To the Reader.

Courteous Reader—for to such I write—

With native candour view this chequer'd white,

Be truly candid to a candidate

Whom importunings force to antedate

The travails of his quill, and, like a grape

Ere ripened, press it. Yet if I escape

The censure of these times, this critic age,

My muse (like parrots) in a wire cage

Shall not do penance; but I'll not promise it,

10'Cause 't doth too much o' th' lips of greatness sit.

And 'tis a fault for me to sympathize,

I bring no antic mask in strange disguise,

No sharp invective, nor no comic mirth

Which may to laughter give an easy birth.

Though 'tis in use with them that seek to please

These humorous times (it being a disease

Half epidemical to keep a phrase

Or fancy at stave's end; nought merits praise

Unless with quibbles every staff does end—

20Conceited jests which unto lightness tend)

Though every page swells with ingenuous plots,

Yet, cry our carps, the authors are but sots.

An elbow-pillow or a motley coat

With them are now the chiefest men of note.

But I nor am, nor hope that name to gain

Of pantomimic: yet did nature deign

The optic-glass of humours to descry

Each man's rank humour only by the eye,

I would have tun'd my muse, that every page

30Might swell with humours suiting to this age;

This leaf should talk of love and that of state,

This of alarums, that of wonders prate,

This of knights errant, of enchantment that,

This to the itching ears of novels chat.

But ... since my starv'd Fortunes missed that, I have drawn

A picture shadowed o'er with double lawn,

Lest some quick Lyncist with a piercing eye,

Should the young footsteps of a truth espy,

Yet something, I confess, was born of late

40Which makes me age it with an ancient date,

But let no antic-hunter post to Stow,

To trace out truth upon his even snow.

Annals are dumb of such and such a lord,

Nor of our amorous pair speak half a word,

Monastic writs do not Bellama limn,

Nor abbey-rolls do teem a line of him,

This story has no sires (as 'tis the use)

But weak invention and a feeble muse.

These are the parents that abortive birth

50Give to this embryon of desired mirth,

Which in the author's name does humbly crave

A charitable censure or a grave.

The purest-bolted flour that is has bran,

Venus her naeve, Helen her stain, nor can

I think these lines are censure-free, impal'd

By th' muses and 'gainst envy's javelins mail'd.

Yet where the faults but whisper, use thy pen

With the quod non vis of the heathen men;

And, if the crimes do in loud echoes speak,

60Thy sponge; but not with lashing satires break

That sacred bond of friendship, for 't may be

I may hereafter do as much for thee.

Nor do thou think to trample on my muse;

Nor in thy lofty third-air braves accuse

My breast of faintness, or the ballad-whine.

For know my heart is full as big as thine,

And as pure fire heats my octavo bulk

As the grand-folio, or the Reamish hulk,

If but oppos'd with envy, but unless

70I truly am what these few words express.

Thy ready friend,

N. W.

22 'carp' for 'carper' seems to be much rarer than for 'carping'. Cf. In Insonio, 218.

41 Stow] The famous antiquary had been dead long enough (since 1605) to 'become a name'.

55 'impal'd', orig. 'impalde', is clearly 'paled-in', 'palisaded',' fortified'.

64 third-air] = 'third hand', or what?

68 Reamish] 'N. W.'s' Protestantism would naturally have a fling at anything connected with Rheims.

To the right virtuous and equally beautiful, Sra Inconstanza Bellarizza.

Fairest,

When, by much gazing on those glittering beams

Which (if unmask'd) from day's bright henchman streams,

The Rascians eyes do gain the curse of years,

The loadstone's swarfy hue their tapers clears.

When unicorns have gluts or surfeits ta'en

By browsing liquorice, they to regain

Their stomachs and a cure crash bitter grass.

I leave the application: 'tis a glass

Wherein the dimmest eye may plainly see

10What's due to me from you, to you from me.

But—I'll only tell the world that for your sake,

My willing muse this task did undertake

At hours of recreation, when a thought

Of your choice worth this and this fancy brought.

Some to the bar will call the truth hereof,

Some wonder why, some pass it by, some scoff.

Because, in this full harvest of your sex,

I 'mongst such thousands glean your name t'annex

Unto, and usher in, these wanton verses,

20Some will be apt to think my pen rehearses

Love passions 'twixt yourself and some choice he

(The world I know will not suspect 'tis me)

And that I age it lest quick eyes should see.

But in this thought I'm silent; thoughts are free.

Indeed your worth doth just proportion hold

With this high worth which of Bellama's told.

And well my knowledge can inform my pen

To raise a spite in women, love in men.

And if the Fates befriend me that my thread

30Outmeasures yours (your worth asleep, not dead,

For such worth cannot die) I then will say

You equall'd her and was—(but, truth, away).

If these dull melancholy, grief, or sleep,

From any prone thereto at distance keep;

Let unto you their tribute thanks be paid

For my invention by your worth was ray'd,

My fancy rais'd, enliv'ned, and inspir'd,

That my quick muse my agile hand has tir'd,

Nay, more, methinks I might unchidden call

40You subject-object of this poem all;

And all in this acknowledgement may trim

You pros'd this poem but 'twas vers'd by him

Who styles himself your servant,

N. W.

To Sra Inconstanza Bellarizza.] Who she was is a question much less answerable than 'Whose Song the Sirens sang?'

3 seq. 'Unnatural History' was getting past its greatest vogue, and only eight years later Pseudodoxia Epidemica was to deal it blows all the more deadly because not unsympathetic. But it was still popular, and a grand set-off to many poetic 'Rascians'. Whiting is here pilfering from Greene's Pandosto; a passage in the dedication runs, 'The Rascians (right honourable) when by long gazing against the sun, they become half-blind, recover their sights by looking at the black load-stone. Unicorns, being glutted, by browsing on roots of liquorice, sharpen their stomachs with crashing bitter grass'.

4 'swarfy' = swarthy.

7 That 'bitter' would be grateful to others besides unicorns after a surfeit of liquorice may be easily admitted. 'Crash' for 'crush' or 'crunch' in this sense is good.

11 The book is badly printed—in hardly any of my texts have I had to alter more trivial misspellings. Here intelligent 'setting' would of course have made 'But' a separate line or fragment of line.

23 age it] = 'throw it back in date'.

42 Not bad for 'You gave the subject' &c.