Should I endure these curses and despight
While no man's eare should glow at what I write?
Labeo is whipt, and laughs me in the face:
Why? for I smite and hide the galled place.
Gird but the cynic's helmet on his head,
Cares he for Talus, or his flayle of lead?
Long as the crafty cuttle lieth sure

In the blacke cloud of his thicke vomiture,
Who list complaine of wronged faith or fame,
When he may shift it to another's name?
Calvus can scratch his elbow and can smile,
That thriftlesse Pontice bites his lip the while.
Yet I intended in that selfe device

To checke the churle for his knowne covetise.
Each points his straight fore-finger to his friend,
Like the blind dial on the belfry end.
Who turns it homeward, to say this is I,
As bolder Socrates in the comedy?

But single out, and say once plat and plaine
That coy Matrona is a courtezan;

Or thou, false Cryspus, choak'dst thy wealthy guest
Whiles he lay snoaring at his midnight rest,
And in thy dung-cart didst the carkasse shrine
And deepe intombe it in Port-esqueline.
Proud Trebius lives, for all his princely gait,
On third-hand suits, and scrapings of the plate.
Titius knew not where to shroude his head
Until he did a dying widow wed,
Whiles she lay doating on her death's bed,
And now hath purchas'd lands with one night's
paine,

And on the morrow wooes and weds againe.
Now see I fire-flakes sparkle from his eyes,
Like a comet's tayle in th' angry skies;
His pouting cheeks puff up above his brow,
Like a swolne toad touch'd with the spider's blow;
His mouth shrinks side-ward like a scornful playse,
To take his tired ear's ingrateful place,
His ears hang laving like a new lugg'd swine,
To take some counsel of his grieved eyne.
Now laugh I loud, and breake my splene to see
This pleasing pastime of my poesie;
Much better than a Paris-garden beare,
Or prating puppet on a theatre;
Or Mimoe's whistling to his tabouret,
Selling a laughter for a cold meal's meat.
Go to then, ye my sacred Semonees,

And please me more the more ye do displease.
Care we for all those bugs of idle feare?
For Tigels grinning on the theatre?

Or scar-babe threatnings of the rascal crew?
Or wind-spent verdicts of each ale-knight's view?
Whatever breast doth freeze for such false dread,
Beshrew his base white liver for his meed.
Fond were that pity, and that feare were sin,
To spare waste leaves that so deserved bin.
Those toothlesse toys that dropt out by mis-hap,
Be but as lightning to a thunder-clap.
Shall then that foul infamous Cyned's hide
Laugh at the purple wales of others' side?
Not if he were as near as, by report,
The stewes had wont be to th' tennis court:
He that, while thousands envy at his bed,
Neighs after bridals, and fresh maidenhead;
Whiles slavish Juno dares not look awry,
To frowne at such imperious rivalry;
Not though she sees her wedding jewels drest
To make new bracelets for a strumpet's wrest;
Or like some strange disguised Messaline,
Hires a night's lodging of his concubine;
VOL V.

Whether his twilight-torch of love do call To revels of uncleanly musicall,

Or midnight plays, or taverns of new wine,
Hye ye, white aprons, to your landlord's signe ;
When all, save toothlesse age or infancy,
Are summon'd to the court of venery.
Who list excuse? when chaster dames can hire
Some snout-fair stripling to their apple-squire,
Whom, staked up like to some stallion steed,
They keep with eggs and oysters for the breed.
O Lucine! barren Caia hath an heir,
After her husband's dozen years' despair.
And now the bribed midwife swears apace,
The bastard babe doth bear his father's face.
But hath not Lelia pass'd her virgin years?
For modest shame (God wot!) or penal fears?
He tells a merchant tidings of a prize,
That tells Cynedo of such novelties,
Worth little less than landing of a whale,
Or Gades' spoils, or a churl's funerale.
Go bid the banes and point the bridal day,
His broking bawd hath got a noble prey;
A vacant tenement, an honest dowre
Can fit his pander for her paramoure,

That he, base wretch, may clog his wit-old head,
And give him hansel of his hymen-bed.
Ho! all ye females that would live unshent,
Fly from the reach of Cyned's regiment.
If Trent be drawn to dregs and low refuse,
Hence, ye hot lecher, to the steaming stewes.
Tyber, the famous sink of Christendome,
Turn thou to Thames, and Thames run towards
Rome.

