Chapter XVIII: Epilogue: To the (2)

And now, kinsmen and friends, wind about me; my breath
begins to cool, and all my powers to freeze; and I can
say no more to you, nephews, than I have said,—only
this, I leave you all, like ratsbane, to poison the
realm. And, I pray, be all of you as arrant villains as
you can be; and so farewell: be all hanged, and come
down to me as soon as you can.

This said, he departed to his molten kingdom: the wind
risse,[700] the bottom of the chair flew out, the
scrivener fell flat upon his nose; and here is the end
of a harmless moral.

----------

Now, sir, what is your censure[701] now? you have read
me, I am sure; am I black enough, think you, dressed up
in a lasting suit of ink? do I deserve my dark and
pitchy title? stick I close enough to a villain’s ribs?
is not Lucifer liberal to his nephews in this his last
will and testament? Methinks I hear you say nothing; and
therefore I know you are pleased and agree to all, for
_qui tacet, consentire videtur_; and I allow you wise
and truly judicious, because you keep your censure to
yourself.

FATHER HUBBURD’S TALES;

OR,

THE ANT AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

_Father Hubburds Tales: or The Ant, and the Nightingale.
London Printed by T. C. for William Cotton, and are to
be solde at his Shop neare adioyning to Ludgate._ 1604.
4to.

The first edition of this tract, in which several verses
and the whole of “The Ant’s Tale when he was a scholar”
are omitted, made its appearance during the same year in
4to, entitled _The Ant and the Nightingale: or Father
Hubburds Tales. London Printed by T. C. for Tho:
Bushell, and are to be solde by Jeffrey Chorlton, at his
Shop at the North doore of Paules._ Mr. J. P. Collier
(_Bridgewater-House Catalogue_, p. 199) mentions it as
the _second_ edition; but a careful examination of both
the impressions has convinced me that it is the _first_.

Taylor, the water-poet, in a “Preamble” to _The Praise
of Hempseed_ (first printed in 1620), thus alludes to
the present piece;

“One wrote the Nightingale and lab’ring Ant.”
P. 62—_Workes_, 1630.

_To the true general patron of all Muses, Musicians,
Poets, and Picture-drawers_, SIR CHRISTOPHER
CLUTCHFIST, _knighted at a very hard pennyworth,
neither for eating musk-melons, anchovies, or
caviare, but for a costlier exploit and a
hundred-pound feat of arms_, OLIVER HUBBURD,
_brother to the nine waiting-gentlewomen the Muses,
wisheth the decrease of his lands and the increase
of his legs, that his calves may hang down like
gamashoes_.[702]

Most guerdonless sir, pinching patron, and the Muses’
bad paymaster, thou that owest for all the pamphlets,
histories, and translations that ever have[703] been
dedicated to thee since thou wert one and twenty, and
couldst make water upon thine own lands: but beware,
sir, you cannot carry it away so, I can tell you, for
all your copper-gilt spurs and your brood of feathers;
for there are certain line-sharkers that have coursed
the countries to seek you out already, and they nothing
doubt but to find you here this Candlemas-term; which,
if it should fall out so—as I hope your worship is wiser
than to venture up so soon to the chambers of London—
they have plotted together with the best common
play-plotter in England to arrest you at the Muses’
suit—though they shoot short of them—and to set one of
the sergeants of poetry, or rather the Poultry,[704] to
claw you by the back, who, with one clap on your
shoulder, will bruise all the taffeta to pieces.
Now what the matter is between you, you know best
yourself, sir; only I hear that they rail against you in
booksellers’ shops very dreadfully, that you have used
them most unknightly, in offering to take their books,
and would never return so much as would pay for the
covers, beside the gilding too, which stands them in
somewhat, you know, and a yard and a quarter of broad
sixpenny ribband; the price of that you are not ignorant
of yourself, because you wear broad shoe-string; and
they cannot be persuaded but that you pull the strings
off from their books, and so maintain your shoes all the
year long; and think, verily, if the book be in folio,
that you take off the parchment, and give it to your
tailor, but save all the gilding together, which may
amount in time to gild you a pair of spurs withal. Such
are the miserable conceits they gather of you, because
you never give the poor Muse-suckers a penny: wherefore,
if I might counsel you, sir, the next time they came
with their gilded dedications, you should take the
books, make your men break their pates, then give them
ten groats a-piece, and so drive them away.

Your worship’s,

If you embrace my counsel,

OLIVER HUBBURD.

TO THE READER.

