PART 1. EXTRA SONGS

Transcriber’s Note: Upright text within italic passages is indicated

~like this~. See end for a fuller note.

Choyce Drollery.

[Illustration: _1661. Vide p. 107._

_J. W. Ebsworth sc. 1876_]

Choyce

DROLLERY:

SONGS & SONNETS.

BEING

_A Collection of Divers Excellent

Pieces of Poetry_,

OF SEVERAL EMINENT AUTHORS.

_Now First Reprinted from the Edition of 1656._

TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE EXTRA SONGS OF

MERRY DROLLERY, 1661,

AND AN

ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY, 1661:

EDITED,

_With Special Introductions, and Appendices of Notes,

Illustrations, Emendations of Text, &c._,

BY J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A., CANTAB.

BOSTON, LINCOLNSHIRE:

Printed by _Robert Roberts_, Strait Bar-Gate.

M,DCCCLXXVI.

TO THOSE

STUDENTS OF ART,

AMONG WHOM HE FOUND

Friendship and Enthusiasm;

BEFORE HE LEFT THEM,

WINNERS OF UNSULLIED FAME,

AND SOUGHT IN A QUIET NOOK

CONTENT, INSTEAD OF RENOWN:

THESE

“DROLLERIES OF THE RESTORATION”

ARE BY THE EDITOR

DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

DEDICATION v

PRELUDE ix

INTRODUCTION TO “CHOICE DROLLERY, 1656” xi

§ 1. HOW CHOICE DROLLERY WAS INHIBITED xi

2. THE TWO COURTS IN 1656 xix

3. SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR xxvi

4. CONCLUSION: THE PASTORALS xxxiii

ORIGINAL “ADDRESS TO THE READER,” 1856

“CHOYCE DROLLERY,” 1656 1

TABLE OF FIRST LINES TO DITTO 101

INTRODUCTION TO “ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY,” 1661

§ 1. REPRINT OF “ANTIDOTE” 105

2. INGREDIENTS OF “AN ANTIDOTE” 108

ORIGINAL ADDRESS “TO THE READER,” 1661 111

” CONTENTS (ENLARGED) 112

“ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY,” 1661 113

EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT TO DITTO: § 1. ON THE “AUTHOR” OF THE

ANTIDOTE. 2. ARTHUR O’BRADLEY 161

“WESTMINSTER DROLLERIES,” EDITION 1674: EXTRA SONGS 177

“MERRY DROLLERY,” 1661:

PART 1. EXTRA SONGS 195

” 2. DITTO 233

APPENDIX OF NOTES, &c., ARRANGED IN FOUR PARTS:

1. “CHOICE DROLLERY” 259

2. “ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY” 305

3. “WESTMINSTER DROLLERY,” 1671-4 333

4. § 1. “MERRY DROLLERY,” 1661 345

2. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO “M. D.,” 1670 371

3. SESSIONS OF POETS 405

4. TABLES OF FIRST LINES 411

FINALE 423

PRELUDE.

Not dim and shadowy, like a world of dreams,

We summon back the past Cromwellian time,

Raised from the dead by invocative rhyme,

Albeit this no Booke of Magick seems:

Now,—while few questions of the fleeting hour

Cease to perplex, or task th’ unwilling mind,—

Lest party-strife our better-Reason blind

To the dread evils waiting still on Power.

We see Old England torn by civil wars,

Oppress’d by gloomy zealots—men whose chain

More galled because of Regicidal stain,

Hiding from view all honourable scars:

We see how those who raved for Liberty,

Claiming the Law’s protection ’gainst the King,

Trampled themselves on Law, and strove to bring

On their own nation tenfold Slavery.

So that with iron hand, with eagle eye,

Stout Oliver Protector scarce could keep

The troubled land in awe; while mutterings deep

Threatened to swell the later rallying cry.

Well had he probed the hollow friends who stood

Distrustful of him, though their tongues spoke praise;

Well read their fears, that interposed delays

To rob him of his meed for toil and blood.

A few brief years of such uneasy strife,

While foreign shores and ocean own his sway;

Then fades the lonely Conqueror away,

Amid success, weary betimes of life.

So passing, kingly in his soul, uncrown’d,

With dark forebodings of th’ approaching storm,

He leaves the spoil at mercy of the swarm

Of beasts unclean and vultures gathering round.

For soon from grasp of Richard Cromwell slips

Semblance of power he ne’er had strength to hold;

And wolves each other tear, who tore the fold,

While lurid twilight mocks the State’s eclipse.

Then, from divided counsels, bitter snarls,

Deceit and broken fealty, selfish aim—

Where promptitude and courage win the game,—

Self-scattered fall they; and up mounts

KING CHARLES.

J. W. E.

_June 1st, 1876._

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION TO CHOICE DROLLERY: 1656.

_Charles._—“They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and

a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old

Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to

him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in

the golden world.”

(_As You Like It_, Act i. sc. 1.)

§ 1. _CHOYCE DROLLERY INHIBITED._

We may be sure the memory of many a Cavalier went back to that sweetest

of all Pastorals, Shakespeare’s Comedy of “As You Like It,” while he

clutched to his breast the precious little volume of _Choyce Drollery,

Songs and Sonnets_, which was newly published in the year 1656. He sought

a covert amid the yellowing fronds of fern, in some old park that had

not yet been wholly confiscated by the usurping Commonwealth; where,

under the broad shadow of a beech-tree, with the squirrel watching him

curiously from above, and timid fawns sniffing at him suspiciously a few

yards distant, he might again yield himself to the enjoyment of reading

“heroick Drayton’s” _Dowsabell_, the love-tale beginning with the magic

words “Farre in the Forest of Arden”—an invocative name which summoned

to his view the Rosalind whose praise was carved on many a tree. He

also, be it remembered, had “a banished Lord;” even then remote from his

native Court, associating with “co-mates and brothers in exile”—somewhat

different in mood from Amiens or the melancholy Jacques; and, alas! not

devoid of feminine companions. Enough resemblance was in the situation

for a fanciful enthusiasm to lend enchantment to the name of Arden (p.

73), and recall scenes of shepherd-life with Celia, the songs that echoed

“Under the greenwood-tree;” without needing the additional spell of

seeing “Ingenious Shakespeare” mentioned among “the Time-Poets” on the

fifth page of _Choyce Drollery_.

Not easily was the book obtained; every copy at that time being hunted

after, and destroyed when found, by ruthless minions of the Commonwealth.

A Parliamentary injunction had been passed against it. Commands were

given for it to be burnt by the hangman. Few copies escaped, when spies

and informers were numerous, and fines were levied upon those who

had secreted it. Greedy eyes, active fingers, were after the _Choyce

Drollery_. Any fortunate possessor, even in those early days, knew well

that he grasped a treasure which few persons save himself could boast.

Therefore it is not strange, two hundred and twenty years having rolled

away since then, that the book has grown to be among the rarest of the

_Drolleries_. Probably not six perfect copies remain in the world. The

British Museum holds not one. We congratulate ourselves on restoring it

now to students, for many parts of it possess historical value, besides

poetic grace; and the whole work forms an interesting relic of those

troubled times.

Unlike our other _Drolleries_, reproduced _verbatim et literatim_ in this

series, we here find little describing the last days of Cromwell and the

Commonwealth; except one graphic picture of a despoiled West-Countryman

(p. 57), complaining against both Roundheads and “Cabbaleroes.” The

poems were not only composed before hopes revived of speedy Restoration

for the fugitive from Worcester-fight and Boscobel; they were, in great

part, written before the Civil Wars began. Few of them, perhaps, were

previously in print (the title-page asserts that _none_ had been so, but

we know this to be false). Publishers made such statements audaciously,

then as now, and forced truth to limp behind them without chance of

overtaking. By far the greater number belonged to an early date in the

reign of the murdered King, chiefly about the year 1637; two, at the

least, were written in the time of James I. (viz., p. 40, a contemporary

poem on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; and, p. 10, the Ballad on King James

I.), if not also the still earlier one, on the Defeat of the Scots at

Muscleborough Field; which is probably corrupted from an original so

remote as the reign of Edward VI. “Dowsabell” was certainly among the

_Pastorals_ of 1593, and “Down lay the Shepherd’s swain” (p. 65) bears

token of belonging to an age when the Virgin Queen held sway. These

facts guide to an understanding of the charm held by _Choyce Drollery_

for adherents of the Monarchy; and of its obnoxiousness in the sight

of the Parliament that had slain their King. It was not because of

any exceptional immorality in this _Choyce Drollery_ that it became

denounced; although such might be declared in proclamations. Other books

of the same year offended worse against morals: for example, the earliest

edition known to us of _Wit and Drollery_, with the extremely “free”

_facetiæ_ of _Sportive Wit, or Lusty Drollery_ (both works issued in

1656), held infinitely more to shock proprieties and call for repression.

The _Musarum Deliciæ_ of Sir J[ohn] M[ennis] and Dr. J[ames] S[mith],

in the same year, 1656, cannot be held blameless. Yet the hatred

shewn towards _Choyce Drollery_ far exceeded all the rancour against

these bolder sinners, or the previous year’s delightful miscellany of

merriment and true poetry, the _Wit’s Interpreter_ of industrious J[ohn]

C[otgrave]; to whom, despite multitudinous typographical errors, we owe

thanks, both for _Wit’s Interpreter_ and for the wilderness of dramatic

beauties, his _Wit’s Treasury_: bearing the same date of 1655.

It was not because of sins against taste and public or private morals,

(although, we admit, it has some few of these, sufficient to afford

a pretext for persecutors, who would have been equally bitter had

it possessed virginal purity:) but in consequence of other and more

dangerous ingredients, that _Choyce Drollery_ aroused such a storm. Not

disgust, but fear of its influence in reviving loyalty, prompted the

order of its extermination. Readers at this later day, might easily fail

to notice all that stirred the loyal sentiments of chivalric devotion,

and consequently made the fierce Fifth-Monarchy men hate the small volume

worse than the _Apocrypha_ or _Ikon Basilike_. Herein was to be found

the clever “Jack of Lent’s” account of loyal preparations made in London

to receive the newly-wedded Queen, Henrietta Maria, when she came from

France, in 1625, escorted by the Duke of Buckingham, who compromised her

sister by his rash attentions: Buckingham, whom King Charles loved so

well that the favouritism shook his throne, even after Felton’s dagger

in 1628 had rid the land of the despotic courtier. Here, also, a more

grievous offence to the Regicides, was still recorded in austere grandeur

of verse, from no common hireling pen, but of some scholar like unto

Henry King, of Chichester, the loyal “New-Year’s Wish” (p. 48) presented

to King Charles at the beginning of 1638, when the North was already

in rebellion: wherein men read, what at that time had not been deemed

profanity or blasphemy, the praise and faithful service of some hearts

who held their monarch only second to their Saviour. Referring to their

hope that the personal approach of the King might cure the evils of the

disturbed realm, it is written:—

“You, like our sacred and indulgent Lord,

When the too-stout Apostle drew his sword,

When he mistooke some secrets of the cause,

And in his furious zeale disdained the Lawes,

Forgetting true Religion doth lye

On prayers, not swords against authority:

You, like our substitute of horrid fate,

That are next Him we most should imitate,

Shall like to Him rebuke with wiser breath,

Such furious zeale, but not reveng’d with death.

