And though there lie _Writs_ from the _Courts Paramount_, To stay the proceedings of _Courts Paravaile_; _Law_ favours it so, you may come, you may go, There lies no _Prohibition_ to a _pot of good ale_. They talk much of _State_, both early and late, But if _Gascoign_ and _Spain_ their _Wine_ should but faile, No remedy then, with us _Englishmen_, But the _State_ it must stand by a _pot of good ale_. And they that sit by it are good men and quiet, No dangerous _Plotters_ in the Common-weale Of _Treason_ and _Murder_: For they never go further Than to call for, and pay for a _pot of good ale_. To the praise of GAMBRIVIUS that good _Brittish King_ That devis’d for his Nation (by the _Welshmen’s_ tale) Seventeen hundred years before CHRIST did spring, The happy invention of a _pot of good ale_. The _North_ they will praise it, and praise with passion, Where every _River_ gives name to a _Dale_: There men are yet living that are of th’ old fashion, No _Nectar_ they know but a _pot of good ale_. The PICTS and the SCOTS for ALE were at lots, So high was the skill, and so kept under seale; The PICTS were undone, slain each mothers son, For not teaching the SCOTS to make _Hether Eale_. But hither or thither, it skils not much whether: For Drink must be had, men live not by _Keale_, Not by _Havor-bannocks_ nor by _Havor-jannocks_, The thing the SCOTS live on is a _pot of good ale_. Now, if ye will say it, I will not denay it, That many a man it brings to his bale: Yet what fairer end can one wish to his Friend, Th an to dye by the part of a _pot of good ale_. Yet let not the innocent bear any blame, It is their own doings to break o’re the pale: And neither the _Malt_, nor the good wife in fault, If any be potted with a _pot of good ale_. They tell whom it kills, but say not a word, How many a man liveth both sound and hale, Though he drink no _Beer_ any day in the year, By the _Radical humour_ of a _pot of good ale_. But to speak of _Killing_, that am I not willing, For that in a manner were but to raile: But _Beer_ hath its name, ’cause it brings to the _Biere_, Therefore well-fare, say I, to a _pot of good ale_. Too many (I wis) with their deaths proved this, And, therefore (if ancient Records do not faile), He that first brew’d the _Hop_ was rewarded with a _rope_, And found his _Beer_ far more _bitter_ than ALE. O ALE[!] _ab alendo_, the _Liquor_ of LIFE, That I had but a mouth as big as a _Whale_! For mine is too little to touch the least tittle That belongs to the praise of a _pot of good ale_. Thus (I trow) some _Vertues_ I have mark’d you out, And never a _Vice_ in all this long traile, But that after the _Pot_ there cometh the _Shot_, And that’s th’ onely _blot_ of a _pot of good ale_.—