----------

Shall I tell you what, reader?—but first I should call
you gentle, courteous, and wise; but ’tis no matter,
they’re but foolish words of course, and better left
out than printed; for if you be so, you need not be
called so; and if you be not so, there were law
against me for calling you out of your names:—by John
of Paul’s-churchyard,[705] I swear, and that oath will
be taken at any haberdasher’s, I never wished this
book better fortune than to fall into the hands of a
true-spelling printer, and an honest-minded[706]
bookseller; and if honesty could be sold by the bushel
like oysters, I had rather have one Bushel[707] of
honesty than three of money.

Why I call these _Father Hubburd’s Tales_, is not to
have them called in again, as the _Tale of Mother
Hubburd_:[708] the world would shew little judgment in
that, i’faith; and I should say then, _plena stultorum
omnia_; for I entreat[709] here neither of rugged[710]
bears or apes, no, nor the lamentable downfal of the old
wife’s platters,—I deal with no such metal: what is
mirth in me, is as harmless as the quarter-jacks in
Paul’s, that are up with their elbows[711] four times an
hour, and yet misuse no creature living; the very
bitterest in me is but like a physical frost, that nips
the wicked blood a little, and so makes the whole
body the wholesomer: and none can justly except
at me but some riotous vomiting Kit,[712] or some
gentleman-swallowing malkin. Then, to condemn these
Tales following because Father Hubburd tells them in the
small size of an ant, is even as much as if these two
words, _God_ and _Devil_, were printed both in one line,
to skip it over and say that line were naught, because
the devil were in it. _Sat sapienti_; and I hope[713]
there be many wise men in all the twelve Companies.[714]

Yours,

If you read without spelling or hacking,

T. M.

THE ANT AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

----------

The west-sea’s goddess in a crimson robe,
Her temples circled with a coral wreath,
Waited her love, the lightener of earth’s globe:
The wanton wind did on her bosom breathe;
The nymphs of springs did hallow’d[715] water pour;
Whate’er was cold help’d to make cool her bower.

And now the fiery horses of the Sun
Were from their golden-flaming car untrac’d,
And all the glory of the day was done,
Save here and there some light moon-clouds enchas’d,
A parti-colour’d canopy did spread
Over the Sun and Thetis’ amorous bed.

Now had the shepherds folded in their flocks,
The sweating teams uncoupled from their yokes:
The wolf sought prey, and the sly-murdering fox
Attempts to steal; fearless of rural strokes,
All beasts took rest that liv’d by labouring toil;
Only such rang’d as had delight in spoil.

Now in the pathless region of the air
The wingèd passengers had left to soar,
Except the bat and owl, who bode sad care,
And Philomel, that nightly doth deplore,
In soul-contenting tunes, her change of shape,
Wrought first by perfidy and lustful rape.

This poor musician, sitting all alone
On a green hawthorn from the thunder blest,
Carols in varied notes her antique moan,
Keeping a sharpen’d briar against her breast:
Her innocence this watchful pain doth take,
To shun the adder and the speckled snake.

These two, like her old foe the lord of Thrace,
Regardless of her dulcet-changing song,
To serve their own lust have her life in chase;
Virtue by vice is offer’d endless wrong:
Beasts are not all to blame, for now and then
We see the like attempted amongst men.

Under the tree whereon the poor bird sat,
There was a bed of busy-toiling ants,
That in their summer winter’s comfort gat,
Teaching poor men how to shun after-wants;
Whose rules if sluggards could be learn’d to keep,
They should not starve awake, lie cold asleep.

One of these busy brethren, having done
His day’s true labour, got upon the tree,
And with his little nimble legs did run;
Pleas’d with the hearing, he desir’d to see
What wondrous creature nature had compos’d,
In whom such gracious music was enclos’d.

He got too near; for the mistrustful bird
Guess’d him to be a spy from her known foe:
Suspicion argues not to hear a word:
What wise man fears not that’s inur’d to woe?
Then blame not her she caught him in her beak,
About to kill him ere the worm[716] could speak.

But yet her mercy was above her heat;
She did not, as a many silken men
Call’d by much wealth, small wit, to judgment’s
seat,[717]
Condemn at random; but she pitied then
When she might spoil: would great ones would do so!
Who often kill before the cause they know,

O, if they would, as did this little fowl,
Look on their lesser captives with even ruth,
They should not hear so many sentenc’d howl,
Complaining justice is not friend to truth!
But they would think upon this ancient theme,
Each right extreme is injury extreme.

