iv. 2, 105-6:--

"plod at a patron's tail To get a _gelded chapel's_ cheaper sale."

[471] See note, vol. ii. p. 60.

[472] Faded.

SATIRE IV.

_Cras._

Ay, marry, sir, here's perfect honesty, When Martius will forswear all villainy (All damn'd abuse of payment in the wars, All filching from his prince and soldiers), When once he can but so much bright dirt glean As may maintain one more Whitefriars quean, One drab more; faith, then farewell villainy, He'll cleanse himself to Shoreditch purity. As for Stadius, I think he hath a soul; And if he were but free from sharp control 10 Of his sour host, and from his tailor's bill, He would not thus abuse his rhyming skill; Jading our tirèd ears with fooleries, Greasing great slaves with oily flatteries. Good faith, I think he would not strive to suit The back of humorous Time (for base repute 'Mong dunghill peasants), botching up such ware As may be saleable in Sturbridge fair, If he were once but freed from specialty; But sooth, till then, bear with his balladry. 20 I ask'd lewd Gallus when he'll cease to swear, And with whole-culverin, raging oaths to tear The vault of heaven--spitting in the eyes Of Nature's nature loathsome blasphemies. To-morrow, he doth vow, he will forbear. Next day I meet him, but I hear him swear Worse than before. I put his vow in mind. He answers me "To-morrow;" but I find He swears next day far worse than e'er before, Putting me off with "morrow" evermore. 30 Thus, when I urge him, with his sophistry He thinks to salve his damnèd perjury. Silenus now is old, I wonder, I, He doth not hate his triple venery. Cold, writhled[473] eld, his life-sweat[474] almost spent, Methinks a unity were competent. But, O fair hopes! he whispers secretly, When it leaves him he'll leave his lechery. When simp'ring Flaccus (that demurely goes Right neatly tripping on his new-black'd toes) 40 Hath made rich use of his religion, Of God himself, in pure devotion; When that the strange ideas in his head (Broachèd 'mongst curious sots, by shadows led) Have furnish'd him, by his hoar auditors, Of fair demesnes and goodly rich manors; Sooth, then, he will repent when's treasury Shall force him to disclaim his heresy. What will not poor need force? But being sped, God for us all! the gurmond's[475] paunch is fed; 50 His mind is changed. But when will he do good? To-morrow,--ay, to-morrow, by the rood! Yet Ruscus swears he'll cease to broke a suit, By peasant means striving to get repute 'Mong puffy sponges, when the Fleet's defrayed, His revel tire, and his laundress paid. There is a crew which I too plain could name, If so I might without th' Aquinians'[476] blame, That lick the tail of greatness with their lips-- Labouring with third-hand jests and apish skips, 60 Retailing others' wit, long barrellèd, To glib some great man's ears till paunch be fed-- Glad if themselves, as sporting fools, be made To get the shelter of some high-grown shade. To-morrow yet these base tricks they'll cast off, And cease for lucre be a jeering scoff. Ruscus will leave when once he can renew His wasted clothes, that are ashamed to view The world's proud eyes; Drusus will cease to fawn When that his farm, that leaks in melting pawn, 70 Some lord-applauded jest hath once set free: All will to-morrow leave their roguery. When fox-furr'd Mecho (by damn'd usury, Cut-throat deceit, and his craft's villainy) Hath raked together some four thousand pound, To make his smug girl bear a bumming sound In a young merchant's ear, faith, then (may be) He'll ponder if there be a Deity; Thinking, if to the parish poverty, At his wish'd death, be doled a halfpenny, 80 A work of supererogation, A good filth-cleansing strong purgation. Aulus will leave begging monopolies When that, 'mong troops of gaudy butterflies, He is but able jet it jollily In piebald suits of proud court bravery. To-morrow doth Luxurio promise me He will unline himself from bitchery; Marry, Alcides thirteenth act must lend A glorious period, and his lust-itch end, 90 When once he hath froth-foaming Ætna past, At one-and-thirty,[477] being always last. If not to-day (quoth that Nasonian), Much less to-morrow. "Yes," saith Fabian, "For ingrain'd habits, dyed with often dips, Are not so soon discolourèd. Young slips, New set, are easily mov'd and pluck'd away; But elder roots clip faster in the clay." I smile at thee, and at the Stagyrite,[478] Who holds the liking of the appetite, 100 Being fed with actions often put in ure,[479] Hatcheth the soul in quality impure Or pure; may be in virtue: but for vice, That comes by inspiration, with a trice. Young Furius, scarce fifteen years of age, But is, straightways, right fit for marriage-- Unto the devil; for sure they would agree, Betwixt their souls there is such sympathy. O where's your sweaty habit, when each ape, That can but spy the shadow of his shape, 110 That can no sooner ken what's virtuous, But will avoid it, and be vicious! Without much do or far-fetch'd habiture, In earnest thus:--It is a sacred cure To salve the soul's dread wounds; omnipotent That Nature is, that cures the impotent, Even in a moment. Sure, grace is infused By Divine favour, not by actions used, Which is as permanent as heaven's bliss, To them that have it; then no habit is. 120 To-morrow, nay, to-day, it may be got, So please that gracious power cleanse thy spot. Vice, from privation of that sacred grace Which God withdraws, but puts not vice in place. Who says the sun is cause of ugly night? Yet when he veils our eyes from his fair sight, The gloomy curtain of the night is spread. Ye curious sots, vainly by Nature led, Where is your vice or virtuous habit now? For _Sustine_[480] _pro nunc_ doth bend his brow, 130 And old crabb'd Scotus, on the Organon, Pay'th me with snaphance,[481] quick distinction. "Habits, that intellectual termèd be, Are got or else infused from Deity." Dull Sorbonist, fly contradiction! Fie! thou oppugn'st the definition; If one should say, "Of things term'd rational, Some reason have, others mere sensual," Would not some freshman, reading Porphyry, Hiss and deride such blockish foolery? 140 "Then vice nor virtue have from habit place; The one from want, the other sacred grace; Infused, displaced; not in our will or force, But as it please Jehovah have remorse." I will, cries Zeno. O presumption! I can. Thou mayst, doggèd opinion Of thwarting cynics. To-day vicious; List to their precepts, next day virtuous. Peace, Seneca, thou belchest blasphemy! "To live from God, but to live happily" 150 (I hear thee boast) "from thy philosophy, And from thyself." O ravening lunacy! Cynics, ye wound yourselves; for destiny, Inevitable fate, necessity, You hold, doth sway the acts spiritual, As well as parts of that we mortal call. Where's then _I will_? Where's that strong deity You do ascribe to your philosophy? Confounded Nature's brats! can _will_ and _fate_ Have both their seat and office in your pate? 160 O hidden depth of that dread secrecy, Which I do trembling touch in poetry! To-day, to-day, implore obsequiously; Trust not to-morrow's will, lest utterly Ye be attach'd with sad confusion, In your grace-tempting lewd presumption. But I forget. Why sweat I out my brain In deep designs to gay boys, lewd and vain? These notes were better sung 'mong better sort; But to my pamphlet, few, save fools, resort. 170

[473] Writhed, crooked.

[474] Old eds. "_liues-wet_."

[475] "Gourmand. A glutton, _gormand_, bellie-god, greedy-gut."--_Cotgrave._

[476] Juvenal was a native of Aquinum: hence Aquinians = satirists.

[477] There was a game at cards called "one-and-thirty."

[478] heni di logo ek ton homoion energeion ai hexeis ginontai. Arist. _Eth. Nicom._ ii. 1, 7.

[479] Use.

[480] _I.e._, maintain the thesis for the occasion.

[481] See note, p. 269. [Transcriber's note: Footnote 364].

PROEMIUM IN LIBRUM SECUNDUM.

I cannot quote a mott[482] Italionate, Or brand my satires with some Spanish term; I cannot with swoll'n lines magnificate Mine own poor worth, or as immaculate Task others' rhymes, as if no blot did stain, No blemish soil, my young satiric vein.

Nor can I make my soul a merchandise, Seeking conceits to suit these artless times; Or deign for base reward to poetise, Soothing the world with oily flatteries. 10 Shall mercenary thoughts provoke me write-- Shall I for lucre be a parasite?

Shall I once pen for vulgar sorts applause, To please each hound, each dungy scavenger; To fit some oyster-wench's yawning jaws With tricksey tales of speaking Cornish daws?[483] First let my brain (bright-hair'd Latona's son) Be clean distract with all confusion.

What though some John-à-Stile will basely toil, Only incited with the hope of gain: 20 Though roguey thoughts do force some jade-like moil; Yet no such filth my true-born muse will soil. O Epictetus, I do honour thee, To think how rich thou wert in poverty!

[482] Motto.

[483] "Cornish daws"--jackdaws.

_Ad rhythmum._

Come, pretty pleasing symphony of words, Ye well-match'd twins (whose like-tuned tongues affords Such musical delight), come willingly And dance lavoltas in my poesy. Come all as easy as spruce Curio will, In some court-hall, to show his cap'ring skill; As willingly come, meet and jump together As new-join'd loves, when they do clip each other; As willingly as wenches trip around About a May-pole after bagpipe's sound; 10 Come, rhyming numbers, come and grace conceit, Adding a pleasing close, with your deceit Enticing ears. Let not my ruder hand Seem once to force you in my lines to stand; Be not so fearful (pretty souls) to meet As Flaccus is the sergeant's face to greet; Be not so backward, loth to grace my sense, As Drusus is to have intelligence His dad's alive; but come into my head As jocundly as (when his wife was dead) 20 Young Lælius to his home. Come, like-faced rhyme, In tuneful numbers keeping music's time; But if you hang an arse, like Tubered, When Chremes dragg'd him from his brothel bed, Then hence, base ballad-stuff, my poetry Disclaims you quite; for know my liberty Scorns rhyming laws. Alas, poor idle sound! Since I first Phoebus knew I never found Thy interest in sacred poesy; Thou to invention add'st but surquedry, 30 A gaudy ornature, but hast no part In that soul-pleasing high infusèd art. Then if thou wilt clip kindly in my lines, Welcome, thou friendly aid of my designs: If not, no title of my senseless change To wrest some forcèd rhyme, but freely range. Ye scrupulous observers, go and learn Of Æsop's dog; meat from a shade discern.

SATIRE V.

_Totum in toto._

Hang thyself, Drusus: hast nor arms nor brain? So Sophi say, "The gods sell all for pain." Not so. Had not that toiling Theban's[484] steelèd back Dread poisoned shafts, lived he now, he should lack Spite of his farming ox-stalls. Themis' self Would be cashier'd from one poor scrap of pelf. If that she were incarnate in our time, She might lusk,[485] scornèd in disdainèd slime, Shaded from honour by some envious mist 10 Of wat'ry fogs, that fill the ill-stuff'd list Of fair Desert, jealous even of blind dark, Lest it should spy, and at their lameness bark. "Honour's shade thrusts honour's substance from his place." 'Tis strange, when shade the substance can disgrace. "Harsh lines!" cries Curus, whose ears ne'er rejoice But at the quavering of my lady's voice. Rude limping lines fits this lewd halting age: Sweet-scenting Curus, pardon then my rage, When wisards[486] swear plain virtue never thrives, 20 None but Priapus by plain dealing wives. Then, subtile Hermes, are the destinies Enamour'd on thee! Then up, mount the skies, Advance, depose, do even what thou list, So long as fates do grace thy juggling fist. Tuscus, hast Beuclerc's arms and strong sinews, Large reach, full-fed veins, ample revenues? Then make thy markets by thy proper arm; O brawny strength is an all-canning[487] charm! Thou dreadless Thracian![488] hast Hallirhothius slain? 30 What, is't not possible thy cause maintain Before the dozen Areopagites? Come, Enagonian,[489] furnish him with sleights. Tut, Pluto's wrath Proserpina can melt, So that thy sacrifice be freely felt. What! cannot Juno force in bed with Jove, Turn and return a sentence with her love?-- Thou art too dusky.--Fie, thou shallow ass! Put on more eyes, and mark me as I pass. Well, plainly thus: "Sleight, force are mighty things, 40 From which much (if not most) earth's glory springs. If virtue's self were clad in human shape, Virtue without these might go beg and scrape. The naked truth is, a well-clothèd lie, A nimble quick pate mounts to dignity; By force or fraud, that matters not a jot, So massy wealth may fall unto thy lot." I heard old Albius swear Flavus should have His eldest girl, for Flavus was a knave, A damn'd deep-reaching villain, and would mount 50 (He durst well warrant him) to great account; What, though he laid forth all his stock and store Upon some office, yet he'll gain much more, Though purchased dear; tut, he will treble it In some few terms, by his extorting wit. When I, in simple meaning, went to sue For tongue-tied Damus, that would needs go woo, I prais'd him for his virtuous honest life. "By God," cries Flora, "I'll not be his wife! He'll ne'er come on." Now I swear solemnly, 60 When I go next I'll praise his villainy: A better field to range in nowadays. If vice be virtue, I can all men praise. What, though pale Maurus paid huge simonies For his half-dozen gelded vicaries,[490] Yet, with good honest cut-throat usury, I fear he'll mount to reverent[491] dignity. "O sleight, all-canning sleight, all-damning sleight, The only gally-ladder unto might." Tuscus is trade-fall'n; yet great hope he'll rise, 70 For now he makes no count of perjuries; Hath drawn false lights[492] from pitch-black loveries,[493] Glazed his braided[494] ware, cogs, swears, and lies; Now since he hath the grace, thus graceless be, His neighbours swear he'll swell with treasury. Tut, who maintains such goods, ill-got, decay? No, they'll stick by thy[495] soul, they'll ne'er away. Luscus, my lord's perfumer, had no sale Until he made his wife a brothel-stale. Absurd, the gods sell all for industry, 80 When what's not got by hell-bred villainy! Codrus, my well-faced lady's tail-bearer (He that sometimes play'th Flavia's usherer), I heard one day complain to Lynceus How vigilant, how right obsequious, Modest in carriage, how true in trust, And yet (alas!) ne'er guerdon'd with a crust. But now I see he finds by his accounts That sole Priapus, by plain-dealing, mounts. How now? What, droops the new Pegasian inn? 90 I fear mine host is honest. Tut, begin To set up whorehouse; ne'er too late to thrive; By any means, at Porta Rich arrive; Go use some sleight, or live poor Irus' life; Straight prostitute thy daughter or thy wife, And soon be wealthy; but be damn'd with it. Hath not rich Milo then deep-reaching wit? Fair age! When 'tis a high and hard thing t' have repute Of a complete villain, perfect, absolute; 100 And roguing virtue brings a man defame, A packstaff[496] epithet, and scornèd name. Fie, how my wit flags! How heavily Methinks I vent dull sprightless poesy! What cold black frost congeals my numbèd brain! What envious power stops a satire's vein! O now I know the juggling god of sleights, With Caduceus nimble Hermes fights, And mists my wit; offended that my rhymes Display his odious world-abusing crimes. 110 O be propitious, powerful god of arts! I sheathe my weapons, and do break my darts. Be then appeased; I'll offer to thy shrine An hecatomb of many spotted kine. Myriads of beasts shall satisfy thy rage, Which do profane thee in this apish age. Infectious blood, ye gouty humours quake, Whilst my sharp razor doth incision make.

[484] Hercules.

[485] Lie in idleness.

[486] _i.e._, wise men.

[487] _i.e._, all-powerful.

[488] Ares.--See Apollodorus' _Bibl._, iii. 14.

[489] A term (coined from Gr. enagonios) for a rhetorician.

[490] See note, p. 324. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [470]]

[491] Frequently used by Marston in the sense of _reverend_.

[492] It was a common device with dishonest tradesmen to darken their shops in order to palm off inferior goods on their customers. Middleton, i. 247.

[493] Loovers,--openings in the roof to let in light.

[494] Faded.

[495] Ed. 1599 "the."

[496] Fitting a pedlar.--See note 1, p. 310. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [436]]

SATIRE VI.

_Hem, nosti'n?_

Curio, know'st me? Why, thou bottle-ale,[497] Thou barmy[498] froth! O stay me, lest I rail Beyond _Nil ultra_! to see this butterfly, This windy bubble, task my balladry With senseless censure. Curio, know'st my sprite? Yet deem'st that in sad[499] seriousness I write Such nasty stuff as is _Pygmalion_? Such maggot-tainted, lewd corruption! Ha, how he glavers[500] with his fawning snout, And swears he thought I meant but faintly flout 10 My fine smug rhyme. O barbarous dropsy-noul![501] Think'st thou that genius that attends my soul, And guides my fist to scourge magnificos, Will deign my mind be rank'd in Paphian shows? Think'st thou that I, which was create to whip Incarnate fiends, will once vouchsafe to trip A pavin's[502] traverse, or will lisp "Sweet love," Or pule "Aye me," some female soul to move? Think'st thou that I in melting poesy Will pamper itching sensuality 20 (That in the body's scum all fatally Entombs the soul's most sacred faculty)? Hence, thou misjudging censor: know I wrot Those idle rhymes to note the odious spot And blemish that deforms the lineaments Of modern poesy's habiliments. O that the beauties of invention, For want of judgment's disposition, Should all be spoil'd![503] O that such treasury, Such strain of well-conceited poesy, 30 Should moulded be in such a shapeless form, That want of art should make such wit a scorn! Here's one must invocate some loose-legg'd dame, Some brothel drab, to help him stanzas frame, Or else (alas!) his wits can have no vent, To broach conceit's industrious intent. Another yet dares tremblingly come out; But first he must invoke good Colin Clout. Yon's one hath yean'd a fearful prodigy, Some monstrous misshapen balladry; 40 His guts are in his brains, huge jobbernoul,[504] Right gurnet's-head;[505] the rest without all soul. Another walks, is lazy, lies him down, Thinks, reads, at length some wonted sleep doth crown His new-fall'n lids, dreams; straight, ten pound to one, Out steps some fairy with quick motion, And tells him wonders of some flow'ry vale; Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale. Yon's one whose strains have flown so high a pitch, That straight he flags and tumbles in a ditch. 50 His sprightly hot high-soaring poesy Is like that dreamèd of imagery, Whose head was gold, breast silver, brassy thigh, Lead legs, clay feet;[506] O fair-framed poesy! Here's one, to get an undeserved repute Of deep deep learning, all in fustian suit Of ill passed, far-fetch'd words attiereth His period, that sense forsweareth. Another makes old Homer Spenser cite, Like my _Pygmalion_, where, with rare[507] delight, 60 He cries, "O Ovid!" This caus'd my idle quill, The world's dull ears with such lewd stuff to fill, And gull with bumbast lines the witless sense Of these odd nags, whose pates' circumference Is fill'd with froth. O these same buzzing gnats That sting my sleeping brows, these Nilus' rats,[508] Half dung, that have their life from putrid slime-- These that do praise my loose lascivious rhyme! For these same shades, I seriously protest, I slubbered up that chaos indigest, 70 To fish for fools that stalk in goodly shape; "What, though in velvet cloak, yet still an ape." Capro reads, swears, scrubs, and swears again, "Now by my soul an admirable strain;" Strokes up his hair, cries, "Passing passing good;" O, there's a line incends his lustful blood! Then Muto comes, with his new glass-set face, And with his late-kiss'd hand my book doth grace, Straight reads, then smiles, and lisps, "'Tis pretty good," And praiseth that he never understood. 80 But room for Flaccus, he'll my Satires read; O how I trembled straight with inward dread! But when I saw him read my fustian, And heard him swear I was a Pythian, Yet straight recall'd, and swears I did but quote Out of Xylinum[509] to that margent's note, I could scarce hold and keep myself conceal'd, But had well-nigh myself and all reveal'd. Then straight comes Friscus, that neat gentleman, That new-discarded academian, 90 Who, for he could cry _Ergo_ in the school, Straightway with his huge judgment dares control Whatsoe'er he views: "That's pretty, pretty[510] good; That epithet hath not that sprightly blood Which should enforce it speak; that's Persius' vein; That's Juvenal's; here's Horace' crabbèd strain;" Though he ne'er read one line in Juvenal, Or, in his life, his lazy eye let fall On dusky Persius. O, indignity To my respectless free-bred poesy! 100 Hence, ye big-buzzing little-bodied gnats, Ye tattling echoes, huge-tongued pigmy brats: I mean to sleep: wake not my slumb'ring brain With your malignant, weak, detracting vein. What though the sacred issue of my soul I here expose to idiots' control; What though I bare to lewd opinion, Lay ope to vulgar profanation, My very genius,--yet know, my poesy Doth scorn your utmost, rank'st indignity; 110 My pate was great with child, and here 'tis eased; Vex all the world, so that thyself be pleased.

