If thou wilt deale soberlie without scoffes, thou
shalt be answered grauely without iests, yea and of
those, whom thou canst not controll for learning,
nor accuse for ill life, nor shouldst contemne for
authori[ti]e. But if like a restie Iade thou wilt take
the bitt in thy mouth, and then runne ouer hedge
and ditch, thou shalt be brok[=e] as Prosper broke his
horses, with a muzroule, portmouth, and a martingall,
and so haue thy head runne against a stone wall.
If thou refuse learning, and sticke to libelling; if
nothing come out of those lauish lips, but taunts not
without bitternesse, yet without wit; rayling not without
spite, yet without cause, then giue me thy hand,
thou and I will trie it out at the cuckingstoole. Ile
make thee to forget Bishops English, and weep Irish;
next hanging, there is no better reuenge on Martin
than to make him crie for anger; for there is no
more sullen beast than a he drab. Ile make him
pull his powting croscloath ouer his beetle browes for
melancholie, and then my next booke shall be Martin
in his mubble fubbles.
* * * * *
Here I was writing _Finis_ and _Funis_, and determined
to lay it by, till I might see more knauerie filde
in: within a while appeared olde Martin with a wit worn
into the socket, twinkling and pinking like the snuffe
of a candle; _quantum mutatus ab illo_, how vnlike the
knaue hee was before, not for malice but for sharpnesse.
The hogshead was euen come to the hauncing,
and nothing could be drawne from him but dregs:
yet the emptie caske sounds lowder than when it was
ful; and protests more in his waining, than he could
performe in his waxing. I drew neere the sillie soule,
whom I found quiuering in two sheetes of protestation
paper. O how meager and leane hee lookt, so creast
falne, that his combe hung downe to his bill, and
had I not been sure it was the picture of enuie, I
shoulde haue sworne it had been the image of death,
so like the verie Anatomie of mischiefe, that one
might see through all the ribbes of his conscience, I
began to crosse my selfe, and was readie to say the
_Pater noster_, but that I knewe he carde not for it,
and so vsed no other wordes, but _abi in malam
crucem_, because I knewe, that lookt for him. I came
so neere, that I could feele a substantiall knaue from
a sprites shadowe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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