For thred-bare clearks, and for the ragged muse,
Whom better fit some cotes of sad secluse ?
Blush, niggard Age, and be asham'd to see,
These monuments of wiser ancestrie.
And, ye faire heapes, the Muses' sacred shrines,
(In spight of time and envious repines)
Stand still, and flourish till the world's last day,
Uphrayding it with former love's decay.
Here may ye, Muses, our deare Soveraines,
Scorne each base Lordling ever you disdaines";
And every peasant churle, whose smoky roofe
Denied harbour for your deare behoofe13.
Scorne ye the world, before it do complaine;
And scorne the world, that scorneth you againe :
And scorne contempt itselfe, that doth incite
Each single-sold squire to set you at so light.
What needes me care for any bookish skill,
To blot white papers with my restlesse quill;
Or poare on painted leaves, or beat my braine
With far-fetcht thought; or to consume in vaine,
In latter even, or mids of winter nights,
Ill-smelling oyles, or some stili-watching lights?
Let them, that meane by bookish businesse
To earne their bread, or hopen to professe
Their hard got skill, let them alone, for me,
Busie their braines with deeper bookerie.
Great gaines shall bide you sure, when ye have spent
A thousand lamps, and thousand reames have rent
Of needlesse papers; and a thousand nights
Have burned out with costly candle lights.
Ye palish ghosts of Athens, when at last
Your patrimonie spent in witlesse wast,
Your friends all wearie, and your spirits spent,
Ye may your fortunes seeke, and be forwent "
Of your kind cosins, and your churlish sires,
Left there alone, mids the fast-folding briers.
Have not I lands of faire inheritance,
Deriv'd by right of long continuance,
To first-borne males, so list the law to grace,
Nature's first fruits in eviternall race 1?
12 Scorne each base Lordling ever you disdaines. The relative who is omitted. E.
-behoofe-advantage, protection.
Each single-sold squire
a single-soled shoe was a common, cheap shoe:
hence single sol'd squire was a low, contemptible fellow.
16 Nature's first fruits in EVITERNALL race.
The first edition reads eniternall, which appears to me to be an error of the press for eviternall. The edition of 1602 akers it to an eternal, and is followed by the
Let second brothers, and poore nestlings,
Whom more injurious nature later brings
Into the naked world; let them assaine"
To get hard peny-worths with so bootlesse paine.
Tush! what care I to be Arcesilas 8,
Or some sad Solon, whose deep-furrowed face,
And sullen head, and yellow-clouded sight,
Still on the stedfast earth are musing pight";
Mutt'ring what censures their distracted minde,
Of brain-sicke paradoxes deeply hath definde :
Or of Parmenides, or of darke Heraclite,
Whether all be one, or ought be infinite?
Long would it be, ere thou hadst purchase bought,
Or welthier wexen 20 by such idle thought.
Fond foole! six feete shall serve for all thy store;
And he, that cares for most, shall find no more.
We scorne that welth should be the finall end,
Whereto the heavenly Muse her course doth bend;
And rather had be pale with learned cares,
Than paunched with thy choyce of changed fares.
Or doth thy glorie stand in outward glee?
A lave-ear'd asse with gold may trapped bee.
Or if in pleasure? live we as we may,
Let swinish Grill delight in dunghill clay.
Oxford editor. Eviternal is elsewhere used by our author: as, "The angels are truly existing, spiritual, intelligent, powerful, eviternal creatures." Works, Vol. VI. 435 again,-" In a constant state of eviternal evenness." Works, Vol.
quod satis est sapio mihi: non ego curo
Esse quod Arcesilas, ærumnosique Solones,
Obstipo capite, et figentes lumine terram,
Murmura cùm secum et rabiosa silentia redunt,
Atque exporrecto trutinantur verba lubello,
Agroti veterna meditantes somnia:-
Where the philosophy of the profound Arcesilaus, and of the ærumnosi Solones, is proved to be of so little use and estimation. W.
·pight-placed, or fixed. Often found in Spenser. Shakespeare
When I dissuaded him from his intent,
And found him PIGHT to do it
See Reed, Vol. XVII. 387.
WHO doubts? The lawes fell down from heaven's height,
Like to some gliding starre in winter's night?
Themis, the Scribe of God, did long agone
Engrave them deepe in during marble-stone,
And cast them downe on this unruly clay,
That men might know to rule and to obay.
But now their characters depraved bin,
By them that would make gain of 'others' sin.
And now hath wrong so maistered the right,
That they live best, that on wrong's offal light.
So loathly fly, that lives on galled wound,
And scabby festers inwardly unsound,
Feeds fatter with that poys'nous carrion,
Than they, that haunt the healthy lims alone.
Wo to the weale", where many lawiers bee;
For there is, sure, much store of maladie!
'Twas truly said, and truely was foreseene,
The fat kine are devoured of the leane.
Genus and Species long since barefoote went,
Upon their ten-toes in wilde wanderment ";
Whiles father Bartoll on his footcloth rode,
Upon high pavement gayly silver-strowd.