[497] So Doll Tearsheet to Pistol:--"Away, you _bottle-ale_ rascal, you basket-hilt juggler you."--2 _Henry IV._, ii. 4.

[498] See note, p. 305. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [427]]

[499] "Sad seriousness"--sober earnestness.

[500] See note, p. 263. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [348]]

[501] "Dropsy-noul"--grouthead.

[502] Old eds. "Paunis."--Pavin was the name of an old dance.

[503] So. ed. 1599.--Ed. 1598 "soyl'd."

[504] See note 2, p. 301. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [417]]

[505] A term of contempt for a stupid empty-headed person.

[506] See the second chapter of _The Book of Daniel_.

[507] So ed. 1598.--Ed. 1599 "rage."

[508] Rats were supposed to be bred from the slime of the Nile when the river had shrunk.

[509] For the "margent's note," see p. 288. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [402]] Flaccus is represented as misunderstanding the meaning of "Huc usque xyl[)i]num" ("bombast up to this point") and as supposing that Marston in his marginal note was acknowledging his indebtedness to a work entitled _Xyl[=i]num_.

[510] In ed. 1599 the word "pretty" is not repeated.

SATIRE VII.

_A Cynic Satire._

A man,[511] a man, a kingdom for a man! Why, how now, currish, mad Athenian? Thou Cynic dog, see'st not the[512] streets do swarm With troops of men? No, no: for Circe's charm Hath turn'd them all to swine. I never shall Think those same Samian[513] saws authentical: But rather, I dare swear, the souls of swine Do live in men. For that same radiant shine-- That lustre wherewith Nature's nature decked Our intellectual part--that gloss is soiled 10 With staining spots of vile impiety, And muddy dirt of sensuality. These are no men, but apparitions, Ignes fatui, glowworms, fictions,[514] Meteors, rats of Nilus, fantasies, Colosses, pictures, shades, resemblances. Ho, Lynceus! Seest thou yon gallant in the sumptuous clothes, How brisk, how spruce, how gorgeously he shows? Note his French herring-bones:[515] but note no more, 20 Unless thou spy his fair appendant whore, That lackies him. Mark nothing but his clothes, His new-stamp'd compliment, his cannon oaths; Mark those: for naught but such lewd viciousness E'er gracèd him, save Sodom beastliness. Is this a man? Nay, an incarnate devil, That struts in vice and glorieth in evil. A man, a man! Peace, Cynic, yon is one: A complete soul of all perfection. What, mean'st thou him that walks all open-breasted, 30 Drawn through the ear, with ribands,[516] plumy-crested; He that doth snort in fat-fed luxury, And gapes for some grinding monopoly; He that in effeminate invention, In beastly source of all pollution, In riot, lust, and fleshly seeming sweetness, Sleeps sound, secure, under the shade of greatness? Mean'st thou that senseless, sensual epicure-- That sink of filth, that guzzel[517] most impure-- What, he? Lynceus, on my word thus presume, 40 He's nought but clothes, and scenting sweet perfume; His very soul, assure thee, Lynceus, Is not so big as is an atomus: Nay, he is spriteless, sense or soul hath none, Since last Medusa turn'd him to a stone. A man, a man! Lo, yonder I espy The shade of Nestor in sad gravity. Since old Silenus brake his ass's back, He now is forc'd his paunch and guts to pack In a fair tumbrel.[518] Why, sour satirist, 50 Canst thou unman him? Here I dare insist And soothly say, he is a perfect soul, Eats nectar, drinks ambrosia, sans control; An inundation of felicity Fats him with honour and huge treasury. Canst thou not, Lynceus, cast thy searching eye, And spy his imminent[519] catastrophe? He's but a sponge, and shortly needs must leese[520] His wrong-got juice, when greatness' fist shall squeeze His liquor out. Would not some shallow[521] head, 60 That is with seeming shadows only fed, Swear yon same damask-coat, yon garded[522] man, Were some grave sober Cato Utican? When, let him but in judgment's sight uncase, He's naught but budge,[523] old gards, brown fox-fur face; He hath no soul the which the Stagyrite Term'd rational: for beastly appetite, Base dunghill thoughts, and sensual action, Hath made him lose that fair creation. And now no man, since Circe's magic charm 70 Hath turn'd him to a maggot that doth swarm In tainted flesh, whose foul corruption Is his fair food: whose generation Another's ruin. O Canaan's dread curse, To live in people's sins! Nay, far more worse, To muck rank hate! But, sirra Lynceus, Seest thou that troop that now effronteth us? They are naught but eels,[524] that never will appear Till that tempestuous winds or thunder tear Their slimy beds. But prithee stay a while; 80 Look, yon comes John-a-Noke and John-a-Stile; They are nought but slow-paced, dilatory pleas, Demure demurrers, still striving to appease Hot zealous love. The language that they speak Is the pure barbarous blacksaunt[525] of the Gete; Their only skill rests in collusions, Abatements, stoppels, inhibitions. Heavy-paced jades, dull-pated jobbernouls, Quick in delays, checking with vain controls Fair Justice' course; vile necessary evils, 90 Smooth-seeming saints, yet damn'd incarnate devils. Far be it from my sharp satiric muse, Those grave and reverent[526] legists to abuse, That aid Astræa, that do further right; But these Megeras that inflame despite, That broach deep rancour, that study still To ruin right, that they their paunch may fill With Irus' blood--these furies I do mean, These hedgehogs, that disturb Astrea's scene. A man, a man! Peace, Cynic, yon's a man; 100 Behold yon sprightly dread Mavortian; With him I stop thy currish barking chops.-- What, mean'st thou him that in his swaggering slops Wallows unbracèd, all along the street; He that salutes each gallant he doth meet With "Farewell, sweet captain, kind heart, adieu;" He that last night, tumbling thou didst view From out the great man's head,[527] and thinking still He had been sentinel of warlike Brill,[528] Cries out, "Que va la? zounds, que?" and out doth draw 110 His transform'd poniard, to a syringe straw, And stabs the drawer? What, that ringo-root![529] Mean'st thou that wasted leg, puff bumbast boot; What, he that's drawn and quarterèd with lace; That Wesphalian gammon clove-stuck[530] face? Why, he is nought but huge blaspheming oaths, Swart snout, big looks, misshapen Switzers'[531] clothes; Weak meagre lust hath now consumèd quite, And wasted clean away his martial sprite; Enfeebling riot, all vices' confluence, 120 Hath eaten out that sacred influence Which made him man. That divine part is soak'd away in sin, In sensual lust, and midnight bezelling,[532] Rank inundation of luxuriousness[533] Have tainted him with such gross beastliness, That now the seat of that celestial essence Is all possess'd with Naples' pestilence.[534] Fat peace, and dissolute impiety, Have lullèd him in such security, 130 That now, let whirlwinds and confusion tear The centre of our state; let giants' rear Hill upon hill; let western termagant Shake heaven's vault: he, with his occupant,[535] Are cling'd so close, like dew-worms in the morn, That he'll not stir till out his guts are torn With eating filth. Tubrio, snort on, snort on, Till thou art waked with sad confusion. Now rail no more at my sharp cynic sound, Thou brutish world, that in all vileness drown'd 140 Hast lost thy soul: for nought but shades I see-- Resemblances of men inhabit thee. Yon tissue slop, yon holy-crossèd pane,[536] Is but a water-spaniel that will fawn, And kiss the water, whilst it pleasures him; But being once arrivèd at the brim, He shakes it off. Yon in the cap'ring cloak, a mimic ape, That only strives to seem another's shape. Yon's Æsop's ass; yon sad civility 150 Is but an ox that with base drudgery Ears up the land, whilst some gilt ass doth chaw The golden wheat, he well apaid with straw. Yon's but a muckhill overspread with snow, Which with that veil doth even as fairly show As the green meads, whose native outward fair[537] Breathes sweet perfumes into the neighbour air. Yon effeminate sanguine Ganymede Is but a beaver,[538] hunted for the bed. Peace, Cynic; see, what yonder doth approach; 160 A cart? a tumbrel? No, a badged[539] coach. What's in't? Some man. No, nor yet womankind, But a celestial angel, fair, refined. The devil as soon! Her mask so hinders me, I cannot see her beauty's deity. Now that is off, she is so vizarded, So steep'd in lemon's[540] juice, so surphulèd, I cannot see her face. Under one hood Two faces; but I never understood Or saw one face under two hoods till now: 170 'Tis the right resemblance of old Janus' brow. Her mask, her vizard, her loose-hanging gown (For her loose-lying body), her bright-spangled crown, Her long slit sleeve,[541] stiff busk, puff verdingal, Is all that makes her thus angelical. Alas! her soul struts round about her neck; Her seat of sense is her rebato[542] set; Her intellectual is a feignèd niceness, Nothing but clothes and simpering preciseness. Out on these puppets, painted images, 180 Haberdashers' shops, torchlight maskeries, Perfuming-pans, Dutch ancients,[543] glow-worms bright, That soil our souls, and damp our reason's light! Away, away, hence, coachman, go enshrine Thy new-glazed puppet in port Esquiline![544] Blush, Martia, fear not, or look pale, all's one; Margara keeps thy set complexion. Sure I ne'er think those axioms to be true, That souls of men from that great soul ensue, And of his essence do participate 190 As 'twere by pipes; when so degenerate, So adverse is our nature's motion To his immaculate condition, That such foul filth from such fair purity, Such sensual acts from such a Deity, Can ne'er proceed. But if that dream were so, Then sure the slime, that from our souls do flow, Have stopp'd those pipes by which it was convey'd, And now no human creatures, once disray'd Of that fair gem. 200 Beasts' sense, plants' growth, like being as a stone; But out, alas! our cognisance is gone.

[511] See note 2, vol. ii. p. 349.

[512] Omitted in ed. 1598.

[513] Samos--the birthplace of Pythagoras.

[514] "Fictions ... rats of Nilus."--Cf. Shirley's _School of Compliment_, ii. 1:--"Sirrah clothes, _rat of Nilus, fiction_, monster, golden calf."

[515] The name of a particular kind of stitch.

[516] See note, vol. ii. p. 391.

[517] See note 1, p. 308. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [429]]

[518] Dung-cart.

[519] Ed. 1599, "eminent."

[520] Lose.

[521] Omitted in ed. 1599.

[522] _i.e._, whose garments are ornamented with _gards_ or fringes.

[523] Lamb's fur.

[524] Thunder is supposed to rouse eels from the mud. So Shakespeare--"Thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels." I suppose that Mr. Browning was giving us a piece of Italian folk-lore when he wrote (in _Old Pictures in Florence_):-- "The morn _when first it thunders in March_, The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say."

[525] A corruption of _black sanctus_, which seems to have been a burlesque hymn set to a harsh tune, "in ridicule of the _Sanctus_ or Holy, Holy, Holy, of the Romish Missal" (Nares); hence used to express any discordant noise,--as the rude speech of the Scythians.

[526] So ed. 1598; and I have kept the form "reverent" (though ed. 1599 reads "reverend"), as it was constantly used for "reverend."

[527] "The great man's head"--evidently the name of a tavern. Quy. the Saracen's Head?

[528] One of the cautionary towns pledged to the English crown by the States of Holland.

[529] Sink of lechery.

[530] His face, I suppose, is stuck with plaster, to lead people to imagine that he has been scarred in the wars.

[531] Switzers--mercenary soldiers.

[532] Tippling.

[533] Lust.

[534] The pox.

[535] See note 2, p. 300. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [414]]

[536] See note 2, vol. ii. p. 337.

[537] Fairness.

[538] "Rugs or covers were made of 'beever skins,' which Batman calls 'very precious.'"--_Grosart._

[539] _i.e._, exhibiting armorial bearings.

[540] In Guilpin's _Skialetheia_, 1598, there is a long list of cosmetics. Juice of lemons is mentioned:-- "They [the gallants] were plain asses if they did not know Quicksilver, _juice of lemons_, borax too, Alum, oil tartar, whites of eggs, and galls. Are made the bawds to morphew, scurfs, and scalls."

[541] So ed. 1598.--Ed. 1599 "sleeves."

[542] See note 2, vol. 1. p. 31.

[543] Ancient was the name for the (1) standard, (2) the standard-bearer. Here it has the first meaning; but I cannot find that Dutch standards were particularly tawdry.

[544] "Port Esquiline"--the jakes.

PROEMIUM IN LIBRUM TERTIUM.

In serious jest, and jesting seriousness, I strive to scourge polluting beastliness; I invocate no Delian deity, No sacred offspring of Mnemosyne; I pray in aid of no Castalian[545] muse, No nymph, no female angel, to infuse A sprightly wit to raise my flagging wings, And teach me tune these harsh discordant strings. I crave no sirens of our halcyon times, To grace the accents of my rough-hew'd rhymes; 10 But grim Reproof, stern hate of villainy, Inspire and guide a Satire's poesy. Fair Detestation of foul odious sin, In which our swinish times lie wallowing, Be thou my conduct and my genius, My wits-inciting sweet-breath'd Zephyrus. O that a Satire's hand had force to pluck Some floodgate up, to purge the world from muck! Would God I could turn Alpheus river in, To purge this Augean oxstall from foul sin! 20 Well, I will try; awake, Impurity, And view the veil drawn from thy villainy!

[545] Ed. 1598 "Castalia."

SATIRE VIII.

_Inamorato, Curio._

Curio, aye me! thy mistress' monkey's dead; Alas, alas, her pleasure's burièd! Go, woman's slave, perform his exequies, Condole his death in mournful elegies. Tut, rather pæans sing, hermaphrodite; For that sad death gives life to thy delight. Sweet-faced Corinna, deign the riband tie Of thy cork-shoe, or else thy slave will die: Some puling sonnet tolls his passing bell, Some sighing elegy must ring his knell, 10 Unless bright sunshine of thy grace revive His wambling stomach, certes he will dive Into the whirlpool of devouring death, And to some mermaid sacrifice his breath. Then oh, oh then, to thy eternal shame, And to the honour of sweet Curio's name, This epitaph, upon the marble stone, Must fair be graved of that true-loving one:

"Here lieth he, he lieth here, That bounced and pity cried: 20 The door not oped, fell sick, alas, Alas, fell sick and died!"

