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Choyce Drollery.
JiV !>w «h fr
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.
MjDCCCLXXVI.
TO THOSE
STUDENTS OF ART,
AMONG WHOM HE FOUND
jFrtettti0f)tp antr (Kntljugmgm-,
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.
vii.
CONTENTS.
fAGE
DEDICATION...... V
PRELUDE.........IX
INTRODUCTION TO "CHOICE DROLLERY, 1656 " . XI
§ I. 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.....I
TABLE OF FIRST LINES TO DITTO . . .
.101
INTRODUCTION TO "ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELAN-
CHOLY," l66l ......
§ I. REPRINT OF "ANTIDOTE "
105
2. INGREDIENTS OF "AN ANTIDOTE" . . 108
ORIGINAL ADDRESS "TO THE READER," l66l . .Ill
» CONTENTS (ENLARGED) . . .
.112
"ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY," l66l . . II3
via.
PAGE
EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT TO DITTO: § I. ON THE
"AUTHOR" OF THE ANTIDOTE. 2. ARTHUR
O* BRADLEY.......l6l
"WESTMINSTER DROLLERIES," EDITION 1674 :
EXTRA SONGS.......177
"MERRY DROLLERY," l66l I
PART I. EXTRA SONGS ..... I95
„ 2. DITTO ....... 233
APPENDIX OF NOTES, &C, ARRANGED IN FOUR
PARTS:
1. "CHOICE DROLLERY"..... 259
2. "ANTIDOTE AGAINST MELANCHOLY" . . 305
3. "WESTMINSTER DROLLERY," 167I-4 . . 333
4. § I. "MERRY DROLLERY," l66l . . . 345
2. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO " M. D.," 1670 . 371
3. SESSIONS OF POETS .... 405
4. TABLES OF FIRST LINES . . . 411
FINALE.........423
ix.
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.
X.
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.
June 1st, 1876.
J. W. E.
XI.
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 Itf
Act i. sc. 1.)
§ 1. CHOYCE DROLLERY Inhibited.
IE may be sure the memory
of many a Cavalier went
back to that sweetest of
all Pastorals, Shakespeare's
Cbmedy of "As You Like
It," while he clutched to
his breast the precious little
i volume of Choyce Drollery y
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
% the usurping Commonwealth; where, under the
broad shadow of a beech-tree, with the squirrel
xii.
INTRODUCTION.
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 " Dow sab ell, 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 en-
chantment to the name of Arden (p. 73), and recall
scenes of shepherd-life with Celia, the songs that
echoed "Under the greenwood-tree;" without need-
ing the additional spell of seeing " Ingenious Shake-
speare " 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 in-
formers were numerous, and fines were levied upon
INTRODUCTION.
xiii.
those who had secreted it. Greedy eyes, active fin-
gers, 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 3 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 pre-
viously in print (the title-page asserts that none had
been so, but we know this to be false). Publishers
fcaafie such statements audaciously, then as now, and
%Ped truth to limp behind them without chance of
xiv.
INTRODUCTION.
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 con-
temporary 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 under-
standing 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 im-
morality in this Choyce Drollery that it became de-
nounced; although such might be declared in pro-
clamations. 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" facetted of Sportive Wit9 or Lusty
Drollery (both works issued in 1656), held infinitely
more to shock proprieties and call for repression.
The Musarum Delicm of Sir J[orm] M[ennis] and
Dr. J[ames S[mith], in the same year, 1656, cannot
INTRODUCTION.
XV.
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 Wifs
Interpreter of industrious J[ohn] C[otgrave]; to
whom, despite multitudinous typographical errors, we
owe thanks, both for Wifs Interpreter and for the
wilderness of dramatic beauties, his Wifs 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 extermi-
nation. Readers at this later day, might easily fail to
notice all that stirred the loyal sentiments of chivalric
devotton, 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
*&25, escorted by the Duke of Buckingham, who
compromised her sister by his rash attentions: Buck-
xvi. INTRODUCTION.
ingham, 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 cour-
tier. 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 blas-
phemy, 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."
INTRODUCTION.
XV11.
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 all7"
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 shud-
dering 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 Mem, Mem, Tekel Upharsin needed no
b
XV111.
INTRODUCTION.
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 au-
thority, 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 them-
selves, 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, Indepen-
dent, 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.
INTRODUCTION.
xix.
