_Many odd Whimsies and Conceits of Poor Robin._
Poor Robin daily frequenting the tavern and ale-house had learned of his
companions many drunken whimsies and other odd conceits, as the five
properties that belong to an host, that he must have the head of a stag,
the bag of a nag, the belly of a hog, skip up and down like a frog, and
fawn like a dog. As also the four ingredients whereof a woman's tongue
is made, viz.: The sound of a great bell, the wagging of a dog's tail,
the shaking of an aspen leaf tempered with running water.
When poor Robin had gotten a cup in his crown, as it oftentimes
happened, he would then be playing the poet, and nothing but rhymes
could then come out of his mouth; for as one writes:
Poet and pot doth differ but one letter,
And that makes poets love the pot the better.
Amongst other of his conceits, this following comparison was much used
by him:--
Like a purse that hath no chink in't,
Or a cellar and no drink in't,
Like a jewel never worn,
Or a child untimely born,
Like a song without a foot,
Or a bond and no hand to't,
Such doth she seem unto mine eyes,
That lives a virgin till she dies.
The money doth entice the purse,
The drink in the cellar quencheth thirst,
The jewel decks, if worn it is,
The child soon dies, abortive is;
The end o' the song doth sweetest sound,
The hand doth make the party bound.
So she that marries e'er death takes her,
Answers that for which Nature makes her.
"Women," said he, "are all extremes, either too willing, or too wilful;
too forward or too froward; too courteous or too coy; too friendly or
too fiendly." This made Arminius, a ruler in Carthage, refuse to marry,
saying, "If I marry a wife, she will be wilful; if wealthy, then wanton;
if poor, then peevish; if beautiful, then proud; if deformed, then
loathsome; and the least of these is able to plague a thousand men."
THE END.
PRINTED BY ROBERT MACLEHOSK, GLASGOW.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation has been normalized.
Hyphenation has been made consistent.
Bonaparte is spelled three ways, two are in dialect, left as is.
Page 18, changed "yoeman" to "yeoman" (The yeoman replied:)
Page 19, changed "tiil" to "til" (merry til my wife)
Page 149, changed "the mall" to "them all" (tell them all;)