Like him, the wound that’s giv’n you strait shall heal

Then calm by precept such mistaking zeal.”

Here was a sincere, unflinching recognition of Divine Right, such as the

faction in power could not possibly abide. Even the culpable weakness

and ingratitude of Charles, in abandoning Strafford, Laud, and other

champions to their unscrupulous destroyers, had not made true-hearted

Cavaliers falter in their faith to him. As the best of moralists

declares:—

“Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.”

These loyal sentiments being embodied in print within our _Choyce

Drollery_, suitable to sustain the fealty of the defeated Cavaliers to

the successor of the “Royal Martyr,” it was evident that the Restoration

must be merely a question of time. “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it

be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, _yet it will come: the

readiness is all_!”

To more than one of those who had sat in the ill-constituted and

miscalled High Court of Justice, during the closing days of 1648-9, there

must have been, ever and anon, as the years rolled by, a shuddering

recollection of the words written anew upon the wall in characters of

living fire. They had shown themselves familiar, in one sense much too

familiar, with the phraseology but not the teaching of Scripture. To

them the _Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin_ needed no Daniel come to judgment

for interpretation. The Banquet was not yet over; the subjugated people,

whom they had seduced from their allegiance by a dream of winning freedom

from exactions, were still sullenly submissive; the desecrated cups and

challices of the Church they had despoiled, believing it overthrown for

ever, had been, in many cases, melted down for plunder,—in others, sold

as common merchandize: and yet no thunder heard. But, however defiantly

they might bear themselves, however resolute to crush down every

attempt at revolt against their own authority, the men in power could

not disguise from one another that there were heavings of the earth on

which they trod, coming from no reverberations of their footsteps, but

telling of hollowness and insecurity below. They were already suspicious

among themselves, no longer hiding personal spites and jealousies, the

separate ambition of uncongenial factions, which had only united for

a season against the monarchy and hierarchy, but now began to fall

asunder, mutually envenomed and intolerant. Presbyterian, Independent,

and Nondescript-Enthusiast, while combined together of late, had been

acknowledged as a power invincible, a Three-fold Cord that bound the

helpless Victim to an already bloody altar. The strands of it were now

unwinding, and there scarcely needed much prophetic wisdom to discern

that one by one they could soon be broken.

To us, from these considerations, there is intense attraction in the

_Choyce Drollery_, since it so narrowly escaped from flames to which it

had been judicially condemned.

§ 2.—THE TWO COURTS, IN 1656.

At this date many a banished or self-exiled Royalist, dwelling in the

Low Countries, but whose heart remained in England, drew a melancholy

contrast between the remembered past of Whitehall and the gloomy present.

With honest Touchstone, he could say, “Now am I in Arden! the more fool

I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be

content.”

Meanwhile, in the beloved Warwickshire glades, herds of swine were

routing noisily for acorns, dropped amid withered leaves under branches

of the Royal Oaks. They were watched by boys, whose chins would not be

past the first callow down of promissory beards when Restoration-day

should come with shouts of welcome throughout the land.

In 1656 our Charles Stuart was at Bruges, now and then making a visit to

Cologne, often getting into difficulties through the misconduct of his

unruly followers, and already quite enslaved by Dalilahs, syrens against

whom his own shrewd sense was powerless to defend him. For amusement

he read his favourite French or Italian authors, not seldom took long

walks, and indulged himself in field sports:

“_A merry monarch, scandalous and poor_.”

For he was only scantily supplied with money, which chiefly came from

France, but if he had possessed the purse of Fortunatus it could barely

have sufficed to meet demands from those who lived upon him. A year

before, the Lady Byron had been spoken of as being his seventeenth

Mistress abroad, and there was no deficiency of candidates for any vacant

place within his heart. Sooth to say, the place was never vacant, for it

yielded at all times unlimited accommodation to every beauty. Music and

dances absorbed much of his attention. So long as the faces around him

showed signs of happiness, he did not seriously afflict himself because

he was in exile, and a little out at elbows.

Such was the “Banished Duke” in his Belgian Court; poor substitute for

the Forest of Ardennes, not far distant. By all accounts, he felt “the

penalty of Adam, the season’s difference,” and in no way relished the

discomfort. He did not smile and say,

“This is no flattery: these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.”

For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such counsel, and relished

flattery too well to part with it on cheap terms. He never considered

the “rural life more sweet than that of painted pomp,” and, if all tales

of Cromwell’s machinations be held true, Charles by no means found the

home of exile “more free from peril than the envious court.” On the

other hand, his own proclamation, dated 3rd May, 1654, offering an

annuity of five hundred pounds, a Colonelcy and Knighthood, to any person

who should destroy the Usurper (“a certain mechanic fellow, by name

Oliver Cromwell!”), took from him all moral right of complaint against

reprisals: unless, as we half-believe, this proclamation were one of the

many forgeries. As to any sweetness in “the uses of Adversity,” Charles

might have pleaded, with a laugh, that he had known sufficient of them

already to be cloyed with it.

The men around him were of similar opinion. A few, indeed, like Cowley

and Crashaw, were loyal hearts, whose devotion was best shown in times

of difficulty. Not many proved of such sound metal, but there lived some

“faithful found among the faithless”; and

“He that can endure

To follow with allegiance a fallen lord,

Does conquer him that did his master conquer,

And earns a place in the story.”

The Ladies of the party scarcely cared for anything beyond

self-adornment, rivalry, languid day-dreams of future greatness, and the

encouragement of gallantry.

There was not one among them who for a moment can bear comparison with

the Protector’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole—perhaps the loveliest female

character of all recorded in those years. Everything concerning her

speaks in praise. She was the good angel of the house. Her father loved

her, with something approaching reverence, and feared to forfeit her

conscientious approval more than the support of his companions in arms.

In worship she shrank from the profane familiarity of the Sectaries,

and devotedly held by the Church of England. She is recorded to have

always used her powerful influence in behalf of the defeated Cavaliers,

to obtain mercy and forbearance. Her name was whispered, with blessing

implored upon it, in the prayers of many whom she alone had saved from

death.[1] No personal ambition, no foolish pride and ostentation marked

her short career. The searching glare of Court publicity could betray

no flaw in her conduct or disposition; for the heart was sound within,

her religion was devoid of all hypocrisy. Her Christian purity was

too clearly stainless for detraction to dare raise one murmur. She is

said to have warmly pleaded in behalf of Doctor Hewit, who died upon

the scaffold with his Royalist companion, Sir Harry Slingsby, the 8th

of June, 1658 (although she rejoiced in the defeat of their plot, as

her extant letter proves). Cromwell resisted her solicitations, urged

to obduracy by his more ruthless Ironsides, who called for terror to

be stricken into the minds of all reactionists by wholesale slaughter

of conspirators. Soon after this she faded. It was currently reported

and believed that on her death-bed, amid the agonies and fever-fits,

she bemoaned the blood that had been shed, and spoke reproaches to

the father whom she loved, so that his conscience smote him, and the

remembrance stayed with him for ever.[2] She was only twenty-nine when

at Hampton Court she died, on the 6th of August, 1658. Less than a month

afterwards stout Oliver’s heart broke. Something had gone from him,

which no amount of power and authority could counter-balance. He was

not a man to breathe his deeper sorrows into the ear of those political

adventurers or sanctified enthusiasts whose glib tongues could rattle off

the words of consolation. While she was slowly dying he had still tried

to grapple with his serious duties, as though undisturbed. Her prayers

and her remonstrances had been powerless of late to make him swerve. But

now, when she was gone, the hollow mockery of what power remained stood

revealed to him plainly; and the Rest that was so near is not unlikely to

have been the boon he most desired. It came to him upon his fatal day,

his anniversary of still recurring success and happy fortune; came, as

is well known, on September 3rd, 1658. The Destinies had nothing better

left to give him, so they brought him death. What could be more welcome?

Very few of these who reach the summit of ambition, as of those other who

most lamentably failed, and became bankrupt of every hope, can feel much

sadness when the messenger is seen who comes to lead them hence,—from a

world wherein the jugglers’ tricks have all grown wearisome, and where

the tawdry pomp or glare cannot disguise the sadness of Life’s masquerade.

“Naught’s had—all’s spent,

When our desire is got without content:

’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

§ 3.—SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR.

It was still 1656, of which we write (the year of _Choyce Drollery_ and

_Parnassus Biceps_, of _Wit and Drollery_ and of _Sportive Wit_); not

1658: but shadows of the coming end were to be seen. Already it was

evident that Cromwell sate not firmly on the throne, uncrowned, indeed,

but holding power of sovereignty. His health was no longer what it had

been of old. The iron constitution was breaking up. Yet was he only nine

months older than the century. In September his new Parliament met; if

it can be called a Parliament in any sense, restricted and coerced alike

from a free choice and from free speech, pledged beforehand to be servile

to him, and holding a brief tenure of mock authority under his favour.

They might declare his person sacred, and prohibit mention of Charles

Stuart, whose regal title they denounced. But few cared what was said or

done by such a knot of praters. More important was the renewed quarrel

with Spain; and all parties rejoiced when gallant Blake and Montague fell

in with eight Spanish ships off Cadiz, captured two of them and stranded

others. There had been no love for that rival fleet since the Invincible

Armada made its boast in 1588; but what had happened in “Bloody Mary’s”

reign, after her union with Philip, and the later cruelties wrought under

Alva against the patriots of the Netherlands, increased the national

hatred. We see one trace of this renewed desire for naval warfare in the

appearance of the Armada Ballad, “In eighty-eight ere I was born,” on

page 38 of our _Choyce Drollery_: the earliest copy of it we have met in

print. Some supposed connection of Spanish priestcraft with the Gunpowder

Plot of 1605 (Guido Faux and several of the Jesuits being so accredited

from the Low Country wars), may have caused the early poem on this

subject to be placed immediately following.

But the chief interest of the book, for its admirers, lay not in

temporary allusions to the current politics and gossip. Furnishing these

were numerous pamphlets, more or less venomous, circulating stealthily,

despite all watchfulness and penalties. Next year, 1657, “Killing no

Murder” would come down, as if showered from the skies; but although

hundreds wished that somebody else might act on the suggestions, already

urged before this seditious tract appeared, not one volunteer felt called

upon to immolate himself to certain death on the instant by standing

forward as the required assassin. Cautious thinkers held it better to

bide their time, and await the natural progress of events, allowing all

the enemies of Charles and Monarchy to quarrel and consume each other.

