Poore simple men! for what mought that availe,
That my field might not fill my neighbour's payle;
More than a pilled stick can stand in stead,
To bar Cynedo from his neighbour's bed;
More than the thread-bare client's poverty
Debars th' attorney of his wonted fee?
If they were thriftlesse, mote not we amend,
And with more care our dangered fields defend?
Each man can guard what thing he deemeth deare,
As fearful merchants do their female heir:
Which, were it not for promise of their wealth,
Need not be stalled up for fear of stealth;
Would rather stick upon the bell-man's cries,
Tho' profer'd for a branded Indian's price.
Then raise we muddy bulwarks on our banks,
Beset around with treble quick-set ranks;
Or, if those walls be over weak a ward,
The squared bricke may be a better guard.
Go to, my thrifty yeoman, and upreare
A brazen wall to shend thy land from feare.
Do so; and I shall praise thee all the while,
So be thou stake not up the common style;
So be thou hedge in nought but what's thine
So be thou pay what tithes thy neighbour's done ;
So be thou let not lie in fallow'd plaine
That, which was wont yield usury of graine.
But, when I see thy pitched stakes do stand
On thy incroached piece of common land,
Whiles thou discommonest thy neighbour's kyne,
And warn'st that none feed on thy field save thine
Brag no more, Scrobius, of thy mudded bankes,
Nor thy deep ditches, nor three quickset rankes.
O happy dayes of old Deucalion,
When one was landlord of the world alone!
But, now, whose choler would not rise to yield
A pesant halfe-stakes of his new-mown field,
Whiles yet he may not for the treble price
Buy out the remnant of his royalties ?
Go on and thrive, my petty tyrant's pride:
Scorne thou to live, if others live beside;
And trace proud Castile that aspires to be
In his old age a young fift monarchie :
Or the red hat, that tries the lucklesse mayne,
For wealthy Thames to change his lowly Rhene.
POSSUNT, QUIA POSSE VIDENTUR.
VILLIUS, the wealthy farmer, left his heire
Twice twenty sterling pounds to spend by yeare.
The neighbours praisen Villio's hide-bound sonne,
And say it was a goodly portion :
Not knowing how some merchant's dow'r can rise
By Sunday's tale to fifty centuries;
Or to weigh downe a leaden bride with gold,
Worth all that Matho bought, or Pontice sold.
But whiles ten pound goes to his wife's new gowne,
Nor little lesse can serve to sute his owne;
Whiles one piece pays her idle waiting-man,
Or buys a hoode, or silver-handled fanne,1
"It should be remembered," says Isaac Reed, "that fans, in our author's time, were more costly than they are at present, as well as of a different construction. They consisted of ostrich
Or hires a Friezeland trotter, halfe yard deepe,
To drag his tumbrell through the staring Cheape;
Or whiles he rideth with two liveries,
And's treble rated at the subsidies;
One end a kennel keeps of thriftlesse hounds;
What think ye rests of all my younker's pounds
To diet him, or deal out at his doore,
To coffer up, or stocke his wasting store?
If then I reckon'd right, it should appeare
That forty pounds serve not the farmer's heire.
feathers (or others of equal length and flexibility), which were stuck into handles. The richer sort of these were composed of gold, silver, or ivory, of curious workmanship. One of them is mentioned in the Heire, Com. 1610: '- she hath a fan with a short silver handle, about the length of a barber's syringe.' Again, in Love and Honour, by Sir Wm. D'Avenant, 1649: All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of your old prisoner's fan. Again, in Marston's III. Satyre, edit. 1598:
'How can he keepe a lazie waiting man,
And buy a hoode, and silver-handled fan
With fortie pound ?'"-SHAKSPEARE, vol, v. p. 79.
LABEO reserves a long naile for the nonce,
To wound my margent thro' ten leaves at once
Much worse than Aristarchus 1 his blacke pile,
That pierc'd old Homer's side:
And makes such faces that me seems I see
Some foul Megara in the tragedy,
Threat'ning her twined snakes at Tantale's ghost;
Or the grim visage of some frowning post,
The crab-tree porter of the Guild-Hall gates,
While he his frightful beetle elevates,
His angry eyne look all so glaring bright,
Like th' hunted badger in a moonlesse night,
Or like a painted staring Saracen :
His cheeks change hue like the air-fed vermin's skin,
Now red, now pale; and swol'n above his eyes,
Like to the old Colossian imageries.
But, when he doth of my recanting heare,
Away, ye angry fires, and frosts of feare :
Give place unto his hopeful temper'd thought,
That yields to peace, ere ever peace be sought.
1 Cic. Orat. in Pisonem. c. 30.- Hors. Ars. Poet. 446.-Ausonius, Lud. Sept. Sap. p. 265.
Then let me now repent me of my rage,
For writing Satires, in so righteous age:
Whereas I should have stroak'd her tow'rdly head,
And cry'd EVEE in my Satires stead,
Sith now not one of thousand does amisse.
Was never age I weene so pure as this.
As pure as old Labulla from the baynes,
As pure as through-fare channels when it raines;
As pure as is a black-moor's face by night,
As dung-clad skin of dying Heraclite.
Seeke over all the world, and tell me where
Thou find'st a proud man, or a flatterer ;
A thief, a drunkard, or a paricide,
A lecher, liar, or what vice beside ?
Merchants are no whit covetous of late,
Nor make no mart of time, gain of deceit.
Patrons are honest now, ore they of old :
Can now no benefice be bought or sold?
Give him a gelding, or some two yeares' tithe,
For he all bribes and simony defy'the.
Is not one pick-thank stirring in the court,
That seld was free till now, by all report.
But some one, like a claw-back parasite,
Pick'd mothes from his master's cloake in sight;
Whiles he could pick out both his eyes for need,
Mought they but stand him in some better stead.
Nor now no more smell-feast Vitellio
Smiles on his master for a meal or two;
And loves him in his maw, loaths in his heart,
Yet soothes, and yeas and nays on either part.
Tattelius, the new-come traveller,1
With his disguised coate and ringed eare,
1 See Marston, Robert Hayman's Epigrams, Warton, &c.
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