15

16

Thence Clodius hopes to set his shoulders free
From the light burden of his Naperie ".
The smiling land-lord showes a sun-shine face,
Faining that he will grant him further grace,
And lears like Esop's foxe upon the crane
Whose necke he craves for his Chirurgian:
So lingers off the lease untill the last,
What recks" he then of paynes or promise past?
Was ever fether, or fond woman's mind,
More light than words; the blasts of idle wind?
What's sib or sire", to take the gentle slip,
And in th' Exchequer rot for surety-ship?
Or thence thy starved brother live and die,
Within the cold Cole-Harbour sanctuary"?

Will one from Scots-Banke" bid but one grote more,
My old tenant may be turned out of dore;
Tho' much he spent in th' rotten roofe's repayre,
In hope to have it left unto his heyre:

Tho' many a lode of marle and manure led ",
Reviv'd his barren leas, that earst lay dead.
Were he as Furius, he would defie

Such pilfring slips of pety land-lordrye:

And might dislodge whole collonyes of poore,
And lay their roofe quite level with their floore;

Naperie-linen.

Our author uses the word in the Contemplation on the Thankful Penitent: Works, vol. ii. p. 109. She, that made a fountain of her eyes, made precious Napery of her hair."

I have restored this reading from the first edition: the later read fire. Sib is from the Saxon, and means a relation; and is here placed in contradistinction to sire. 19 Within the cold Cole-Harbour sanctuary.

A magnificent building in Thames Street, called Cold Herbergh, that is Cold Inn, probably so denominated from its vicinity to the river, was granted by Henry IV. to the Prince of Wales. It stood on the spot now called Cold Harbour Lane. It passed afterwards through various hands. See an account of it in Maitland, Pp. 185, 192.

20 Will one from Scots-Bunke

Meaning, probably, that spot on the bank of the river now called Scotland Yard; formerly denominated Scotland, and where magnificent buildings were erected for the reception of the Kings of Scotland and their retinues. See Stow, vol. ii. p. 578.

Whiles yet he gives, as to a yeelding fence,
Their bagge and baggage to his citizens,
And ships them to the new-nam'd Virgin-lond",
Or wilder Wales where never wight yet wond".
Would it not vexe thee, where thy syres did keepe
To see the dunged foldes of dag-tayld sheepe?
And ruin'd house, where holy things were said,
Whose free-stone wals the thatched roofe upbraid,
Whose shrill saint's-bell hangs on his loverie,
While the rest are damned to the Plumbery"?
Yet pure devotion lets the steeple stand,
And ydle battlements on eyther hand:

Least that, perhaps, were all those reliques gone,
Furious his sacriledge could not be knowne.

22

SATIRE II.

Heic quærite Trojam.

HOUS-KEPING's dead, Saturio: wot'st thou where?
For-sooth, they say far hence, in Brek-neck shire.
And, ever since, they say, that feele and tast,
That men may
break their neck soone as their fast.
Certes, if Pity died at Chaucer's date ",
He liv'd a widdower long behinde his mate:
Save that I see some rotten bed-rid syre,
Which, to out-strip the nonage of his heire,
Is cram'd with golden broaths and druges of price,
And ech day dying lives, and living dies;
Till, once surviv'd his ward-ship's latest eve,
His eies are clos'd, with choise to die or live.
Plenty and hee dy'd both in that same yeare,
When the sad skye did sheed so many a teare.

Virgin-lond-Virginia; then newly discovered, and thus named in compliment to Queen Elizabeth.

i. e. where never man yet lived.

Whose shrill saint's-bell hangs on his loverie,

While the rest are damned to the Plumbery.

Loverie, i. e. Louver or Turret. All the other bells are melted down. W.

25 Certes, if Pity died at Chaucer's date.

See Chaucer's Poem "How Pyte is dead". E.

Chaucer places the Sepulchre of Pity in the Court of Love, v. 700.

a tender creature

Is shrined there, and PITY is her name, &c. W.

And now, who list not of his labour fayle,
Marke, with Saturio, my friendly tale.
Along thy way thou canst not but descry
Faire glittering halls to tempt the hopefull eye:
Thy right eye gins to leape for vaine delight,
And surbeate toes to tickle at the sight:
As greedy T, when, in the sounding mold,
Hee finds a shining pot-shard tip't with gold;
For never Syren tempts the pleased eares,
As these the eye of fainting passengers.
All is not so that seems: for, surely, than"
Matrona should not bee a Curtezan:

Smooth Chrysalus should not bee rich with fraud;
Nor honest R- bee his own wive's baude.
Look not asquint, nor stride acrosse the way
Like some demurring Alcide to delay 28;
But walke on cherely, till thou have espide
Saint Peter's finger at the church-yard side.
But wilt thou needs, when thou art warn'd so well,
Go see who in so garish walls doth dwell?
There findest thou some stately Doricke frame,
Or neate Ionicke worke ;-

Like the vaine bubble of Iberian pride",
That over-croweth all the world beside:

Which, rear'd to raise the crazy monarche's fame,
Strives for a court and for a colledge name;
Yet nought within but louzy couls doth hold,
Like a scab'd cuckow in a cage of gold:
So pride above doth shade the shame belowe;
A golden periwig on a black-more's brow.
When Mævio's first page of his poesy 3,
Nayl'd to a hundredth postes for noveltie,

26 And surbeate toes

Toes bruised and battered with travel. It is used by Spenser.