Probably the bulk of country farmers and their labourers cared not one

jot how things fell out, so long as they were left without exorbitant

oppression; always excepting those who dwelt where recently the hoof

of war-horse trod, and whose fields and villages bore still the trace

of havoc. Otherwise, the interference with the Maypole dance, and such

innocent rural sports, by the grim enemies to social revelry, was felt to

be a heavier sorrow than the slaughter of their King.[3] So long as wares

were sold, and profits gained, Town-traders held few sentiments of favour

towards either camp. It was (owing to the parsimony of Parliament, and

his continual need of supplies to be obtained without their sanction,)

the frequency of his exactions, the ship-money, the forced loans, and the

uncertainty of ever gaining a repayment, which had turned many hearts

against King Charles I., in his long years of difficulty, before shouts

arose of “Privilege.” But for the cost of wasteful revels at Court, with

gifts to favourites, the expense of foreign or domestic wars, there would

have been no popular complaint against tyranny. Citizens care little

about questions of Divine Right and Supremacy, _pro_ or _con_, so long

as they are left unfettered from growing rich, and are not called on to

disgorge the wealth they swallowed ravenously, perhaps also dishonestly.

Some remembrance of this fact possessed the Cavaliers, even before George

Monk came to burst the city gates and chains. The Restoration confirmed

the same opinion, and the later comedies spoke manifold contempt against

time-serving traders; who cheated gallant men of money and land, but in

requital were treated like Acteon.

Although, in 1656, disquiet was general, amid contemporary records we may

seek far before we meet a franker and more manly statement of the honest

Englishman’s opinion, despising every phase of trickery in word, deed, or

visage, than the poem found in _Choyce Drollery_, p. 85,—“The Doctor’s

Touchstone.” There were, doubtless, many whose creed it stated rightly. A

nation that could feel thus, would not long delay to pluck the mask from

sanctimonious hypocrites, and drag “The Gang” from out their saddle.

Here, too, are the love-songs of a race of Poets who had known the

glories of Whitehall before its desecration. Here are the courtly praises

of such beauties as the Lady Elizabeth Dormer, 1st Countess of Carnarvon,

who, while she held her infant in her arms, in 1642, was no less

fascinating than she had been in her virgin bloom. The airy trifling,

dallying with conceits in verse, that spoke of a refinement and graceful

idlesse more than passionate warmth, gave us these relics of such men as

Thomas Carew, who died in 1638, before the Court dissolved into a Camp.

Some of them recal the strains of dramatists, whose only actresses had

been Ladies of high birth, condescending to adorn the Masques in palaces,

winning applause from royal hands and voices. These, moreover, were

“Songs and Sonnets” which the best musicians had laboured skilfully to

clothe anew with melody: Poems already breathing their own music, as they

do still, when lutes and virginals are broken, and the composer’s score

has long been turned into gun-wadding.

What sweetness and true pathos are found among them, readers can study

once more. The opening poem, by Davenant, is especially beautiful, where

a Lover comforts himself with a thought of dying in his Lady’s presence,

and being mourned thereafter by her, so that she shall deck his grave

with tears, and, loving it, must come and join him there:—

“Yet we hereafter shall be found

By Destiny’s right placing,

Making, like Flowers, Love under ground,

Whose roots are still embracing.”[4]

Seeing, alongside of these tender pleadings from the worshipper of

Beauty, some few pieces where the taint of foulness now awakens our

disgust, we might feel wonder at the contrast in the same volume, and the

taste of the original collector, were not such feeling of wonder long ago

exhausted. Queen Elizabeth sate out the performance of _Love’s Labour’s

Lost_ (if tradition is to be believed), and was not shocked at some free

expressions in that otherwise delightful play;—words and inuendoes,

let us own, which were a little unsuited to a Virgin Queen. Again, if

another tradition be trustworthy, she herself commissioned the comedy

of _Merry Wives of Windsor_ to be written and acted, in order that she

might see Falstaffe in love: but after that Eastcheap Boar’s-Head Tavern

scene, with rollicking Doll Tear-sheet, in the Second Part of _Henry

IV._, surely her sedate Majesty might have been prepared to look for

something very different from the proprieties of “Religious Courtship” or

the refinements of Platonic affection in the Knight, who, having “more

flesh than other men,” pleads this as an excuse for his also having more

frailty.

Suppose we own at once, that there is a great deal of falsehood and

mock-modesty in the talk which ever anon meets us, the Puritanical

squeamishness of each extremely moral (undetected) Tartuffe, acting as

Aristarchus; who cannot, one might think, be quite ignorant of what

is current in the newspaper-literature of our own time.[5] The fact

is this, people now-a-days keep their dishes of spiced meat and their

Barmecide show-fasts separate. They sip the limpid spring before company,

and keep hidden behind a curtain the forbidden wine of Xeres, quietly

iced, for private drinking. Our ancestors took a taste of both together,

and without blushing. Their cup of nectar had some “allaying Tyber” to

abate “the thirst complaint.” They did not label their books “Moral

and Theological, for the public Ken,” or “Vice, _sub rosa_, for our

locked-cabinet!” _Parlons d’autres choses, Messieurs, s’il vous plâit._

§ 4.—ON THE PASTORALS.

There were good reasons for Court and country being associated ideas,

if only in contrast. Thus Touchstone states, when drolling with Colin,

as to a Pastoral employment:—“Truly, shepherd in respect of itself it

is a good life; but in respect it is not in the Court, it is tedious.”

The large proportion of pastoral songs and poems in _Choyce Drollery_

is one other noticeable characteristic. Even as Utopian schemes, with

dreams of an unrealized Republic where laws may be equally administered,

and cultivation given to all highest arts or sciences, are found to be

most popular in times of discontent and tyranny, when no encouragement

for hope appears in what the acting government is doing; even so, amid

luxurious times, with artificial tastes predominant, there is always a

tendency to dream of pastoral simplicity, and to sing or paint the joys

of rural life. In the voluptuous languor of Miladi’s own _boudoir_, amid

scented fumes of pastiles and flowers, hung round with curtains brought

from Eastern palaces, Watteau, Greuze, Boucher, and Bachelier were

employed to paint delicious panels of bare-feeted shepherdesses, herding

their flocks with ribbon-knotted crooks and bursting bodices; while

goatherd-swains, in satin breeches and rosetted pumps, languish at their

side, and tell of tender passion through a rustic pipe. The contrast of

a wimpling brook, birds twittering on the spray, and daintiest hint of

hay-forks or of reaping-hooks, enhanced with piquancy, no doubt, the

every-day delights of fashionable wantonness. And as it was in such later

times with courtiers of _La belle France_ surrounding Louis XV., so in

the reign of either Charles of England—the Revolution Furies crept nearer

unperceived.

Recurrence to Pastorals in _Choyce Drollery_ is simply in accordance

with a natural tendency of baffled Cavaliers, to look back again to all

that had distinguished the earlier days of their dead monarch, before

Puritanism had become rampant. Even Milton, in his youthful “Lycidas,”

1637, showed love for such Idyllic transformation of actual life into a

Pastoral Eclogue. (A bitter spring of hatred against the Church was even

then allowed to pollute the clear rill of Helicon: in him thereafter

that Marah never turned to sweetness.) Some of these Pastorals remain

undiscovered elsewhere. But there can be no mistaking the impression left

upon them by the opening years of the seventeenth, if not more truly the

close of the sixteenth, century. Dull, plodding critics have sneered at

Pastorals, and wielded their sledge-hammers against the Dresden-china

Shepherdesses, as though they struck down Dagon from his pedestal. What

then? Are we forbidden to enjoy, because their taste is not consulted?——

“Fools from their folly ’tis hopeless to stay!

Mules will be mules, by the law of their mulishness;

Then be advised, and leave fools to their foolishness,

What from an ass can be got but a bray?”

Always will there be some smiling _virtuosi_, here or elsewhere, who can

prize the unreal toys, and thank us for retrieving from dusty oblivion a

few more of these early Pastorals. When too discordantly the factions jar

around us, and denounce every one of moderate opinions or quiet habits,

because he is unwilling to become enslaved as a partisan, and fight

under the banner that he deems disgraced by falsehood and intolerance,

despite its ostentatious blazon of “Liberation” or “Equality,” it is

not easy, even for such as “the melancholy Cowley,” to escape into his

solitude without a slanderous mockery from those who hunger for division

of the spoil. Recluse philosophers of science or of literature, men like

Sir Thomas Browne, pursue their labour unremittingly, and keep apart

from politics; but even for this abstinence harsh measure is dealt to

them by contemporaries and posterity whom they labour to enrich. It

is well, no doubt, that we should be convinced as to which side the

truth is on, and fight for that unto the death. Woe to the recreant who

shrinks from hazarding everything in life, and life itself, defending

what he holds to be the Right. Yet there are times when, as in 1656, the

fight has gone against our cause, and no further gain seems promised

by waging single-handedly a warfare against the triumphant multitude.

Patience, my child, and wait the inevitable turn of the already quivering

balance!—such is Wisdom’s counsel. Butler knew the truth of Cavalier

loyalty:—

“For though out-numbered, overthrown,

And by the fate of war run down,

Their Duty never was defeated,

Nor from their oaths and faith retreated:

For Loyalty is still the same

Whether it lose or win the game;

True as the dial to the sun,

Although it be not shone upon.”

Some partizans may find a paltry pleasure in dealing stealthy stabs,

or buffoons’ sarcasms, against the foes they could not fairly conquer.

Some hold a silent dignified reserve, and give no sign of what they

hope or fear. But for another, and large class, there will be solace

in the dreams of earlier days, such as the Poets loved to sing about a

Golden Pastoral Age. Those who best learnt to tell its beauty were men

unto whom Fortune seldom offered gifts, as though it were she envied

them for having better treasure in their birthright of imagination. The

dull, harsh, and uncongenial time intensified their visions: even as

Hogarth’s “Distressed Poet”—amid the squalour of his garret, with his

gentle uncomplaining wife dunned for a milk-score—revels in description

of Potosi’s mines, and, while he writes in poverty, can feign himself

possessor of uncounted riches. Such power of self-forgetfulness was

grasped by the “Time-Poets,” of whom our little book keeps memorable

record.

So be it, Cavaliers of 1656. Though Oliver’s troopers and a hated

Parliament are still in the ascendant, let your thoughts find repose

awhile, your hopes regain bright colouring, remembering the plaints

of one despairing shepherd, from whom his _Chloris_ fled; or of that

other, “sober and demure,” whose mistress had herself to blame, through

freedoms being borne too far. We, also, love to seek a refuge from the

exorbitant demands of myriad-handed interference with Church and State;

so we come back to you, as you sit awhile in peace under the aged trees,

remote from revellers and spies, “Farre in the Forest of Arden”—O take us

thither!—reading of happy lovers in the pages of _Choyce Drollery_. Since

their latest words are of our favourite Fletcher, let our invocation also

be from him, in his own melodious verse:—

“How sweet these solitary places are! how wantonly

The wind blows through the leaves, and courts and plays with ’em!