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 re-
mained in England, drew a melancholy contrast be-
tween the remembered past of Whitehall and the
gloomy present. With honest Touchstone, he could
say, " Now am I in Arden I 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 yhen 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 fol-
lowers, and already quite enslaved by Dalilahs, syrens
against whom his own shrewd sense was powerless to
defend him. For amusement he read his favourite
XX.
INTRODUCTION.
French or Italian authors, not seldom took long walks,
and indulged himself in field sports :
66 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,
ts This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what 1 am."
For, in truth, he much preferred avoiding such coun-
INTRODUCTION. xxi.
sel, 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 faith-
less"; 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."
XX11.
INTRODUCTION.
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 some-
thing 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 for-
bearance. Her name was whispered, with blessing
implored upon it, in the prayers of many whom she
alone had saved from death.* 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
* Elizabeth Cromwell.—A contemporary writes, " How
many of the Royalist prisoners got she not freed ? How many
did she not save from death whom the Laws had condemned ?
How many persecuted Christians hath she not snatched out of the
hands of the tormentors; quite contrary unto that [daughter of]
Herodias who could do anything with her [step] father? She
INTRODUCTION.
XX111.
heart was sound within, her religion was devoid of all
hypocrisy. Her Christian purity was too clearly stain-
less 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 ba 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
imployed her Prayers even with Tears to spare such men whose
ill fortune had designed them to suffer," &e. (S. Carrmgton's
History of the Life and Death of His most Serene Highness
OLIFER, Late Lord Protector. 1659, p. 264*)
Elizabeth Cromwell, here contrasted with Salome, more re-
sembled the Celia of As you Like It, in that she, through
prizing
truth and justice, showed loving care of those whom her father
treated as enemies.
By the way, our initial-letter W. on opening page 11 (repre-
senting Salome receiving from the ^TreKOvXarwp, sent by Herod,
the head of S. John the Baptist)—is copied from the Address to
the Reader prefixed to Part II. of Merry Drollery, 1661, Fide
postea, p. 232.
Our initial letters in M.D., C, pp. 3, 5, are in fac simile
of the
original
XXIV,
INTRODUCTION.
the father whom she loved, so that his conscience
smote him, and the remembrance stayed with him for
ever.* 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 con-
* Cromwell " seemed much afflicted at the death of his Friend
the Earl of Warwick; with whom he had a fast friendship, though
neither their humours, nor their natures, were like. And the
Heir
of that House, who had married his youngest Daughter [Frances],
died about the same time [or, rather, two months earlier] ; s©
that all his relation to, or confidence in that Family was at an
end;
the other branches of it abhorring his Alliance. His domestick
delights were lessened every day; he plainly discovered that his
son [in-law, who had married Mary Cromwell,] Falconbridge's
heart was set upon an Interest destructive to his, and grew to
hate
him perfectly. Bub that which chiefly broke his Peace was the
death
of his daughter [Elizabeth] Clay pole; who had been always his
greatest joy, and who, in her sickness, which was of a nature
the
Physicians knew not how to deal with, had several Conferences
with him, which exceedingly perplexed him. Though no body
was near enough to hear the particulars, yet her often
mentioning,
in the pains she endured, the blood her Father had spilt, made
people conclude, that she had presented his worst Actions to his
consideration. And though he never made the least show of
remorse for any of those Actions, it is very certain, that
either what
she said, or her death, affected him wonderfully." (Clarendon's
Hist, of the Rebellion. Book xv., p. 647, edit. 1720.)
INTRODUCTION.
XXV.
solation. 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."
XXVI.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 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 co-
erced 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 cruel-
ties wrought under Alva against the patriots of the
INTRODUCTION.
XXV11.
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 pam-
phlets, more or less venomous, circulating stealthily,
despite all watchfulness and penalties. Next year,
1657, "Killing no Murder" would come down, as if
showered ftom the skies; but although hundreds
wished that somebody else might act on the sug-
gestions, already urged before this seditious tract
appeared, not one volunteer felt called upon to im-
molate 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
XXV111.
INTRODUCTION.
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.* 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 repay-
ment, 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 eon, so long as they are left
* John Cleveland wrote a satirical address to Mr. Hammond,
the Puritan preacher of Beudley, who had exerted himself " for
the
Pulling down of the Maypole." It begins, in mock praise, "The
mighty zeal which thou hast put on," &c.; and is printed in
Parnassus Biceps, 1656, p. 18; and among "J. Cleveland Revived:
Poemh" 1662, p. 96.
