JUDICIO. Fly[37] my rhymes as thick as flies in the sun; I think there be never an alehouse in England, not any so base a maypole on a country green, but sets forth some poet's petronels or demi-lances to the paper wars in Paul's Churchyard.
INGENIOSO. And well too may the issue of a strong hop learn to hop all over England, when as better wits sit, like lame cobblers, in their studies. Such barmy heads will always be working, when as sad vinegar wits sit souring at the bottom of a barrel; plain meteors, bred of the exhalation of tobacco and the vapours of a moist pot, that soar[38] up into the open air, when as sounder wit keeps below.
JUDICIO. Considering the furies of the times, I could better endure to see those young can-quaffing hucksters shoot off their pellets, so they would keep them from these English Flores poetarum; but now the world is come to that pass, that there starts up every day an old goose that sits hatching up those eggs which have been filched from the nest of crows and kestrels. Here is a book, Ingenioso; why, to condemn it to clear [fire,][39] the usual Tyburn of all misliving papers, were too fair a death for so foul an offender.
INGENIOSO.
What's the name of it, I pray thee, Judicio?
JUDICIO.
Look, it's here; "Belvidere."[40]
INGENIOSO. What, a bell-wether in Paul's Churchyard! so called because it keeps a bleating, or because it hath the tinkling bell of so many poets about the neck of it? What is the rest of the title?
JUDICIO. "The Garden of the Muses."
INGENIOSO. What have we here, the poet garish, gaily bedecked, like fore-horses of the parish? What follows?
JUDICIO. Quem, referent musae, vivet, dum robora tellus, Dum coelum stellas, dum vehit amnis aquas. Who blurs fair paper with foul bastard rhymes, Shall live full many an age in latter times: Who makes a ballad for an alehouse door, Shall live in future times for evermore: Then ( )[41] thy muse shall live so long, As drafty ballads to thy praise are sung. But what's his device? Parnassus with the sun and the laurel?[42] I wonder this owl dares look on the sun; and I marvel this goose flies not the laurel: his device might have been better, a fool going into the market-place to be seen, with this motto: Scribimus indocti; or, a poor beggar gleaning of ears in the end of harvest, with this word: Sua cuique gloria.
JUDICIO. Turn over the leaf, Ingenioso, and thou shalt see the pains of this worthy gentleman: Sentences, gathered out of all kind of poets, referred to certain methodical heads, profitable for the use of these times, to rhyme upon any occasion at a little warning. Read the names.