What tho' he quaffe pure amber in his bowle
Of March-brewd wheat, yet slecks thy thirsting soule
With parish oat, froathing in Boston-clay ",
Or in a shallow cruse: nor must that stay

Within thy reach, for feare of thy craz'd braine;
But call and crave, and have thy cruse againe:
Else how should eeven tale bee registred,

Or all thy draughts, on the chalk'd barrel's head?
And if he list revive his hartles graine

With some French grape, or pure Canariane,
When pleasing Bourdeaux fals unto his lott,
Some sowrish Rochell cuts thy thirsting throte.
What tho' himselfe carveth his welcome friend
With a cool'd pittance from his trencher's-end,
Must Trebie's lip hang toward his trencher-side?
Nor kisse his fist to take what doth betide?
What tho' to spare thy teeth he' emploies thy tongue
In busie questions all the dinner long?

What tho' the scornfull waiter lookes askile",
And pouts and frowns, and curseth thee the while;
And takes his farewell with a jealous eye,
At every morsell hee his last shall see?
And, if but one exceed the common sise,
Or make a hillocke in thy cheeke arise,
Or if perchance thou shouldest, ere thou wist,
Hold thy knife uprights in thy griped fist,
Or sittest double on thy back-ward seat,
Or with thine elbow shad'st thy shared meat,
Hee laughs thee, in his fellowe's eare, to scorne,
And asks aloud, where Trebius was borne ?
Tho' the third sewer" takes thee quite away
Without a staffe, when thou would'st longer stay,
What of all this? Is't not inough to say,

I din'd at Virro his owne boord to day?

This word is not to be found in the old Glossaries, nor in the Specimen of Boucher's Supplement to Johnson which has recently appeared and comprehends the letter A. But it seems to mean the same as askaunce or askew.

"Tho' the third sewer

The sewer was the officer who served up the feast.

SATIRE III".

ΚΟΙΝΑ ΦΙΛΩΝ,

THE Satyre should be like the Porcupine "
That shoots sharp quilles out in each angry line,
And wounds the blushing cheeke and fiery eye,
Of him that heares and readeth guiltily.
Ye antique Satyres, how I blesse your daies,
That brook'd your bolder stile, their owne dispraise;
And wel-neare wish, yet joy my wish is vaine,
I had beene then, or they were" now againe !
For now our eares beene of more brittle mold,
Than those dull earthen eares that were of old:
Sith theirs, like anvilles, bore the hammer's head,
Our glasse can never touch unshivered.
But, from the ashes of my quiet stile
Henceforth may rise some raging rough Lucile,
That may with Eschylus both finde and leese"
The snaky tresses of th' Eumenides:

Mean-while, sufficeth mee, the world may say
That I these vices loath'd another day:

Our author has in this piece forcibly exhibited the design of legitimate Satire:-to wound

the blushing cheeke, and fiery eye,

Of him that heares and readeth guiltily.

Lamenting, at the same time, the untempered genius of his age; which, while it encouraged the graces and subdued imagination of Classic Elegance, could not brook its bolder and more nervous efforts. In this Satire, too, Hall has justly reprehended Plato's notion of a political community of all things; for which Marston censured him with some severity, but without refuting a single position. The passage of Plato to which our Satirist more immediately refers, and whence he derived the motto of the Satire, is in the Vth Book de Legibus. E.

45 The Satyre should be like the Porcupine,

&c. &c.

This ingenious thought, though founded on vulgar error, has been copied, among other passages, by Oldham. Of a true writer of Satire he says

46

47

He'd shoot his quills just like a porcupine,

At view; and make them stab in every line.

Apology for the Foregoing Ode &c. Works, vol. I. p. 97. edit. 1722. 12mo. W.

were-The Oxford Editor reads been, without authority.

leese is to lose; but seems to be used here for to loose.

48

Which I hane done with as devout a cheere
As he that rounds Poule's-pillers in the eare",
Or bends his ham downe in the naked queare.
"Twas ever said, Frontine, and ever seene,
That golden clearkes but wooden lawyers bene.
Could ever wise man wish, in good estate,
The use of all things indiscriminate?
Who wots not yet how well this did beseeme
The learned maister of the Academe ?
Plato is dead, and dead is his devise,

Which some thought witty, none thought ever wise:
Yet, certes, Macha is a Platonist

To all, they say, save whoso do not list;
Because her husband, a farre-trafiqu'd man,
Is a profest Peripatecian.