INTRODUCTION.
xxix.
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 sancti-
monious 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
foeen in her virgin bloom. The airy trifling, dallying
XXX.
INTRODUCTION.
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, con-
descending to adorn the Masques in palaces, winning
applause from royal hands and voices. These, more-
over, were " Songs and Sonnets " which the best mu-
sicians 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/'*
* Here the thought is enveloped amid tender fancies. Compare
the more passionate and solemn earnestness of the loyal church-
INTRODUCTION.
XXXI.
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 feel-
ing of wonder long ago exhausted. Queen Elizabeth
sate out the performance of Lovis 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
man, Henry King-, Bishop of Chichester, in his poem of The
Exequy, addressed "To his never-to-be-forgotten Friend," wherein
he says:—
" Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted I
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake,
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness, must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves ; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy Tomb.
Stay for me there; I will notfaile
To meet thee m that hollow Fale.
And think not much of my delay;
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed,*' &c.
xxxii.
INTRODUCTION.
love: but after that Eastcheap Boar's-Head Tavern
scene, with rollicking Doll Tear-sheet, in the Second
Part of Henry IK, surely her sedate Majesty might
have been prepared to look for something very dif-
ferent 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.* The fact is this, people nowa-
days keep their dishes of spiced meat and their Bar-
mecide show-fasts separate. They sip the limpid
spring before company, and keep hidden behind a
* For special reasons, the Editor felt it nearly impossible
to
avoid the omission of a few letters in one of the most
objectionable
of these pieces, the twelfth in order, of Choyce Drollery. He
men-
tions this at once, because he holds to his confirmed opinion
that in Reprints of scarce and valuable historical memorials no
tampering with the origmal ts permissible. (But see Appendix,
Part IV. and pp. 230, 288.) He incurs blame from judicious anti-
quaries by even this small and acknowledged violation of exacti-
tude. Probably, he might have given pleasure to the general
public if he had omitted much more, not thirty letters only, but
entire poems or songs; as the books deserved in punishment.
INTRODUCTION.
XXX111.
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 com-
plaint." They did4not label their books " Moral and
Theological, for the public Ken," or " Vice, sub rosa,
for our locked-cabinet!" Parlous d'autres choses,
Messieurs, syil vous pldzt
§ 4.—On the Pastorals.
•There were good reasons for Court and country
fceing 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 pas-
toral songs and poems in Choyce Drollery is one other
noticeable characteristic. Even as Utopian schemes,
frith 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 en-
But he leaves others to produce expurgated editions, suitable
for
unlearned triflers. Any reader can here erase from the Reprint
What offends his individual taste (as we know that Ann, Countess
of Strafford, cut out the poem of " Woman " from our copy of
I>iy<Ws Miscellany Poems, Pt. 6, 1709). No Editor has any
msiness to thus mutilate every printed copy,
C
XXXIV.
INTRODUCTION.
couragement 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 Cava-
liers, to look back again to all that had distinguished
the earlier days of their dead monarch, before Puri-
tanism had become rampant Even Milton, in his
INTRODUCTION.
XXXV.
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 re-
main 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 Shepherd-
esses, 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 mrfuost] 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 un-
willing to become enslaved as a partisan, and fight
under the banner that he deems disgraced by false-
XXXVI.
INTRODUCTION.
hood 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 phi-
losophers of science or of literature, men like Sir
Thomas Browne, pursue their labour unremittingly,
and keep apart from politics; but even for this ab-
stinence harsh measure is dealt to them by contem-
poraries 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, de-
fending 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 tri-
umphant 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;
INTRODUCTION.
XXXV1L
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 him-
self 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
Chlaris fled; or of that other, "sober and demure,"
XXXviii. INTRODUCTION.
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 in-
terference 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 :—
<e 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.
DROLLERY RE-PRINTS.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, &c.
"Strafford Lodge, Oatlands Park,
Surrey, Feb. 4, 1875.
Dear Sir,
I received the "Westminster Drolleries"
yesterday evening. I have spent nearly the whole of this
day in reading it. I can but give unqualified praise to the
editor, both for his extensive knowledge and for his admi-
rable style. The printing and the paper do great credit
to your press. . <, . I enclose a post-office order to pay
for my copy.
Yours truly,
Mr. Robert Roberts. Wm. Chappell."
