THOMAS JONCE.
The name of this man, (Jones,) which Corbet, for the sake of the rhyme, has corrupted, sufficiently denotes his extraction; and I would have ascertained the time of his death, but the register was not to be found upon application for that purpose.
Antony à Wood says, in his History of the City of Oxford, “Thomas Jonce, a clergyman and inhabitant of this place, (St. Giles’s parish, Oxford,) desiring here to lay his bones, was of note sufficient to excite bishop Corbet to write an epitaph on him.”
‘Say’st thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?’
AN EPITAPH
ON
THOMAS JONCE.
Here, for the nonce,
Came Thomas Jonce,
In St. Giles church to lye.
None Welsh before,
None Welshman more,
Till Shon Clerk die.
I’ll tole the bell,
I’ll ring his knell;
He died well,
He’s sav’d from hell;
And so farwel
Tom Jonce.
TO THE
LADYES OF THE NEW DRESSE,
THAT WEARE THEIR GORGETS AND RAYLES DOWNE TO THEIR WASTES.
Ladyes, that weare black cipress-vailes
Turn’d lately to white linnen-rayles,
And to your girdle weare your bands,
And shew your armes instead of hands;
What can you doe in Lent so meet
As, fittest dress, to weare a sheet?
’Twas once a band, ’tis now a cloake,
An acorne one day proves an oke:
Weare but your linnen to your feet,
And then your band will prove a sheet.
By which devise, and wise excesse,
You’l doe your penance in a dresse;
And none shall know, by what they see,
Which lady’s censur’d, and which free.