Whatever damned streame but thine were meet
To quench his lusting liver's boiling heat?
Thy double draught may quench his dog-days rage
With some stale Bacchis, or obsequious page,
When writhen Lena makes her sale-set shows
Of wooden Venus with fair-limned brows;
Or like him more some vailed matron's face,
Or trained prentice trading in the place.
The close adultresse, where her name is red,
Comes crawling from her husband's lukewarm

bed,

Her carrion skin bedaub'd with odours sweet,
Groping the postern with her bared feet.
Now play the satire whoso list for me,
Valentine self, or some as chaste as he.
In vaine she wisheth long Alkmæna's night,
Cursing the hasty dawning of the light;
And with her cruel lady-star uprose

She seeks her third roust on her silent toes,
Besmeared all with loathsome smoake of lust,
Like Acheron's steams, or smoldring sulphur dust.
Yet all day sits she simpering in her mew
Like some chaste dame, or shrined saint in shew;
Whiles he lies wallowing with a westy-head
And palish carcase, on his brothel-bed,
Till his salt bowels boile with poisonous fire;
Right Hercules with his second Deianire.
O Esculape! how rife is physic made,
When each brasse-bason can professe the trade
Of ridding pocky wretches from their paine,
And do the beastly cure for ten groats gaine?
All these and more deserve some blood-drawn lines,
But my six cords beene of too loose a twine:
Stay till my beard shall sweep mine aged breast,
Then shall I seem an awful satyrist:

While now my rhymes relish of the ferule still,
Some nose-wise pedant saith; whose deep-seen skill

T

And praise his gentle soule, and wish it well,
And of his friendly facts full often tell.
His father dead! tush, no it was not he,
He finds records of his great pedigree,
And tells how first his famous ancestour
Did come in long since with the Conquerour.
Nor hath some bribed herald first assign'd
His quartered arms and crest of gentle kind;
The Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worme doth waxe a winged goose;
Nathlesse some hungry squire for hope of good
Matches the churl's sonne into gentle blood,
Whose sonne more justly of his gentry boasts
Than who were borne at two py'd painted posts,
And had some traunting merchant to his sire,
That trafick'd both by water and by fire.
O times! since ever Rome did kings create,
Brasse gentlemen, and Cæsars laureate.

SATIRE III.

Fuimus troes. Vel vix ea nostra.

WHAT boots it, Pontice, though thou could'st discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestours?
Or show their painted faces gayly drest,
From ever since before the last conquest?
Or tedious bead-rolls of descended blood,
From father Japhet since Ducalion's flood?
Or call some old church-windows to record
The age of thy faire armes ;-.
Or find some figures halfe obliterate
In rain-beat marble near to the church-gate
Upon a crosse-legg'd tombe: what boots it thee
To show the rusted buckle that did tie
The garter of thy greatest grandsires knee?
What to reserve their relicks many yeares,
Their silver-spurs, or spils of broken speares ?
Or cite old Ocland's verse, how they did weild
The wars in Turwin, or in Turney field?
And if thou canst in picking strawes engage
In one half day thy father's heritage;
Or hide whatever treasures he thee got,
In some deep cock-pit, or in desp'rate lot
Upon a six-square piece of ivory,
Throw both thy self and thy posterity?
Or if (O shame!) in hired harlot's bed
Thy wealthy heirdome thou have buried:
Then, Pontice, little boots thee to discourse
Of a long golden line of ancestours.
Ventrous Fortunio his farm hath sold,
And gads to Guiane land to fish for gold,
Meeting perhaps, if Orenoque deny,
Some straggling pinnace of Polonian rye :
Then comes home floating with a silken sail,
That Severne shaketh with his cannon-peal:
Wiser Raymundus, in his closet pent,
Laughs at such danger and adventurement,
When half his lands are spent in golden smoke,
And now his second hopeful glasse is broke.
But yet if hap'ly his third fornace hold,
Devoteth all his pots and pans to gold:
So spend thou, Pontice, if thou canst not spare,
Like some stout seaman, or phylosopher.