What Myrmidon, or hard Dolopian, What savage-minded rude Cyclopian, But such a sweet pathetic Paphian Would force to laughter? Ho, Amphitrion, Thou art no cuckold. What, though Jove dallièd, During thy wars, in fair Alcmena's bed, Yet Hercules, true born, that imbecility Of corrupt nature, all apparently 30 Appears in him. O foul indignity! I heard him vow himself a slave to Omphale, Puling "Aye me!" O valour's obloquy! He that the inmost nooks of hell did know, Whose ne'er-crazed[546] prowess all did overthrow, Lies streaking[547] brawny limbs in weak'ning bed; Perfumed, smooth-kemb'd, new glazed, fair surphulèd. O that the boundless power of the soul Should be subjected to such base control! Big-limb'd Alcides, doff thy honour's crown, 40 Go spin, huge slave, lest Omphale should frown. By my best hopes, I blush with grief and shame To broach the peasant baseness of our name. O, now my ruder hand begins to quake, To think what lofty cedars I must shake; But if the canker fret, the barks of oaks, Like humbler shrubs, shall equal bear the strokes Of my respectless rude satiric hand. Unless the Destin's adamantine band Should tie my teeth, I cannot choose, but bite, 50 To view Mavortius metamorphos'd quite, To puling sighs, and into "Aye me's" state, With voice distinct, all fine articulate, Lisping, "Fair saint, my woe compassionate; By heaven! thine eye is my soul-guiding fate." The god of wounds had wont on Cyprian couch To streak himself, and with incensing touch To faint his force, only when wrath had end; But now, 'mong furious garboils,[548] he doth spend His feebled valour, in tilt and tourneying, 60 With wet turn'd kisses, melting dallying. A pox upon't that Bacchis'[549] name should be The watchword given to the soldiery! Go, troop to field, mount thy obscurèd fame, Cry out St. George, invoke thy mistress' name; Thy mistress and St. George, alarum cry! Weak force, weak aid, that sprouts from luxury! Thou tedious[550] workmanship of lust-stung Jove, Down from thy skies, enjoy our females' love: Some fifty more Beotian girls will sue 70 To have thy love, so that thy back be true. O, now me thinks I hear swart Martius cry, Swooping[551] along in wars' feign'd maskery; By Lais' starry front he'll forthwith dye In clutter'd[552] blood, his mistress' livery; Her fancy's colours waves upon his head. O, well-fenced Albion, mainly manly sped, When those that are soldadoes[553] in thy state Do bear the badge of base, effeminate, Even on their plumy crests; brutes sensual, 80 Having no spark of intellectual! Alack! what hope, when some rank nasty wench Is subject of their vows and confidence? Publius hates vainly to idolatrise[554] And laughs that Papists honour images; And yet (O madness!) these mine eyes did see Him melt in moving plaints, obsequiously Imploring favour; twining his kind arms, Using enchantments, exorcisms, charms; The oil of sonnets, wanton blandishment, 90 The force of tears, and seeming languishment, Unto the picture of a painted lass! I saw him court his mistress' looking-glass, Worship a busk-point, which, in secresy, I fear was conscious of strange villainy; I saw him crouch, devote his livelihood, Swear, protest, vow peasant servitude Unto a painted puppet; to her eyes I heard him swear his sighs to sacrifice. But if he get her itch-allaying pin, 100 O sacred relic! straight he must begin To rave outright,--then thus: "Celestial bliss, Can Heaven grant so rich a grace as this? Touch it not (by the Lord! sir), 'tis divine! It once beheld her radiant eye's bright shine! Her hair embraced it. O thrice-happy prick, That there was throned, and in her hair didst stick!" Kiss, bless, adore it, Publius, never lin; Some sacred virtue lurketh in the pin. O frantic, fond, pathetic passion! 110 Is't possible such sensual action Should clip the wings of contemplation? O can it be the spirit's function, The soul, not subject to dimension, Should be made slave to reprehension Of crafty nature's paint? Fie! can our soul Be underling to such a vile control? Saturio wish'd himself his mistress' busk, That he might sweetly lie, and softly lusk[555] Between her paps; then must he have an eye 120 At either end, that freely might descry Both hills and dales. But, out on Phrigio, That wish'd he were his mistress' dog, to go And lick her milk-white fist! O pretty grace! That pretty Phrigio begs but Pretty's place. Parthenophil,[556] thy wish I will omit, So beastly 'tis I may not utter it. But Punicus, of all I'll bear with thee, That fain wouldst be thy mistress' smug monkey. Here's one would be a flea[557] (jest comical!); 130 Another, his sweet lady's verdingal, To clip her tender breech; another, he Her silver-handled fan would gladly be; Here's one would be his mistress' necklace, fain To clip her fair, and kiss her azure vein. Fond fools, well wish'd, and pity but ['t] should be; For beastly shape to brutish souls agree. If Laura's painted lip do deign a kiss To her enamour'd slave, "O Heaven's bliss!" (Straight he exclaims) "not to be match'd with this!" Blaspheming dolt! go threescore sonnets write 141 Upon a picture's kiss, O raving sprite! I am not sapless, old, or rheumatic, No Hipponax, misshapen stigmatic,[558] That I should thus inveigh 'gainst amorous sprite Of him whose soul doth turn hermaphrodite; But I do sadly grieve, and inly vex, To view the base dishonour of our sex. Tush! guiltless doves, when gods, to force foul rapes, Will turn themselves to any brutish shapes; 150 Base bastard powers, whom the world doth see Transform'd to swine for sensual luxury! The son of Saturn is become a bull, To crop the beauties of some female trull. Now, when he hath his first wife Metis[559] sped, And fairly choked,[560] lest foul[561] gods should be bred Of that fond mule; Themis, his second wife, Hath turn'd away, that his unbridled life Might have more scope; yet, last, his sister's love Must satiate the lustful thoughts of Jove. 160 Now doth the lecher in a cuckold's shape, Commit a monstrous and incestuous rape. Thrice sacred gods! and O thrice blessèd skies, Whose orbs include such virtuous deities! What should I say? Lust hath confounded all; The bright gloss of our intellectual Is foully soil'd. The wanton wallowing In fond delights, and amorous dallying, Hath dusk'd the fairest splendour of our soul; Nothing now left but carcass, loathsome, foul; 170 For sure, if that some sprite remainèd still, Could it be subject to lewd Lais' will? Reason, by prudence in her function, Had wont to tutor all our action, Aiding, with precepts of philosophy, Our feeblèd natures' imbecility; But now affection, will, concupiscence, Have got o'er reason chief pre-eminence. 'Tis so; else how should such vile baseness taint As force it be made slave to nature's paint? 180 Methinks the spirit's Pegase, Fantasy, Should hoise the soul from such base slavery; But now I see, and can right plainly show From whence such abject thoughts and actions grow. Our adverse body, being earthly, cold, Heavy, dull, mortal, would not long enfold A stranger inmate, that was backward still To all his dungy, brutish, sensual will: Now hereupon our intellectual, Compact of fire all celestial, 190 Invisible, immortal, and divine, Grew straight to scorn his landlord's muddy slime; And therefore now is closely slunk away (Leaving his smoky house of mortal clay), Adorn'd with all his beauty's lineaments And brightest gems of shining ornaments, His parts divine, sacred, spiritual, Attending on him; leaving the sensual Base hangers-on lusking at home in slime, Such as wont to stop port Esquiline.[562] 200 Now doth the body, led with senseless will (The which, in reason's absence, ruleth still), Rave, talk idly, as 'twere some deity, Adoring[563] female painted puppetry; Playing at put-pin,[564] doting on some glass (Which, breath'd but on, his falsèd gloss doth pass); Toying with babies,[565] and with fond pastime, Some children's sport, deflow'ring of chaste time; Employing all his wits in vain expense, Abusing all his organons of sense. 210 Return, return, sacred Synderesis! Inspire our trunks! Let not such mud as this Pollute us still. Awake our lethargy, Raise us from out our brain-sick foolery!

[546] Broken, cracked, impaired.

[547] Stretching.

[548] "Garboil"--tumult, commotion.

[549] The name of a Terentian _meretrix_.

[550] Jupiter made the night of thrice its ordinary length when he begot Hercules.

[551] Old eds. "Souping."

[552] Clotted.

[553] Soldiers (_Span._).

[554] Old eds. "idolatries."

[555] See note 1, p. 335. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [485]]

[556] An allusion to the closing lines of Barnabe Barnes' sixty-third sonnet.

[557] Donne has some verses _On a Flea on his Mistress' Bosom_, beginning:-- "Madam, that flea which crept between your breast I envied that there he should make his rest."

Whether these verses of Donne had been written (and circulated in MS.) so early, I do not know; but the conceit was certainly out of the common.

[558] A deformed person; literally, one who has been branded with a hot iron. The very words "_misshapen stigmatic_" occur in 3 _Henry VI._, ii. 2. (The Greek satirist Hipponax was an ill-looking fellow.)

[559] Old eds. "Metim."

[560] When Jupiter discovered that he had got Metis with child, he swallowed her; for it had been foretold that he would be dethroned if Metis had a son.--Apollod. _Bibl._ i. 6.

[561] Old eds. "foole."

[562] See note 4, p. 351. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [544]]

[563] So ed. 1598.--Ed. 1599 "adorning."--The confusion between "adore" and "adorn" is common.

[564] Commonly called "push-pin," a childish game described by Strutt.

[565] Children's toys,--particularly dolls.

SATIRE IX.

_Here's_[566] _a Toy to mock an Ape indeed._

Grim-faced Reproof, sparkle with threatening eye! Bend thy sour brows in my tart poesy! Avaunt! ye curs, howl in some cloudy mist, Quake to behold a sharp-fang'd satirist! O how on tip-toes proudly mounts my muse! Stalking a loftier gait than satires use. Methinks some sacred rage warms all my veins, Making my sprite mount up to higher strains Than well beseems a rough-tongu'd satire's part; But Art curbs Nature, Nature guideth[567] Art. 10 Come down, ye apes, or I will strip you quite, Baring your bald tails to the people's sight! Ye mimic slaves, what, are you perch'd so high? Down, Jackanapes, from thy feign'd royalty! What! furr'd with beard--cast in a satin suit, Judicial Jack? How hast thou got repute Of a sound censure? O idiot times, When gaudy monkeys mow o'er spritely rhymes! O world of fools! when all men's judgment's set, And rests[568] upon some mumping marmoset! 20 Yon Athens' ape (that can but simp'ringly Yaul "_Auditores humanissimi!_" Bound to some servile imitation, Can, with much sweat, patch an oration) Now up he comes, and with his crookèd eye Presumes to squint on some fair poesy; And all as thankless as ungrateful Thames, He slinks away, leaving but reeking steams Of dungy slime behind. All as ingrate He useth it as when I satiate 30 My spaniel's paunch, who straight perfumes the room With his tail's filth: so this uncivil groom, Ill-tutor'd pedant, Mortimer's[569] numbers With muck-pit Esculine filth bescumbers.[570] Now the ape chatters, and is as malcontent As a bill-patch'd door, whose entrails out have sent And spewed their tenant. My soul adores judicial scholarship; But when to servile imitatorship Some spruce Athenian pen is prenticèd, 40 'Tis worse than apish. Fie! be not flatterèd With seeming worth! Fond affectation Befits an ape, and mumping babion.[571] O what a tricksy, learnèd, nicking strain Is this applauded, senseless, modern vein![572] When late I heard it from sage Mutius' lips, How ill, methought, such wanton jigging skips Beseem'd his graver speech. "Far fly thy fame, Most, most of me beloved! whose silent name One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style 50 I ever honour; and, if my love beguile Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth Shall mount fair place, when apes are turnèd forth." I am too mild. Reach me my scourge again; O yon's a pen speaks in a learned vein, Deep, past all sense. Lanthorn and candle-light![573] Here's all invisible--all mental sprite! What hotch-potch gibberidge doth the poet bring? How strangely speaks, yet sweetly doth he sing? I once did know a tinkling pewterer, 60 That was the vilest stumbling stutterer That ever hack'd and hew'd our native tongue, Yet to the lute if you had heard him sung, Jesu! how sweet he breath'd! You can apply. O senseless prose, judicial poesy, How ill you're link'd! This affectation, To speak beyond men's apprehension, How apish 'tis, when all in fustian suit Is cloth'd a huge nothing, all for repute Of profound knowledge, when profoundness knows 70 There's naught contain'd but only seeming shows! Old Jack of Paris-garden, canst thou get A fair rich suit, though foully run in debt? Look smug, smell sweet, take up commodities,[574] Keep whores, fee bawds, belch impious blasphemies, Wallow along in swaggering disguise, Snuff up smoke-whiffs, and each morn, 'fore she rise, Visit thy drab? Canst use a false-cut die With a clean grace and glib facility? Canst thunder cannon-oaths, like th' rattling 80 Of a huge, double, full-charg'd culvering?[575] Then Jack, troop 'mong our gallants, kiss thy fist, And call them brothers; say a satirist Swears they are thine in near affinity, All cousin-germans, save in villainy; For (sadly, truth to say) what are they else But imitators of lewd beastliness? Far worse than apes; for mow or scratch your pate, It may be some odd ape will imitate; But let a youth that hath abused his time 90 In wrongèd travel, in that hotter clime, Swoop by old Jack, in clothes Italianate, And I'll be hang'd if he will imitate His strange fantastic suit-shapes: Or let him bring o'er beastly luxuries, Some hell-devisèd lustful villanies, Even apes and beasts would blush with native shame, And think it foul dishonour to their name, Their beastly name, to imitate such sin As our lewd youths do boast and glory in. 100 Fie! whither do these monkeys carry me? Their very names do soil my poesy. Thou world of marmosets and mumping apes, Unmask, put off thy feignèd, borrowed shapes! Why looks neat Curus all so simp'ringly? Why babblest thou of deep divinity, And of that sacred testimonial, Living voluptuous like a bacchanal? Good hath thy tongue; but thou, rank Puritan, I'll make an ape as good a Christian; 110 I'll force him chatter, turning up his eye, Look sad, go grave; demure civility Shall seem to say, "Good brother, sister dear!" As for the rest, to snort in belly-cheer,[576] To bite, to gnaw, and boldly intermel With sacred things, in which thou dost excel, Unforced he'll do. O take compassion Even on your souls! Make not Religion A bawd to lewdness. Civil Socrates, Clip not the youth of Alcibiades 120 With unchaste arms. Disguisèd Messaline, I'll tear thy mask, and bare thee to the eyn Of hissing boys, if to the theatres I find thee once more come for lecherers, To satiate (nay, to tire) thee with the use Of weak'ning lust. Ye feigners, leave t' abuse Our better thoughts with your hypocrisy; Or, by the ever-living verity! I'll strip you nak'd, and whip you with my rhymes, Causing your shame to live to after-times. 130

[566] An old proverbial saying.

[567] Ed. 1598 "guildeth."

[568] Ed. 1599 "rest."

[569] The allusion is to Drayton's _Mortimeriados_ originally published in 1596 (and republished in 1603, with many alterations, under the title of the _Baron's Wars_).

[570] Befouls. The word is ridiculed in _The Poetaster_.

[571] Baboon.--Old eds. "Babilon."

[572] "Non lædere, sed ludere: non lanea, sed linea: non ictus, sed nictus potius."--Marginal note in old eds.

[573] See note, vol. i. p. 35.

[574] Get goods on credit.

[575] A piece of ordnance.

[576] Gluttony.--The word is not uncommon.

SATIRE X.[577]

_Satira Nova._

_Stultorum plena sunt omnia._

TO HIS VERY FRIEND, MASTER E. G.

From out the sadness of my discontent, Hating my wonted jocund merriment (Only to give dull time a swifter wing), Thus scorning scorn, of idiot fools I sing. I dread no bending of an angry brow, Or rage of fools that I shall purchase now; Who'll scorn to sit in rank of foolery, When I'll be master of the company? For prithee, Ned, I prithee, gentle lad, Is not he frantic, foolish, bedlam mad, 10 That wastes his sprite, that melts his very brain In deep designs, in wit's dark gloomy strain? That scourgeth great slaves with a dreadless fist, Playing the rough part of a satirist, To be perused by all the dung-scum rabble Of thin-brain'd idiots, dull, incapable, For mimic apish scholars, pedants, gulls, Perfumed inamoratos, brothel-trulls? Whilst I (poor soul) abuse chaste virgin time, Deflow'ring her with unconceived rhyme. 20 "Tut, tut; a toy of an idle empty brain, Some scurril jests, light gewgaws, fruitless, vain," Cries beard-grave Dromus; when, alas! God knows His toothless gums ne'er chaw but outward shows. Poor budge-face,[578] bowcase sleeve: but let him pass; "Once fur and beard shall privilege an ass." And tell me, Ned, what might that gallant be, Who, to obtain intemperate luxury, Cuckolds his elder brother, gets an heir, By which his hope is turnèd to despair? 30 In faith (good Ned), he damn'd himself with cost; For well thou know'st full goodly land was lost. I am too private. Yet methinks an ass Rhymes well with _viderit utilitas_; Even full as well, I boldly dare aver, As any of that stinking scavenger Which from his dunghill be dedaubèd on The latter page of old _Pygmalion_. O that this brother of hypocrisy (Applauded by his pure fraternity) 40 Should thus be puffèd, and so proud insist As play on me the epigrammatist! "Opinion mounts this froth unto the skies, Whom judgment's reason justly vilifies." For (shame to the poet) read, Ned, behold How wittily a master's hood can scold!

_An_ EPIGRAM _which the_ Author Vergidemiarum _caused to be pasted to the latter page of every_ Pygmalion _that came to the Stationers of Cambridge_.

_I ask'd Physicians what their counsel was_ _For a mad dog, or for a mankind ass?_ _They told me, though there were confections' store_ _Of poppy-seed and sovereign hellebore,_ 50 _The dog was best cured by cutting and kinsing,_[579] _The ass must be kindly whipped for winsing._ _Now then, S. K., I little pass._ _Whether thou be a mad dog or a mankind ass._

Smart[580] jerk of wit! Did ever such a strain Rise from an apish schoolboy's childish brain? Dost thou not blush, good Ned, that such a scent Should rise from thence, where thou hadst nutriment? "Shame to Opinion, that perfumes his dung, And streweth flowers rotten bones among! 60 Juggling Opinion, thou enchanting witch! Paint not a rotten post[581] with colours rich." But now this juggler, with the world's consent, Hath half his[582] soul; the other, compliment; Mad world the whilst. But I forget me, I, I am seducèd with this poesy, And, madder than a bedlam, spend sweet time In bitter numbers, in this idle rhyme. Out on this humour! From a sickly bed, And from a moody mind distemperèd, 70 I vomit forth my love, now turn'd to hate, Scorning the honour of a poet's state. Nor shall the kennel rout of muddy brains Ravish my muse's heir, or hear my strains, Once more. No nitty[583] pedant shall correct Enigmas to his shallow intellect Enchantment, Ned, have ravishèd my sense In a poetic vain circumference. Yet thus I hope (God shield I now should lie), Many more fools, and most more wise than I. 80 VALE.

[577] This satire was added in ed. 1599.--I suspect that "Master E. G." was Edward Guilpin, author of _Skialetheia_, 1598, a collection of epigrams.

[578] See note 6, p. 346. [Transcriber's Note: Footnote [523]]

[579] "Mark the witty allusion to my name."--Marginal note in old ed. (See Introduction to vol. i.)

[580] The heading of the page in old ed. is changed from "_Stultorum plena sunt omnia_" to "_Medice cura tripsum_."

[581] An allusion to the posts that stood at the doors of sheriffs. These posts were repainted when new sheriffs came into office.--Middleton, v. 149.

[582] _i.e._, the world's.

[583] Lousy.

SATIRE XI.