Will you sit down, and sleep? The heat invites you.

Hark, how yon purling stream dances and murmurs;

The birds sing softly too. Pray take your rest, Sir.”

J. W. E.

_September 2nd, 1875._

Choyce Drollery: Songs & Sonnets.

_Choyce_

DROLLERY:

SONGS & SONNETS.

_BEING_

A Collection of divers excellent

pieces of Poetry,

_OF_

Severall eminent Authors.

_Never before printed._

[Illustration]

_LONDON_,

Printed by _J. G._ for _Robert Pollard_, at the

_Ben. Johnson’s_ head behind the Exchange,

and _John Sweeting_, at the

_Angel_ in Popes-Head Alley.

1656.

To the READER.

Courteous Reader,

_Thy grateful reception of our first Collection hath induced us to a

second essay of the same nature; which, as we are confident, it is not

inferioure to the former in worth, so we assure our selves, upon thy

already experimented Candor, that it shall at least equall it in its

fortunate acceptation. We serve up these Delicates by frugall Messes, as

aiming at thy Satisfaction, not Saciety. But our designe being more upon

thy judgement, than patience, more to delight thee, to detain thee in

the portall of a tedious, seldome-read Epistle; we draw this displeasing

Curtain, that intercepts thy (by this time) gravid, and almost teeming

fancy, and subscribe,_

_R. P._

_Choice_

DROLLERY:

SONGS

_AND_

SONNETS.

_The broken Heart._

1.

Deare Love let me this evening dye,

Oh smile not to prevent it,

But use this opportunity,

Or we shall both repent it:

Frown quickly then, and break my heart,

That so my way of dying

May, though my life were full of smart,

Be worth the worlds envying.

2.

Some striving knowledge to refine,

Consume themselves with thinking,

And some who friendship seale in wine

Are kindly kill’d with drinking:

And some are rackt on th’ Indian coast,

Thither by gain invited,

Some are in smoke of battailes lost,

Whom Drummes not Lutes delighted.

3.

Alas how poorely these depart,

Their graves still unattended,

Who dies not of a broken heart,

Is not in death commended.

His memory is ever sweet,

All praise and pity moving,

Who kindly at his Mistresse feet

Doth dye with over-loving.

4.

And now thou frown’st, and now I dye,

My corps by Lovers follow’d,

Which streight shall by dead lovers lye,

For that ground’s onely hollow’d: [hallow’d]

If Priest take’t ill I have a grave,

My death not well approving,

The Poets my estate shall have

To teach them th’ art of loving.

5.

And now let Lovers ring their bells,

For thy poore youth departed;

Which every Lover els excels,

That is not broken hearted.

My grave with flowers let virgins strow,

For if thy teares fall neare them,

They’l so excell in scent and shew,

Thy selfe wilt shortly weare them.

6.

Such Flowers how much will _Flora_ prise,

That’s on a Lover growing,

And watred with his Mistris eyes,

With pity overflowing?

A grave so deckt, well, though thou art [? will]

Yet fearfull to come nigh me,

Provoke thee straight to break thy heart,

And lie down boldly by me.

7.

Then every where shall all bells ring,

Whilst all to blacknesse turning,

All torches burn, and all quires sing,

As Nature’s self were mourning.

Yet we hereafter shall be found

By Destiny’s right placing,

Making like Flowers, Love under ground,

Whose Roots are still embracing.

_Of a Woman that died for love of a Man._

Nor Love nor Fate dare I accuse,

Because my Love did me refuse:

But oh! mine own unworthinesse,

That durst presume so mickle blisse;

Too mickle ’twere for me to love

A thing so like the God above,

An Angels face, a Saint-like voice,

Were too divine for humane choyce.

Oh had I wisely given my heart,

For to have lov’d him, but in part,

Save onely to have lov’d his face

For any one peculiar grace,

A foot, or leg, or lip, or eye,

I might have liv’d, where now I dye.

But I that striv’d all these to chuse,

Am now condemned all to lose.

You rurall Gods that guard the plains,

And chast’neth unjust disdains;

Oh do not censure him for this,

It was my error, and not his.

This onely boon of thee I crave,

To fix these lines upon my grave,

With _Icarus_ I soare[d] too high,

For which (alas) I fall and dye.

On the _TIME-POETS_.

One night the great _Apollo_ pleas’d with _Ben_,

Made the odde number of the Muses ten;

The fluent _Fletcher_, _Beaumont_ rich in sense,

In Complement and Courtships quintessence;

Ingenious _Shakespeare_, _Massinger_ that knowes

The strength of Plot to write in verse and prose:

Whose easie Pegassus will amble ore

Some threescore miles of Fancy in an houre;

Cloud-grapling _Chapman_, whose Aerial minde

Soares at Philosophy, and strikes it blinde;

_Danbourn_ [_Dabourn_] I had forgot, and let it be,

He dy’d Amphibion by the Ministry;

_Silvester_, _Bartas_, whose translatique part

Twinn’d, or was elder to our Laureat:

Divine composing _Quarles_, whose lines aspire

The April of all Poesy in May, [_Tho. May._]

Who makes our English speak _Pharsalia_;

_Sands_ metamorphos’d so into another [_Sandys_]

We know not _Sands_ and _Ovid_ from each other;

He that so well on _Scotus_ play’d the Man,

The famous _Diggs_, or _Leonard Claudian_;

The pithy _Daniel_, whose salt lines afford

A weighty sentence in each little word;

Heroick _Draiton_, _Withers_, smart in Rime,

The very Poet-Beadles of the Time:

Panns pastoral _Brown_, whose infant Muse did squeak

At eighteen yeares, better than others speak:

_Shirley_ the morning-child, the Muses bred,

And sent him born with bayes upon his head:

Deep in a dump _Iohn Ford_ alone was got

With folded armes and melancholly hat;

The squibbing _Middleton_, and _Haywood_ sage,

Th’ Apologetick Atlas of the Stage;

Well of the Golden age he could intreat,

But little of the Mettal he could get;

Three-score sweet Babes he fashion’d from the lump,

For he was Christ’ned in _Parnassus_ pump;

The Muses Gossip to _Aurora’s_ bed,

And ever since that time his face was red.

Thus through the horrour of infernall deeps,

With equal pace each of them softly creeps,

And being dark they had _Alectors_ torch, [_Alecto’s_]

And that made _Churchyard_ follow from his Porch,

Poor, ragged, torn, & tackt, alack, alack

You’d think his clothes were pinn’d upon his back.

The whole frame hung with pins, to mend which clothes,

In mirth they sent him to old Father Prose;

Of these sad Poets this way ran the stream,

And _Decker_ followed after in a dream;

_Rounce_, _Robble_, _Hobble_, he that writ so high big[;]

Basse for a Ballad, _John Shank_ for a Jig: [_Wm. Basse._]

Sent by _Ben Jonson_, as some Authors say,

_Broom_ went before and kindly swept the way:

Old _Chaucer_ welcomes them unto the Green,

And _Spencer_ brings them to the fairy Queen;

The finger they present, and she in grace

Transform’d it to a May-pole, ’bout which trace

Her skipping servants, that do nightly sing,

And dance about the same a Fayrie Ring.

_The Vow-breaker._

When first the Magick of thine eye

Usurpt upon my liberty,

Triumphing in my hearts spoyle, thou

Didst lock up thine in such a vow:

When I prove false, may the bright day

Be govern’d by the Moones pale ray,

(As I too well remember) this

Thou saidst, and seald’st it with a kisse.

Oh heavens! and could so soon that tye

Relent in sad apostacy?

Could all thy Oaths and mortgag’d trust,

Banish like Letters form’d in dust, [? vanish]

Which the next wind scatters? take heed,

Take heed Revolter; know this deed

Hath wrong’d the world, which will fare worse

By thy example, than thy curse.

Hide that false brow in mists; thy shame

Ne’re see light more, but the dimme flame

Of Funerall-lamps; thus sit and moane,

And learn to keep thy guilt at home;

Give it no vent, for if agen

Thy love or vowes betray more men,

At length I feare thy perjur’d breath

Will blow out day, and waken death.

_The Sympathie._

If at this time I am derided,

And you please to laugh at me,

Know I am not unprovided

Every way to answer thee,

Love, or hate, what ere it be,

Never Twinns so nearly met

As thou and I in our affection,

When thou weepst my eyes are wet,

That thou lik’st is my election,

I am in the same subjection.

In one center we are both,

Both our lives the same way tending,

Do thou refuse, and I shall loath,

As thy eyes, so mine are bending,

Either storm or calm portending.

I am carelesse if despised,

For I can contemn again;

How can I be then surprised,

Or with sorrow, or with pain,

When I can both love & disdain?

_The Red Head and the White._

1.

Come my White head, let our Muses

Vent no spleen against abuses,

Nor scoffe at monstrous signes i’ th’ nose,

Signes in the Teeth, or in the Toes,

Nor what now delights us most,

The sign of signes upon the post.

For other matter we are sped,

And our signe shall be i’ th’ head.

2. [White Head’s ANSWER.]

Oh! _Will: Rufus_, who would passe,

Unlesse he were a captious Asse;

The Head of all the parts is best,

And hath more senses then the rest.

This subject then in our defence

Will clear our Poem of non-sense.

Besides, you know, what ere we read,

We use to bring it to a head.

Why there’s no other part we can

Stile Monarch o’re this Isle of man:

’Tis that that weareth Nature’s crown,

’Tis this doth smile, ’tis this doth frown,

O what a prize and triumph ’twere,

To make this King our Subject here:

Believ’t, tis true what we have sed,

In this we hit the naile o’ th’ head.

2. [W. H.’s ANSWER.]

Your nails upon my head Sir, Why?

How do you thus to villifie

The King of Parts, ’mongst all the rest,

Or if no king, methinks at least,

To mine you should give no offence,

That weares the badge of Innocence;

Those blowes would far more justly light

On thy red scull, for mine is white.

1.

Come on yfaith, that was well sed,

A pretty boy, hold up thy head,

Or hang it down, and blush apace,

And make it like mines native grace.

There’s ne’re a Bung-hole in the town

But in the working puts thine down,

A byle that’s drawing to a head

Looks white like thine, but mine is red.

2. [W. H.’s ANSWER.]

Poore foole, ’twas shame did first invent

The colour of thy Ornament,

And therefore thou art much too blame

To boast of that which is thy shame;

The Roman Prince that Poppeys topt,

Did shew such Red heads should be cropt:

And still the Turks for poyson smite

Such Ruddy skulls, but mine is white.

1.

The Indians paint their Devils so,

And ’tis a hated mark we know,

For never any aim aright

That do not strive to hit the white:

The Eagle threw her shell-fish down,

To crack in pieces such a crown:

Alas, a stinking onions head

Is white like thine, but mine is red.

