| |
| SIR, though—I thank God for it—I do hate | |
| Perfectly all this town, yet there’s one state | |
| In all ill things so excellently best, 1 | |
| That hate toward them breeds pity towards 2 the rest. | |
| Though poetry indeed be such a sin | 5 |
| As I think that brings dearth 3 and Spaniards in; | |
| Though like the pestilence and old-fashion’d love, | |
| Riddlingly it 4 catch men, and doth remove | |
| Never, till it be starved out, yet their state | |
| Is poor, disarm’d, like Papists, not worth hate. | 10 |
| One—like a wretch, which at bar judged as dead | |
| Yet prompts him, which stands next and cannot read, | |
| And saves his life—gives idiot actors means, | |
| Starving himself, to live by his labour’d scenes. | |
| As in some organ, puppets dance above | 15 |
| And bellows pant below, which them do move, | |
| One would move love by rhythms; 5 but witchcraft’s charms | |
| Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms. | |
| Rams and slings now are silly battery; | |
| Pistolets are the best artillery. | 20 |
| And they who write to lords, rewards to get, | |
| Are they not like singers at doors 6 for meat? | |
| And they who write, because all write, have still | |
| That excuse for writing, and for writing ill. | |
| But he is worst, who (beggarly) doth chaw | 25 |
| Others’ wits’ fruits, and in his ravenous maw | |
| Rankly digested, doth those things out-spew, | |
| As his own things; and they’re his own, ’tis true; | |
| For if one eat my meat, though it be known | |
| The meat was mine, th’ excrement is his own. | 30 |
| But these do me no harm, nor they which use | |
| To out-do ——, and out-usure Jews, | |
| To out-drink the sea, to out-swear the ——; 7 | |
| Who with sins of 8 all kinds as familiar be | |
| As confessors, and for whose sinful sake | 35 |
| School-men new tenements in hell must make; | |
| Whose strange sins canonists could hardly tell | |
| In which commandment’s large receipt they dwell; | |
| But these punish themselves. The insolence | |
| Of Coscus only breeds my just offence, 9 | 40 |
| Whom time—which rots all, and makes botches pox, | |
| And plodding on, must make a calf an ox— | |
| Hath made a lawyer; which was, 10 alas, of late | |
| But scarce a poet; jollier of this state, | |
| Than are new beneficed ministers, he throws, | 45 |
| Like nets or lime-twigs, wheresoe’er he goes, | |
| His title of barrister on every wench, | |
| And wooes in language of the pleas and bench. | |
| ‘A motion, lady’—speak Coscus—‘I have been | |
| In love e’er since tricesimo of the Queen, | 50 |
| Continual claims I’ve made, injunctions got, | |
| To stay my rival’s suit, that he should not | |
| Proceed.’—Spare me.—‘In Hilary term I went, | |
| You said, if I return’d next ’size in Lent, | |
| I should be in remitter of your grace; | 55 |
| In th’ interim my letters should take place | |
| Of affidavits.’ Words, words, which would tear | |
| The tender labyrinth of a soft maid’s 11 ear, | |
| More, more than ten Sclavonians scolding, 12 more | |
| Than when winds in our ruin’d abbeys roar. | 60 |
| When sick with poetry, and possess’d with Muse | |
| Thou wast, and mad, I hoped; but men, which choose | |
| Law-practice for mere gain, bold soul[s] 13 repute | |
| Worse than embrothell’d strumpets, prostitute. | |
| Now like an owl-like watchman, he must walk | 65 |
| His hand still at a bill, now he must talk | |
| Idly, like prisoners, which whole months will swear, | |
| The only suretyship hath brought them there, | |
| And to every suitor lie in everything, | |
| Like a king’s favourite, or like a king; 14 | 70 |
| Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar, | |
| Bearing like asses, and more shameless far | |
| Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for | |
| Bastardy ’bounds not in king’s titles, nor | |
| Simony and sodomy in churchmen’s lives, 15 | 75 |
| As these things do in him; by these he thrives. | |
| Shortly, as the sea, he’ll compass all the land, 16 | |
| From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand; | |
| And spying heirs melting with luxury, 17 | |
| Satan will not joy at their sins, as he. | 80 |
| For as a thrifty wench scrapes kitchen stuff, | |
| And barrelling the droppings, and the snuff | |
| Of wasting candles, which in thirty year | |
| (Relicly kept) 18 perchance buys wedding-gear; 19 | |
| Piecemeal he gets lands, and spends as much time | 85 |
| Wringing each acre, as men 20 pulling prime. | |
| In parchment then, large as his fields, 21 he draws | |
| Assurances, big as gloss’d civil laws, | |
| So huge, that men, in our time’s forwardness, | |
| Are Fathers of the church for writing less. | 90 |
| These he writes not, nor for these written 22 pays; | |
| Therefore spares no length—as in those first days | |
| When Luther was profess’d, he did desire | |
| Short paternosters, saying as a friar | |
| Each day his beads, but having left those laws, | 95 |
| Adds to Christ’s prayer the Power and Glory clause. | |
| But when he sells or changes land, he impairs | |
| His writings, and, unwatch’d, leaves out, ses heires, | |
| As slyly as any commenter goes by | |
| Hard words, or sense; or, in divinity, | 100 |
| As controverters in vouch’d texts leave out | |
| Shrewd words, which might against them clear the doubt. | |
| Where are those spread woods which clothed heretofore | |
| Those bought lands? not built, nor burnt within door. | |
| Where the old landlord’s troops, and alms? In halls 23 | 105 |
| Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals | |
| Equally I hate. Mean’s blest; 24 in rich men’s homes | |
| I bid kill some beasts, but no hecatombs; | |
| None starve, none surfeit so. But oh, we allow | |
| Good works, as good, but out of fashion now, | 110 |
| Like old rich wardrobes. But my words none draws | |
| Within the vast reach of th’ huge statute’s jaws. 25 | |