From J, 0. Halliivell, Esgre.
"No. 11, Tregunter Road, West Brompton,
London, S. W.,
Dear Sir, 25th Feby.
1875.
I am charmed with the edition of the
"Westminster Drollery/' One half of the reprints of the
present day are rendered nearly useless to exact students
either by alterations or omissions, or by attempts to make
eclectic texts out of more than one edition. By all means
let us have introductions and notes, especially when as
good as Mr. Ebsworth's, but it is essential for objects of
reference that one edition only of the old text be accurately
reproduced. The book is certainly admirably edited.
Yours truly,
To Mr. R. Roberts. J. CX Phillipps."
From F, J1, Furni<vall> Esq.
if3, St. George's Square, Primrose Hill, London, N.W.,
2nd February, 187 S.
My Dear Sir,
I have received the handsome large paper
copy of your "Westminster Drolleries." I am very glad
to see that the book is really edited, and that well, by a
man so thoroughly up in the subject as Mr. Ebsworth.
Truly yours,
F. J. F."
DROLLERY RE-PRINTS.
From the Editor of the "Fuller's Worthies Library,"
"Wordsworth's Prose Works,'9 &c.
"Park View, Blackburn,
Lancashire, 13th July, 1875.
Dear Sir,
I got the " Westminster Drolleries " at
once, and I will see after the " Merry Drollery" when
published.
Go on and prosper. Mr. Ebsworth is a splendid fellow,
evidently. Yours,
A. B. Grosart."
J. P. Collier, Esqre., has also written warmly com-
mending the work, in private letters to the Editor, which
he holds in especial honour.
From the "Academy" July loth, 1875.
" It would be a curious though perhaps an unprofitable
speculation, how far the ' Conservative reaction * has been
reflected in our literature.....Reprints are an impor-
tant part of modern literature, and in them there is a
perceptible relaxation of severity. Their interest is no
longer mainly philological. Of late, the Restoration has
been the favourite period for revival. Its dramatists are
marching down upon us from Edinburgh, and the invasion
is seconded by a royalist movement in Lincolnshire. A
Boston publisher has begun a series of drolleries—in-
tended, not for the general public, but for those students
who can afford to pay handsomely for their predilection
for the byways of letters.
" The Introduction is delightful reading, with quaint
fancies here and there, as in the i imagined limbo of un-
finished books.' .... There is truth and pathos in his
excuses for the royalist versifiers who s snatched hastily,
recklessly, at such pleasures as came within their reach,
heedless of price or consequences.5 We may not admit
that they were 'outcasts without degradation/ but we can
hardly help allowing that f there is a manhood visible in
their failures, a generosity in their profusion and unrest.
They are not stainless, but they affect no concealment of
faults. Our heart goes to the losing side* even when the
DROLLERY RE-PRINTS.
loss has been in great part deserved.' .... The fact is,
that in his contemplation of the follies and vices of 'that
very distant time' he loses all apprehension of their
grosser elements, and retains only an appreciation of their
wit, their elegance, and their vivacity. Without offence
be it said, in Lancelot's phrase, 'he does something
smack, something grow to -, he has a kind of taste,'—and
so have we too, as we read him. These trite and ticklish
themes he touches with so charming a liberality that his
generous allowance is contagious. We feel in thoroughly
honest company, and are ready to be heartily charitable
along with him. For his is no unworthy tolerance of vice,
still less any desire to polish its hardness into such facti-
tious brilliancy as glistens in Grammont. It is a manly
pity for human weakness, and an unwillingness to see,
much less to pry into, human depravity. ' It would have
been a joy for us to know that these songs were wholly
speck must go hungry through many an orchard, even
unobjectionable; but he who waits to eat of fruit without
past the apples of the Hesperides.' .... The little book
is well worth the attention of any one desirous to have a
bird's-eye view of the Restoration ' Society.' Its scope is
far wider than its title would indicate. The ' Drolleries'
include not only the rollicking rouse of the staggering
blades who ' love their humour well, boys,' the burlesque
of the Olympian revels in ' Hunting the Hare,' the wild
vagary of Tom of Bedlam, and the gibes of the Benedicks
of that day against the holy estate, but lays of a delicate
and airy beauty, a dirge or two of exquisite pathos, homely
ditties awaking patriotic memories of the Armada and the
Low Country wars, and 'loyal cantons' sung to the
praise and glory of King Charles. The * late and true
story of a furious scold ' might have enriched the budget
of Autolycus, and Feste would have found here a store of
f love-songs,' and a few ' songs of good life.' The collec-
tion is of course highly miscellaneous. After the stately
measure may come a jig with homely 'duck and nod,' or
even a dissonant strain from the 'riot and ill-managed
merriment' of Comus,
' Midnight shout, and revelry,
Tipsy dance, and jollity.***
DROLLERY RE-PRINTS.
