Said, that I thought Calepine's Dictionary.
Nay, but of men? Most sweet Sir! Beza, then
Some Jesuits, and two reverend men
Of our two academies, I nam'd. Here
He stopt me, and said; Nay, your apostles were
Good pretty linguists; so Panurgus was,
Yet a poor gentleman; all these may pass
By travel. Then, as if he would have sold
His tongue, he prais'd it, and such wonders told,
That I was fain to say, If you had liv'd, Sir,
Time enough to have been interpreter
To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.
He adds, If of court-life you knew the good,
You would leave loneness. I said, Not alone
My loneness is, but Spartan's fashion,
To teach by painting drunkards, doth not last
Now; Aretine's pictures have made few chaste;
No more can princes' courts, though there be few
Better pictures of vice, teach me virtue.
He, like to a high-stretch'd lute-string, squeakt, O, Sir!
'Tis sweet to talk of kings! At Westminster,
Said I, the man that keeps the Abbey-tombs,
And for his price doth, with who ever comes,
Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,
From king to king, and all their kin can walk:
Your ears shall hear naught but kings; your eyes meet
Kings only; the way to it is King's street.
He smack'd, and cry'd, He's base, mechanic coarse;
So're all our Englishmen in their discourse.
Are not your Frenchmen neat? Mine, eyes you see,
I have but one, Sir; look, he follows me.
Certes, they're neatly cloth'd. I of this mind am,
Your only wearing is your grogaram.
Not so, Sir; I have more. Under this pitch
He would not fly. I chaf'd him; but as itch
Scratch'd into smart, and as blunt iron ground
Into an edge, hurts worse; so I (fool!) found
Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness,
He to another key his style doth dress,
And asks, What news? I tell him of new plays:
He takes my hand, and, as a still which stays
A semibrief 'twixt each drop, he niggardly
As loth to enrich me, so tells many a lie,
More than ten Hollensheads, or Halls, or Stows,
Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows
When the queen frown'd or smil'd; and he knows what
A subtile statesman may gather of that:
He knows who loves whom, and who by poison
Hastes to an office's reversion;
He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg
A license old iron, boots, shoes, and egg-
Shells to transport. Shortly boys shall not play
At span-counter, or blow-point, but shall play
Toll to some courtier; and, wiser than us all,
He knows what lady is not painted. Thus
He with home-meats cloys me. I belch, spue, spit,
Look pale and sickly, like a patient, yet
He thrusts on more; and as he had undertook
To say Gallo-Belgicus without book,
Speaks of all states and deeds that have been since
The Spaniards came to th' loss of Amyens.
Like a big wife, at sight of loathed meat,
Ready to travail, so I sigh and sweat
To hear this makaron[165] talk in vain; for yet,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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