_Humours._

Sleep, grim Reproof; my jocund muse doth sing In other keys, to nimbler fingering. Dull-sprighted Melancholy, leave my brain-- To hell,[584] Cimmerian night! in lively vein I strive to paint, then hence all dark intent And sullen frowns! Come, sporting Merriment, Cheek-dimpling Laughter, crown my very soul With jouisance, whilst mirthful jests control The gouty humours of these pride-swoll'n days, Which I do long until my pen displays. 10 O, I am great with Mirth! some midwif'ry, Or I shall break my sides at vanity. Room for a capering mouth, whose lips ne'er stir But in discoursing of the graceful slur.[585] Who ever heard spruce skipping Curio E'er prate of ought but of the whirl on toe, The turn-above-ground, Robrus' sprawling kicks, Fabius' caper, Harry's tossing tricks? Did ever any ear e'er hear him speak Unless his tongue of cross-points did entreat? 20 His teeth do caper whilst he eats his meat, His heels do caper whilst he takes his seat; His very soul, his intellectual Is nothing but a mincing capreal.[586] He dreams of toe-turns; each gallant he doth meet He fronts him with a traverse in the street. Praise but Orchestra,[587] and the skipping art, You shall command him, faith you have his heart Even cap'ring in your fist. A hall, a hall![588] Room for the spheres, the orbs celestial 30 Will dance Kempe's[589] jig: they'll revel with neat jumps; A worthy poet hath put on their pumps. O wit's quick traverse, but _sance ceo's_ [?] slow; Good faith 'tis hard for nimble Curio. "Ye gracious orbs, keep the old measuring; All's spoil'd if once ye fall to capering." Luscus, what's play'd to-day? Faith now I know I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo. Say who acts best? Drusus or Roscio? 40 Now I have him, that ne'er of ought did speak But when of plays or players he did treat-- Hath made a common-place[590] book out of plays, And speaks in print: at least what e'er he says Is warranted by Curtain plaudities. If e'er you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes, Say (courteous sir), speaks he not movingly, From out some new pathetic tragedy? He writes, he rails, he jests, he courts (what not?), And all from out his huge long-scraped stock 50 Of well-penn'd plays. Oh come not within distance! Martius speaks, Who ne'er discourseth but of fencing feats, Of _counter times_,[591] _finctures_, sly _passatas_, _Stramazones_, resolute _stoccatas_, Of the quick change with wiping _mandritta_, The _carricada_, with the _embrocata_. "Oh, by Jesu, sir!" methinks I hear him cry, "The honourable fencing mystery Who doth not honour?" Then falls he in again, 60 Jading our ears, and somewhat must be sain Of blades and rapier-hilts, of surest guard, Of Vincentio,[592] and the Burgonian's ward.[593] This bombast foil-button I once did see, By chance, in Livia's modest company; When, after the god-saving ceremony, For want of talk-stuff, falls to foinery; Out goes his rapier, and to Livia He shows the ward by _puncta reversa_, The _incarnata_. Nay, by the blessed light! 70 Before he goes, he'll teach her how to fight And hold her weapon. Oh I laugh amain, To see the madness of this Martius' vein! But room for Tuscus, that jest-mounging youth Who ne'er did ope his apish gerning mouth But to retail and broke another's wit Discourse of what you will, he straight can fit Your present talk, with "Sir, I'll tell a jest" (Of some sweet lady, or grand lord at least). Then on he goes, and ne'er his tongue shall lie 80 Till his engrossèd jests are all drawn dry; But then as dumb as Maurus, when at play Hath lost his crowns, and pawn'd his trim array. He doth nought but retail jests: break but one, Out flies his table-book; let him alone, He'll have it i'faith. Lad, hast an epigram, Wilt have it put into the chaps of fame? Give Tuscus copies; sooth, as his own wit (His proper issue) he will father it. O that this echo, that doth seek, spet, write 90 Nought but the excrements of others sprite, This ill-stuff'd trunk of jests (whose very soul Is but a heap of gibes) should once enroll His name 'mong creatures termed rational! Whose chief repute, whose sense, whose soul and all Are fed with offal scraps, that sometimes fall From liberal wits in their large festival. Come aloft, Jack! room for a vaulting skip, Room for Torquatus, that ne'er oped his lip But in prate of _pommado reversa_,[594] 100 Of the nimble, tumbling Angelica. Now, on my soul, his very intellect Is nought but a curvetting sommerset. "Hush, hush," cries honest Philo, "peace, desist! Dost thou not tremble, sour satirist, Now that[595] judicial Musus readeth thee? He'll whip each line, he'll scourge thy balladry, Good faith he will." Philo, I prithee stay Whilst I the humour of this dog display. He's nought but censure; wilt thou credit me, 110 He never writ one line in poesy, But once at Athens in a theme did frame A paradox in praise of virtue's name; Which still he hugs and lulls as tenderly As cuckold Tisus his wife's bastardy? Well, here's a challenge: I flatly say he lies That heard him ought but censure poesies; 'Tis his discourse, first having knit the brow, Stroke up his fore-top, champèd every row, Belcheth his slavering censure on each book 120 That dare presume even on Medusa look. I have no artist's skill in symphonies, Yet when some pleasing diapason flies From out the belly of a sweet-touch'd lute, My ears dare[596] say 'tis good: or when they suit Some harsher sevens for variety, My native skill discerns it presently. What then? Will any sottish dolt repute, Or ever think me Orpheus absolute? Shall all the world of fidlers follow me, 130 Relying on my voice in musickry? Musus, here's Rhodes; let's see thy boasted leap, Or else avaunt, lewd cur, presume not speak, Or with thy venom-sputtering chaps to bark Gainst well-penn'd poems, in the tongue-tied dark. O for a humour, look, who yon doth go, The meagre lecher, lewd Luxurio! 'Tis he that hath the sole monopoly, By patent, of the suburb lechery; No new edition of drabs comes out, 140 But seen and allow'd by Luxurio's snout. Did ever any man e'er hear him talk, But of Pick-hatch,[597] or of some Shoreditch balk, Aretine's filth, or of his wand'ring whore;[598] Of some Cinædian, or of Tacedore; Of Ruscus' nasty, loathsome brothel rhyme, That stinks like A-jax[599] froth, or muck-pit slime? The news he tells you is of some new flesh, Lately broke up, span new, hot piping fresh. The courtesy he shows you is some morn 150 To give you Venus 'fore her[600] smock be on. His eyes, his tongue, his soul, his all, is lust, Which vengeance and confusion follow must. Out on this salt humour, letcher's dropsy, Fie! it doth soil my chaster poesy! O spruce! How now, Piso, Aurelius' ape, What strange disguise, what new deformèd shape, Doth hold thy thoughts in contemplation? Faith say, what fashion art thou thinking on? A stitch'd taffeta cloak, a pair of slops 160 Of Spanish leather? O, who heard his chops E'er chew of ought but of some strange disguise? This fashion-monger, each morn 'fore he rise, Contemplates suit-shapes, and once from out his bed, He hath them straight full lively portrayèd. And then he chucks, and is as proud of this As Taphus when he got his neighbour's bliss. All fashions, since the first year of this queen, May in his study fairly drawn be seen; And all that shall be to his day of doom; 170 You may peruse within that little room; For not a fashion once dare show his face, But from neat Piso first must take his grace: The long fool's coat, the huge slop, the lugg'd[601] boot, From mimic Piso all do claim their root. O that the boundless power of the soul Should be coop'd up in fashioning some roll! But O, Suffenus! (that doth hug, embrace His proper self, admires his own sweet face; Praiseth his own fair limbs' proportion, 180 Kisseth his shade, recounteth all alone His own good parts) who envies him? Not I, For well he may, without all rivalry. Fie! whither's fled my sprite's alacrity? How dull I vent this humorous poesy! In faith I am sad, I am possess'd with ruth, To see the vainness of fair Albion's youth; To see their richest time even wholly spent In that which is but gentry's ornament; Which, being meanly done, becomes them well; 190 But when with dear time's loss they do excell, How ill they do things well! To dance and sing, To vault, to fence, and fairly trot[602] a ring With good grace, meanly done, O what repute They do beget! But being absolute, It argues too much time, too much regard Employ'd in that which might be better spar'd Than substance should be lost. If one should sue For Lesbia's love, having two days to woo, And not one more, and should employ those twain 200 The favour of her waiting-wench to gain, Were he not mad? Your apprehension, Your wits are quick in application. Gallants, Methinks your souls should grudge and inly scorn To be made slaves[603] to humours that are born In slime of filthy sensuality. That part not subject to mortality (Boundless, discursive apprehension Giving it wings to act his function), 210 Methinks should murmur when you stop his course, And soil his beauties in some beastly source Of brutish pleasures; but it is so poor, So weak, so hunger-bitten, evermore Kept from his food, meagre for want of meat, Scorn'd and rejected, thrust from out his seat, Upbraid[604] by capons' grease, consumèd quite By eating stews, that waste the better sprite, Snibb'd[605] by his baser parts, that now poor soul (Thus peasanted to each lewd thought's control) 220 Hath lost all heart, bearing all injuries, The utmost spite and rank'st indignities, With forcèd willingness; taking great joy, If you will deign his faculties employ But in the mean'st ingenious quality. (How proud he'll be of any dignity!) Put it to music, dancing, fencing-school, Lord, how I laugh to hear the pretty fool, How it will prate! His tongue shall never lie, But still discourse of his spruce quality, 230 Egging his master to proceed from this, And get the substance of celestial bliss. His lord straight calls his parliament of sense; But still the sensual have pre-eminence. The poor soul's better part so feeble is, So cold and dead is his Synderesis, "That shadows, by odd chance, sometimes are got; But O the substance is respected not!" Here ends my rage. Though angry brow was bent, Yet I have sung in sporting merriment. 240

[584] _i.e._ "Melancholy, get you to hell!"

[585] Seemingly a term for some sliding dance-movement.

[586] "Intellectual ... mincing capreal."--These words are ridiculed by Ben Jonson in _Every Man out of his Humour_, iii. 1. See Introduction, vol. i.

[587] Sir John Davies' excellent poem.

[588] "A hall, a hall!"--The cry raised when an open space was wanted for the dancers.

[589] There is no allusion to Will Kempe's famous dance from London to Norwich, as that feat was performed in 1600. _Kempe's jig_ was the name of a popular dance; and there was a ballad that bore the same title.

[590] So in the Induction to the _Malcontent_:--"I am one that hath seen this play often: I have most of the jests here in my table-book."--Dekker, in the _Gull's-Horn Book_, advises a gallant to "hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your lean wit may most savourly feed for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you!"

[591] The italicised words are technical terms in fencing. I cannot find the term _finctures_, but it doubtless has the meaning _feints_(otherwise called _falses_).

[592] The reference is to Vincentio Saviolo, a famous Italian master of fence, author of _Vincentio Saviolo his Practise in two Bookes. The first intreating of the use of the Rapier and Dagger. The Second of Honor and Honorable Quarrels_, 1595, 4to.

[593] In _Every Man in his Humour_ Cob speaks of Bobadil as a "_Burgullian_ fencer"; and Dekker in the Preface to _Satiromastix_ says that "Horace [Jonson] questionless made himself believe that his _Burgonian_ wit might desperately challenge all comers, and that none durst take up the foils against him." In each case the allusion is to the Bastard of Burgundy who was overthrown at Smithfield in 1467 by Anthony Woodville. There is doubtless the same allusion in the present passage.

[594] The _pommado_ was the vaulting on a horse (without touching the stirrups) and the _pommado reversa_ was the vaulting off again.

[595] Omitted in ed. 1598.

[596] Ed. 1598 "dares."

[597] Pick-hatch (in Clerkenwell) and Shoreditch were the head-quarters of whores.

[598] _Puttana Errante_ is the title of a poem (by Lorenzo Veniero) falsely ascribed to Aretino. The same title was sometimes given to _Dialoghi di Rosana e Ginevra_. See Preface to vol. i. of _Les Ragionamenti ou Dialogues du divin Pietro Aretino_, Paris, 1882.

[599] (1) Ajax; (2) A jakes.--The joke is of constant occurrence.

[600] Ed. 1599 "his."

[601] _i.e._, with long ears, or tags.

[602] "Trot a ring."--See note 1, vol. i. p. 111.

[603] Ed. 1598 "slave."

[604] "Remors de l'estromac, _The upbraiding of the stomacke_."--_Cotgrave._

[605] Snubbed.

TO EVERLASTING OBLIVION.[606]

Thou mighty gulf, insatiate cormorant! Deride me not, though I seem petulant To fall into thy chops. Let others pray For ever their fair poems flourish may; But as for me, hungry Oblivion, Devour me quick, accept my orison, My earnest prayers, which do importune thee, With gloomy shade of thy still empery, To veil both me and my rude poesy. Far worthier lines, in silence of thy state, 10 Do sleep securely, free from love or hate; From which this living ne'er can be exempt, But whilst it breathes will hate and fury tempt: Then close his eyes with thy all-dimming hand, Which not right glorious actions can withstand. Peace, hateful tongues, I now in silence pace, Unless some hound do wake me from my place, I with this sharp, yet well-meant poesy, Will sleep secure, right free from injury Of canker'd hate, or rankest villainy. 20

[606] Compare "The Author's Charge to his Satires" prefixed to Hall's _Virgedemiarum, The three last Books_.

TO HIM THAT HATH PERUSED ME.

Gentle or ungentle hand that holdest me, let not thine eye be cast upon privateness, for I protest I glance not on it. If thou hast perused me, what lesser favour canst thou grant than not to abuse me with unjust application? Yet, I fear me, I shall be much, much injuried[607] by two sorts of readers: the one being ignorant, not knowing the nature of a satire (which is, under feigned private names to note general vices), will needs wrest each feigned name to a private unfeigned person: the other, too subtile, bearing a private malice to some greater personage than he dare, in his own person, seem to malign, will strive, by a forced application of my general reproofs, to broach his private hatred,--than the which I know not a greater injury can be offered to a satirist. I durst presume, knew they how guiltless and how free I were from prying into privateness, they would blush to think how much they wrong themselves in seeking to injure me. Let this protestation satisfy our curious searchers; so may I obtain my best hopes, as I am free from endeavouring to blast any private man's good name. If any one (forced with his own guilt) will turn it home and say, "'Tis I," I cannot hinder him; neither do I injure him. For other faults of poesy, I crave no[608] pardon, in that I scorn all penance the bitterest censurer can impose upon me. Thus (wishing each man to leave inquiring whom I am, and learn to know himself) I take a solemn congee of this fusty world.

THERIOMASTIX.

[607] The verb _injury_ is frequently found.

[608] Ed. 1598 "me."

ENTERTAINMENT

OF

ALICE, DOWAGER-COUNTESS OF DERBY.

_The noble Lorde & Lady of Huntingdons Entertainement of theire right Noble Mother Alice: Countesse Dowager of Darby the first night of her honors arrivall att the house of Ashby._

The MS. of this Entertainment is preserved at Bridgewater House. Extracts were printed in Halliwell's _Marston_, vol. iii.; but the Entertainment was first printed in full by Dr. Grosart. I have not seen the MS.: it seemed unnecessary to go over the ground again, for Dr. Grosart's transcript was evidently made with great care.[609] "The MS.," he observes, "fills fifteen leaves. The first leaf, which contains the address to the dowager-duchess of Derby, and leaves fourteen and fifteen, which contain the 'Epilogue' (never before printed), are in Marston's own handwriting. The rest of the MS. is in two hands.... Throughout the MS. there are several corrections made in a darker ink, and apparently by Marston himself. On leaf two is a small blank space and the following words by Marston: 'as this lame figure demonstrates'--a sketch being evidently intended. But, spite of the author's supervision, various mistakes of the scribe are left."

[609] At the close of his Introduction to Hall's _Satires_, Dr. Grosart corrects a few errors that had crept into his transcript of Marston's Entertainment. These corrections I have silently adopted.

TO THE

RIGHT NOBLE LADY ALICE,

COUNTESS-DOWAGER OF DERBY.

MADAM, If my slight Muse may suit your noble merit, My hopes are crown'd, and I shall cheer my spirit; But if my weak quill droops or seems unfit, 'Tis not your want of worth, but mine of wit. The servant of your honour'd virtues, JOHN MARSTON.

When her Ladyship approached the Park corner, a full noise of cornets winded; and when she entered into the Park, treble cornets reported one to another, as giving warning of her Honour's nearer approach; when presently her eye was saluted with an antique gate, which suddenly was erected in this form. Upon the gate did hang many silver scrolls with this word in them, _Tantum uni_. Upon the battlements over the gate three gilt shields in diamond-figure, impaled on the top with three coronets purfled with gold, and severally inscribed with silver words; in the first shield, _Venisti tandem_; in the second, _Nostra sera_; in the third, _Et sola voluptas_. Over these, upon a half sphere, stood embossed an antique figure gilt; the slight tower[s] to this gate, which were only raised for show, were set out with battlements, shields, and coronets suitable to the rest. When the Countess came near the gate an old enchantress in crimson velvet, with pale face, black hair, and disliking countenance, affronted her Ladyship, and thus rudely saluted her:--

Woman, Lady, Princess, Nymph, or Goddess, For more you are not, and you seem no less; Stay, and attempt not passage through this port, Here the pale Lord of Sadness keep[s] his court, Rough-visag'd Saturn, on whose bloodless cheeks, Dull Melancholy sits, who straightly seeks To seize on all that enter through this gate. Grant gracious listening, and I shall relate The means, the manner, and of all the sense, Whilst your fair eye enforceth eloquence. There was a time (and since that time the sun Hath not yet through nine signs of heaven run) When the high Sylvan, that commands these woods, And his bright Nymph, fairer than Queen of Floods, With most impatient longings hoped to view Her face to whom their hearts' dear'st zeal was due. Youth's joys to love, sweet light unto the blind, Beauty to virgins, or what wit can find Most dearly wished, was not so much desired As she to them; O my dull soul is fired To tell their longings, but it is a piece That would o'erload the famous tongues of Greece. Yet long they hop'd, till Rumour struck Hope dead, And showed their wishes were but flatterèd; For scarce her chariot cut the easy earth, And journeyed on, when Winter with cold breath Crosseth her way, her borrowed hair doth shine With glittering icicles all crystalline; Her brows were periwigg'd with softer snow, Her russet mantle, fringed with ice below, Sat[610] stiffly on her back; she thus came forth, Ushered with tempest of the frosty North; And seeing her, she thought she sure had seen The sweet-breath'd Flora, the bright Summer's Queen. So full of cheerful grace she did appear, That Winter feared her face recalled the year, And forced untimely springs to seize her right, Whereat with anger and malicious spite She vows revenge; straight with tempestuous wings, From Taurus, Alps, and Scythian rocks she flings Their covering off, and here their thick fur spread, That patient earth was almost smotherèd. Up Boreas mounts, and doth so strongly blow Athwart her way huge drifts of blinding snow, That mountain-like, at length heaps rose so high, Man's sight might doubt whether Heaven or Earth were sky. Hereat she turnèd back, and left her way (Necessity all mortals must obey); Which was no sooner voiced and hither flown, It sads me but to think what grief was shown; Which to augment (mishap ne'er single falls), The God of Sadness and of Funerals, Of heavy pensiveness and discontent, Cold and dull Saturn hither straight was sent. Myself, Merimna, who still wait upon Pale Melancholy and Desolation, Usher'd him in, when straight we strongly seize All this sad house, and vowed no means should ease These heavy bands which pensive Saturn tied, Till with wish'd grace this house was beautified. Pace then no further, for vouchsafe to know, Till her approach here can no comfort grow; 'Tis only one can their sad bondage break, Whose worth I may admire, not dare to speak. She's so complete, that her much honoured state Gives Fortune Virtue, makes Virtue fortunate; As one in whom three rare mix'd virtues sit Seen seldom joinèd, Fortune, Beauty, Wit; To this choice Lady and to her dear state All hearts do open, as alone this gate; She only drives away dull Saturn hence, She whom to praise I need her eloquence!

This speech thus ended, presently Saturn issued from forth the port, and curiously beholding the Countess, spake thus:--

Peace! stay, it is, it is, it is even she! Hail happy honours of Nobility! Did never Saturn see, or ne'er see such? What should I style you? what choice phrase may touch, Or hopes in words such wondrous grace to suit, Whose worth doth want an equal attribute. Let never mortal wondering silence break, Since to express you Gods themselves must speak. Sweet glories of your sex, know that your eyes Makes mild the roughest planet of the skies. Even we, the Lord that sits on ebon thrones, Circled with sighs and discontented groans, Are forced at your fair presence to relent, At your approach all Saturn's force is spent. Now breaks my bands, now sadness leaves their towers, Now all are turn'd to Flora's smiling bowers; Then now give way, now is my bondage due Only to those who safely envy you. Hence, solitary Beldam, sink to-night, I give up all to joy, and to delight. And now pass on, all-happy-making dame! O could you but imagine what a flame Of many joys now in their bosoms shine Who count it their dear'st honour to be thine, You would aver, to number[611] them who seeks Must sure invent some new arithmetics, For who to cast their reckoning takes in hand Had need for counters take the ocean-sand. Their service is your right, your love their due Who only love themselves for loving you. Their palace waits you with so hearty gate Men cannot utter nor Gods scarce relate.