From the "Bookseller," March, 1875.
" If we wish to read the history of public opinion we
must read the songs of the times : and those who help us
to do this confer a real favour. Mr. Thomas Wright has
done enormous service in this way by his collections of
political songs. Mr. Chappell has done better by giving
us the music with them; but much remains to be done.
On examining the volume before us, we are surprised to
find so many really beautiful pieces, and so few of the
coarse and vulgar. Even the latter will compare favour-
ably with the songs in vogue amongst the fast men in the
early part of the present century.
The " Westminster Drolleries" consist of two collections
of poems and songs sung at Court and theatres, the first
published in 1671, and the second in 1672. Now for the
first time reprinted. The editor, Mr. J. Woodfall
Ebsworth, has prefaced the volume with an interesting
introduction . . . and, in an appendix of nearly eighty
pages at the end, has collected a considerable amount of
bibliographical and anecdotical literature. Altogether,
ive think this may be pronounced the best edited of all the
reprints of old literature, which are now pretty numerous.
A word of commendation must also be given to Mr.
Roberts, of Boston, the publisher and printer—the volume
is a credit to his press, and could have been produced in
its all but perfect condition only by the most careful atten-
tion and watchful oversight."
From the i( Athenaeum" April 10th, 1875.
€f Mr. Ebsworth has, we think, made out a fair case in
his Introduction for reprinting the volume without exci-
sion. The book is not intended tuirginibus puerisque, but
to convey to grown men a sufficient idea of the manners
and ideas which pervaded all classes in society at the
time of the reaction from the Puritan domination.....
Mr. Ebsworth's Introduction is well written. He speaks
with zest of the pleasant aspects of the Restoration
period, and has some words of praise to bestow upon the
* Merry Monarch5 himself. . . . Let us add that his own
" Prelude/' ^Entr5 Acte," and "Finale" are fair speci-
mens of versification."
Choyce Drollery :
Songs & Sonnets.
Choyce
DROLLERY:
SONGS & SONNETS.
BEING
A Collection of divers excel-
lent pieces of Poetry,
OF
Severall eminent Authors.
Never before printed.
LONDON,
Printed by J. G. for Robert Pollard, at the
Ben. Johnson* s head behind the Ex-
change, and John Sweeting, at the
Angel In Popes-Head Alley.
1656.
To the READER.
Courteous Reader,
Hy 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 e-
quall it in its fortunate accepta-
tion. We serve up these Deli-
a 2 cates
[To the Reader : 1656.]
cates by frugall Messes, as ai-
ming at thy Satisfaction, not
Saciety. But our designe being
more upon thy judgement, than
patience, more to delight thee,
than to detain thee in theportall
of a tedious, and seldome-read
Epistle; we draw this displea-
sing Curtain, that intercepts thy
(by this time) gravid, and al-
most teeming fancy, and sub-
scribe,
R.P.
I
Choice
DROLLERY:
SONGS
AND
Sonnets.
The broken Heart.
i.
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,
b CoiA
Choice Drollery,
2
Some striving knowledge to refine,
Consume themselves with thinking,
And some who friendship seale in wine
Are kindly kilPd 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 : [ hallowM]
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,
And
Songs and Sonnets.
3
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, weli? though thou art [3 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.
B 2 Of
i Choice Drollery\
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 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
Songs and Sonnets. 5
On the
TIME-POETS.
ONe night the great Apollo pleased 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-grapiing Chapman, whose Aerial minde
Soares at Philosophy, and strikes it blinde;
Danbourn [Daoourn] 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? [tag, May.]
Who
6 Choice Drollery\
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 John Ford alone was got
With folded armes and melancholly hat;
The squibbing Middleton, and Haywood sage,
ThJ 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 fashioned 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 Aledors 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.
Songs and Sonnets.
/
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 3
Bounce, Robbie, 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
Transformed it to a May-pole, 'bout which trace
Her skipping servants, that do nightly sing,
And dance about the same a Fayrie Ring.
b 4
The
8 Choice Drollery',
The Vow-breaker.
