end; this doth impart Least thankes to Nature, most to Art. But thou canst tersely live, and satisfie The bellye only, not the eye; Keepinge the barkinge stomache meanly quiet With a neat yet needfull dyett. But that which most creates thy happy life, Is the fruition of a wife, Whom (starres consentinge with thy fate) thou hast Gott, not so beautifull as chast. By whose warm’d side thou dost securely sleepe, Whilst Love the centinell doth keepe With those deeds done by day, which ne’er affright The silken slumbers in the night; Nor hath the darkenesse power to usher in Feare to those sheets that knowe no sinne: But still thy wife, by chast intention led, Gives thee each night a maidenhead. For where pure thoughts are led by godly feare, Trew love, not lust at all, comes there; And in that sense the chaster thoughts commend Not halfe so much the act as end: That, what with dreams in sleepe of rurall blisse, Night growes farre shorter than shee is. The damaske meddowes, and the crawlinge streames, Sweeten, and make soft thy dreams. The purlinge springes, groves, birdes, and well-weav’d bowers, With fields enamelled with flowers, Present thee shapes, whilst phantasye discloses Millions of lillyes mixt with roses. Then dreame thou hear’st the lambe with many a bleat Woo’d to come sucke the milkey teate; Whilst Faunus, in the vision, vowes to keepe From ravenouse wolfe the woolley sheepe; With thowsand such enchantinge dreames, which meet To make sleepe not so sound as sweet. Nor can these figures in thy rest endeere, As not to up when chanticleere Speaks the last watch, but with the dawne dost rise To worke, but first to sacrifice: Makinge thy peace with Heaven for some late fault, With holy meale and cracklinge salt. That done, thy painfull thumbe this sentence tells us, God for our labour all thinges sells us. Nor are thy daylye and devout affayres Attended with those desperate cares Th’ industriouse marchant hath, who for to finde Gold, runneth to the furthest Inde[118], And home againe tortur’d with fear doth hye, Untaught to suffer povertye. But you at home blest with securest ease, Sitt’st and beleev’st that there are seas, And watrye dangers; but thy better hap But sees these thinges within thy mapp, And viewinge them with a more safe survaye, Makst easy Feare unto thee say, A heart thrice wall’d with oake and brass that man Had, first durst plough the ocean. But thou at home, without or tyde or gale, Canst in thy mapp securely sayle, Viewinge the parted countryes, and so guesse By their shades their substances; And from their compasse borrowing advise, Buy’st travayle at the lowest price. Nor are thy eares so seald but thou canst heare Far more with wonder than with feare.

—_Cætera desiderantur._

ROBERT WISDOM

Was rector of Settrington in Yorkshire, and was presented to the archdeaconry of Ely by Elizabeth the 27th of February 1559-60. In bishop Cox’s Certificatorium (MS. Bennet Col. Lib.) he is returned to the archbishop as “a priest and B. D. usually residing upon his living of Wilberton, appropriated to the archdeaconry, was qualified for preaching, and licensed thereunto by the Queen’s majesty.”

He died, and was buried at Wilberton the 20th of September, 1568.

He is chiefly memorable for his metrical prayer intended to be sung in the church against the Pope and the Turk, of whom he seems to have had the most alarming apprehensions; and in consequence of which he has been ridiculed by sir John Denham, Corbet, Butler, and others.

TO THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOME[119].

Thou, once a body, now but aire, Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer, From Carfax come; And patch mee up a zealous lay, With an old _ever and for ay_, Or, _all and some_. Or such a spirit lend mee, As may a hymne downe send mee, To purge my braine: So, Robert, looke behind thee, Least Turke or Pope doe find thee, And goe to bed againe.

THOMAS JONCE.

The name of this man, (Jones,) which Corbet, for the sake of the rhyme, has corrupted, sufficiently denotes his extraction; and I would have ascertained the time of his death, but the register was not to be found upon application for that purpose.

Antony à Wood says, in his History of the City of Oxford, “Thomas Jonce, a clergyman and inhabitant of this place, (St. Giles’s parish, Oxford,) desiring here to lay his bones, was of note sufficient to excite bishop Corbet to write an epitaph on him.”

‘Say’st thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?’

AN EPITAPH ON THOMAS JONCE.

Here, for the nonce, Came Thomas Jonce, In St. Giles church to lye.

None Welsh before, None Welshman more, Till Shon Clerk die.

I’ll tole the bell, I’ll ring his knell; He died well, He’s sav’d from hell; And so farwel Tom Jonce.

TO THE LADYES OF THE NEW DRESSE, THAT WEARE THEIR GORGETS AND RAYLES DOWNE TO THEIR WASTES.

Ladyes, that weare black cipress-vailes Turn’d lately to white linnen-rayles, And to your girdle weare your bands, And shew your armes instead of hands; What can you doe in Lent so meet As, fittest dress, to weare a sheet? ’Twas once a band, ’tis now a cloake, An acorne one day proves an oke: Weare but your linnen to your feet, And then your band will prove a sheet. By which devise, and wise excesse, You’l doe your penance in a dresse; And none shall know, by what they see, Which lady’s censur’d, and which free.

THE LADIES’ ANSWER.

(Harl. MS. No. 6396.)

Blacke cypresse vailes are shroudes on night, White linnen railes are raies of light, Which though we to the girdles weare, We’ve hands to keep your hands off there. A fitter dresse we have in Lent, To shew us trewly penitent. Whoe makes the band to be a cloke Makes John-a-style of John-an-oake. We weare our garments to the feet, Yet neede not make our bandes a sheet: The clergie weare as long as we, Yet that implies conformitie. Be wise, recant what you have writt, Least you doe pennance for your witte; Love’s charm hath power to weare a stringe, To tye you as you tied your ringe[120]; There by love’s sharpe but just decree You may be censured, we go free.

