Measure and jig; her courtsey was an honour:
Her gait, as if her neighbour had outgone her.
She was barred up in whalebones, which do leese
None of the whale's length, for they reached her knees.
Off with her head, and then she hath a middle;
As her waist stands she looks like the new fiddle,
The favourite Theorbo, truth to tell ye,
Whose neck and throat are deeper than the belly.
Have you seen monkeys chained about the loins,
Or pottle-pots with rings? Just so she joins
Herself together: a dressing she doth love
In a small print below and text above.
What though her name be King, yet 'tis no treason,
Nor breach of statute, for to ask the reason
Of her branched ruff, a cubit every poke.
I seem to wound her, but she strook the stroke
At our departure: and our worships there
Paid for our titles dear as any where.
'Twas quickly morning, though by our short stay
We could not find that we had less to pay.
All travellers this heavy judgment hear :
A handsome hostess makes the reckoning dear:
Her smiles, her words, your purses must requite 'em,
And every welcome from her adds an item.
XLVI. WILLIAM DRUMMOND.
1. THE NIGHTINGALE.
Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours
Of winters, past, or coming; void of care,
Well pleased with delights which pleasant are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers,
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare;
And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare.
A stain to human Sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs
Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster! thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yea, and to angels' lays.
2. THE WORLD A GAME.
This world a hunting is;
The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death:
His speedy greyhounds are
Lust, sickness, envy, care,
Strife that never falls amiss,
With all those ills which hunt us while we breathe.
Now if by chance we fly
Of those the eager chase,
Old age with stealing pace
his nets and there we panting die.
THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.
An old song made by an aged old pate,
Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate,
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate.
Like an old courtier of the queen's, and the queen's old courtier.
With an old lady whose anger one word assuages;
They every quarter paid their old servants their wages,
And never knew what belonged to coachmen, footmen nor pages,
But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges,
Like an old courtier, &c.
With an old study filled full of learned old books,
With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks: With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks,
And an old kitchen, that maintained half a dozen old cooks:
Like an old courtier, &c.
With an old hall hung about with pikes, guns, and bows,
With old swords and bucklers that had borne many shrewd blows
And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship's trunk hose,
And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose;
Like an old courtier, &c.
With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,
To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum,
With good cheer enough to furnish every old room,
And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb;
Like an old courtier, &c.
With an old falconer, huntsman, and a kennel of hounds,
That never hawked nor hunted, but in his own grounds,
Who, like a wise man, kept himself within his own bounds;
And, when he died, gave every child a thousand good pounds;
Like an old courtier, &c.
But to his eldest son his house and land he assigned,
Charging him in his will to keep the old bountiful mind,
To be good to his old tenants and to his neighbours be kind;
But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how he was inclined;
Like a young courtier of the king's and the king's
Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land,
Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command,
And takes up a thousand pound upon his father's land,
And gets drunk in a tavern till he can neither go nor stand;
Like a young courtier, &c.
With a new-fangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare,
Who never knew what belonged to good house-keeping or care.
Who buys gaudy-coloured fans to play with wanton air,
And seven or eight different dressings of other women's hair;
Like a young courtier, &c.
With a new-fashioned hall, built where the old one stood,
Hung round with new pictures, that do the poor no good,
With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns neither coal nor wood,
And a new smooth shovel-board, whereon no victuals ne'er stood;
Like a young courtier, &c.
With a new study, stuffed full of pamphlets and plays,
And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays,
With a new buttery-hatch, that opens once in four or five days,
And a new French cook, to devise fine kickshaws and toys:
Like a young courtier, &c.
With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,
"On a new journey to London strait we all must be gone,
And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John,"
Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone:
Like a young courtier, &c.
With a new gentleman-usher, whose carriage is complete,
With a new coachman, footman, and pages, to carry up the meat,
With a waiting-gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat,
Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat.
Like a young courtier, &c.
With new titles of honour bought with his father's old gold,
For which sundry of his ancestor's old manors are sold;
And this is the course most of our new gallants hold,
Which makes that good house-keeping is now grown so cold,
Among the young courtiers of the king, Or the
king's young courtiers.
XLVIII. FRANCIS BEAUMONT,
XLIX. JOHN FLETCHER.
1. ADDRESS TO MARS!
Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turn'd
Green Neptune into purple, whose approach
Comets pre-warn, whose havoc in vast field
Unearthed skulls proclaim, whose breath blows down
The teeming Ceres' foison, who dost pluck,
With hand armipotent, from forth blue clouds,
The mason'd turrets: that both mak'st and break'st
The stony girths of cities, me, thy pupil,
Youngest follower of thy drum, instruct this day,
With military skill; that to thy praise
I may advance my streamer, and by thee
Be styled the lord of the day. Give me, great Mars, Some token of thy pleasure.
Oh! great corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of o'er-rank states, and thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that heal'st with blood
The earth, when it is sick, and curest the world
Of the plurisy of the people, I do take
Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name
To my design march boldly; let us go.
2. THE PRINCE'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS PAGE.
I found him sitting by a fountain's side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph as much again in tears.
A garland laid him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: but, ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon them, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,
Expressed his grief; and, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wished; so that methought I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertained him,
Who was as glad to follow; and have got
The trustiest, lovingest, and the gentlest boy
That ever master kept.
3. FOLDING THE FLOCKS.
Shepherds all, and maidens fair,
Fold the flocks up; for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great race hath run.
See the dew drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a string of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground;
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapours, fly apace,
And hover o'er the smiling face
Of these pastures where they come,
Striking dead both bud and bloom:
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