Then passed the whole troop to the house, until the Countess had mounted the stairs to the great chamber; on the top of which, Merimna, having changed her habit all to white, met her, and, whilst a consort softly played, spake thus:--

Madam, See what a change the spirit of your eyes Hath wrought in us. Hence dull Saturn flies, And we that were the ghost of woe and earth Are all transform'd unto the soul of mirth. O we are full of joy, no breast more light But those who owe you theirs by nature's right; From whom vouchsafe this present,--'tis a work Wherein strange miracles and wonders lurk. For, know, that Lady whose ambition towers Only to this, to be term'd worthy yours; Whose forehead I could crown with clearest rays, But that her praise is she abhors much praise; Not long since thought she saw in slumb'ring trances The Queen of Fairies and of moonlight dances Come tripping in; and with a fairy kiss She chastely touch'd her and straight gave her this With this strange charge:--"This piece alone was made For her in whom no graces e'er shall fade; For her whose worth is such I dare aver It fears not satire nor the flatterer; For her who gave you first most gracing name, Who loveth goodness for itself, not fame; For her whom modest virtue doth enfold[612] so That she had rather be much graced than told so; For her for whom, had you the whole world's breast And of it all gave her sole interest, You'd judge it slight." This said, hence straight she flew, And left it her who only vows it you. Then whilst our breast with secret welcomes ring, Vouchsafe acceptance of this offering.

Thus with a song Merimna presented her[613] honour with a very curious and rich waistcoat; which done, the Countess passed on to her chamber.

_The Masque presented by four knights and four gentlemen at the right noble Earl of Huntingdon's house of Ashby in honour of his Lady's most worthy mother's arrival, Alice Countess Dowager of Derby._

The form was thus:--

At the approach of the countesses into the great chamber the hoboys played until the room was marshalled; which once ordered, a traverse[614] slided away; presently a cloud was seen move up and down almost to the top of the great chamber, upon which Cynthia was discovered riding; her habit was blue satin, fairly embroidered with stars and clouds: who looking down and earnestly surveying the ladies, spake thus:--

_Cynth._ Are not we Cynthia? and shall earth display Brighter than us and force untimely day? What daring flames beam such illustrious light, Enforcing darkness from the claim of night? Up, Ariadne, thy clear beauty rouse, Thou Northern Crown to lusty Bacchus' spouse, Let's mix our glories to outblaze your flame; To be outshone is Heaven's and great hearts' shame. Look down; know'st them? See how their fronts rebate Splendour like Jove and beauty worth our state! Hath our bright brother, the fair Lord of days, Into their eyes shed his us-dark'ning rays? Or hath some daring spirit forgot Jove's ire And to grace them stol'n his celestial fire? We are not Phoebe, this is not Heaven's story; Place gives not worth, but worth gives place his glory.

In the midst of this speech Ariadne rose from the bottom of the room, mounted upon a cloud which waved up until it came near Cynthia, where resting Ariadne spake thus:--

_Ariad._ Can our chaste queen, searching Apollo's sister, Not know those stars that in yon valley glister? Is virtue strange to heaven? Can Cynthia Not know the goodly-form'd Pasithea? She who loves greatness to be greatly good, Knowing fair'st worth from virtue springs, not blood; Whose graceful just proportion is held such That what may be judge[d] beauty must have touch And proof from hers: yet this her least of grace (Which is the most in most)--her beauty's but the case Of fairest mind: when Fortune gave her eyes, Her worth made Fortune judge she once had eyes. But see a piece that would strike envy blind, Whose face would Furies tame, make monsters kind. He gave her mighty praise and yet no other But that in mind and form she's like her mother: Up, raisèd passion, and with pæans follow Grace of the Muses, daughter of Apollo! O precious selahs' praise thy worth is under; He that would limn thy grace must only wonder. Then views not Cynthia sweet Sophrosyne, Long honour of most rare virginity, But now much happy in her noble choice? In well-link'd nuptials all the gods rejoice. Next learn'd Eulogia, bright in gracious rays, Whose merit faster springeth than my praise; For whoso strives to give her worth fair due, Shall find his praise straight old, her merit new.

_Cynth._ But, look, whose eyes are those that shine more clear Than lightning thrown from shield of Jupiter? See, see, how quick fire leaps from forth her eyes Which burn all hearts and warm the very skies. Is't not bright Euthera?

_Ariad._ The very same, But her mind's splendour hath a nobler flame. But let the gods Eurythia behold, And let them envy her, face nobly bold, Proportion all proportion, with a mind But like itself, no epithet can find.

_Cynth._ Let's visit them and slide from our abode: Who loves not virtue leaves to be a god. Sound, spheres, spread your harmonious breath, When mortals shine in worth gods grace the earth.

The clouds descend: while soft music soundeth, Cynthia and Ariadne dismount from their clouds, and, pacing up to the ladies, Cynthia, perceiving Ariadne wanting her crown of stars, speaks thus:--

_Cynth._ But where is Ariadne's wreath of stars, Her eight pure fires that stud with golden bars Her shining brows? hath sweet-tongued Mercury Advanced his sons to station of the sky And throned them in thy wreath? [or] dost thou leave Thy splendour off and trust of gods deceive?

_Ariad._ Queen of chaste dew, they will not be confined Or fix themselves where Mercury assign'd, But every night upon a forest-side, On which an eagle percheth, they abide, And honour her with their most raisèd light, Chaste sports, just praises, and all soft delight, Vowing their beams to make her presence heaven: Thus is the glory of my front bereaven.

_Cynth._ Tell them they err, and say that we, the Queen Of night's pale lamps, have now the substance seen Whose shadow they adore. Go, bring those eight At mighty Cynthia's summons hither straight. Let us behold, that mount whilst we salute, Their faces, 'fore whom no dullness can be mute.

Presently Ariadne sings this short call:--

Music and gentle night, Beauty, youth's chief delight, Pleasures all full invite Your due attendance to this glorious room; Then, if you have or wit or virtue, come, Oh, come! oh, come!

Suddenly, upon this song, the cornets were winded, and the traverse that was drawn before the masquers sank down. The whole show presently appeareth, which presented itself in this figure: the whole body of it seemed to be the side of a steeply ascending wood, on the top of which, in a fair oak, sat a golden eagle, under whose wings sat, in eight several thrones, the eight masquers, with visards like stars, their helms like Mercury's, with the addition of fair plumes of carnation and white, their antique doublets and other furniture suitable to those colours, the place full of shields, lights, and pages all in blue satin robes, embroidered with stars. The masquers, thus discovered, sat still until Ariadne pronounced this invocation, at which they descended:--

_Ariad._ Mercurian issue, sons of son of Jove, By the Cyllenian rod, and by the love Devotely chaste you vow Pasithea, Descend: first thou more bright of these That givest my crown her name, clear Dolopes, Whose brave descent lets not thy fair heart fall As born of parents most heroical, Who vows himself, his life, his sword and fortune To her whose constant goodness doth importune More than he is: descend! Next him, Auctolius, Of nimble spirit slide to honour us; Faithfull'st Evander; clear-soul'd Erythus; The hopeful Prilis and sweet Polybus; And thou, true son of quick-brain'd Mercury, Dear-loved Myrtillus, with that bright soul mix'd, Experienced Lares, that at last is fix'd After much danger in securer sphere. Here all with wishèd easiness appear, And O, if ever you were worth the grace Of viewing majesty in mortal's face, If e'er to perfect worth you vow'd heart's duty, Show spirit worth your virtues and their beauty.

The violins upon this played a new measure, to which the masquers danced; and ceasing, Cynthia spake:--

Stay a little, and now breathe ye, Whilst these ladies grace bequeath ye; Then mix fair hands, and gently ease ye, Cynthia charms hence what may displease ye. From ladies that are rudely coy, Barring their loves from modest joy, From ignorant silence, and proud looks, From those that answer out of books, From those that hate our chaste delight, I bless the fortune of each starry Knight. From gallants who still court with oaths, From those whose only grace is clothes, From bumbast stockings, vile leg-makers, From beards and great tobacco-takers, I bless the fortune of each starry dame. Sing, that my charm may be more strong; The gods are bound by verse and song.

_The Song_

Audacious night makes bold the lip, Now all court chaster pleasure, Whilst to Apollo's harp you trip, And tread the gracing measure. _Cynth._ Now meet, now break, then feign a warlike sally; So Cynthia sports, and so the gods may dally.

Judicious wit, now raise thy brain, Now heat thy nimbler spirit, Show what delicious faces strain; Much passion shows much merit. _Cynth._ Now meet, now break, then feign a warlike sally; So Cynthia sports, and so the gods may dally.

Lascivious youth not dare to speak The language of loose city; He that Diana's bonds doth break Is held most rudely witty. _Cynth._ Now meet, now break, then feign a warlike sally; So Cynthia sports, and so the gods may dally.

Disgracious dullness yet much mars The shape of courtly talking; He that can silent touch such stars His soul lies in his walking. _Cynth._ Now meet, now break, then feign a warlike sally; So Cynthia sports, and so the gods may dally.

During this song, the masquers presented their shields, and took forth their ladies to dance. After they had danced many measures, galliards, corantos, and levaltos, the night being much spent, whilst the masquers prepared themselves for their departing measure, Cynthia spake thus:--

_Cynth._ Now pleasing rest; for, see the night (Wherein pale Cynthia claims her right) Is almost spent; the morning grows, The rose and violet she strows Upon the high celestial floor, 'Gainst Phoebus rise from paramour. The Fairies, that my shades pursue, And bathe their feet in my cold dew, Now leave their ringlets and be quiet, Lest my brother's eye should spy it. Then now let every gracious star Avoid at sound of Phoebus' car; Into your proper place retire, With bosoms full of beauty's fire; Hence must slide the Queen of Floods, For day begins to gild the woods. Then whilst we sing, though you depart, I'll swear that here you leave your heart.

The eclogue which a despairing shepherd spake to a nymph at my Lady's departure:--

Stay, fair Beliza, and, whilst Heaven throws On the crack'd earth His burning breath, O hear thy Dorus' woes, Whose cause and cure only Beliza knows.

See now the god of flames in full pomp rides, And now each lass On flowery grass By the cool fountain sides With quiet bosom and soft ease abides.

Do you so too, for see this bounteous spring: Pray thee sit down, Then shall I crown Thy brows with flowery ring, Whilst thus with shepherd's homely voice I sing.

He sang a passionate ditty; which done, he spake thus:--

_Shep._ Now, fairest, deign once to impart, Did ever live so coy a lass Who unto love was never moved?

_Nymph._ Yes, shepherd, she that hath the heart And is resolved her life to pass Neither to love or be beloved.

_Shep._ She senseless lives without affection.

_Nymph._ Yet happy lives without subjection.

_Shep._ To be pluck'd are roses blown, To be mow'd are meadows grown [sown?], Gems are made but to be shown, And woman's best--

_Nymph._ To keep her own.

_Shep._ Well, shepherdess, still hate to love me; No scorn from my fix'd vow shall move me. When sheep to finest grass have loathing, When courtiers shall disdain rich clothing, When shepherds shun their mayday's sports, Green sickness when 'tis rife in courts,-- O then, and not till then, I'll hate Beliza, my sole love and fate.

_Nymph._ When love in daughters shall ascend For simple Piety's sole end, When any child her mother graces With all she can, yet all defaces In her fair thought the faith she oweth (Though what she can she freely showeth); Then, shepherd, mayst thou hope attend, For then my hate shall have an end.

_Shep._ Thou'rt mine, Beliza; for behold All the hopes thy wishes crave, All the best the world can have, Here these happy characters unfold; Which who dares but once deny, In the most just and fair defence Of her love's highest excellence, I of thousands am the weak'st will die: From which, O deign to give this touch, Who gives what he can get, gives much.

[_The_ Shepherd _presented a scarf_.

Farewell, farewell! Joy, Love, Peace, Health in you long dwell, With our farewell, farewell!

So the Countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet and so departed.

[610] Dr. Grosart reads "Sott" (from MS.).

[611] Dr. Grosart reads (from the MS.) "You would aueer to numbers: them who seekes."

[612] Dr. Grosart gives from the MS. "vnfolde."

[613] MS. "his."

[614] Moveable screen.

CITY PAGEANT.

CITY PAGEANT,[615]

ON THE OCCASION OF THE VISIT PAID BY THE KING OF DENMARK TO JAMES I. IN 1606.

_The argument of the spectacle presented to the sacred Majesties of Great Britain and Denmark as they passed through London._

After that the Recorder in the name of the City had saluted the Majesties of Great Britain and Denmark with this short oration:--

"Serenissime, Augustissime Rex: quid enim Reges dicam, quos non tam conjunctio sanguinis, quam communio pietatis unum fecit? Anni sunt quinquaginta plus minus, a quo Regem vel unum aspeximus; nunc duos simul contemplamur, admiramur: quapropter antiqua civitas London, nova ista condecorata gloria, triumphat gaudio, salutat precibus, Majestatis binam hanc majestatem.

"Sed quid offeremus? Corda non nostra, tua sunt, magne, maxime Jacobe: et quia tua, Regi huic, potentissimo, fraternitatis vinculo majestati vestræ conjunctissimo, amoris ergo hæcque [_sic_] munusculo dicantur."

The Scene or Pageant of Triumph presented itself in this figure. In the midst of a vast sea, compassed with rocks, appeared the Island of Great Britain, supported on the one side by Neptune, with the force of Ships; on the other, Vulcan with the power of iron, and the commodities of tin, lead, and other minerals. Over the island, Concord, supported by Piety, and Policy, sat enthroned: the body of it thus shaped, the life of it thus spake; whilst the Tritons in the sea sounded loud music, the mermaids singing; then in a cloud Concord descending, and landing on the crag of a rock, spake thus:--

CONCORDIA.

Gentes feroces inter, et crudæ necis Animos capaces, quibus et ignavum est mori Paulo coactis, queis et arma civica, Bellaque leonum paria lacerabant agros, Nunc pacis almæ mater, et cælo edita, Et arcuato cælicæ pacis throno Suffulta, stabilis hic sedeo Concordia. Sic nempe amorum jubet et armorum Deus, Presto ut Britannum principi illustri forem. Religio dextram fulsit, et monet pie Bonum supremum scire supremum est bonum; Justitia lævam, voce sancta cognita, "Servate jus, servate cælicam fidem." Nunc itaque, reges, tuque, super omnes mihi Dilecte, Brutii magne moderator soli, Et tu, sacrato foedere et fratris pio Nexu revinctus, vos in æternum jubet Salvere missa cælitus Concordia. Non has inique denuo hostilis furor Gentes lacessat, neque leonum fortia Ferro dolove corda pertentet malo. Quoties in unum junctis [olim] viribus Coiere Bruti[i], non potuit ulla rabies Externa quatere, aut noxii vis consilii. Romana cessit aquila, donec proditor, Et scelere coepta civium distractio, Animam addidisset hostibus, patriæ metum. Nunc sceptra cum septena vi Normannicæ Camberque cessit, arma deposuit diu Indomita Ierne, et insulis centum potens Magni Getheli accessit antiquum genus. Fraternum amorem, jus sacrati foederis Fideique sanctæ, vinculo astrinxit Jupiter; Quæ vis lacesset? quod scelus quatiet? quibus Armis dolisve insanus utetur furor? En hic frequentes et celebres civium Turmæ, hic juventæ dulce conspirans cohors, Matres puellis, juvenibus[616] misti senes, Vos intuentur: omnis ordo suspicit. Hæ[617] gratiosa lumina, illi pectora Generosa pariter et serena prædicant. (_Adventu Regis, Insula Britanniæ sese aperit, Londinumque prodit._) Totius aperit Insula imperii fores, Ultroque prodit cana mater urbium.

LONDINUM.

Sera quidem, at felix, O cælo addenda, sereno Numina nata solo, illuxit præsentia vestra. Ecce, domus omnes turgent, plenæque fenestræ Expectantum oculos, et prospera cuncta precantum. Invide, Brittannas complexe, Tridentifer,[618] oras, Cur tam longa piæ mora gaudia distulit urbis?

NEPTUNUS.

Urbs cara nobis, cara supremo patri, Non aliqua nos invidia, sed zelus tui, Movit, citatque, ut cursui obstarem ratis. Ego, cum viderem Principem tantum meo Sedisse dorso, ac linteis plenis vehi, Quidnam pararet veritus, et quo tenderet, Remoras adhibui, fateor, ac per me obsteti, Ne te moveret, ne tibi damnum daret; Tibi ut faverem moris antiqui est mihi. Sed, amore cuncta plena[619] fraterno videns, Preces benignas ut perimpleret tuas, Ventum ferentem et maria concessit Jupiter, Dabuntque Neptunus, et Eolus, et Jupiter.[620]

LONDINUM.

Sic, O sic fiat! læto exultate triumpho, Terra ferax, mare fluctisonum, resonabilis Echo: Vivant, æternum vivant, pia numina, fratres! Vivant, Vivant! The [h]umblest servant of your sacred Majesty, _John Marston_.

[615] From Royal MSS. 18A xxxi. (British Museum).

[616] MS. "juvenibus_que_"--an unmetrical reading.

[617] MS. "Hi."

[618] MS. "Tridentifere."

[619] MS. "pleno fraterna."

[620] "In MS. legitur, Neptunus, Eolus, Jupiter; Monosyllaba hæc duo interposita metrum ad iambicos Marstonianos (non Horatianos, fatemur) restituunt."--_Halliwell._

VERSES BY MARSTON.

From Sir Robert Chester's _Love's Martyr_,[621] 1601.

_A Narration and Description of a most exact wondrous Creature, arising out of the Phoenix and Turtle-Dove's ashes._

O, 'twas a moving Epicedium! Can fire, can time, can blackest fate consume So rare creation? No, 'tis thwart to sense; Corruption quakes to touch such excellence; Nature exclaims for justice, justice fate,-- Ought into nought can never remigrate. Then look; for see what glorious issue, brighter Than clearest fire, and beyond faith far whiter Than Dian's tier, now springs from yonder flame! Let me stand numb'd with wonder; never came 10 So strong amazement on astonish'd eye As this, this measureless pure rarity. Lo, now, th' extracture of Divinest essence, The soul of Heaven's laboured quintessence, (Pæans to Phoebus!) your dear lover's death Takes sweet creation and all-blessing breath. What strangeness is't, that from the Turtle's ashes Assumes such form, whose splendour clearer flashes Than mounted Delius? Tell me, genuine muse! Now yield your aids, you spirits that infuse 20 A sacred rapture, light my weaker eye, Raise my invention on swift fantasy; That whilst of this same Metaphysical, God, man, nor woman, but elix'd of all, My labouring thoughts with strainèd ardour sing, My muse may mount with an uncommon wing.

_The Description of this Perfection._

Dares then thy too audacious sense Presume define that boundless _Ens_, That amplest thought transcendeth? O yet vouchsafe, my muse, to greet That wondrous rareness, in whose sweet All praise begins and endeth.

Divinest Beauty! that was slightest, That adorn'd this wondrous Brightest, Which had nought to be corrupted. In this perfection had no mean; 10 To this earth's purest was unclean, Which virtue even instructed.

By it all beings deck'd and stainèd, Ideas that are idly feignèd Only here subsist invested; Dread not to give strain'd praise at all, No speech is hyperbolical To this Perfection blessèd.

Thus close my rhymes; this all that can be said, This wonder never can be flatterèd. 20

_To Perfection.--A Sonnet._

Oft have I gazèd with astonish'd eye At monstrous issues of ill-shapèd birth, When I have seen the midwife to old Earth, Nature, produce most strange deformity.

So have I marvell'd to observe of late Hard-favour'd feminines so scant of fair, That masks so choicely shelter'd of the air, As if their beauties were not theirs by fate.

