Nor can I crouch, and writhe my fawning tayle,
To some great Patron for my best avayle.
Such hunger-starven trencher-poetrie,
Or let it never live, or timely die.
He frequently avows his admiration of Spenser, whose cotemporary he was. His first book, consisting of nine satires, appears in a manner entirely levelled at low and abject poetasters. Several satires of the second book reprehend the contempt of the rich, for men of science and genius. We shall transcribe the sixth, being short, and void of all obscurity.
A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chaplaine;
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young maister lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twise.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe raise and wait.
Last, that he never his young maister beat,
But he must ask his mother to define,
How manie jerkes she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented bee,
To give five markes and winter liverie.
The seventh and last of this book is a very just and humorous satire against judicial astrology, which was probably in as high credit then, as witchcraft was in the succeeding reign.
The first satire of the third book is a strong contrast of the temperance and simplicity of former ages, with the luxury and effeminacy of his own tines, which a reflecting reader would be apt to think no better than the present. We find the good bishop supposes our ancestors as poorly fed as Virgil's and Horace's rustics. He says, with sufficient energy,
Thy grandsire's words favour'd of thrifty leekes,
Or manly garlicke; but thy furnace reekes
Hot steams of wine; and can a-loose descrie
The drunken draughts of sweet autumnitie.
The second is a short satire on erecting stately monuments to worthless men. The following advice is nobly moral, the subsequent sarcasm just and well expressed.
Thy monument make thou thy living deeds;
No other tomb than that true virtue needs.
What! had he nought whereby he might be knowne
But costly pilements of some curious stone?
The matter nature's, and the workman's frame;
His purse's cost: where then is Osmond's name?
Deserv'dst thou ill? well were thy name and thee,
Wert thou inditched in great secrecie.
The third gives an account of a citizen's feast, to which he was invited, as he says,
With hollow words, and [2] overly request.