2. [White’s]

Red like to a blood-shot eye,

Provoking all that see ’t to cry:

For shame nere vaunt thy colours thus

Since ’tis an eye-sore unto us;

Those locks I’d swear, did I not know’t,

Were threds of some red petticoat;

No Bedlams oaker’d armes afright

So much as thine, but mine is white.

1.

Now if thou’lt blaze thy armes Ile shew’t,

My head doth love no petticoat,

My face on one side is as faire

As on the other is my haire,

So that I bear by Herauld’s rules,

Party per pale Argent and Gules.

Then laugh not ’cause my hair is red,

Ile swear that mine’s a noble head.

1. [2. White Head’s Reply.]

The Scutcheon of my field doth beare

One onely field, and that is rare,

For then methinks that thine should yeild,

Since mine long since hath won the field;

Besides, all the notes that be,

White is the note of Chastity,

So that without all feare or dread,

Ile swear that mine’s a maidenhead.

1.

There’s no Camelion red like me,

Nor white, perhaps, thou’lt say, like thee;

Why then that mine is farre above

Thy haire, by statute I can prove;

What ever there doth seem divine

Is added to a Rubrick line,

Which whosoever hath but read,

Will grant that mine’s a lawful head.

2. [White Head.]

Yet adde what thou maist, which by yeares,

Crosses, troubles, cares and feares;

For that kind nature gave to me

In youth a white head, as you see,

At which, though age it selfe repine,

It ne’re shall change a haire of mine;

And all shall say when I am dead,

I onely had a constant head.

1.

Yes faith, in that Ile condescend,

That our dissention here may end,

Though heads be alwaies by the eares,

Yet ours shall be more noble peeres:

For I avouch since I began,

Under a colour all was done.

Then let us mix the White and Red,

And both shall make a beauteous head.

1.

We mind our heads man all this time[,]

And beat them both about this rime;

And I confesse what gave offence

Was but a haires difference.

And that went too as I dare sweare

In both of us against the haire;

Then joyntly now for what is said

Lets crave a pardon from our head.

_SONNET._

Shall I think because some clouds

The beauty of my Mistris shrouds,

To look after another Star?

Those to _Cynthia_ servants are;

May the stars when I doe sue,

In their anger shoot me through;

Shall I shrink at stormes of rain,

Or be driven back again,

Or ignoble like a worm,

Be a slave unto a storm?

Pity he should ever tast

The Spring that feareth Winters blast;

Fortune and Malice then combine,

Spight of either I am thine;

And to be sure keep thou my heart,

And let them wound my worser part,

Which could they kill, yet should I bee

Alive again, when pleaseth thee.

_On the Flower-de-luce in ~Oxford~._

A Stranger coming to the town,

Went to the _Flower-de-luce_,

A place that seem’d in outward shew

For honest men to use;

And finding all things common there,

That tended to delight,

By chance upon the French disease

It was his hap to light.

And lest that other men should fare

As he had done before,

As he went forth he wrote this down

Upon the utmost doore.

All you that hither chance to come,

Mark well ere you be in,

The _Frenchmens_ arms are signs without

Of _Frenchmens_ harms within.

_ALDOBRANDINO, a fat Cardinal._

Never was humane soule so overgrown,

With an unreasonable Cargazon

Of flesh, as _Aldobrandine_, whom to pack,

No girdle serv’d lesse than the zodiack:

So thick a Giant, that he now was come

To be accounted an eighth hill in _Rome_,

And as the learn’d _Tostatus_ kept his age,

Writing for every day he liv’d a page;

So he no lesse voluminous then that

Added each day a leaf, but ’twas of fat.

The choicest beauty that had been devis’d

By Nature, was by her parents sacrific’d

Up to this Monster, upon whom to try,

If as increase, he could, too, multiply.

Oh how I tremble lest the tender maid

Should dye like a young infant over-laid!

For when this Chaos would pretend to move

And arch his back for the strong act of Love,

He fals as soon orethrown with his own weight,

And with his ruines doth the Princesse fright.

She lovely Martyr there lyes stew’d and prest,

Like flesh under the tarr’d saddle drest,

And seemes to those that look on them in bed,

Larded with him, rather than married.

Oft did he cry, but still in vain[,] to force

His fatnesse[,] powerfuller then a divorce:

No herbs, no midwives profit here, nor can

Of his great belly free the teeming man.

What though he drink the vinegars most fine,

They do not wast his fleshy Apennine;

His paunch like some huge Istmos runs between

The amarous Seas, and lets them not be seen;

Yet a new _Dedalus_ invented how

This Bull with his _Pasiphae_ might plow.

Have you those artificial torments known,

With which long sunken Galeos are thrown

Again on Sea, or the dead Galia

Was rais’d that once behinde St. _Peters_ lay:

By the same rules he this same engine made,

With silken cords in nimble pullies laid;

And when his Genius prompteth his slow part

To works of Nature, which he helps with Art:

First he intangles in those woven bands,

His groveling weight, and ready to commands,

The sworn Prinadas of his bed, the Aids

Of Loves Camp, necessary Chambermaids;

Each runs to her known tackling, hasts to hoyse,

And in just distance of the urging voyce,

Exhorts the labour till he smiling rise

To the beds roof, and wonders how he flies.

Thence as the eager Falcon having spy’d

Fowl at the brook, or by the Rivers side,

Hangs in the middle Region of the aire,

So hovers he, and plains above his faire:

Blest _Icarus_ first melted at those beames,

That he might after fall into those streames,

And there allaying his delicious flame,

In that sweet Ocean propogate his name.

Unable longer to delay, he calls

To be let down, and in short measure falls

Toward his Mistresse, that without her smock

Lies naked as _Andromeda_ at the Rock,

And through the Skies see her wing’d _Perseus_ strike

Though for his bulk, more that sea-monster like.

Mean time the Nurse, who as the most discreet,

Stood governing the motions at the feet,

And ballanc’d his descent, lest that amisse

He fell too fast, or that way more than this;

Steeres the Prow of the pensile Gallease,

Right on Loves Harbour the Nymph lets him pass

Over the Chains, & ’tween the double Fort

Of her incastled knees, which guard the Port.

The Burs as she had learnt still diligent,

Now girt him backwards, now him forwards bent;

Like those that levell’d in tough Cordage, teach

The mural Ram, and guide it to the Breach.

_Jack of Lent’s Ballat._

[On the welcoming of Queen Henrietta Maria, 1625].

1.

List you Nobles, and attend,

For here’s a Ballat newly penn’d

I took it up in _Kent_,

If any ask who made the same,

To him I say the authors name

Is honest _Jack of Lent_.

2.

But ere I farther passe along,

Or let you know more of my Song,

I wish the doores were lockt,

For if there be so base a Groom,

As one informes me in this room,

The Fidlers may be knockt.

3.

Tis true, he had, I dare protest,

No kind of malice in his brest,

But Knaves are dangerous things;

And they of late are grown so bold,

They dare appeare in cloth of Gold,

Even in the roomes of Kings.

4.

But hit or misse I will declare

The speeches at London and elsewhere,

Concerning this design,

Amongst the Drunkards it is said,

They hope her dowry shall be paid

In nought but Clarret wine.

5.

The Country Clowns when they repaire

Either to Market or to Faire,

No sooner get their pots,

But straight they swear the time is come

That England must be over-run

Betwixt the French and Scots.

6.

The Puritans that never fayle

’Gainst Kings and Magistrates to rayle,

With impudence aver,

That verily, and in good sooth,

Some Antichrist, or pretty youth,

Shall doubtlesse get of her.

7.

A holy Sister having hemm’d

And blown her nose, will say she dream’d,

Or else a Spirit told her,

That they and all these holy seed,

To Amsterdam must go to breed,

Ere they were twelve months older.

8.

And might but _Jack Alent_ advise,

Those dreams of theirs should not prove lies,

For as he greatly feares,

They will be prating night and day,

Till verily, by yea, and nay,

They set’s together by th’ ears.

9.

The Romish Catholiques proclaim,

That _Gundemore_, though he be lame,

Yet can he do some tricks;

At _Paris_, he the King shall show

A pre-contract made, as I know,

Five hundred twenty six.

10.

But sure the State of _France_ is wise,

And knowes that _Spain_ vents naught but lies,

For such is their Religion;

The Jesuits can with ease disgorge

From that their damn’d and hellish forge,

Foule falshood by the Legion.

11.

But be it so, we will admit,

The State of _Spain_ hath no more wit,

Then to invent such tales,

Yet as great _Alexander_ drew,

And cut the Gorgon Knot in two,

So shall the Prince of Wales.

12.

The reverend Bishops whisper too,

That now they shall have much adoe

With Friers and with Monks,

And eke their wives do greatly feare

Those bald pate knaves will mak’t appeare

They are Canonical punks.

13.

At _Cambridge_ and at _Oxford_ eke,

They of this match like Schollers speak

By figures and by tropes,

But as for the Supremacy,

The Body may King _James’s_ be,

But sure the Head’s the _Pope’s_.

14.

A Puritan stept up and cries,

That he the major part denies,

And though he Logick scorns,

Yet he by revelation knows

The Pope no part o’ th’ head-piece ows

Except it be the horns.

15.

The learned in Astrologie,

That wander up and down the sky,

And their discourse with stars, [there]

Foresee that some of this brave rout

That now goes faire and soundly out,

Shall back return with scars.

16.

Professors of Astronomy,

That all the world knows, dare not lie

With the Mathematicians,

Prognosticate this Somer shall

Bring with the pox the Devil and all,

To Surgeons and Physitians.

17.

The Civil Lawyer laughs in’s sleeve,

For he doth verily believe

That after all these sports,

The Cit[i]zens will horn and grow,

And their ill-gotten goods will throw

About their bawdy Courts.

18.

And those that do _Apollo_ court,

And with the wanton Muses sport,

Believe the time is come,

That Gallants will themselves addresse

To Masques & Playes, & Wantonnesse,

More than to fife and drum.

19.

Such as in musique spend their dayes,

And study Songs and Roundelayes,

Begin to cleare their throats,

For by some signes they do presage,

That this will prove a fidling age

Fit for men of their coats.

20.

But leaving Colleges and Schools,

To all those Clerks and learned Fools,

Lets through the city range,

For there are Sconces made of Horn,

Foresee things long ere they be born,

Which you’l perhaps think strange.

21.

The Major and Aldermen being met, [Mayor]

And at a Custard closely set

Each in their rank and order,

The Major a question doth propound,

And that unanswer’d must go round,

Till it comes to th’ Recorder.

22.

For he’s the Citys Oracle,

And which you’l think a Miracle,

He hath their brains in keeping,

For when a Cause should be decreed,

He cries the bench are all agreed,

When most of them are sleeping.

23.