But who so weak of observation, Hath not discern'd long since how virtues wanted, 10 How parsimoniously the Heavens have scanted Our chiefest part of adoration?

But now I cease to wonder, now I find The cause of all our monstrous penny-shows; Now I conceit from whence wit's scarcety grows, Hard favour'd features, and defects of mind. Nature long time hath stor'd up virtue, fairness, Shaping the rest as foils unto this Rareness.

_Perfectioni Hymnus._

What should I call this Creature, Which now is grown unto maturity? How should I blaze this feature As firm and constant as eternity?

Call it perfection? Fie! 'Tis perfecter than brightest names can light it; Call it Heaven's mirror? Ay, Alas! best attributes can never right it.

Beauty's resistless thunder? All nomination is too straight of sense. 10 Deep contemplation's wonder? That appellation give this excellence.

Within all best confined, (Now, feebler Genius, end thy slighter rhyming), No suburbs,[622]--all is _mind_,-- As far from spot as possible defining.

JOHN MARSTON.

[621] The verses are from the appendix to _Love's Martyr_. The appendix has a separate title--_Hereafter Follow Diverse Poeticall Essaies on the former Subiect; viz.: the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest of our moderne writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes: neuer before extant, &c._ Marston's verses follow Shakespeare's _Phoenix and Turtle_.

[622] "Differentia Deorum et Hominum, apud Senecam; Sic habet nostri melior pars animum, in illis nulla pars extra animum."--Marginal note in old ed.

THE MOUNTEBANK'S MASQUE.

_THE MOUNTEBANK'S MASK._

It is with some diffidence that I include this piece among Marston's Works. Mr. J. P. Collier printed it in 1848 for the Shakespeare Society from a MS. in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire; and he stated that Marston's name is pencilled on the cover of the MS. in a handwriting of the time. This MS. appears to have been mislaid, for I can find no mention of it in the catalogue of His Grace's dramatic collection.

Collier was not aware that Nichols had printed this Masque in the third volume of his "Progress of Queen Elizabeth" from another MS., and that there is extant a third MS. copy in Add. MS. 5956 (Brit. Museum).

I have contented myself with printing Collier's text without any material alterations; but I have given in a footnote the graceful song with which the Masque concludes in Nichols' transcript. The Masque was performed at Court 16th February 1617-8 (See Nichols' _Progresses of King James I._, iii. 466).

THE MOUNTEBANK'S MASQUE.

THE FIRST ANTIMASQUE OF MOUNTEBANKS.

MOUNTEBANK'S SPEECH.

The great Master of medicine, Æsculapius, preserve and prolong the sanity of these Royal and Princely Spectators. And if any here present happen to be valetudinary, the blessed finger of our grand Master Paracelsus be at hand for their speedy reparation. I have heard of a mad fellow that styles himself a merry Greek, and goes abroad by the name of Paradox, who with frisking and dancing, and new broached doctrine, hath stolen himself, this Festival time of Christmas, into favour at the Court of Purple, and having there got some approbation for his small performance, is grown so audacious as to intrude himself into this honoured presence. To prevent whose further growing fame, I have, with these my fellow Artists of several nations, all famous for the bank, hither made repair, to present unto your view more wholesome, more pleasing, and more novel delights, which, to avoid prolixity, I distribute into these following commonplaces.

Names of Diseases cured by us, Which being infinite, purposely we omit. Musical Charms, Familiar Receipts,

_Sing their Songs, viz._:

_Chorus._ What is't you lack, what would you buy? What is it that you need? Come to me, Gallants; taste and try: Here's that will do the deed.

1 SONG.

1. Here's water to quench maiden fires; Here's spirits for old occupiers; Here's powder to preserve youth long, Here's oil to make weak sinews strong. What!

2. This powder doth preserve from fate; This cures the Maleficiate: Lost Maidenhead this doth restore, And makes them Virgins as before. What!

3. Here's cure for toothache, fever-lurdens,[623] Unlawful and untimely burdens: Diseases of all Sex and Ages This Medicine cures, or else assuages. What!

4. I have receipts to cure the gout, To keep pox in, or thrust them out; To cool hot bloods, cold bloods to warm, Shall do you, if no good, no harm. What!

2 SONG.

1. Is any deaf? Is any blind? Is any bound, or loose behind? Is any foul, that would be fair? Would any Lady change her hair? Does any dream? Does any walk, Or in his sleep affrighted talk? I come to cure what ere you feel, Within, without, from head to heel.

2. Be drums or rattles in thy head; Are not thy brains well tempered? Does Eolus thy stomach gnaw, Or breed there vermin in thy maw? Dost thou desire, and cannot please, Lo! here the best Cantharides. I come.

3. Even all diseases that arise From ill disposed crudities, From too much study, too much pain, From laziness, or from a strain, From any humour doing harm, Be 't dry or moist, or cold or warm. I come.

4. Of lazy gout I cure the Rich; I rid the Beggar of his itch; I fleam avoid, both thick and thin: I dislocated joints put in. I can old Æson's youth restore, And do a thousand wonders more. Then come to me. What!

3 SONG.

1. Maids of the chamber or the kitchen, If you be troubled with an itching, Come give me but a kiss or two, I'll give you that shall soon cure you. Nor Galen nor Hippocrates Did ever do such cures as these.

2. Crack'd maids, that cannot hold your water, Or use to break wind in your laughter; Or be you vex'd with kibes or corns, I'll cure; or Cuckolds of their horns. Nor Galen.

3. If lusty Doll, maid of the dairy, Chance to be blue-nipp'd by the Fairy, For making Butter with her tail, I'll give her that did never fail. Nor Galen.

4. Or if some worse mischance betide her, Or that the nightmare over-ride her; Or if she tell all in a dream, I'll cure her for a mess of cream. Nor Galen.

4 SONG.

1. Is any so spent, that his wife keeps Lent? Does any waste in his marrow? Is any a slug? Let him taste of my drug, 'Twill make him as quick as a sparrow. My powder and oil, extracted with toil, By rare sublime infusions, Have proof they are good, by mine own dear blood, In many strange conclusions.

2. Does any consume with the salt French rheum? Doth the gout or palsy shake him: Or hath he the stone, ere a month be gone, As sound as a bell I'll make him. My powder.

3. The griefs of the spleen, and maids that be green, Or the heat in the Ladies' faces; The gripes of the stitch, or the Scholar's itch, In my cures deserve no places. My powder.

The web or the pin,[624] or the morphew of skin, Or the rising of the mother, I can cure in a trice. Oh, then, be not nice, Nor ought that grieves you smother. My powder.

FAMILIAR RECEIPTS.

_An approved receipt against Melancholy feminine._

If any Lady be sick of the Sullens, she knows not where, let her take a handful of simples, I know not what, and use them I know not how, applying them to the part grieved, I know not which, and she shall be well, I know not when.

_Against the Scurvy._

If any Scholar be troubled with an itch, or breaking out, which in time may prove the Scurvy, let him first forbear clawing and fretting meats, and then purge choler, but by no means upwards.

_For restoring Gentlemen Ushers' Legs._

If any Gentleman Usher hath the consumption in his legs, let him feed lustily on veal two months in the spring time, and forbear all manner of mutton, and he shall increase in calf.

_For the Tentigo._

If any be troubled with the Tentigo, let him travel to Japan, or, because the forest of Turnbolia is of the same altitude, or elevation of the Pole, and at hand, let him hunt there for his recreation, and it shall be done in an instant.

_For the Angina._

If any Scholar labour of the Angina, a dangerous disease in the throat, so that he cannot speak an hour together once in a quarter of a year, let him forbear all violent exercises, as trotting to Westminster Hall every term, and all hot liquors and vapours; let him abstain from company, retiring himself warm clad in his study four days in a week, _et fiet_.[625]

_For a Felon._

If any be troubled with a Felon on his finger, whereby he hath lost the lawful use of his hand, let him but once use the exercise of swinging, and stretch himself upon the sovereign tree of Tiburnia, and it will presently kill the Fellon. _Probatum_.

_For a Tympany._

If any Virgin be so sick of Cupid that the disease is grown to a Tympany, let her with all speed possible remove herself, changing air for forty weeks at least, keeping a spare diet as she travels, always after using lawful exercises, till she be married, and then she is past danger.

_For Barrenness._

If any lady be long married, yet childless, let her first desire to be a mother, and to her breakfast take a new-laid egg, in a spoonful of goat's milk, with a scruple of Ambergris; and at supper feed on a hen trodden but[626] by one cock. But above all things, let her avoid hurrying in a Caroch, especially on the stones, and assuming a finer mould than nature meant her, and no doubt she shall fructify.

_For the Falling Sickness._

If any woman be troubled with the falling sickness, let her not travel Westward Ho, because she must avoid the Isle of Man; and for that it is an evil Spirit only entered into her, let her for a Charm always have her legs across when she is not walking, and this will help her.

_For a Rupture._

If any Tradesman be troubled with a Rupture in the bowels of his estate, that he cannot go abroad, let him decoct Gold from a pound to a noble, taking the broth thereof from six months to six months, and he shall be as able a man as ever he was.

Now, Princely Spectators, to let you see that we are men qualified from head to foot, we will show you a piece of our footmanship.

_Dance Antimasque._

[_Exeunt._ _Enter_ PARADOX.

Health and jouisance to this fair assembly. Now the thrice three learned Sisters forsake me, if ever I beheld such beauties in Athens. You ask, perhaps, who I am that thus conceitedly salute you? I am a merry Greek, and a Sophister of Athens, who, by fame of certain novel and rare presentments undertaken and promised by the gallant Spirits of Graia drawn hither, have intruded myself, Sophiste like, in at the back door, to be a Spectator, or rather a Censor, of their undertakings. The Muses grant they may satisfy our expectations. Ah, the shows and the songs, and the speeches, and the plays, and the comedies, and the actings that I have seen at Athens! The universe never saw the like. But let that pass. There was another end of my coming, and that was to get some of these Beauties to be my disciples; for I teach them rare doctrines, but delightful; and if you be true Athenians (that is, true lovers of novelties, as I hope you all are) you will give my hopes their looked-for expectation. Know, then, my name is Paradox: a strange name, but proper to my descent, for I blush not to tell you truth. I am a slip of darkness, my father a Jesuit, and my mother an Anabaptist; and as my name is strange, so is my profession, and the art which I teach, myself being the first that reduced it to rules and method, bears my own name, Paradox. And I pray you, what is a Paradox? It is a Quodlibet, or strain of wit and invention screwed[627] above the vulgar conceit, to beget admiration. And (because method is the mother of discipline) I divide my Paradox[es] into these [three] heads--Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter; and first of the first, for the Masculine is more worthy than the Feminine, and the Feminine than the Neuter.

[_Draws his Book and reads._

_Masculine._[628]

1. He cannot be a Cuckold that wears a Gregorian, for a perriwig will never fit such a head.

2. A Knight of the long robe is more honourable than a Knight made in the field; for furs are dearer than spurs.

3. 'Tis better to be a coward than a Captain; for a goose lives longer than a cock of the game.

4. A Cannibal is the lovingest man to his enemy; for willingly no man eats that he loves not.

5. A Bachelor is but half a man, and being wed, he may prove more than half a monster; for Aries and Taurus rule the head and shoulders, and Capricorn reacheth as low as the knees.

6. A wittall cannot be a Cuckold: for a Cuckold is wronged by his wife, which a wittall cannot be; for _volenti non fit injuria_.

7. A Shoemaker is the fittest man of the parish to make a Constable; for he _virtuti officii_ put any man in the stocks, and enlarge him at last.

8. A prisoner is the best fencer; for he ever lies at a close ward.

9. An elder Brother may be a wise man; for he hath wherewithal to purchase experience, at any rate.

10. A Musician will never make a good Vintner; for he deals too much with flats and sharps.

11. A Drunkard is a good philosopher; for he thinks aright that the world goes round.

12. The Devil cannot take Tobacco through his nose; for St. Dunstan hath seared that up with his tongs.

13. Prentices are the nimblest Scavengers; for they can cleanse the City Stews in one day.

14. No native Physician can be excellent; for all excellent simples are foreigners.

15. A Master of Fence is more honourable than a Master of Arts; for good fighting was before good writing.

16. A Court fool must needs be learned; for he goes to school in the Porter's Lodge.

17. Burgomasters ought not to wear their fur gowns at Midsummer; for so they may bring in the sweating sickness again.

18. A Cutpurse is of the surest trade; for his work is no sooner done, but he hath his money in his hand.

_Feminine._

1. 'Tis far better to marry a widow than a maid.--_Causa patet_.

2. Downright language is the best Rhetoric to win a woman; for plain dealing is a jewel, and there is no lady but desires her lap full of them.

3. Women are to be commended for loving Stage players; for they are men of known action.

4. If a woman with child long to lie with another man, her husband must consent; for if he will not, she will do it without him.

5. Rich widows were ordained for younger brothers; for they, being born to no land, must plough in another man's soil.

6. A maid should marry before the years of discretion; for _Malitia supplet et cætera_.

7. 'Tis dangerous to wed a widow; for she hath cast her rider.

8. An English virgin sings sweeter here than at Brussells; for a voluntary is sweeter than a forc'd note.

9. A great Lady may with her honour wear her servant's picture; for a shadow yet never made a Cuckold.

10. A painted Lady best fits a Captain; for so both may fight under their colours.

11. It is good for a young popish wench to marry an old man; for so she shall be sure to keep all fasting nights.

12. A dangerous secret is safely plac'd in a woman's bosom; for no wise man would search for it there.

13. A woman of learning and tongues is an admirable creature; for a starling that can speak is a present for an Emperor.

14. There were never so many chaste wives as in this age; for now 'tis out of fashion to lie with their own husbands.

15. A great Lady should not wear her own hair; for that's as mean as a coat of her own spinning.

16. A fair woman's neck should stand awry; for so she looks as if she were looking for a kiss.

17. Women love fish better than flesh; for they will have Place, whatever they pay for it.

_Neuter._[629]

1. Old things are the best things; for there is nothing new but diseases.

2. The best bodies should wear the plainest habits; for painted Clothes were made to hide bare walls.

3. Dissemblers may safely be trusted; for their meaning is ever contrary to their words.

4. Musicians cannot be but healthful; for they live by good air.

5. An Usurer is the best Christian; for _Quantum nummorum in arca, Tantum habet et fidei_.

6. None should have license to marry but rich folks; for _Vacuum_ is a monster _in rerum natura_.

7. A hare is more subtle than a fox; for she makes more doubles than old Reynard.

8. 'Tis better to be a beggar than a Merchant; for all the world lies open to his traffic, and yet he pays no custom.

9. 'Tis more safe to be drunk with the hop than with the grape; for a man should be more inward with his Countryman than with a stranger.

10. It is better to buy honour than to deserve it; for what is far fetched and dear bought is good for Ladies.

11. A man deep in debt should be as deep in drink; for Bacchus cancels all manner of obligations.

12. Playhouses are more necessary in a well governed Commonwealth than public Schools; for men are better taught by example than precept.

13. It is better to feed on vulgar and gross meats, than on dainty and high dishes; for they that eat only partridge or quail, hath no other brood than woodcock or goose.

14. Taverns are more requisite in a City than Academies; for it is better the multitude were loving than learned.

15. A Tobacco shop and a Bawdy house are coincident; for smoke is not without fire.

16. An Almanack is a book more worthy to be studied than the history of the world; for a man to know himself is the most worthy knowledge, and there he hath twelve signs to know it by.

17. Wealth is better than wit; for few poets have had the fortune to be chosen Aldermen.

18. Marriage frees a man from care; for then his wife takes all upon her.

19. A Kennel of hounds is the best Consort;[630] for they need no tuning from morning to night.

20. The Court makes better Scholars than the University: for where a King vouchsafes to be a teacher, every man blushes to be a non-proficient.

[_Music sounds._

_Enter Pages._

_Para._ But hark! Music: they are upon entrance. I must put up.

MAIN MASQUE.

_Enter Pages 4._

_Their Song, dialoguewise._

Where shall we find relief? Is there no end of grief? Is there no comfort left? What cruel Charms bereft The patrons of our youth? We must now beg for ruth. _Enter_ Kind pity is the most _Obscurity._ Poor boys can hope for, when Their joys are lost.

OBSCURITY.

Light, I salute thee; I, Obscurity, The son of Darkness and forgetful Lethe; I, that envy thy brightness, greet thee now, Enforc'd by Fate. Fate makes the strongest bow. The ever youthful Knights by spells enchain'd, And long within my shady nooks restrain'd, Must be enlarged, and I the Usher be To their night glories; so the Fates agree. Then, put on life, Obscurity, and prove As light as light, for awe, if not for love. Lo! hear their tender year'd, kind-hearted Squires, Mourning their Master's loss; no new desires Can train them from these walks, but here they wend From shade to shade, and give their toils no end. But now will I relieve their suffering care. Hear me, fair Youths! since you so constant are In faith to your lov'd Knights, go haste apace, And with your bright lights guide them to this place; For if you fall directly, that descent, Their wished approach will farther search prevent. Haste by the virtue of a charming song, While I retrieve them, lest they lag too long.

THE CALL, OR SONG OF OBSCURITY.

Appear, Appear, you happy Knights! Here are several sorts of Lights: Fire and beauty shine together, Your slow steps inviting hither. Come away; and from your eyes Th' old shades remove, For now the Destinies Release you at the suit of Love.

So, so: 'tis well marched, march apace; Two by two fill up the place, And then with voice and measure Greet the King of Love and Pleasure. Now, Music, change thy notes, and meet Aptly with the Dancers' feet; For 'tis the pleasure of Delight That they shall triumph all this night.

THE SONG AND DANCE TOGETHER.

Frolic measures now become you, Overlong obscured Knights: What if Lethe did benumb you, Love now wakes you to delights. Love is like a golden flower, Your comely youth adorning: Pleasure is a gentle shower Shed in some April morning.

Lightly rise, and lightly fall you In the motion of your feet: Move not till our notes do call you; Music makes the action sweet. Music breathing blows the fire Which Cupids feeds with fuel, Kindling honour and desire, And taming hearts most cruel.

Quickly, quickly, mend your paces, Nimbly changing measured graces: Lively mounted high aspire, For joy is only found in fire.

Music is the soul of measure, Mixing both in equal grace; Twins are they, begot of Pleasure, When she wisely numbered space. Nothing is more old or newer Then number, all advancing; And no number can be truer Than music joined with dancing.

Every Knight elect a Beauty, Such as may thy heart inflame: Think that her bright eye doth view thee, And to her thy action frame. So shall none be faint or weary, Though treading endless paces; For they all are light and merry Whose hopes are fed with graces.

Sprightly, sprightly, end your paces, Nimbly changing measured graces: Lively mounted high aspire, For joy is only found in fire.

OBSCURITY.

Servants of Love, for so it fits you be, Since he alone hath wrought your liberty, His ceremonies now and courtly rites Perform with care, and free resolved sprites. To sullen darkness my dull steps reflect; All covet that which Nature doth affect.

_The Second Measure; which danc'd,_

SONG TO TAKE OUT THE LADIES.