Each home-bred science percheth in the chaire,
Whiles sacred arts grovell on the groundsell bare.
Since pedling Barbarismes gan be" in request,
Nor classicke tongues, nor learning found no rest.
The crowching Client, with low-bended knee",
And manie Worships, and faire flatterie,
Tels on his tale as smoothly as him list,
But still the Lawier's eye squints on his fist;
If that seeme lined with a larger fee,
Doubt not the suite, the law is plaine for thee:
weale-state, common-wealth.
22 Genus and Species long since barefoote went,
Upon their ten-toes in wilde wanderment.
This is an allusion to an old distich, made and often quoted in the age of scholastic
Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores,
Sed Genus et Species cogitur ire in pedes.
That is, the study of medicine produces riches, and jurisprudence leads to stations and offices of honour; while the professor of logic is poor, and obliged to walk on foot. W.
24 The crowching client, with low-bended knee, &c. &c.
The interview between the anxious client and rapacious lawyer, has humour well adapted to the characters at that time. W.
Tho' must he buy his vainer hope with price,
Disclout his crownes", and thanke him for advice.
So have I seene in a tempestuous stowre,
Some breer-bush shewing shelter from the showre
Unto the hopefull sheepe, that faine would hide
His fleecie coate from that same angrie tide:
The ruth-lesse breere, regardlesse of his plight,
Layes hold upon the fleece he should acquite";
And takes advantage of the carelesse pray,
That thought she in securer shelter lay.
The day is fayre, the sheepe would fare to feed,
The tyrant
brier holds fast his shelter's meed,
And claymes it for the fee of his defence:
So robs the sheepe, in favour's faire pretence.
WORTHY were Galen to be weighed in gold,
Whose help doth sweetest life and helth uphold:
Yet, by S. Esculape he solemne swore,
That for diseases they were never more,
Fees never lesse, never so little gaine;
Men give a groate, and aske the rest againe.
Groats-worth of health can any leech allot?
Yet should he have no more, that gives a grote.
Should I on each sicke pillow leane my brest,
And grope the pulse of everie mangy" wrest,
And spie out marvels in each urinall,
And tumble up the filths that from them fall,
And give a Dosse for every disease
In prescripts long and tedious Recipes,
All for so leane reward of art and mee?
No hors-leach but will looke for larger fee.
Meane while, if chaunce some desp'rate patient die,
Com'n" to the period of his destinie:
(As who can crosse the fatall resolution,
In the decreed day of dissolution?)
Whether ill tendment, or recurelesse paine,
Procure his death; the neighbors straight complaine,
25 Disclout his crownes-i. e. unpurse them. W.
acquite-release. So Spenser, Book I. Canto vii. 52.
For till I have ACQUIT your captive knight.
mangy—having the mange.
tumble-rumble, is the reading of the later editions. I have cor
rected it from the first.
29 Com'n-being come.
straight-all is the reading of the later editions; but straight of
Th' unskilfull leech murdred his patient,
By poyson of some foule Ingredient.
Here-on the vulgar may as soone be brought
To Socrates-his poysoned Hemlock-drought,
As to the wholsome Julap, whose receat
Might his disease's lingring-force defeat.
If nor a dramme of Triacle soveraigne,
Or Aqua Vitæ, or Sugar Candian,
Nor Kitchin Cordials can it remedie,
Certes his time is come, needs mought he die.
Were I a leech, (as who knowes what may be?)
The liberall man should live, and carle" should die:
The sickly Ladie and the goutie Peere
Still would I haunt, that love their life so deere.
Where life is deare, who cares for coyned drosse?
That, spent, is counted gaine; and, spared, losse :
Or would conjure the Chymick Mercurie,
Rise from his hors-dung bed, and upwards flie;
And, with glas-stils and sticks of Juniper,
Raise the Black-Spright, that burns not with the fire:
And bring Quintessence of Elixir pale,
Out of sublimed spirits minerall.
Each poudred graine ransometh captive kings,
Purchaseth realmes, and life prolonged brings.
SAW'ST thou ever Siquis patch'd on Paul's Church dore3,
To seek some vacant Vicarage before?
Who wants a Churchman, that can service
Read fast and faire his monthly homiley?
And wed, and bury, and make Christen-soules?
Come to the left-side alley of Saint Poules.
Thou servile foole, why could'st thou not repaire
To buy a benefice at steeple-faire ?
carle-a churl, clown. See Reed's Shakespeare, Vol. XVIII. p. 601. and Todd's Spenser, Vol. III. p. 104.
32 Saw'st thou ever SIQUIS patch'd on Paul's Church dore, &c. &c. Si-quis was the first word of Advertisements, often published on the doors of St. Paul's. Decker says, "The first time that you enter into Paules, pass thorough the body of the Church like a porter; yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turne in the middle isle; nor to cast an eye upon SI QUIS doore, pasted and plaistered up with serving men's supplications, &c." Gul's Horne Booke. 1609. p. 21. And in Wroth's Epigrams. 1620. Epigr. 93.
A mery Greeke set up a SI QUIS late,
To signify a stranger come to towne
Who could great noses &c. W.
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