* * * * *
'Thence to Garestang, where are feeding
Heards with large fronts freely breeding;
Thence to Ingleforth I descended,
Where choice bull-calfs will be vended;
Thence to Burton's boundiers pass I,
Faire in flocks, in pastures grassie.
* * * * *
'Thence to Lonesdale, where were at it
Boys that scorn'd quart-ale by statute,
Till they stagger'd, stammer'd, stumbled,
Railed, reeled, rowled, tumbled,
Musing I should be so stranged,
I resolv'd them, I was changed.
'To the sinke of sin they drew me,
Where like Hogs in mire they tew me,
Or like Dogs unto their vomit,
But their purpose I o'recommed;
With shut eyes I flung in anger
From those Mates of death and danger.'
[B] (Old foxes are wary when far from home.)
[C] It seems a Mayor was granted subsequently.
On another journey he came to 'Kendall,' and there he did 'what men call spend all,' drinking 'thick and clammy ale,' and, passing on to Staveley, drank again all night. He might in those days have well deserved to be ear-marked for a 'drunken' vagabond, yet it is not fair to the memory of any man to brand him only and for ever with frolics and follies and evil deeds of which he afterwards repented, and would gladly have atoned for.
We, at all events, would prefer to think of Richard Braithwaite at his best, and not at his worst. He was the author of fully three score volumes of prose and poetry, in Latin and in English, essays, sonnets, madrigals. The titles of only a few can be quoted—'A Strappado for the Devil,' 'Love's Labyrinth,' 'Shepherd's Tales or Eclogues,' 'Nature's Embassie,' 'The English Gentleman,' 'The English Gentlewoman,' 'Whimsies, or a New Cast of Characters.' There is a good deal of telling satire in the last of these:
'An Almanack-maker is the most notorious knave pickt out of all these, for under colour of astrology he practices necromancy.'
'A Gamester—professes himself honest, and publishes himself Cheat upon discovery.