On, on, brave Knights, you have well showed Each his due part in nimble dances: These Beauties to whose hands are owed Yours, wonder why You spare to try. Mark how inviting are their glances. Such, such a charm, such faces, such a call, Would make old Æson skip about the Hall.

See, see fair choice, a starry sphere Might dim bright day: choose here at pleasure. Please your own eye: approve you here, Right gentle Knights: To these soft wights View, talk and touch, but all in measure. Far far from hence be roughness, far a frown; Your fair deportment this fair night shall crown.

_After they have danced with the Ladies, and set them in their places, fall to their last Dance._

_Enter_ PARADOX, _and to him his Disciples_.

Silence, Lordings, Ladies, and fiddles! Let my tongue twang awhile. I have seen what hath been showed; and now give me leave to show what hath not been seen, for the honour of Athens. By virtue of this musical Whistle I will summon my disciples. See obedience: here they are all ready. Put forward, my paradoxical Pupils, methodically and arithmetically, one by one.

1. Behold this principal Artist that swift encounters me, whose head is honoured by his heels for dancing in a Chorus of a Tragedy presented at Athens, where he produced such learned variety of footing, and digested it so orderly and close to the ground, that he was rewarded with this relic, the cothurne or buskin of Sophocles, which for more eminence he wears on his head. The paradoxical virtue thereof is, that being dipped into River or Spring, it alters the nature of the liquor, and returneth full of wine of Chios, Palermo, or Zante.

2. This second Master of the science of footmanship (for he never came on horseback in his life) was famed at the Feast of Pallas, where in dancing he came off with such lofty tricks, turns above ground, capers, cross-capers, horse-capers, so high and so lofty performed, that he for prize bore away the Helmet of Pallas. The paradoxical virtue of the Cask is, that in our travels if we fall among enemies, show but this, and they suddenly vanish all like fearful shadows.

3. Now, view this third piece of Excellence: this is he that put down all the Bakers, at the feast of Ceres, and so danced there, as if he had kneaded dough with his feet: wherewith the Goddess was so tickled, that she in reward set this goodly loaf on his head, and endued it with this paradoxical influence, that cut off it and eat as often as you please, it straight fills up again, and is in the instant healed of any wound our hunger can inflict on it.

4. Approach now thou that comest in the rear of my disciples, but mayest march in the vanguard of thy validity; for at the celebration of the feast of Venus Cytherea, this Amoroso did express such passion with his eyes, such casts, such winks, such glances, and with his whole body such delightful gestures, such cringes, such pretty wanton mimics, that he won the applause of all; and, as it was necessary at the Feast of that Goddess, he had then a most ample and inflaming codpiece, which, with his other graces, purchased him this prize, the Smock of Venus, wrapped turbanlike on his head, the same she had on when she went to bed to Mars, and was taken napping by Vulcan. The Paradox of it is, that if it be hanged on the top of our Maypole, it draws to us all the young lads and lasses near adjoining, without power to part till we strike sail ourselves. And now I have named our Maypole, go bring it forth, though it be more cumbersome than the Trojan horse: bring it by force of arms, and see you fix it fast in the midst of this place, lest, when you encircle it with your capricious dances, it falls from the foundation, lights upon some lady's head, and cuffs off her perriwig. But now for the glory of Athens!

_Music plays the Antimasque. The disciples dance one Strain._

We have give you a taste of the excellency of our Athenial Revels, which I will now dignify with mine own person. Lie here, impediment, whereof being freed, I will descend. O, you Authors of Greek wonders! what ostent is this? What supernatural Paradox? a wooden Maypole find the use of voluntary motion! Assuredly this tree was formerly the habitation of some wood nymph, for the Dryads (as the Poets say) live in trees; and perhaps, to honour my dancing, the nymph hath crept into this tree again: so I apprehend it, and will entertain her courtesy.

PARADOX, _his Disciples, and the Maypole, all dance_.

Did ever eye see the like footing of a tree, or could any tree but an Athenian tree do this? or could any nymph move it but an Athenian nymph? Fair Nymph, though I cannot arrive at thy lips, yet will I kiss the wooden mask that hides thy no doubt most amiable face.

PARADOX _offers to kiss and a Nymph's head meets him out of the Maypole_.

Wonder of wonders! Sweet Nymph, forbear: my whole structure trembles: mortality cannot stand the brightness of thy countenance. Pursue me not, I beseech thee: put up thy face, for love's sake. Help, help! Disciples, take away this dismal peal from me. Rescue me, with all your violence.--So, the Devil is gone, and I will not stay long after. Lordings and Ladies: if there be any here desirous to be instructed in the mystery of Paradoxing, you shall have me at my lodging in the black and white Court, at the sign of the Naked Boy. And so to you all the best wishes of the night.

_Enter_ MOUNTEBANK, _like a Swiss_.

Stay, you presumptuous Paradox! I have viewed thy antics and thy Puppet, which have kindled in me the fire of Emulation. Look; am I not in habit as fantastic as thyself? Dost thou hope for grace with Ladies, by thy novel doctrine? I am a man of art: witness this, my Charming Rod, wherewith I work Miracles; and whereas thou like a fabulous Greek, hast made monsters of thy Disciples, lo! I will oppose squadron against squadron, and plain truth against painted fiction. Now for [thy] moving Ale-sign: but for frighting the Devil out of it, I could encounter thee with Tottenham High Cross, or Cheap Cross (though it be new guilt), but I scorn odds, and therefore will I affront thee pole to pole. Go, Disciples: usher in our lofty enchanted motion; and, Paradox, now betake you to your tackling, for you deal with men that have got air and fire in them.

PARADOX.

Assist me, thou active nymph, and you, my glorious associates. Victory! Victory for Athens!

[_Dance._

MOUNTEBANK.

Accomplished Greek! now, as we are true Mountebanks, this was bravely performed on both parts, and nothing now remains but to make these two Maypoles better acquainted. But we must give place: the Knights appear.

OBSCURITY _Enter_.

Enough of these night-sports! part fairly, Knights, And leave an edge on pleasure, lest these lights I suddenly dim all; and pray, how then Will these gay Ladies shift among you men, In such confusion? Some their homes may miss: Obscurity knows tricks as mad as this. But make your parting innocent for me; I will no author now of Error be. Myself shall pass with you, a friend of light, Giving to all this round a kind good night.

LAST SONG.[631]

We must away: yet our slack pace may show 'Tis by constraint we this fair Orb forego. Our longer stay may forfeit what but now Love hath obtained for us: to him we bow, And to this gentler Power, who so contriv'd That we from sullen shades are now depriv'd, And hither brought, where Favour, Love, and Light, So gloriously shine, they banish Night. More would we say, but Fate forbids us more.-- Our Cue is out--Good night is gone before.[632]

[623] "Fever-lurdens"--a jocular term for slothfulness.

[624] "Pin and the web" was the name of a disorder of the eye.

[625] The words "_et fiet_" are omitted in Add. MS.--Nichols gives "at first."--It may be remarked that Nichols' transcript is made throughout in a slovenly manner.

[626] "But" is omitted by Collier, but found in Add. MS. and Nichols.

[627] So Add. MS. and Nichols.--Collier gives "strued."

[628] In Add. MS. and Nichols are some additional "paradoxes."

[629] "Epicæne" in the MS. is struck out and "Newter" written as a correction.

[630] Concert.

[631] In Nichols' _Progresses_ the Masque concludes with the following song:--

"The hour of sweety night decays a-pace, And now warm beds are better than this place. All time is long that is unwillingly spent, But hours are minutes when they yield content: The gathered flowers we love that breathe sweet scent, But loathe them, their sweet odours being spent. It is a life is never ill To lie and sleep in roses still.

The rarer pleasure is it is more sweet, And friends are kindest when they seldom meet. Who would not hear the nightingale still sing, Or who grew ever weary of the spring? The day must have her night, the spring her fall, All is divided, none is lord of all: It were a most delightful thing To live in a perpetual spring."

In the third line we should doubtless read "unwilling" for "unwillingly."

[632] In Add. MS. follow some "paradoxes" which "were read at Gray's Inn but left out at Court to avoid tediousness." Most of these are found in pp. 428-432. [Transcriber's Note: numbered paragraphs under headers "Masculine," "Feminine," and "Neuter."]

Amicis,[633] amici nostri dignissimi dignissimis,

EPIGRAMMA

D.

JOHANNES MARSTONIUS.

Ye ready friends, spare your unneedful bays: This work despairful Envy must even praise.

Phoebus hath voiced it loud through echoing skies: "Sejanus' Fall shall force thy merit rise:"

For never English shall, or hath before Spoke fuller graced. He could say much, not more.

[633] Prefixed to the 1605 4to. of Ben Jonson's _Sejanus_.

INDEX.

Abhominable, ii. 219

Accourt, i. 52

Accoustrements, iii. 261

Accustrements, i. 24

Achelous, ii. 144

Actors (two or more parts taken by one actor), i. 8

Adamant softened by goat's blood, iii. 151

Aderliver, ii. 18

Admiral, iii. 84

_Adore_ and _adorn_ (confusion between), iii. 362

Ægina, iii. 290

Affects (= affections), i. 119, 160

A-jax, ii. 368; iii. 377

Allay, ii. 73

All-canning, iii. 263, 335

Aloune (_Fr._ allons), ii. 355

Ambages, iii. 173

Anatomy, iii. 139, 236

Ancome, iii. 51

_And ever she cried Shoot home_, iii. 15

_Anechou e apechou_, ii. 176

An-end, iii. 164

Aphrodisiacs, i. 239

Apple-squire, ii. 383

Aporn, ii. 65

Apostata, iii. 220

Approvement, i. 189

Apricock, ii. 130

Aquinian, iii. 327

Aretine, _Puttana Errante_ falsely ascribed to, iii. 377; Aretine's _Pictures_, iii. 275

Aristotle quoted, iii. 329; _Aristotle's Problems_, i. 152

Armed Epilogue, i. 93

Assay ("give me assay"), i. 64

Assured, i. 109

At all, iii. 318

Aunt, ii. 14

Babies, iii. 362

Babion, iii. 364

Bable, i. 85, 158; ii. 69

Bacchis, iii. 356

Backside, iii. 101

Bacon, Friar, ii. 125

Badged coach, iii. 350

Baffle, ii. 401

Baldessar Castiglione, i. 222; iii. 264

Bale of dice, ii. 382

Balloon, iii. 17

Bankrout, i. 138

Banks, i. 21

Barbary sugar, ii. 360

Barksteed, William, iii. 243

Barmy froth, iii. 339

Barnes, Barnabe, iii. 358

Bases, iii. 153

Basilisco, ii. 348

Basilus manus, iii. 192

Basket (for collecting food for poor prisoners), iii. 111

Bastard, Thomas, quoted by Marston, _Addenda_, vol. i.

Battle fate, ii. 350

Bawbees, i. 204

Bayard ("bold as blind Bayard"), ii. 324

Beaking, i. 133

Bear a brain, ii. 60, 124

Bear no coals, i. 168

Beat, i. 146

Beaver, iii. 350

Becco, i. 214, 287

Beg for a fool, i. 233; ii. 347; iii. 217

Beggar-wench, jest about, iii. 302

Bel and the Dragon, ii. 131

Belly-cheer, iii. 366

Bescumber, iii. 363

Bessicler's armour, i. 30

_Bewray_ and _beray_, i. 114; ii. 359

Bezel, i. 240; iii. 275, 349

Black ox trod o' my foot, iii. 119

Blackfriars, feather-makers reside at, i. 202; Blackfriars' Theatre, i. 199

Black-guard, ii. 182

Blacks, ii. 339

Blacksaunt, iii. 347

Blind Gew, i. 13

Blue coat, iii. 50, 301

Books called in, ii. 48

Boot-carouse, iii. 275

Borage in wine, iii. 394

Bottle-ale (term of reproach), iii. 339

Brack, i. 9, 140

Bragot, ii. 101

Braided, iii. 325, 337

Brakes, i. 320

Brasil, iii. 272

Brides serenaded on the morning after their wedding, ii. 389

Brill, iii. 348

Brittany, i. 26

Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, ii. 197; iii. 151, 241

Budge, iii. 346, 368

Buffin, iii. 14

Bully, i. 79; ii. 353

Burbage, Richard, i. 201

Burbolt, ii. 323

Burgonian's ward, iii. 373

Buried treasure, iii. 219

Burn, iii. 241

Busk, i. 9

Busk-point, i. 274; iii. 255

Buss, ii. 90

_But a little higher_, &c., _Addenda_, vol. i.

Cable-hatband, i. 31

Cables (used as a protection from the fire of the enemy), i. 30

Camomile ("mount like camomile"), ii. 144

Campion, Thomas, _Addenda_, vol. i.

Cant, i. 132

Carpet-boy, i. 20

Carry coals, i. 288

Carver ("you're a cunning carver"), iii. 141

Case (kaze), ii. 11

Case (= covering), iii. 109

Case of rapiers, i. 30

Cast o' ladies, i. 238

Castilio, i. 222; iii. 264

Casting-bottle, i. 13

Catso, i. 216, 304, &c.

Censure, i. 202; ii. 255, 323

Chamlet, ii. 345

Chaun, i. 46

Cheat-bread, iii. 103

Cheator, ii. 406

Cherries at an angel a pound, iii. 15

Chittizen, iii. 19

Chopines, ii. 50

Christ-Church Parish, iii. 12

Chuck (term of endearment), iii. 104

Cinædian, iii. 310

Cinquepace, iii. 268

Cipres, i. 258

Cittern-heads, iii. 301

Claw, i. 105

Clerkenwell, ii. 16

Close fight, i. 24

Clove-stuck face, iii. 348

Clumsy, i. 99

Clutch, i. 144

Cluttered, i. 120; iii. 356

Coast, i. 312

Cockatrice, i. 301; ii. 18; iii. 224

Codpis, iii. 273

Cog a die, i. 48

Coistered, i. 293

Collogue, i. 302

Colour de roy, i. 111

Come aloft Jack-an-apes, i. 214

Come on five, iii. 318

Commodities ("take up commodities"), i. 305, &c.

Common-place book out of plays, iii. 372

Complements, i. 233

Consort, iii. 432

Convey, ii. 387

Copy, ii. 408

Coranto, i. 32

Corbed, i. 130

Cork shoe, i. 81

Cornish daws, iii. 332

Coronel, iii. 212

Corsive, iii. 151

Cote, i. 167

Crab's baked guts, i. 239; iii. 320

Crack (pert boy), ii. 383

Creak's noise, ii. 45

Cressit light, i. 41

Cross-bite, ii. 381, 387

Crowds, ii. 373

Crudled, i. 26

Cuckold's haven, iii. 68

Cuckquean, ii. 377

Cullion, i. 206; iii. 89

Cullisses, ii. 141

Culvering, iii. 365

Curson'd, i. 55

Curtain Theatre, _Romeo and Juliet_ performed at, iii. 373

Custard ("let custards quake"), iii. 312

Cut ("in the old cut"), i. 11

Cut and long tail, iii. 10

Cutter, ii. 401

Cutting, ii. 45

Cyllenian, iii. 274

Dametas, iii. 268

Daniel the Prophet, ii. 150; iii. 341

Daniel, Samuel, iii. 283

Day ("let him have day"), ii. 8

Day, John, his _Humour out of Breath_ dedicated to _Signior Nobody_, i. 5; quotation from his _Isle of Gulls_, i. 289

Death o' sense, ii. 158

Death's head on rings, ii. 16

Decimo sexto, i. 203

Defend ("God defend!"), i. 204

Demosthenes paid for his silence, ii. 152

Denier, iii. 315

Depaint, i. 90; iii. 271

Deprave, ii. 126

Diet, ii. 370; diet-drink, ii. 15

Diety, ii. 24

Digby, Sir Everard, ii. 193

Dilling, ii. 344; iii. 10

Ding, i. 11, 166; iii. 282

Diogenes the Cynic, scandalous story about, iii. 319

Dipsas, i. 238

Discreet number, iii. 314

Disgest, i. 140, 146, 161; ii. 179

_Divines and dying men may talk of hell_, &c., iii. 225

Division, i. 48, 81

_Do me right and dub me knight_, i. 81

Donne's verses _On a Flea on his Mistress' Bosom_, iii. 359

Donzel del Phebo, i. 300

Dowland, John, his _First Book of Songs_ quoted, iii. 14, 55

Drake's ship at Deptford, iii. 59

Drayton, Michael, iii. 283, 363

Drink drunk, iii. 84

Dropsy-noul, iii. 340

Dun cow with a kettle on her head, i. 72

Durance, iii. 15

Dutch ancients, iii. 351

Eager, ii. 73

_Eastward Ho!_ iii. 5; satirical reflections on the Scots, iii. 65

Ela ("I have strained a note above Ela"), i. 86

Enagonian, iii. 336

Enginer, iii. 97

Enhanceress, ii. 15

Epictetus, saying of, ii. 176

Erasmus, resemblance between a passage of his _Colloquies_ and passage of _First Part of Antonio and Mellida_, i. 62

Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, ii. 117

Estro, ii. 156

Euphues, ii. 69

Fact, ii. 95; iii. 224

Fage, iii. 308

Fair, iii. 350

Falls, iii. 267

False lights, iii. 337

Family of Love, ii. 13

Far fet and dear bought is good for ladies, i. 306

Fart ("get a fart from a dead man"), iii. 90

Fawn, ii. 115

Feak, iii. 265

Fear (= frighten), ii. 158

Fear no colours, iii. 153

Featherbeds used in naval engagements as a protection against the fire of the enemy, i. 30

Feature, iii. 251

_Feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis_, ii. 404

Fencing, terms in, iii. 373

Fere, iii. 225

Fetch, i. 127

Fever-lurdens, iii. 420

Fico, ii. 133; iii. 320

Figent, iii. 60

Fin ("the fin of his eyes"), i. 214

Fist, ii. 42, 73, 82; iii. 90

Flap-dragon, ii. 70

Flat-cap, ii. 32; iii. 11

Fleam, i. 230

Fleamy, i. 133

Flushing, i. 234

Flyboat, i. 87

Foisting-hound, iii. 41

Foot-cloth, i. 213; ii. 153

Foutra, ii. 32

Fowl (fool), i. 260

Frail commodities, iii. 40

French brawl, ii. 377

Froe, ii. 13

Froterer, ii. 384

Fumatho, ii. 184

Galleasse, i. 87, 162

Gallemawfrey, iii. 139

Gamashes, ii. 344

Garboil, iii. 356

Geason, ii. 331, 339

Gelded vicary, iii. 324, 337

_Gelid_ and _jellied_, ii. 291

Gern, i. 55, 111; ii. 203, 403

Get-penny, iii. 87

Gew, the actor, i. 13; _Addenda_, vol. i.