And so our grandsires were in ages past,
That let their lands lye all so widely wast,
That nothing was in pale or hedge ypent
Within some province, or whole shire's extent.
As Nature made the earth, so did it lye,
Save for the furrows of their husbandry;
When as the neighbour lands so couched layne,
That all bore show of one fayre champian:
Some head-lesse crosse they digged on their lea,
Or rol'd some marked meare-stone" in the way.
Poore simple men! for what mought that avayle,
That my field might not fill my neighbour's payle;
More than a pilled sticke can stand in stead,
To barre Cynedo from his neighbour's bed;
More than the thred-bare client's poverty
Debarres th' atturney of his wonted fee?
If they were thriftlesse, mote not we amend,
And with more care our dangered fields defend ?
Ech man can gard what thing he deemeth deere,
As fearefull marchants doe their female heyre:
Which, were it not for promise of their wealth,
Need not be stalled up for feare of stelth;
Would rather sticke upon the belman's cries,
Tho' proferd for a branded Indian's price.
Then rayse we muddy bul-warkes on our bankes,
Beset around with treble quick-set rankes;
Or, if those walls be over weake a ward,
The squared bricke may be a better gard.

hane-for have.

"As he that rounds Poule's-pillars in the EARE.

The Oxford Editor reads yeare, without authority. But is not that the meaning?

-ypent-pent, or confined.

meare-stone-or meer stone, a stonę to mark the boundary.

52

Go to, my thrifty yeoman, and upreare
A brazen wall to shend thy land from feare s
Do so; and I shall praise thee all the while,
So be thou stake not up the common stile;
So be thou hedge in nought but what's thine owne;
So be thou pay what tithes thy neighbours done:
So be thou let not lye in fallow'd plaine
That, which was wont yeelde usurie of graine.
But, when I see thy pitched stakes do stand
On thy incroched peece of common land,
Whiles thou discommonest thy neighbour's keyne,
And warn'st that none feed on thy field save thine;
Brag no more, Scrobius, of thy mudded bankes,
Nor thy deep ditches, nor three quickset rankes.
Oh happy daies of olde Deucalion,

When one was land-lord of the world alone!
But, now, whose coler would not rise to yeeld
A pesant halfe-stakes of his new-mowne field,
Whiles yet he may not for the treble price
Buy out the remnant of his royalties?
Go on and thrive, my pety tyrant's pride:
Scorne thou to live, if others live beside;
And trace proud Castile that aspires to be
In his old age a young fift monarchie :
Or the red hat, that tries "3 the lucklesse mayne,
For welthy Thames to change his lowly Rhene.

SATIRE IV.

Possunt, quia posse videntur.

VILLIUS, the welthy farmer, left his heire
Twise twenty sterling pounds to spend by yeare.
The neighbours praysen Villio's hide-bound sonne,
And say it was a goodly portion:

Not knowing how some marchants dowre can rise,
By Sundaie's tale 4 to fifty Centuries;

Or to weigh downe a leaden bride with golde,
Worth all that Matho bought, or Pontice sold.

"A brazen wall to shend thy land from feare.

To shend generally signifies, in the old writers, to ruin, disgrace, blame, &c. The meaning of the line may be, that a brazen wall, raised from or on account of his fear, would disgrace his land.

63

tries—is improperly cries in the later editions.

54 By Sundaie's tale

Probably, by means of employing his Sundays.

But whiles ten pound goes to his wive's new gowne,
Nor litle lesse can serve to sute his owne;
Whiles one peece payes her idle wayting man,
Or buyes a hoode, or silver-handled fanne,
Or hires a Friezeland trotter, half yarde deepe,
To drag his tumbrell through the staring Cheape;
Or whiles he rideth with two liveries,

And's treble rated at the subsidies;

One end a kennell keeps of thriftlesse hounds;
What thinke you rests of all my younker's pounds
To diet him, or deale out at his doore,

To cofer up, or stocke his wasting store?
If then I reckon'd right, it should appeare
That fourtie pounds serve not the farmer's heyre.