A Sheriff at lower end o’ th’ board

Cries Masters all hear me a word,

A bolt Ile onely shoot,

We shall have Executions store

Against some gallants now gone o’re,

Wherefore good brethren look to’t.

24.

The rascall Sergeants fleering stand,

Wishing their Charter reacht the Strand,

That they might there intrude;

But since they are not yet content,

I wish that it to Tyburn went,

So they might there conclude.

25.

An Alderman both grave and wise

Cries brethren all let me advise,

Whilst wit is to be had,

That like good husbands we provide

Some speeches for the Lady bride,

Before all men go mad.

26.

For by my faith if we may guesse

Of greater mischiefs by the lesse,

I pray let this suffice,

If we but on men’s backs do look,

And look into each tradesmans book

You’l swear few men are wise.

27.

Some thred-bare Poet we will presse,

And for that day we will him dresse,

At least in beaten Sattin,

And he shall tell her from this bench,

That though we understand no French,

At _Pauls_ she may hear Lattin.

28.

But on this point they all demurre,

And each takes counsell of his furre

That smells of Fox and Cony,

At last a Mayor in high disdain,

Swears he much scorns that in his reign

Wit should be bought for mony.

29.

For by this Sack I mean to drink,

I would not have my Soveraign think

for twenty thousand Crownes,

That I his Lord Lieutenant here,

And you my brethren should appear

Such errant witlesse Clownes.

30.

No, no, I have it in my head,

Devises that shall strike it dead,

And make proud _Paris_ say

That little _London_ hath a Mayor

Can entertain their Lady faire,

As well as ere did they.

31.

S. _Georges_ Church shall be the place

Where first I mean to meet her grace,

And there St. George shall be

Mounted upon a dapple gray,

And gaping wide shall seem to say,

Welcome St. _Dennis_ to me.

32.

From thence in order two by two

As we to _Pauls_ are us’d to goe,

To th’ Bridge we will convey her,

And there upon the top o’ th’ gate,

Where now stands many a Rascal’s pate,

I mean to place a player.

33.

And to the Princess he shall cry,

May’t please your Grace, cast up your eye

And see these heads of Traytors;

Thus will the city serve all those

That to your Highnesse shall prove foes,

For they to Knaves are haters.

34.

Down Fishstreet hill a Whale shall shoot,

And meet her at the Bridges foot,

And forth of his mouth so wide a

Shall _Jonas_ peep, and say, for fish,

As good as your sweet-heart can wish,

You shall have hence each Friday.

35.

At Grace-church corner there shall stand

A troop of Graces hand in hand,

And they to her shall say,

Your Grace of _France_ is welcome hither,

’Tis merry when Graces meet together,

I pray keep on your way.

36.

At the Exchange shall placed be,

In ugly shapes those sisters three

That give to each their fate,

And _Spaine’s Infanta_ shall stand by

Wringing their hands, and thus shall cry,

I do repent too late.

37.

There we a paire of gloves will give,

And pray her Highnesse long may live

On her white hands to wear them;

And though they have a _Spanish_ scent,

The givers have no ill intent,

Wherefore she need not feare them.

38.

Nor shall the Conduits now run Claret,

Perhaps the _Frenchman_ cares not for it,

They have at home so much,

No, I will make the boy to pisse

No worse then purest Hypocris,

Her Grace ne’re tasted such.

39.

About the Standard I think fit

Your wives, my brethren, all should sit,

And eke our Lady Mayris,

Who shall present a cup of gold,

And say if we might be bold,

We’l drink to all in _Paris._

40.

In _Pauls_ Church-yard we breath may take,

For they such huge long speeches make,

Would tire any horse;

But there I’le put her grace in minde,

To cast her Princely head behind

And view S. _Paul’s_ Crosse.

41.

Our Sergeants they shall go their way,

And for us at the Devil stay,

I mean at Temple-barre,

And there of her we leave will take,

And say ’twas for King _Charls_ his sake

We went with her so farre.

42.

But fearing I have tir’d the eares,

Both of the Duke and all these Peeres,

Ile be no more uncivill,

Ile leave the Mayor with both the Sheriffs,

With Sergeants, hanging at their sleeves,

For this time at the Devill.

_A SONG._

A Story strange I will you tell,

But not so strange as true,

Of a woman that danc’d upon the ropes,

And so did her husband too.

_With a dildo, dildo, dildo,_

_With a dildo, dildo, dee,_

_Some say ’twas a man, but it was a woman_

_As plain report may see._

She first climb’d up the Ladder

For to deceive men’s hopes,

And with a long thing in her hand

She tickled it on the ropes.

_With a dildo, dildo, dildo,_

_With a dildo, dildo, dee,_

_And to her came Knights and Gentlemen_

_Of low and high degree._

She jerk’d them backward and foreward

With a long thing in her hand,

And all the people that were in the yard,

She made them for to stand.

_With a dildo, &c._

They cast up fleering eyes

All under-neath her cloaths,

But they could see no thing,

For she wore linnen hose.

_With a dildo, &c._

The Cuckold her husband caper’d

When his head in the sack was in,

But grant that we may never fall

When we dance in the sack of sin.

_With a dildo, &c._

And as they ever danc’t

In faire or rainy weather,

I wish they may be hang’d i’ th’ rope of Love,

And so be cut down together.

_With a dildo, &c._

_Upon a House of Office over a River, set on fire by a coale of TOBACCO._

Oh fire, fire, fire, where?

The usefull house o’re Water cleare,

The most convenient in a shire,

_Which no body can deny,_

The house of Office that old true blue

Sir-reverence so many knew[,]

You now may see turn’d fine new. [? fire]

_Which no body, &c._

And to our great astonishment

Though burnt, yet stands to represent

Both mourner and the monument,

_Which no body, &c._

_Ben Johnson’s_ Vulcan would doe well,

Or the merry Blades who knacks did tell,

At firing _London Bridge_ befell.

_Which no body, &c._

They’l say if I of thee should chant,

The matter smells, now out upon’t;

But they shall have a fit of fie on’t.

_Which no body_, &c.

And why not say a word or two

Of she that’s just? witness all who

Have ever been at thy Ho go,[6]

_Which no body_, &c.

Earth, Aire, and Water, she could not

Affront, till chollerick fire got

Predominant, then thou grew’st hot,

_Which no body_, &c.

The present cause of all our wo,

But from Tobacco ashes, oh!

’Twas s...n luck to perish so,

_Which no body_, &c.

’Tis fatall to be built on lakes,

As Sodom’s fall example makes;

But pity to the innocent jakes,

_Which no body_, &c.

Whose genius if I hit aright,

May be conceiv’d Hermophrodite,

To both sex common when they sh...

_Which no body_, &c.

Of severall uses it hath store,

As Midwifes some do it implore,

But the issue comes at Postern door:

_Which no body_, &c.

Retired mortalls out of feare,

Privily, even to a haire,

Did often do their business there,

_Which no body_, &c.

For mens and womens secrets fit

No tale-teller, though privy to it,

And yet they went to’t without feare or wit,

_Which no body_, &c.

A Privy Chamber or prison’d roome,

And all that ever therein come

Uncover must, or bide the doome,

_Which no body_, &c.

A Cabinet for richest geare

The choicest of the Ladys ware,

And pretious stones full many there.

_Which no body_, &c.

And where in State sits noble duck,

Many esteem that use of nock,

The highest pleasure next to oc-

_Which no body_, &c.

And yet the hose there down did goe,

The yielding smock came up also,

But still no Bawdy house I trow,

_Which no body_, &c.

There nicest maid with naked r...,

When straining hard had made her mump,

Did sit at ease and heare it p...,

_Which no body_, &c.

Like the Dutch Skipper now may skit,

When in his sleeve he did do it,

She may skit free, but now plimp niet,

_Which no body_, &c.

Those female folk that there did haunt,

To make their filled bellies gaunt,

And with that same the brook did launt,

_Which no body_, &c.

Are driven now to do’t on grasse,

And make a sallet for their A...

The world is come to a sweet passe,

_Which no body_, &c.

Now farewell friend we held so deare,

Although thou help’st away with our cheare,

An open house-keeper all the yeare,

_Which no body_, &c.

The Phœnix in her perfumed flame,

Was so consum’d, and thou the same,

But the Aromaticks were to blame,

_Which no body_, &c.

That Phœnix is but one thing twice,

Thy Patron nobler then may rise,

For who can tell what he’l devise?

_Which no body_, &c.

_Diana’s_ Temple was not free,

Nor that world _Rome_, her Majesty

Smelt of the smoke, as well as thee,

_Which no body_, &c.

And learned Clerks whom we admire,

Do say the world shall so expire,

Then when you sh... remember fire.

_Which no body_, &c.

Beware of fire when you scumber,

Though to sh... fire were a wonder,

Yet lightning oft succeeds the thunder,

_Which no body_, &c.

We must submit to what fate sends,

’Tis wholsome counsel to our friends,

Take heed of smoking at both ends,

_Which no body can deny._

_Upon the Spanish Invasion in Eighty eight._

1.

In _Eighty eight_, ere I was born,

As I do well remember a,

In _August_ was a Fleet prepar’d

The month before _September_ a.

2.

_Lisbone_, _Cales_ and _Portugall_ [_Cales_, i.e. _Cadiz_.]

_Toledo_ and _Grenada_;

They all did meet, & made a Fleet,

And call’d it their _Armada_.

3.

There dwelt a little man in _Spain_

That shot well in a gun a;

_Don Pedro_ hight, as black a wight

As the Knight of the Sun a.

4.

King _Philip_ made him Admirall,

And charg’d him not to stay a,

But to destroy both man and boy,

And then to come his way a.

5.

He had thirty thousand of his own,

But to do us more harm a,

He charg’d him not to fight alone,

But to joyn with the Prince of _Parma_.

6.

They say they brought provision much

As Biskets, Beans and Bacon,

Besides, two ships were laden with whips,

But I think they were mistaken.

7.

When they had sailed all along,

And anchored before _Dover_,

The English men did board them then,

And heav’d the Rascalls over.

8.

The queen she was at _Tilbury_,

What could you more desire a?

For whose sweet sake Sir _Francis Drake_

Did set the ships on fire a.

9.

Then let them neither brag nor boast,

For if they come again a,

Let them take heed they do not speed

As they did they know when a.

_Upon the Gun-powder Plot._

1.

And will this wicked world never prove good?

Will Priests and Catholiques never prove true?

Shall _Catesby_, _Piercy_ and _Rookwood_

Make all this famous Land to rue?

With putting us in such a feare,

_With huffing and snuffing and guni-powder,_

_With a Ohone hononoreera tarrareera, tarrareero hone._

2.

’Gainst the fifth of _November_, Tuesday by name,

_Peircy_ and _Catesby_ a Plot did frame,

_Anno_ one thousand six hundred and five,

In which long time no man alive

Did ever know, or heare the like,

Which to declare my heart growes sike.