Ghosts of misers, iii. 219

Giants at the Lord Mayor's pageant, ii. 50

Gib-cat, ii. 203

Giglet, ii. 340, 400

Gilt, iii. 323

Give arms, iii. 11

Give further day, ii. 328

Glaired, iii. 277

Glassy Priapus, iii. 309

Glaver, iii. 263, 339

Glibbery, i. 22

Glory, ii. 225

Gnatho, iii. 291

Goat's blood, iii. 151

God you good even, iii. 5; God ye good morrow, ii. 393

God's neaks, i. 54

Gold ends, iii. 28

Gold-end man, iii. 103

Goldsmiths' Row, i. 205

Good man (= wealthy man), ii. 57

Goose-turd-green, ii. 47

Gorget, ii. 260

Gormand, iii. 327

Granado netherstocks, iii. 301

Grand grincome, ii. 31

Great man's head, iii. 348

Gresco, iii. 93

Griffith, Margaret, i. 233

Griffon, i. 297

Grillus, iii. 281

Ground, i. 37; iii. 142

Guarded, i. 232; iii. 346

Guards, ii. 387; iii. 14

Guilpin, Edward, iii. 287, 367

Gundolet, i. 57

Gurnet's head, iii. 341

Guzzel dogs, iii. 308

Half-clam'd, i. 150

Half-crown ordinary, ii. 406

Hall, Joseph, iii. 281-6; Marston's imitations of, iii. 310, 320, 323

Hall ("A hall! a hall!"), iii. 372

_Hamlet_, quoted in _The Malcontent_, i. 201, 264; early popularity of, iii. 49, 52; imitation of passages from, i. 224; iii. 133, 134, 137, 230

Hangers, i. 36; ii. 406

Harvey, John, i. 205

Hatch short sword, ii. 406

Hazard, iii. 100

Head-men, iii. 37

Healths in urine, ii. 70

Heathy, i. 15; _Addenda_, vol. i.

Hem, ii. 14

_Henry IV., Part I._, imitation of passage from, iii. 219

Herring-bones, iii. 344

Hey-pass re-pass, ii. 381

Heywood, Thomas, popularity of his _If you know not me you know nobody_, iii. 87

High-lone, i. 172

High-noll'd, i. 165

Hipponax, iii. 359

Hiren ("Hast thou not Hiren here?"), iii. 26

Hogson, iii. 319

Hole (part of a prison), iii. 106

Honorificabilitudinitatibus, ii. 92

Horn-fair, iii. 72

Hout, i. 65

Huddle, i. 213

Hull, i. 87; ii. 250

Hyena, iii. 115; confused by Marston with the panther, ii. 347

Hymen represented in a saffron robe, i. 261

_Imagines Deorum_, iii. 270

Imbraid, i. 117, 283

Incubus, i. 107, 172

Inductions to plays, i. 7

Ingenious, ii. 109, 397

Injury (verb), iii. 381

Instaur'd, ii. 333

Intellectual, iii. 372

Inward, i. 282

Io! i. 183

Irishmen, commendable bashfulness of, i. 265

Italy, vices brought to England from, iii. 275

Jakes of Lincoln's Inn, ii. 368

James I, his _Poetical Exercises_, iii. 281; James' knights, sneer at, iii. 79

Jawn, i. 129

Jellied, i. 114, 126; ii. 291

Jingling spurs, i. 233

Jobbernole, iii. 301, 341

Jones, Robert, quotation from his _First Book of Songs and Airs_, ii. 33

Jonson, Ben, compliment to, i. 320; allusion to a passage in his _Volpone_, ii. 190; sneer at his _Sejanus_, ii. 235; ridiculed, iii. 305

Jove (influence of the planet Jupiter), ii. 292

Judas' red beard, iii. 166

Julia (daughter of Augustus), witty saying of, ii. 12

_Julius Cæsar_, quoted, iii. 215

Juvenal imitated, iii. 308-9

Ka me, ka thee, iii. 30

Keel, i. 77; ii. 321

Kempe's Jig, iii. 372

King of flames, ii. 292

_King John_, quoted, ii. 354

Kinsing, iii. 369

Kinsayder, ii. 350

Knight's ward, iii. 106

Knighthood purchased from King James, iii. 79

Knights of the mew, ii. 322

Knock, i. 31

Knurly, i. 166

Lady-bird, iii. 104

Lælius Balbus, ii. 130

Lamb, Charles, his criticisms on Marston, i. 49, 100; his remarks on the Decay of Symbols, ii. 338

Lanch (= lance), ii. 193

Lanthorn and candle-light, i. 35; iii. 202

Laver-lip, iii. 291

Lavolta, i. 183

Lay, iii. 88

Lay in lavender, iii. 100

Leese, iii. 346

Leg of a lark is better than the body of a kite, iii. 104

_Legend of Lies_, ii. 69

Legs (= bows), iii. 264

Lemon's juice, iii. 350

Lent, consumption of flesh forbidden during, iii. 203

Leopards, their fondness for wine, iii. 238

Lettuce, iii. 320

Lie, ii. 16

Lindabrides, ii. 55

Linstock, i. 30

Lion, curious belief concerning, iii. 237

London licket, iii. 14

Long stock, ii. 337

Loose ("at the loose"), ii. 387

Los guantes, i. 276

Lovery, iii. 337

_Lozenges of Sanctified Sincerity_, i. 255

Lugg'd boot, iii. 378

Lusk, iii. 335, 358

Luskish, iii. 324

Lusty Laurence, iii. 289

Luxuriousness, iii. 349

M. under your girdle, iii. 92

Mace, iii. 277

Main, ii. 406

Make ("What should we make here?"), iii. 131

Male lie, iii. 308

Malice (verb), ii. 40, 91, 109

Mandragora, iii. 114

Mandrake, iii. 219

Mannington, George, his woeful ballad, iii. 118

March-panes, ii. 373

Marry faugh, iii. 11

Marry muff, i. 169

Martial quoted, ii. 28, 110

Mary Ambree, i. 22

Mason's _Mulleasses_, allusion to passage of, iii. 31; quoted, _Addenda_, vol. i.

Maypole (term of abuse), i. 23

Measure, i. 184, 276; ii. 43

Measuring, iii. 311

_Merchant of Venice_ quoted, iii. 34

Mere, merely, i. 236, 320; ii. 297

Methodist Musus, iii. 308

Metreza, i. 213

Mincing capreal, iii. 372

Minikin, i. 51, 80

Minikin-tickler, ii. 401

Minioning, i. 279

_Mirror of Knighthood_, i. 300; ii. 69

_Mirror for Magistrates_, iii. 283

Modern, i. 11; iii. 364

Monmouth caps, iii. 84

Month's mind, iii. 135

Moorfields (favourite spot for beggars), iii. 13

More hair than wit, iii. 199

Mortimer's numbers, iii. 363

Motion (= proposal), i. 159; ii. 51, 96; iii. 123

Motion (= puppet-show), ii. 51

Mott, iii. 332

Much (ironical), i. 243, 251, &c.

Muckender, ii. 359

Mumchance, ii. 382

Murr, i. 153; ii. 140

Muscovy glass, i. 234

Music-houses, i. 185

Mycerinus, iii. 243

Naples' canker, iii. 309; Naples' pestilence, ii. 349

Nashe, Thomas, quoted, iii. 48, 225, 273

Natalis Comes, iii. 270

Neast (nest) of goblets, ii. 7

Nectar-skink, ii. 307

Ne'er-crazed, iii. 355

Nemis, iii. 289

Nile, dogs drinking on the bank of, ii. 281

Nitty, iii. 276, 370

No point, ii. 77

Noddy, iii. 189

Noise, ii. 43

Nuzzel, ii. 372

O God, i. 32

_O hone, hone_, iii. 98

O Lord, sir, ii. 30

Obligation, ii. 57

Occupant, iii. 300, 349

Occupation, ii. 219

O'er-peise, i. 310

Old cut (= old fashion), i. 11

One and thirty, iii. 329

Ophelia, iii. 52

Ophiogeni, iii. 310

Outrecuidance, iii. 95

Owe, ii. 259

Ox-pith, i. 239

Packstaff epithets, iii. 338; packstaff rhymes, iii. 310

Pages, their fondness for dicing, ii. 382

Paize, i. 100, 121; ii. 327

Palæphatus, iii. 311

Pale, ii. 287

Palladium, ii. 252

Palmerin de Oliva, ii. 69

Pane, ii. 337; iii. 349

Pantable, pantofle, i. 29; ii. 382

Parcel-gilt, ii. 57

Parkets, ii. 141

Parmeno ("nothing _ad Parmenonis suem_"), i. 204

Parted, iii. 20

Parthenophil, iii. 358

Party per pale, ii. 345

Passion, i. 90

Pavin, iii. 340

Peat, ii. 339; iii. 100

Peele, Gronge, _Merry Jests_ of, i. 40

Peevish, iii. 254

_Peggy's complaint for the death of her Willy_, ii. 29

Pepper in the nose, ii. 321

Peregal, i. 55

Perfumed jerkin, i. 314

Perpetuana, ii. 343

Persius quoted, ii. 111

Peterman, iii. 38

Petronel, i. 19

_Physic against Fortune_, i. 255

Pickhatch, iii. 319, 376

Pill (= peel), i. 99

Pillowbear, iii. 253

Pin and the web, iii. 423

Pirates hanged at Wapping, iii. 91

Pistol, Ancient (scraps of his rant), iii. 11

Placket, ii. 383

Plastic, i. 234

Plat, i. 54

Play-bills stuck on posts, iii. 302

Plunge, i. 105

Plutarch quoted, ii. 152, 266

Pole-head, ii. 348

Pomander, i. 294

Pommado reversa, iii. 375

Pompey the huge, i. 214

Ponado, iii. 42

Poor John, i. 89

Popeling, iii. 262

Porcpisce, iii. 69

Port Esquiline, iii. 351, 361

Possessed persons able to speak in various tongues, i. 212

Poting-stick, i. 308

Prest, ii. 250; iii. 312

Priapus' gardens, iii. 302

Proface, iii. 303

Prostitution (= whore), ii. 13

Protest (use of the word considered affected), ii. 345

Pudding tobacco, ii. 344

Pug, i. 29, 152

Puisne, iii. 300

Purchase, i. 303; ii. 410

Purfled, i. 110

Puritan (cant term for a whore), ii. 383

Puritans' ruffs, i. 13

Put-pin, iii. 362

Putry, i. 150

Quelquechose, i. 216

Quiblin, iii. 60

Quote, ii. 364

Ramp, i. 99

Ramsey, Lady, iii. 87

Rariety, iii. 213

Rats of Nilus, iii. 342, 344

Real (= regal), i. 34

Reason (raisin), iii. 154

Rebato, i. 31; iii. 351

Red lattice, i. 86

Reez'd bacon, iii. 322

Remora, iii. 84

Remorse, i. 21, 90

Renowmed, ii. 165

Respective (= respectful), i. 152

Reverent (= reverend), ii. 292; iii. 29, &c.

Rhinoceros' horn, iii. 139

Ribanded ears, ii. 391; iii. 301

_Richard II._, quoted, i. 28; imitation of passage from, iii. 146

_Richard III._, quoted, i. 47, 48; ii. 349; iii. 344

Ride at the ring, i. 214

Riding-wand, iii. 38

Rings with death's head, ii. 16

Ringo-root, iii. 348

Rivels (= wrinkles), i. 243; rivell'd, i. 108; iii. 234

Rivo, ii. 349, 355

Roast beef (a "commodity"), iii. 40

Rochelle churchman, i. 252

Rodio, iii. 267

Room, i. 202, 206

_Romeo and Juliet_ performed at the Curtain Theatre, iii. 373; early popularity of, iii. 140

Rope-maker's son, ii. 153

Rosa solis, ii. 45

Rosemary, iii. 53, 138

Rosicleer, i. 30, 300

Ruff, iii. 182

Ruffled boot, i. 83

Rug-gowns, ii. 395

Rutter, ii. 386

Sacramental wine poisoned, iii. 241

Sad, sadly, sadness, i. 71; iii. 258, 339

St. Agnes' Eve, iii. 141

Salaminian, iii. 261

Say ("take say"), ii. 11

Sconce, i. 236; iii. 84

Scotch barnacle, i. 256; Scotch boot, i. 257; Scotch farthingale, iii. 16

Scots, satirised in _Eastward Ho!_ iii. 64

Seneca quoted, i. 20, 49, 122, 127, 130, 133, 141, 144-5, 149, 174, 237, 265, 304; ii. 109

Servant (= suitor, lover), i. 33; ii. 388

Sest, ii. 374, 402

Sewer, ii. 135

Shakespeare, imitated, i. 28, 47, 48, 224; ii. 23, 143, 218; iii. 133, 134, 137, 146, 215, 219, 230; burlesqued, i. 206; ii. 349; iii. 344

Shaking of the sheets, iii. 165

Shale, ii. 185

Ship of Fools, ii. 122

Shirley, James, iii. 344

Shot-clog, iii. 13

Si quis, ii. 304

_Sick Man's Salve_, iii. 107

Siddow, i. 162

Silver piss-pots, iii. 316

Sink a-pace (cinquepace), iii. 156

Sinking thought, i. 106

Sinklo, the actor, i. 200

Sip a kiss, i. 91

Slatted, i. 281

Sliftred, i. 27

Slip, i. 81, 111

Slop, i. 83

Sluice ("sluiced out his life-blood"), i. 189; iii. 224

Slur, iii. 371

Sly, William, i. 199

Small, ii. 361

Snaphance, iii. 269, 330

Snib, i. 264; ii. 353; iii. 379

Snout-fair, iii. 320

Snurling, i. 186

Soil ("take soil"), i. 254

Soldado, iii. 261, 357

Sometimes, iii. 282

Sophocles' _Antigone_ quoted, i. 128

Souse, i. 279

Southwell, Robert, iii. 281

Spanish blocks, iii. 301

Spanish leather, ii. 7

_Spanish Tragedy_, i. 121, 168; iii. 12, 26, 28

Speak pure fool, i. 85

Speeding-place, ii. 333

Spiders eaten by monkeys, i. 213

Spur-royals, i. 109

Spurs (jingling spurs affected by gallants), i. 233

Squibs running on lines, ii. 121

Stabb'd arms, ii. 70

Stage, custom of gallants to sit (and smoke) on the, i. 199, 200, 206

Stalking-horse, i. 283

Stammel, ii. 387; iii. 14

State (= throne), i. 36; ii. 215

States (= nobles), i. 109, 159, 162

Statist, ii. 262

Statute-staple, iii. 322

Stigmatic, iii. 359

Stock (= stoccata), i. 111, 239

Stockado, iii. 268

Stone-bows, ii. 8

Streak, iii. 323, 355

Stut, ii. 342

Suburbs (bawdy-houses in), i. 317

Suffenus, iii. 306

Surphule, i. 245; iii. 275, 310

Surquedry, i. 50, 147; iii. 267

Switzer, iii. 348

Swound, ii. 93

Sylvester, Joshua, iii. 281

Tacitus, his remarks on prohibited books, ii. 48

Take say, ii. 11

Take the whiff, ii. 353

Take up commodities, ii. 340; iii. 365

_Tamburlaine_, iii. 25

Tanakin, ii. 13

Taw, ii. 376

Tereus, iii. 266

Termagant, iii. 240

There goes but a pair of shears betwixt, i. 290

Thou'st (= thou must), i. 283

Thristing, ii. 413

Thunder, eels roused from the mud by, iii. 347

_Thus while she sleeps I sorrow for her sake_, iii. 14

Thwack a jerkin, ii. 405

Toderers, i. 210

Too too, ii. 328; iii. 313

Totter'd, ii. 373

Touch (= perception), i. 105

Toy to mock an ape withal, iii. 362

Tradesmen's wives used as lures to attract customers, ii. 60; iii. 266, 325

Tragoedia cothurnata, i. 140

Travellers, affected solemnity of, i. 12; iii. 274

Traverse, iii. 394

Trenchmore, iii. 272

Tretably, ii. 358

Trick of twenty, i. 276; ii. 54

Trot the ring, i. 111, 142; iii. 378

Trow (= think you?), iii. 74

Trunk, iii. 31

Trunk-sleeves, ii. 184

Truss my hose, i. 10

Tubrio, iii. 273

Tumbrel, iii. 262, 346

Turnmill Street, ii. 16

Turn-spit dog bound to his wheel, iii. 41

Tweer, i. 71

Twelve-penny room, i. 202

Twinest (= embraces), i. 117

Twopenny ward, iii. 106

Ulysses, his counterfeited madness, iii. 15

Unheal, i. 243

Unnookt simplicity, i. 163

Unpaiz'd, i. 144

Unperegall, ii. 85

Unshale, i. 215

Upbraid, iii. 379

Ure, iii. 312, 329

Vaunt-guard, iii. 261

Vaut, ii. 288

Velure, i. 79

Via, ii. 20, 43, 133

Vie, iii. 84

Vin de monte, ii. 140

Vincentio Saviolo, iii. 373

Violets, bridal-beds strewn with, ii. 373

Virgil imitated, i. 113

Virginia, early settlers in, iii. 63

Virgins, popularly supposed to have the right to save the lives of criminals, iii. 190

Virtue, ii. 247

Vively, ii. 293

Voluntaries, iii. 261

Wall-eyed, iii. 133

Wandering whore, iii. 377

Wards, treatment of, iii. 314

Wedlock (= wife), ii. 143; iii. 47

Weeping Cross, iii. 85

Welshmen's pride in their gentility, i. 258

_Westward Ho!_ comedy of, iii. 5

Westward Ho! (_i.e._, to Tyburn), iii. 27

Wet finger ("with a wet finger"), ii. 189

What could I do withal? ii. 214

When (exclamation of impatience) i. 241; ii. 348, &c.

_When Arthur first in Court began_, i. 240

_When Sampson was a tall young man_, iii. 32

Whiblin, iii. 168

Whiff, take the, ii. 353

_Who calls Jeronimo?_ iii. 12

_Who cries out murther? Lady, was it you?_ iii. 26

Wighy, i. 56

Will (= command), i. 125, ii. 305

Willow garland, ii. 336

Wimble, i. 58

Wisards (wise men), i. 159; iii. 335

With a wanion, iii. 53

Witches turned into cats, ii. 203

Without a man (_i.e._, outside of man's sense), ii. 294

Wolt, i. 27

Wood, ii. 253

Woodstock's work, iii. 276

Woollen caps, ii. 60

Word (= motto), i. 77, 84; iii. 155

Wounds of a murdered man supposed to bleed in the presence of the murderer, iii. 224

Wrapt up in the tail of his mother's smock, ii. 407

Wrinkles, vulgar belief concerning, iii. 135

Writhled, iii. 326

Wrought shirt, i. 79

Xylinum, iii. 288, 342

Yellow, iii. 123

You'st (= you must), i. 310

Zabarella, Giacomo, ii. 363

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

Transcriber's Note:

Punctuation was standardized. Variations in spelling were retained, e.g. shipwreck'd, shipwracked, shipwrecked, and Abigail, Abigall, Abigal. Obsolete words, variant spellings, and dialect were not changed. Words and phrases in Greek were transliterated. Prose portions of plays were not wrapped so that line numbers would match the original text.

Words in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. In footnote 509 [)i] indicates a breve and [=i], a macron. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and moved to follow the scene or section in which the related anchor occurs. There are multiple anchors for Footnotes 24, 193, 250, 260, 261, 292, and 297.

Changes:

Eastward Ho: Footnote [25]: 'otes' to 'notes'