In the end hee settled upon this course, where hee had hope of preferrement, and become one of those things that An Elder. any Iudas might hange himselfe upon, that is an Elder.
Hee had bin a man of some recconing in his time, (as himselfe would boast,) for hee was an officer, just under the Exchequer at Westminster, in a place called Phlegeton: there hee was comptroller, and conversed with noe plebeians, I tell you, but such as have angels or their attendance, (I meane some Lawyers with appertenances, that is, Clarks,) with whome a Iugg of Beare and a crusty rolle in the terme is as currant as a three penny scute at Hall time.
[{166}] There is another place thereby, called sticks: these are two daingerous places, by which the infernall gods doe sweare: but this of Sticks is the more daingerous of the two, because there, (if a man be once in,) hee cannot tell how to get out againe handsomely.
I knew an under sheriff was in unawaires, and hee laboured to be free of it: yet hee broake his back before he got so farre as quietus est: There is no such danger in Phlegeton, where this man of so much recconing was comptroller.
Iosua displeased.
Hee being here, waited an opportunity to be made a gentl. and now it fell out that a gentl. newly come into the land of Canaan, (before hee knew what ground hee stood upon,) had incurred the displeasure of great Iosua so highly that hee must therefore be digraded.
No reconciliation could be had for him: all hopes were past for that matter: Where upon this man of much recconing (pretending a graunt of the approach in avoydance,) helpes the lame dogge over the stile, and was as jocund on the matter as a Magpie over a Mutton.
Wherefore the Heralls, with Drums, and Trumpets, proclaiming in a very solemne manner that it was the pleasure of Master Temperwell. great Iosua, (for divers and sundry very good causes and considerations, Master Temperwell thereunto especially mooving,) to take away the title, prerogative and preheminence of the Delinquent, so unworthy of it, and to place the same upon a Professor of more recconing: so that it was made [{167}] a penall thing for any man after to lifte the same man againe on the top of that stile, but that hee should stand perpetually digraded from that prerogative. And the place by this meanes being voyde, this man, of so much more reckoning, was receaved in like a Cypher to fill up a roome, and was made a Gentleman of the first head; and his Coate of Armes, blazon’d and tricked out fit for that purpose, in this Poem following.
THE POEM.
What ailes Pigmalion? Is it Lunacy;