_With a O hone_, &c.

3.

Under the Parliament-house men say

Great store of Powder they did lay,

Thirty six barrels, as is reported,

With many faggots ill consorted,

With barres of iron upon them all,

To bring us to a deadly fall.

_With a O hone_, &c.

4.

And then came forth Sir _Thomas Knyvet_,

You filthy Rogue come out o’ th’ doore,

Or else I sweare by Gods trivet

Ile lay thee flatlong on the floore,

For putting us all in such a feare,

_With huffing and snuffing_, &c.

5.

Then _Faux_ out of the vault was taken

And carried before Sir _Francis Bacon_,

And was examined of the Act,

And strongly did confesse the Fact,

And swore he would put us in such a feare.

_With huffing_, &c.

6.

Now see it is a miraculous thing,

To see how God hath preserv’d our King,

The Queen, the Prince, and his Sister dear,

And all the Lords, and every Peere,

And all the Land, and every shire,

_From huffing_, &c.

7.

Now God preserve the Council wise,

That first found out this enterprise;

Not they, but my Lord _Monteagle_,

His Lady and her little Beagle,

His Ape, his Ass, and his great Beare,

_From huffing, and snuffing, and gunni-powder._

[8.]

Other newes I heard moreover,

If all was true that’s told to me,

Three Spanish ships landed at _Dover_,

Where they made great melody,

But the Hollanders drove them here and there,

_With huffing_, &c.

_A CATCH._

Drink boyes, drink boyes, drink and doe not spare,

Troule away the bowl, and take no care.

So that we have meat and drink, and money and clothes

What care we, what care we how the world goes.

_A pitiful Lamentation._

My Mother hath sold away her Cock

And all her brood of Chickins,

And hath bought her a new canvasse smock

And righted up the Kitchin.

And has brought me a Lockeram bond

With a v’lopping paire of breeches,

Thinking that _Jone_ would have lov’d me alone,

But she hath serv’d me such yfiches.

Ise take a rope and drowne my selfe,

Ere Ist indure these losses:

Ise take a hatchet and hang my selfe

Ere Ist indure these crosses.

Or else Ile go to some beacon high,

Made of some good dry’d furzon[,]

And there Ile seeme in love to fry

Sing hoodle a doodle Cuddon.

_A Woman with Child that desired a Son, which might prove a Preacher._

A maiden of the _pure Society_,

Pray’d with a passing piety

That since a learned man had o’re-reacht her,

The child she went withall should prove [a] Preacher.

The time being come, and all the dangers past,

The Goodwife askt the Midwife

What God had sent at last.

Who answer’d her half in a laughter,

Quoth she the Son is prov’d a Daughter.

But be content, if God doth blesse the Baby,

She has a _Pulpit_ where a _Preacher_ may be.

_The Maid of ~Tottenham~._

1.

As I went to _Totnam_

Upon a Market-day,

There met I with a faire maid

Cloathed all in gray,

Her journey was to _London_

With Buttermilk and Whay,

_To fall down, down, derry down,_

_down, down, derry down,_

_derry, derry dina_.

2.

God speed faire maid, quoth one,

You are well over-took;

With that she cast her head aside,

And gave to him a look.

She was as full of Leachery

As letters in a book.

_To fall down_, &c.

3.

And as they walk’d together,

Even side by side,

The young man was aware

That her garter was unty’d,

For feare that she should lose it,

Aha, alack he cry’d,

Oh your garter that hangs down!

_Down, down, derry down_, &c.

4.

Quoth she[,] I do intreat you

For to take the pain

To do so much for me,

As to tye it up again.

That will I do sweet-heart, quoth he,

When I come on yonder plain.

_With a down, down, derry down_, &c.

5.

And when they came upon the plain

Upon a pleasant green,

The fair maid spread her l...s abroad,

The young man fell between,

Such tying of a Garter

I think was never seen.

_To fall down_, &c.

6.

When they had done their businesse,

And quickly done the deed,

He gave her kisses plenty,

And took her up with speed.

But what they did I know not,

But they were both agreed

_To fall down together, down_

_Down, down, derry down,_

_Down, down, derry dina_.

7.

She made to him low curtsies

And thankt him for his paine,

The young man is to High-gate gone[,]

The maid to _London_ came

To sell off her commodity

She thought it for no shame.

_To fall downe_, &c.

8.

When she had done her market,

And all her money told

To think upon the matter

It made her heart full cold[:]

But that which will away, quoth she,

Is very hard to hold.

_To fall down_, &c.

9.

This tying of the Garter

Cost her her Maidenhead,

Quoth she it is no matter,

It stood me in small stead,

But often times it troubled me

As I lay in my bed.

_To fall down_, &c.

_To the King on New-yeares day, 1638._

This day inlarges every narrow mind,

Makes the Poor bounteous, and the Miser kind;

Poets that have not wealth in wisht excesse,

I hope may give like Priests, which is to blesse.

And sure in elder times the Poets were

Those Priests that told men how to hope and feare,

Though they most sensually did write and live,

Yet taught those blessings, which the Gods did give,

But you (my King) have purify’d our flame,

Made wit our virtue which was once our shame;

For by your own quick fires you made ours last,

Reform’d our numbers till our songs grew chast.

Farre more thou fam’d _Augustus_ ere could doe

With’s wisdome, (though it long continued too)

You have perform’d even in your Moon of age;

Refin’d to Lectures, Playes, to Schooles a stage.

Such vertue got[,] why is your Poet lesse

A Priest then his who had a power to blesse?

So hopefull is my rage that I begin

To shew that feare which strives to keep it in:

And what was meant a blessing soars so high

That it is now become a Prophesie.

Your selfe (our _Plannet_ which renewes our year)

Shall so inlighten all, and every where,

That through the Mists of error men shall spy

In the dark North the way to Loyalty;

Whilst with your intellectuall beames, you show

The knowing what they are that seeme to know.

You like our Sacred and indulgent Lord,

When the too-stout Apostle drew his sword,

When he mistooke some secrets of the cause,

And in his furious zeale disdain’d the Lawes,

Forgetting true Religion doth lye

On prayers, not swords against authority.

You like our substitute of horrid fate

That are next him we most should imitate,

Shall like to him rebuke with wiser breath,

Such furious zeale, but not reveng’d with death.

Like him the wound that’s giv’n you strait shall heal,

Then calm by precept such mistaking zeal.

_In praise of a deformed woman._

1.

I love thee for thy curled haire,

As red as any Fox,

Our forefathers did still commend

The lovely golden locks.

_Venus her self might comelier be,_

_Yet hath no such variety._

2.

I love thee for thy squinting eyes,

It breeds no jealousie,

For when thou do’st on others look,

Methinks thou look’st on me,

_Venus her self_, &c.

3.

I love thee for thy copper nose,

Thy fortune’s ne’re the worse,

It shews the mettal in thy face

Thou should’st have in thy purse,

_Venus her self_, &c.

4.

I love thee for thy Chessenut skin,

Thy inside’s white to me,

That colour should be most approv’d,

That will least changed be.

_Venus her self_, &c.

5.

I love thee for thy splay mouth,

For on that amarous close

There’s room on either side to kisse,

And ne’re offend the nose.

_Venus her self_, &c.

6.

I love thee for thy rotten gummes,

In good time it may hap,

When other wives are costly fed,

Ile keep thy chaps on pap.

_Venus her self_, &c.

7.

I love thee for thy blobber lips,

Tis good thrift I suppose,

They’re dripping-pans unto thy eyes,

And save-alls to thy nose.

_Venus her self_, &c.

8.

I love thee for thy huncht back,

’Tis bow’d although not broken,

For I believe the Gods did send

Me to Thee for a Token.

_Venus her self_, &c.

9.

I love thee for thy pudding wast,

If a Taylor thou do’st lack,

Thou need’st not send to _France_ for one,

Ile fit thee with a sack.

_Venus her self_, &c.

10.

I love thee for thy lusty thighes

For tressels thou maist boast,

Sweet-heart thou hast a water-mill,

And these are the mill-posts.

_Venus her self_, &c.

[11.] 10.

I love thee for thy splay feet,

They’re fooles that thee deride,

Women are alwaies most esteem’d,

When their feet are most wide.

_Venus her self may comelier be_, &c.

_On a TINKER._

He that a Tinker, a Tinker, a Tinker will be,

Let him leave other Loves, and come follow me.

Though he travells all the day,

Yet he comes home still at night,

And dallies, dallies with his Doxie,

And dreames of delight.

His pot and his tost in the morning he takes,

And all the day long good musick he makes;

He wanders up and down to Wakes & to Fairs,

He casts his cap, and casts his cap at the Court and its cares;

And when to the town the Tinker doth come,

Oh, how the wanton wenches run,

Some bring him basons, and some bring him bowles,

All maids desire him to stop up their holes.

_Prinkum Prankum_ is a fine dance, strong Ale is good in the winter,

And he that thrumms a wench upon a brass pot,

The child may prove a Tinker.

With tink goes the hammer, the skellit and the scummer,

Come bring me thy copper kettle,

For the Tinker, the Tinker, the merry merry Tinker

Oh, he’s the man of mettle.

_Upon his Mistris’s black Eye-browes._

Hide, oh hide those lovely Browes,

_Cupid_ takes them for his bowes,

And from thence with winged dart

He lies pelting at my heart,

Nay, unheard-of wounds doth give,

Wounded in the heart I live;

From their colour I descry,

Loves bowes are made of Ebony;

Or their Sable seemes to say

They mourn for those their glances slay;

Or their blacknesse doth arise

From the Sun-beams of your eyes,

Where _Apollo_ seemes to sit,

As he’s God of Day and Wit;

Your piercing Rayes, so bright, and cleare,

Shewes his beamy Chariots there.

Then the black upon your brow,

Sayest wisdomes sable hue, [? sagest]

Tells to every obvious eye,

There’s his other Deity.

This too shewes him deeply wise,

To dwell there he left the skies;

So pure a black could _Phœbus_ burn,

He himself would _Negro_ turn,

And for such a dresse would slight

His gorgeous attire of light;

Eclipses he would count a blisse,

Were there such a black as this:

Were Night’s dusky mantle made

Of so glorious a shade,

The ruffling day she would out-vie

In costly dresse, and gallantry:

Were Hell’s darknesse such a black,

For it the Saints would Heaven forsake;

So pure a black, that white from hence

Loses its name of innocence;

And the most spotlesse Ivory is

A very stain and blot to this:

So pure a black, that hence I guesse,

Black first became a holy dresse.

The Gods foreseeing this, did make

Their Priests array themselves in Black.

_To my Lady of ~Carnarvon~, January 1._

Idol of our Sex! Envy of thine own!