Hen 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, P vaiWn]
Which the next wind scatters ? take heed,
Take heed Revolter; know this deed
Hath wrong'd the world, which will fare wor^e
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.
Tfo
w
Songs and Sonnets. 9
The Sympathie.
IF at this time I am derided,
And you please to laugh, at me5
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
IO
Choice Drollery\
The Red Head and the White.
i.
COme my White head, let our Muses
Vent no spleen against abuses,
Nor scoffe at monstrous signes iJ 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
Songs and Sonnets. 11
Why there's no other part we can
Stile Monarch o're this Isle of man :
JTis 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 vilhfle
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.
i.
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.
Poore
i o [ 12] Choice Drollery,
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.
Now
Songs and Sonnets. 13
1.
Now if thou'lt blaze thy armes He 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,
He swear that mine's a noble head.
I. [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,
He 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
Yet
H
Choice Drollery,
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 am dead,
I onely had a constant head.
i.
Yes faith, in that He 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,
i.
We mind our heads man all this time[J
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.
Son-
Songs and Sonnets. 15
WWs^^a^mSWKSS^S^.
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
i6
Choice Drollery\
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^ Jtnk
Song's and Sonnets. ly
ALDOBRANDINO, a fat Cardinal
N' Ever was humane soule so overgrown,
With an unreasonable Cargazon
Of flesh, as Aldobrandine^ whom to pack,
No girdle served lesse than the zodiack
So thick a Giant, that he now was come
To be accounted an eighth hill in Rome.
And as the leam'd Tostatus kept his age,
Writing for every day he hVd 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 f
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 m bed,
Larded with him, rather than married.
c Oft
i8
Choice Drollery}
Oft did he cry, but still in vain [,] to force
His fatnesse [J 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
Songs and Sonnets, 19
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 levelled in tough Cordage, teach
The mural Ram, and guide it to the Breach.
c 2
Jack
Choice Drollery%
Jack of Lenfs Ballai,
[On the welcoming of Queen Henrietta Maria, 1635].
I.
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.
But
Songs and Sonnets. 2
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 repalre
Either to Market or to Falre,
No sooner get their pots,
But straight they swear the time is come
That England must be over-run
Betwixt the French and Scots,
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,
A holy Sister having hemm'd
And blown her nose, will say she dreamed,
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.
C3
22
Choice Drollery,
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,
n.
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.
The
Songs and Sonnets. 21
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 Jameses 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.
c 4 Profess-
Choice Drollery',
16.
Professors of Astronomy,
That all the world knows, dare not lie
With the Mathematicians^
Prognosticate this Sonier shall
Bring with the pox the Devil and all,
To Surgeons and Physitians.
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 courts
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 cieare their throats,
For by some signes they do presage^
That this will prove a fidling age
Fit for men of their coats.
Songs and Sonnet\s\ 25
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 trr3 Recorder,
22,
For he*s the Citys Oracle,
And which youl think a Miracle3
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' thJ board
Cries Masters all hear me a word,
A bolt He onely shoot^
We shall have Executions store
Against some gallants now gone o're,
Wherefore good brethren look to't
The
Choice Drollery,
24.
The rascall Sergeants fleering stand,
Wishing their Charter reacht the Strand,
That they might there intrude \
But since they are not yet content,
1 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.
But
Songs and Sonnets. 2y
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 Parts 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,
From
Choice Drollery,
32.
From thence In order two by two
As we to Pauls are us'd to goe?
To tli3 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 Jbnas 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 Prance Is welcome hither,
3TIs merry when Graces meet together,
I pray keep on your way.
Songs and Sonnets, 29
36.
At the Exchange shall placed be,
In ugly shapes those sisters three
That give to each their fate,
And SpaMs 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,
Wei drink to all in Paris.
In
Choice Drollery\
40.
In Pauls Church-yard we breath may take,
For they such huge long speeches make,
Would tire any horse;
But there He 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-barre5
And there of her we leave will take5
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*
He be no more uncivilly
He leave the Mayor with both the Sheriffs^
With Sergeants, hanging at their sleeves,
For this time at the DevilL
Songs and Sonnets. 31
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 Hwas a man, but it was a woman
As plain report may see.
She first climbed 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 fore ward
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
32
Choice Drollery\
They cast up fleering eyes
All under-neath her cloaths?
