Of speaking well why doe we learne the skill,
Hoping thereby honour and wealth to gaine;
Sith rayling Castor doth, by speaking ill,
Opinion of much wit and gold obtaine?
In Septimium. 35.
Septimus liues, and is like garlick seene,
For though his head be white, his blade is greene:
This old mad coult deserves a Martyr's praise,
For he was burnèd in Queene Marie's daies.
Of Tobacco. 36.
Homer, of Moly and Nepenthe sings:
Moly, the gods' most soueraigne hearb diuine,
Nepenthe, Heauen's[89] drinke, most[90] gladnesse brings,
Heart's griefe expells, and doth the wits refine.
But this our age another world hath found,
From whence an hearb of heauenly power is brought;
Moly is not so soueraigne for a wound,
Nor hath Nepenthe so great wonders wrought:[91]
It is Tobacco, whose sweet substantiall[92] fume
The hellish torment of the teeth doth ease,
By drawing downe, and drying up the rheume,
The mother and the nurse of each disease:
It is Tobacco, which doth cold expell,
And cleares the obstructions of the arteries,
And surfeits, threatning death, dijesteth well,
Decocting all the stomack's crudities:
It is Tobacco, which hath power to clarifie
The cloudy mists before dimme eyes appearing:
It is Tobacco, which hath power to rarifie
The thick grosse humour which doth stop the hearing;
The wasting hectick, and the quartaine feuer,
Which doth of Physick make a mockery;
The gout it cures, and helps ill breaths for euer,
Whether the cause in teeth or stomack be;
And though ill breaths were by it but confounded,
Yet that vile medicine it doth farre excell,
Which by Sir Thomas Moore[93] hath beene propounded:
For this is thought a gentleman-like smell.
O, that I were one of those Mountebankes,
Which praise their oyles and powders which they sell!
My customers would giue me coyne with thanks;
I for this ware, for sooth[94] a tale would tell:
Yet would I use none of these tearmes before;
I would but say, that it the Pox will cure:
This were enough, without discoursing more,
All our braue gallants in the towne t'allure,
In Crassum. 37.
Crassus his lyes,[95] are not pernicious lyes,
But pleasant fictions, hurtfull unto none
But to himselfe; for no man counts him wise
To tell for truth that which for false is knowne.
He sweares that Gaunt is three score miles about,
And that the bridge at Paris on the Seyn
Is of such thicknesse, length and breadth throughout,
That sixe score Arches can it scarce sustaine;
He sweares he saw so great a dead man's scull
At Canterbury, dig'd out of the ground,
That would containe of wheat three bushels full;
And that in Kent are twenty yeomen found,
Of which the poorest euery yeare dispends,
Fiue thousand pounds: these and fiue thousand mo,
So oft he hath recited to his friends,
That now himselfe perswades himselfe 'tis so.
But why doth Crassus tell his lyes so rife,
Of Bridges, Townes, and things that haue no life?
He is a Lawyer, and doth well espie,
That for such lyes an Action will not lye.
In Philonem. 38.
Philo the Lawyer[96] and the Fortune-teller;
The Schoole-master, the Midwife, and the Bawd,
The conjurer, the buyer, and the seller
Of painting, which with breathing will be thaw'd,
Doth practise Physicke; and his credit growes,
As doth the Ballad-singer's auditory,[97]
Which hath at Temple-barre his standing chose,
And to the vulgar sings an Ale-house story:
First stands a Porter; then an Oyster-wife
Doth stint her cry, and stay her steps to heare him;
Then comes a Cut-purse ready with a[98] knife,
And then a Countrey clyent passeth neare him;
There stands the Constable, there stands the whore,
And, listening[99] to the song, heed[100] not each other;
There by the Serjeant stands the debitor,[101]
And doth no more mistrust him then his brother:
Thus Orpheus to such hearers giueth musick,
And Philo to such patients giueth physick.