Meaning the Escurial, founded by Philip II; and boasted of as one of the wonders of the world.

30 When Mævio's first page of his poesy,

&c. &c.

In this age the three modern languages were studied to affectation. In "The Return from Parnassus", a fashionable fop tells his page," Sirrah, boy, remember me when I come in Paul's Church-yard to buy a Ronsard and Dubartas in French, an Aretine in Italian, and our hardest writers in Spanish, &c. Act II. Sc. 3. W.

With his big title an Italian mott",

Layes siege unto the backward buyer's grote,
Which all within is drafty sluttish geere",
Fit for the oven, or the kitchin fire:

So this gay gate adds fuell to thy thought,

That such proud piles were never rays'd for nought.
Beate the broad gates: a goodly hollow sound
With doubled ecchoes doth againe rebound;
But not a dog doth barke to welcome thee,
Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see:
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite:
The marble pavement hid with desart weede,

With house-leeke, thistle, docke, and hemlock-seed.
But, if thou chance cast up thy wondring eyes,
Thou shalt discerne upon the frontispice
ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ graven up on hye,

A fragment of olde Platoe's poesie ":
The meaning is "Sir foole, ye may be gone:
Go backe by leave; for way here lieth none."
Looke to the towred chymneis which should bee
The winde-pipes of good hospitalitie;
Through which it breatheth to the open ayre,
Betokening life, and liberall welfare:

Lo! there th' unthankfull swallow takes her rest,
And fils the tonnell with her circled nest;

Nor halfe that smoke from all his chymneis goes,
Which one tobacco-pipe drives through his nose".
So rawbone hunger scorns the mudded walls,
And gins to revell it in lordly halls.

So the Blacke Prince is broken loose againe,
That saw no sunne save once (as stories saine):
That once was, when, in Trinacry I weene,
Hee stole the daughter of the harvest queene;
And grip't the mawes of barren Sicily
With long constraint of pinefull penury;

The motto on the front of the house, which our author calls "a fragment of old Platoe's poesie", is only an humorous alteration of Plato's OTAEIE «xadagros

ΕΙΣΙΤΩ. W.

"WHICH one tobacco-pipe drives through his nose.

Which is as in the first edition. I have adopted the reading of the edition of

35

36

And they, that should resist his second rage,
Have pen'd themselves up in the private cage
Of some blind lane, and there they lurke unknowne
Till th' hungry tempest once bee overblowne:
Then, like the coward after his neighbours' fray,
They creepe forth boldly, and aske, Where are they?
Meane while the hunger-starv'd appurtenance
Must bide the brunt, whatever ill mischance :
Grim Famine sits in their forepined face,
All full of angles of unequall space;
Like to the plaine of many sided squares,
That wont be drawen out by geometars;

So sharpe and meager, that who should them see
Would sweare they lately came from Hungary.
When their brasse pans and winter coverled
Have wipt the maunger of the horses-bread,
Oh mee! what ods there seemeth 'twixt their chere
And the swolne bezell 3 at an alehouse fyre,
That tonnes in gallons to his bursten " panch,

36

Whose slimy droughts his draught can never stanch"!
For shame, ye gallants! grow more hospitall,
And turne your needlesse wardrope to your hall.
As lavish Virro, that keepes open doores,
Like Janus in the warres,

Except the twelve daies or the wakeday feast,
What time hee needs must bee his cosen's guest.
Philene hath bid him, can hee choose but come?
Who should pull Virroe's sleeve to stay at home?
All yeare besides who meal-time can attend:
Come, Trebius, welcome to the table's end.
What tho' hee chires on purer manchet's crowne,
Whiles his kind client grindes on blacke and browne,
A jolly rounding of a whole foote broad,

From of the mong-corne" heape shall Trebius load.

bezell-is the ring in which a stone is set.

bursten-bursting.

37 Whose slimy DROUGHTS his DRAUGHT can never stanch— Should be read, in the present mode of spelling, and as the Oxford Editor has it,

Whose slimy DRAUGHTS his DROUGHT can never stanch.

38 What tho' hee CHIRES on purer MANCHET's crowne.

Manchet is the finest sort of wheaten bread.-I cannot trace the meaning of chires; unless it have affinity with chirre, to coo as a pigeon: and may denote here the gentle noise accompanying the mastication of the crowne or tender crust of the manchet, as opposed to the client's grinding the black and brown.

39

mong-corne-mixed corn, as wheat and rye. Johnson.