But they could see no things
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 dildoj &c.
And as they ever danc?t
In faire or rainy weather?
I wish they may be hang?d i? th? rope of Lo\e,
And so be cut down together,
With a dado, &c.
Upon
Songs and Sonnets. 33
Upon a House of Office over a
River, set on fire by a
coaleof 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. p 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.
d They
Choice Drollery,
They'l say if I of thee should chant,
The matter smells, now out upon't;
But they shall have a fit of fie on7t.
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,* *Haut
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.
Songs and Sonnets.
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
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, &a
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.
D 2
36
Choice Drollery,
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
Songs and Sonnets.
The Phoenix In her perfumed flame,
Was so consum'd, and thou the same,
But the Aromaticks were to blame,
Which no body, &c.
That Phoenix is but one thing twice,
Thy Patron nobler then may rise,
For who can tell what he'l devise ?
Which no body, &c.
Diands 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,
JTis wholsome counsel to our friends,
Take heed of smoking at both ends,
Which no body can deny,
D 3
38
Choice Drollery,
Upon the Spanish Invasion
in Eighty eight.
i.
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.
Lishone, Cales and Portugall [Caks, i.e. Cadiz.]
Toledo and Grenada ;
They all did meet, & made a Fleet,
And calFd it their Armada.
3-
There dwelt a little man in Spam
That shot well in a gun a;
Don Pedro hight, as black a wight
As the Knight of the Sun a.
4.
Kmg 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.
He
Songs and Sonnets.
5-
He had thirty thousand of his own,
But to do us more harm a,
He charged 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,
D 4
40
Choice Drollery,
Upon the Gun-powder Plot,
i.
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 gunz-powder,
With a Oho7ie 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.
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.
And
Songs and Sonnets. 41
4.
And then came forth Sir Thomas Knyvet,
You filthy Rogue come out o? th' doore,
Or else I sweare by Gods trivet
He 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 preserved 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.
Other
4-2 Choice Drollery,
[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
Songs and Sonnets. 43
A pitiful Lamentation.
Y 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 ynches.
Ise take a rope and drowne my selfe,
Ere 1st indure these losses :
Ise take a hatchet and hang my selfe
Ere 1st indure these crosses.
Or else He go to some beacon high,
Made of some good dry'd furzon [,]
And there He seeme in love to fry
Sing hoodie a doodle Cuddon.
M
44
Choice Drollery,
A Woman with Child that de-
sired 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 answered her half in a laughter,
Quoth she the Son is proved a Daughter.
But be content, if God doth blesse the Baby,
She has a Pulpit where a Preacher may be.
The
Songs and Sonnets, 45
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.
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.
Quoth
Choice Drollery,
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 1... 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,
Aed 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.
She
Songs and Sonnets,
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.
48
Choice Drollery,
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
Songs and Sonnets. 49
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 yeai)
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 haiie,
As red as any Fox,
Our forefathers did still commend
The lovely golden locks.
Venus her self might comeller be,
Yet hath no such variety.
E I
So Choice Drollery,
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-
1 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 approved,
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,
He keep thy chaps on pap.
Venus her self &c.
Songs and Sonnets.
5i
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,
He 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.
111.] 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 smeller be, &c.
E 2 0,1
52
Choice Drollery.
On a TINKER.
HE that a Tinker, a Tinker, a Tinker will be,
Let him leave other Loves, and come fol-
low 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
s cummer,
Come bring me thy copper kettle,
For the Tinker, the Tinker, the merry merry Tinker
Oh, he's the man of mettle.
Upon
Songs and Sonnets, 53
Upon his Mistriss black
Eye-browes.
Hide, oh hide those lovely Browes,
Citpid 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 ;
E 3 So
Choice Drollery',
So pure a black could Phoebus 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 HelPs 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.
Songs and Sonnets. 55
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 iJ 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 :
E 4 S
56
Choice Drollery',
So may the new year crown the old yeares joy,
By giving us a Girle unto our Boy ;
F 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, isage
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
Songs and Sonnets. 57
The Western Husband-man'$
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
Choice Drollery\
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
I
Songs mid Sonnets. 59
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 ? P^e]
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
6o Choice Drollery,
The High-way marts 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
Songs and Sonnets. 6\
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
62 Choice Drollery,
Upon Mr. Fullers Booke,
called Pisgah-sight.
FUller of wish, than hope, methinks it is,
For