CORBET’S REPLY.

(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 38. Fol. 66.)

Yff nought but love-charmes power have Your blemisht creditt for to save; Then know your champion is blind, And that love-nottes are soon untwinde. But blemishes are now a grace, And add a lustre to your face; Your blemisht credit for to save, You needed not a vayle to have; The rayle for women may be fitte, Because they daylie practice ytt. And, seeing counsell can you not reforme, Read this reply—and take ytt not in scorne.

FAIRFORD WINDOWS

Are much admired, says the provincial historian of Glocestershire, for their excellent painted glass. There are twenty-eight large windows, which are curiously painted with the stories of the Old and New Testament: the middle windows in the choir, and on the west side of the church, are larger than the rest; those in the choir represent the history of our Saviour’s Crucifixion; the window at the west end represents Hell and Damnation; those on the side of the church, and over the body, represent the figures in length of the prophets, apostles, fathers, martyrs and confessors, and also the persecutors of the church. The painting was designed by Albert Durer, an eminent Italian Master: the colours are very lively, especially in the drapery: some of the figures are so well finished, that sir Anthony Vandyke affirmed that the pencil could not exceed them. This curious painting was preserved from zealous fury in the great rebellion, by turning the glass upside down.

John Tame, esq. founded this church in the year 1493. He was a merchant, and took a prize-ship bound for Rome, in which was this painted glass: he brought both the glass and workmen into England, built the church for the sake of the glass, and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary.

Atkyns’s Hist. of Glocestershire, p. 226. 1768. fol.

It is to be observed that the tradition of the famous Albert Durer having furnished the drawings will not, as Mr. Dallaway justly observes, bear the test of chronology; for he was not twenty years of age when these windows were put up; nor is it probable that he had then attained to such proficiency—to say nothing of the time necessary for the perfecting such works.

UPON FAIRFORD WINDOWS.

Tell me, you anti-saints, why brass With you is shorter lived than glass? And why the saints have scap’t their falls Better from windows than from walles? Is it, because the Brethrens fires Maintain a glass-house at Blackfryars? Next which the church stands North and South, And East and West the preacher’s mouth. Or is ’t, because such painted ware Resembles something that you are, Soe py’de, soe seeming, soe unsound In manners, and in doctrine, found, That, out of emblematick witt, You spare yourselves in sparing it? If it be soe, then, Faireford, boast Thy church hath kept what all have lost; And is preserved from the bane Of either warr, or puritane: Whose life is colour’d in thy paint, The inside drosse, the outside saint.

UPON FAIREFORD WINDOWES[121].

(Misc. MS. Poems, Mus. Brit. Bib. Sloan. No. 1446.)

I knowe no painte of poetry Can mend such colour’d imag’ry In sullen inke, yet (Fayreford) I May rellish thy fair memory. Such is the echoe’s fainter sound, Such is the light when the sunn’s drown’d, So did the fancy look upon The work before it was begun. Yet when those showes are out of sight, My weaker colours may delight. Those images doe faithfullie Report true feature to the eie, As you may think each picture was Some visage in a looking-glass; Not a glass window face, unless Such as Cheapside hath, where a press Of painted gallants, looking out, Bedeck the casement rounde about. But these have holy phisnomy; Each paine instructs the laity With silent eloquence; for heere Devotion leads the eie, not eare, To note the cathechisinge paint, Whose easie phrase doth soe acquainte Our sense with Gospell, that the Creede In such an hand the weake may reade. Such tipes e’en yett of vertue bee, And Christ as in a glass we see— When with a fishinge rod the clarke St. Peter’s draught of fish doth marke, Such is the scale, the eie, the finn, You’d thinke they strive and leape within; But if the nett, which holdes them, brake, Hee with his angle some would take. But would you walke a turn in Paules, Looke up, one little pane inrouls A fairer temple. Flinge a stone, The church is out at the windowe flowne. Consider not, but aske your eies, And ghosts at mid-day seem to rise, The saintes there seemeing to descend, Are past the glass, and downwards bend. Look there! The Devill! all would cry, Did they not see that Christ was by. See where he suffers for thee! See His body taken from the tree! Had ever death such life before? The limber corps, be-sully’d o’er With meagre paleness, does display A middle state ’twixt flesh and clay. His armes and leggs, his head and crown, Like a true lambskin dangle downe: Whoe can forbeare, the grave being nigh, To bringe fresh ointment in his eye? The wond’rous art hath equall fate, Unfixt, and yet inviolate. The Puritans were sure deceav’d Whoe thought those shaddowes mov’d and heav’d, So held from stoninge Christ; the winde And boysterous tempests were so kinde, As on his image not to prey, Whome both the winde and seas obey. At Momus’ wish bee not amaz’d; For if each Christian’s heart were glaz’d With such a windowe, then each brest Might bee his owne evangelist.

THE DISTRACTED PURITANE.

Am I madd, O noble Festus, When zeale and godly knowledge Have put me in hope To deal with the Pope, As well as the best in the Colledge? Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, Miters, copes, and rotchets: Come heare mee pray nine times a day, And fill your heads with crotchets.

In the house of pure Emanuel I had my education; Where my friends surmise I dazeled mine eyes With the Light of Revelation. Boldly I preach, &c.

They bound mee like a bedlam, They lash’t my foure poore quarters; Whilst this I endure, Faith makes mee sure To be one of Foxes martyrs. Boldly I preach, &c.

These injuryes I suffer Through Anti-Christs perswasions: Take off this chaine, Neither Rome nor Spaine Can resist my strong invasions. Boldly I preach, &c.

Of the Beasts ten hornes (God blesse us!) I have knock’t off three already: If they let mee alone, I’ll leave him none; But they say I am too heady. Boldly I preach, &c.