And were thy fathers gentle? that 's their praise;
No thank to thee by whom their name decays;
By virtue got they it, and valourous deed;
Do thou so, Pontice, and be honoured.

Right so their titles beene, nor can be thine,
Whose ill deserts might blanke their golden line.
Tell me, thou gentle Trojan, dost thou prize
Thy brute beasts' worth by their dams' quaiities?
Say'st thou this colt shall prove a swift-pac'd steed
Only because a jennet did him breed'

Or say'st thou this same horse shall win the prize,
Because his dam was swiftest Trunchefice,
Or Runcevall his sire? himself a Gallaway?
Whiles like a tireling jade he lags half-way.
Or whiles thou seest some of thy stallion race,
Their eyes bor'd out, masking the miller's maze,
Like to a Scythian slave sworne to the payle,
Or dragging frothy barrels at his tayle?
Albe wise nature in her providence,
Wont in the want of reason and of sense,

Traduce the native virtue with the kind,

Making all brute and senselesse things inclin'd
Unto their cause, or place where they were sowne;
That one is like to all, and all like one. -
Was never fox but wily cubs begets;
The bear his fiercenesse to his brood besets:
Nor fearful hare falls out of lyon's seed,
Nor eagle wont the tender dove to breed.
Creet ever wont the cypress sad to bear,
Acheron banks the palish popelar:
The palm doth rifely rise in Jury field,
And Alpheus waters nought but olives wild.
Asopus breeds big bullrushes alone,
Meander, heath; peaches by Nilus growne.
An English wolfe, an Irish toad to see,
Were as a chaste man nurs'd in Italy.
And now when nature gives another guide
To human-kind, that in his bosome bides,
Above instinct, his reason and discourse,
His being better, is his life the worse?

Ah me! how seldome see we sonnes succeed
Their father's praise, in prowesse and great deed?
Yet certes if the sire be ill inclin'd,

His faults befal his sonnes by course of kind.
Scaurus was covetous, his sonne not so;
But not his pared nayle will he forego.
Florian, the sire, did women love alive,
And so his sonne doth too, all but his wife.
Brag of thy father's faults, they are thine own:
Brag of his lands if they are not foregone.
Brag of thine own good deeds, for they are thine
More than his life, or lands, or golden line.

SATIRE IV. Plus beaque fort.

CAN I not touch some upstart carpet-shield
Of Lolio's sonne, that never saw the field;
Or taxe wild Pontice for his luxuries,
But straight they tell me of Tiresias' eyes?
Or lucklesse Collingborn's feeding of the crowes,
Or hundreth scalps which Thames still overflowes,
But straight Sigalion nods and knits his browes,
And winkes and waftes his warning hand for feare,
And lisp some silent letters in my care?
Have I not vow'd for shunning such debate?
Pardon, ye satires, to degenerate!
And wading low in the plebeian lake,
That no salt wave shall froth upon my backe

Whose bandlesse bonnet vailes his o'ergrown chin,
And sullen rags bewray his morphew'd skin:
So ships he to the wolfish western isle
Among the savage kernes in sad exile;
Or in the Turkish wars at Cæsar's pay
To rub his life out till the latest day.
Another shifting gallant to forecast
To gull his hostess for a month's repast,
With some gall'd trunk, ballast with straw and stone,
Left for the pawn of his provision.