Whom not t’ have seen, is never to have known,

What eyes are good for; to have seen, not lov’d,

Is to be more, or lesse then man, unmov’d;

Deigne to accept, what I i’ th’ name of all

Thy Servants pay to this dayes Festival,

Thanks for the old yeare, prayers for the new,

So may thy many dayes to come seeme few,

So may fresh springs in thy blew rivolets flow,

To make thy roses, and thy lillies grow.

So may all dressings still become thy face,

As if they grew there, or stole thence their grace.

So may thy bright eyes comfort with their rayes

Th’ humble, and dazle those that boldly gaze:

So may thy sprightly motion, beauties best part,

Shew there is stock enough of life at heart.

So may thy warm snow never grow more cold,

So may they live to be, but not seem old.

So may thy Lord pay all, yet rest thy debtor,

And love no other, till he sees a better:

So may the new year crown the old yeares joy,

By giving us a Girle unto our Boy;

I’ th’ one the Fathers wit, and in the other

Let us admire the beauty of the Mother,

That so we may their severall pictures see,

Which now in one fair Medall joyned be:

Till then grow thus together, and howe’re

You grow old in your selves, grow stil young here;

And let him, though he may resemble either,

Seem to be both in one, and singly neither.

Let Ladies wagers lay, whose chin is this,

Whose forehead that, whose lip, whose eye, then kiss

Away the difference, whilst he smiling lies,

To see his own shape dance in both your eyes.

Sweet Babe! my prayer shall end with thee,

(Oh may it prove a Prophecy!)

May all the channels in thy veynes

Expresse the severall noble straines,

From whence they flow; sweet _Sydney’s_ wit,

But not the sad, sweet fate of it;

The last great _Pembroke’s_ learning, sage

_Burleigh’s_ both wisdome and his age;

Thy Grandsires honest heart expresse

The _Veres_ untainted noblenesse.

To these (if any thing there lacks)

Adde _Dormer_ too, and _Molenax_.

Lastly, if for thee I can woo

Gods, and thy Godfathers grace too,

Together with thy Fathers Thrift:

Be thou thy Mothers New-years gift.

_The Western Husband-man’s Complaint in the late Wars._

Uds bodykins! Chill work no more:

Dost think chill labour to be poor?

No ich have more a do:

If of the world this be the trade,

That ich must break zo knaves be made,

Ich will a blundering too. [plundering]

Chill zel my cart and eke my plow,

And get a zword if ich know how,

For ich mean to be right:

Chill learn to zwear, and drink, and roar,

And (Gallant leek) chill keep a whore, [like]

No matter who can vight.

God bless us! What a world is here,

It can ne’re last another year,

Vor ich can’t be able to zoe:

Dost think that ever chad the art,

To plow the ground up with my cart,

My beasts be all a go.

But vurst a Warrant ich will get

From Master Captaine, that a vet

Chill make a shrewd a do:

Vor then chave power in any place,

To steal a Horse without disgrace,

And beat the owner too.

Ich had zix oxen tother day,

And them the Roundheads vetcht away,

A mischiefe be their speed:

And chad zix horses left me whole,

And them the Cabbaleroes stole:

Chee voor men be agreed.

Here ich doe labour, toyl and zweat,

And dure the cold, with dry and heat,

And what dost think ich get?

Vaith just my labour vor my pains,

The garrisons have all the gains,

Vor thither all’s avet.

There goes my corne and beanes, and pease,

Ich doe not dare them to displease,

They doe zo zwear and vapour:

When to the Governour ich doe come,

And pray him to discharge my zum,

Chave nothing but a paper.

U’ds nigs dost think that paper will

Keep warme my back and belly fill?

No, no, goe vange thy note:

If that another year my vield

No profit doe unto me yield,

Ich may goe cut my throat.

When any money chove in store,

Then straight a warrant comes therefore,

Or ich must blundred be:

And when chave shuffled out one pay,

Then comes another without delay,

Was ever the leek azee? [like]

If all this be not grief enow,

They have a thing cald quarter too,

O’ts a vengeance waster:

A pox upon’t they call it vree, [“free quarters”]

Cham zure they make us zlaves to be,

And every rogue our master.

_The High-way man’s Song._

I keep my Horse, I keep my Whore,

I take no Rents, yet am not poore,

I traverse all the land about,

And yet was born to never a foot;

With Partridge plump, and Woodcock fine,

I do at mid-night often dine;

And if my whore be not in case,

My Hostess daughter has her place.

The maids sit up, and watch their turnes,

If I stay long the Tapster mourns;

The Cook-maid has no mind to sin,

Though tempted by the Chamberlin;

But when I knock, O how they bustle;

The hostler yawns, the geldings justle;

If maid be sleep, oh how they curse her!

And all this comes of, _Deliver your purse sir_.

_Against Fruition_, &c.

There is not half so warme a fire

In the Fruition, as Desire.

When I have got the fruit of pain,

Possession makes me poore again,

Expected formes and shapes unknown,

Whet and make sharp tentation;

Sense is too niggardly for Bliss,

And payes me dully with what is;

But fancy’s liberall, and gives all

That can within her vastnesse fall;

Vaile therefore still, while I divine

The Treasure of this hidden Mine,

And make Imagination tell

What wonders doth in Beauty dwell.

_Upon Mr. ~Fullers~ Booke, called ~Pisgah-sight~._

Fuller of wish, than hope, methinks it is,

For me to expect a fuller work than this,

Fuller of matter, fuller of rich sense,

Fuller of Art[,] fuller of Eloquence;

Yet dare I not be bold, to intitle this

The fullest work; the Author fuller is,

Who, though he empty not himself, can fill

Another fuller, yet continue still

Fuller himself, and so the Reader be

Alwayes in hope a fuller work to see.

_On a Sheepherd that died for Love._

1.

_Cloris_, now thou art fled away,

_Aminta’s_ Sheep are gone astray,

And all the joyes he took to see

His pretty Lambs run after thee.

_Shee’s gone, shee’s gone, and he alway,_

_Sings nothing now but welladay._

2.

His Oaten pipe that in thy praise,

Was wont to play such roundelayes,

Is thrown away, and not a Swaine

Dares pipe or sing within this Plaine.

_’Tis death for any now to say_

_One word to him, but welladay._

3.

The May-pole where thy little feet

So roundly did in measure meet,

Is broken down, and no content

Came near _Amintas_ since you went.

_All that ere I heard him say,_

_Was ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, welladay._

4.

Upon those banks you us’d to tread,

He ever since hath laid his head,

And whisper’d there such pining wo,

That not one blade of grasse will grow.

_Oh ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, come away,_

_And hear ~Aminta’s~ welladay._

5.

The embroyder’d scrip he us’d to weare

Neglected hangs, so does his haire.

His Crook is broke, Dog pining lyes,

And he himself nought doth but cryes,

_Oh ~Cloris~, ~Cloris~, come away,_

_And hear_, &c.

6.

His gray coat, and his slops of green,

When worn by him, were comely seen,

His tar-box too is thrown away,

There’s no delight neer him must stay,

_But cries, oh ~Cloris~ come away,_

_~Aminta’s~ dying, welladay_.

_The Shepheards lamentation for the losse of his Love._

1.

Down lay the Shepheards Swain,

So sober and demure,

Wishing for his wench again,

So bonny and so pure.

With his head on hillock low,

And his armes on kembow;

And all for the losse of her Hy nonny nonny no.

2.

His teares fell as thin,

As water from a Still,

His haire upon his chin,

Grew like tyme upon a hill:

His cherry cheeks were pale as snow,

Testifying his mickle woe;

And all was for the loss of her hy nonny nonny no.

3.

Sweet she was, as fond of love,

As ever fettred Swaine;

Never such a bonny one

Shall I enjoy again.

Set ten thousand on a row,

Ile forbid that any show

Ever the like of her, hy nonny nonny no.

4.

Fac’d she was of Filbard hew,

And bosom’d like a Swanne:

Back’t she was of bended yew,

And wasted by a span.

Haire she had as black as Crow,

From the head unto the toe,

Down down, all over, hy nonny nonny no.

5.

With her Mantle tuck’t up high,

She foddered her Flocke,

So buckesome and alluringly,

Her knee upheld her smock;

So nimbly did she use to goe,

So smooth she danc’d on tip-toe,

That all men were fond of her, hy nonny nonny no.

6.

She simpred like a Holy-day,

And smiled like a Spring,

She pratled like a Popinjay,

And like a Swallow sing.

She tript it like a barren Doe,

And strutted like a Gar-crowe:

Which made me so fond of her, hy, &c.

7.

To trip it on the merry Down,

To dance the lively Hay,

To wrastle for a green Gown,

In heat of all the day,

Never would she say me no.

Yet me thought she had though

Never enough of her, hy, &c.

8.

But gone she is[,] the blithest Lasse

That ever trod on Plain.

What ever hath betided her,

Blame not the Shepheard Swain.

For why, she was her own foe,

And gave her selfe the overthrowe,

By being too franke of her hy nonny nonny no.

_A Ballad on Queen ~Elizabeth~; to the tune of Sallengers round._

I tell you all both great and small,

And I tell you it truely,

That we have a very great cause,

Both to lament and crie,

Oh fie, oh fie, oh fie, oh fie,

Oh fie on cruell death;

For he hath taken away from us

Our Queen _Elizabeth_.

He might have taken other folk,

That better might have been mist,

And let our gratious Queen alone,

That lov’d not a Popish Priest.

She rul’d this Land alone of her self,

And was beholding to no man.

She bare the waight of all affaires,

And yet she was but a woman.

A woman said I? nay that is more

Nor any man can tell,

So chaste she was, so pure she was,

That no man knew it well.

For whilst that she liv’d till cruel death

Exposed her to all.

Wherefore I say lament, lament,

Lament both great and small.

She never did any wicked thing,

Might make her conscience prick her,

And scorn’d for to submit her self to him

That calls himself Christ’s Vicker:

But rather chose couragiously

To fight under Christ’s Banner,

Gainst Turk and Pope, I and King of _Spain_,

And all that durst withstand her.

She was as Chaste and Beautifull,

And Faire as ere was any;

And had from forain Countreys sent

Her Suters very many.

Though _Mounsieur_ came himself from _France_,

A purpose for to woe her,

Yet still she liv’d and dy’d a Maid,

Doe what they could unto her.

And if that I had _Argus_ eyes,

They were too few to weep,

For our sweet Queen _Elizabeth_,

Who now doth lye asleep:

Asleep I say she now doth lye,

Untill the day of Doome:

But then shall awake unto the disgrace

Of the proud Pope of _Rome_.

_A Ballad on King ~James~; to the tune of When ~Arthur~ first in Court

began._

When _James_ in _Scotland_ first began,

And there was crowned King,

He was not much more than a span,

All in his clouts swadling.

But when he waxed into yeares,

And grew to be somewhat tall,

And told his Lords, a Parliament

He purposed to call.

That’s over-much[,] quoth _Douglas_ though,

For thee to doe[,] I feare,

For I am Lord Protector yet,

And will be one halfe yeare.