There came by chance to a good company, A lady, a wanton, and eke a merry. And though ev’ry word of her own show’d her light, Yet no man’s words _that_ to her might recite. She had all the words, which she babbled so fast, That they being weary, one said, at last, “Madam, you make my heart light as a ‘kix,’ To see you thus full of your _meretrix_.” This trick thus well trick’d out in good Latin phrase, Brought to this tricker neither muse nor mase. She nought perceiving was no whit offended, Nor her light behaviour no whit amended; But still her tongue was clapping like a patten. “Well,” said the said man, in language of Latin, “I never told woman any fault before, Nor never, in Latin, will tell them fault more.” It would be hard to say whether Queen Mary laughed or not, when “John, the King’s Jester,” either read to her the following epigram, or recounted the story, by way of joke; but it is worth quoting here, though not so much as a specimen of the royal favourite’s wit, as another proof that in the old pronunciation of the word _ache_, the latter had the _ch_ soft. OF THE LETTER H. H is worst among letters in all the cross row, For if thou find him either in thine elbow, In thine arm or leg, in any degree, In thy head or teeth, in thy toe or knee;-- Into what place soever H may pyke him, Wherever thou find _ache_ thou shalt not like him. Heywood has a few epigrams touching fools. The following will show that what Selden said of evil-speaking, in reference to James’s court fool, Stone, in courtly prose, had been uttered before him by Mary’s court wit in shambling verse. A FOOL’S TONGUE. Upon a fool’s provocation, A wise will not talk, But ev’ry light instigation, Will make a fool’s tongue walk. And again, on a fool whose foolish wit was called wisdom, Heywood said and sang:-- Wisdom and folly in thee (as men scan) Is, as it were, a thing by itself; fool, Among fools, thou art taken a wise man; And among wise men thou art known a fool. In the same strain is this quatrain:-- OF EARS AND WITS. Thin ears and thin wits be dainty; Thick ears and thick wits be plenty. Thick ears and thick wits be scant; Thin ears and thin wits none want. The following belongs to the satirist:-- OF THE WIFE’S AND HER HUSBAND’S WAIST. “Where am I least, husband?” Quoth he, “In the waist; Which cometh of this, thou art vengeable strait-laced.”-- “Where am _I_ biggest, wife?” “In the waist too,” quoth she, “For all is waste in you, as far as I can see.” Finally, here is a fling at farthingales, for which any modern epigrammatist might do what Pope effected for Donne, smooth the versification, and, in addition, turn the point against crinoline.