Had F's shop layn fallow but from hence,
His doores close seal'd as in some pestilence,
Whiles his light heeles their fearful flight can jake,
To get some badgelesse blue upon his back.
Tocullio was a wealthy usurer,

Such store of incomes had he every year,
By bushels was he wont to mete his coine,
As did the olde wife of Trimalcion.
Could he do more that finds an idle roome
For many hundreth thousands on a tombe?
Or who rears up four free-schooles in his age
Of his old pillage, and damn'd surplusage?
Yet now he swore by that sweete crosse he kiss'd
(That silver crosse, where he had sacrific'd
His coveting soule, by his desire's owne doome,
Daily to die the Devil's martyrdome)
His angels were all flowne up to their sky,
And had forsooke his naked treasury.
Farewell Astrea, and her weights of gold,
Untill his lingring calends once be told;

Nought left behind but wax and parchment scroles,
Like Lucian's dreame that silver turn'd to coals.
Should'st thou him credit that nould credit thee?
Yes, and may'st sweare he swore the verity.
The ding-thrift heir his shift-got summe mispent,
Comes drooping like a penlesse penitent,
And beats his faint fist on Tocullio's doore,
It lost the last, and now must call for more.
Now hath the spider caught a wand'ring fly,
And draws her captive at her cruel thigh:
Soon is his errand read in his pale face,
Which bears dumb characters of every case.
So Cyned's dusky cheeke, and fiery eye,
And hairlesse brow, tells where he last did lye.
So Matho doth bewray his guilty thought,
While his pale face doth say his cause is nought.
Seest thou the wary angler trayle along
His feeble line, soone as some pike too strong
Hath swallowed the baite that scornes the shore,
Yet now near-hand cannot resist no more?
So lieth he aloofe in smooth pretence,
To hide his rough intended violence;
As he that under name of Christmas cheere
Can starve his tenants all th' ensuing yeare.
Paper and wax, (God wot!) a weake repay
For such deepe debts and downcast sums as they:
Write, seale, deliver, take, go spend and speede,
And yet full hardly could his present need
Part with such sum; for but as yester-late
Did Furnus offer pen-worths at easy rate,
For small disbursment; he the bankes hath broke,
And needs mote now some further playne o'erlook;
Yet ere he go faine would he be releast,
Hye ye, ye ravens, hye you to the feast.
Provided that thy lands are left entire,
To be redeem'd or ere thy day expire:
Then shalt thou teare those idle paper bonds
That thus had fettered thy pawned lands.
Ah, foole! for sooner shalt thou sell the rest
Than stake ought for thy former interest;

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

A pining gourmand, an imperious slave,

An horse-leech, barren wombe, and gaping grave;
A legal thiefe, a bloodlesse murtherer,
A fiend incarnate, a false usurer:
Albe such mayne extort scorns to be pent
In the clay walls of thatched tenement.
For certes no man of a low degree
May bid two guests, or gout, or usury:
Unlesse some base hedge-creeping Collybist
Scatters his refuse scraps on whom he list
For Easter gloves, or for a shrove-tide hen,
Which bought to give, he takes to sell again.
I do not meane some glozing merchant's feate,
That laugheth at the cozened world's deceit,
When as an hundred stocks lie in his fist,
He leaks and sinks, and breaketh when he list.
But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care
With a base bargain of his blowen, ware
Of fusted hops, now lost for lack of sale,
Or mould brown paper that could nought availe;
Or what he cannot utter otherwise,
May pleasure Fridoline for treble price;
Whiles his false broker lieth in the wind,
And for a present chapman is assign'd,

The cut-throat wretch for their compacted gaine
Buys all but for one quarter of the mayne;
Whiles if he chance to breake his deare-bought day
And forfeit, for default of due repay,
His late entangled lands; then, Fridoline,
Buy thee a wallet, and go beg or pine.
If Mammon's selfe should ever live with men,
Mammon himself shall be a citizen.