Is the dregs of wit, yet mingled with good drink may have some relish.
His inspirations are more real than others, for they do but feign a God,
but he has his by him. His verse runs like the tap, and his invention as
the barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the spigot. In thin drink he
aspires not above a ballad, but a cup of sack inflames him, and sets his
muse and nose a-fire together. The press is his mint, and stamps him now
and then a sixpence or two in reward of the baser coin his pamphlet. His
works would scarce sell for three half-pence, though they are given oft
for three shillings, but for the pretty title that allures the country
gentleman; for which the printer maintains him in ale a fortnight. His
verses are like his clothes miserable centoes[48] and patches, yet their
pace is not altogether so hobbling as an almanack's. The death of a
great man or the _burning_[49] of a house furnish him with an argument,
and the nine Muses are out strait in mourning gowns, and Melpomene cries
fire! fire! [His other poems are but briefs in rhyme, and like the poor
Greeks collections to redeem from captivity.] He is a man now much
employed in commendations of our navy, and a bitter inveigher against
the Spaniard. His frequentest works go out in single sheets, and are
chanted from market to market to a vile tune and a worse throat; whilst
the poor country wench melts like her butter to hear them: and these are
the stories of some men of Tyburn, or a strange monster out of
Germany;[50] or, sitting in a bawdy-house, he writes God's judgments. He
drops away at last in some obscure painted cloth, to which himself made
the verses,[51] and his life, like a can too full, spills upon the
bench. He leaves twenty shillings on the score, which my hostess loses.