Pass them to mend, for none can them amend
But heaven’s lieutentant and earth’s justice-king:
Stern will hath will; no great one wants a friend;
Some are ordain’d to sorrow, some to sing;
And with this sentence let thy griefs all close,
Whoe’er are wrong’d are happier than their foes.

So much for such. Now to the little ant
In the bird’s beak and at the point to die:
Alas for woe, friends in distress are scant!
None of his fellows to his help did hie;
They keep them safe; they hear, and are afraid:
’Tis vain to trust in the base number’s aid.

Only himself unto himself is friend:
With a faint voice his foe he thus bespake;
Why seeks your gentleness a poor worm’s end?
O, ere you kill, hear the excuse I make!
I come to wonder, not to work offence:
There is no glory to spoil innocence.

Perchance you take me for a soothing spy,
By the sly snake or envious adder fee’d:
Alas, I know not how to feign and lie,
Or win a base intelligencer’s meed,
That now are Christians, sometimes Turks, then Jews,
Living by leaving heaven for earthly news.

I am[718] a little emmet, born to work,
Oftimes a man, as you were once a maid:
Under the name of man much ill doth lurk,
Yet of poor me you need not be afraid;
Mean men are worms, on whom the mighty tread;
Greatness and strength your virtue injurèd.

With that she open’d wide her horny bill,
The prison where this poor submissant lay;
And seeing the poor ant lie quivering still,
Go, wretch, quoth she, I give thee life and way;
The worthy will not prey on yielding things,
Pity’s infeoffèd to the blood of kings.

For I was once, though now a feather’d veil
Cover my wrongèd body, queen-like clad;
This down about my neck was erst a rail[719]
Of byss[720] embroider’d—fie on that we had!
Unthrifts and fools and wrongèd ones complain
Rich things were theirs must ne’er be theirs again.

I was, thou know’st, the daughter to a king,
Had palaces and pleasures in my time;
Now mine own songs I am enforc’d to sing,
Poets forget me in their pleasing rhyme;
Like chaff they fly, toss’d with each windy breath,
Omitting my forc’d rape by Tereus’ death.

But ’tis no matter; I myself can sing
Sufficient strains to witness mine own worth:
They that forget a queen soothe with a king;[721]
Flattery’s still barren, yet still bringeth forth:
Their works are dews shed when the day is done,
But suck’d up dry by the next morning’s[722], sun.

What more of them? they are like Iris’ throne,
Commix’d with many colours in moist time:
Such lines portend what’s in that circle shewn;
Clear weather follows showers in every clime,
Averring no prognosticator lies,
That says, some great ones fall, their rivals rise.

Pass such for bubbles; let their bladder-praise
Shine and sink with them in a moment’s change:
They think to rise when they the riser raise;
But regal wisdom knows it is not strange
For curs to fawn: base things are ever low;
The vulgar eye feeds only on the show.

Else would not soothing glosers oil the son,
Who, while his father liv’d, his acts did hate:
They know all earthly day with man is done
When he is circled in the night of fate;
So the deceasèd they think on no more,
But whom they injur’d late, they now adore.

But there’s a manly lion now can roar
Thunder more dreaded than the lioness;
Of him let simple beasts his aid implore,
For he conceives more than they can express:
The virtuous politic is truly man,
Devil the atheist politician.

I guess’d thee such a one; but tell thy tale:
If thou be simple, as thou hast exprest,
Do not with coinèd words set wit to sale,
Nor with the flattering world use vain protest:
Sith[723] man thou say’st thou wert, I prithee, tell
While thou wert man what mischiefs thee befell.

Princess, you bid me buried cares revive,
Quoth the poor ant; yet sith by you I live,
So let me in my daily labourings thrive
As I myself do to your service give:
I have been oft a man, and so to be
Is often to be thrall to misery.

But if you will have me my mind disclose,
I must entreat you that I may set down
The tales of my black fortunes in sad[724] prose:
Rhyme is uneven, fashion’d by a clown;
I first was such a one, I till’d the ground;
And amongst rurals verse is scarcely found.

Well, tell thy tales; but see thy prose be good;
For if thou Euphuize, which once was rare,[725]
And of all English phrase the life and blood,
In those times for the fashion past compare,
I’ll say thou borrow’st, and condemn thy style,
As our new fools, that count all following vile.

Or if in bitterness thou rail, like Nash—
Forgive me, honest soul, that term thy phrase
Railing! for in thy works thou wert not rash,
Nor didst affect in youth thy private praise:
Thou hadst a strife with that Trigemini;[726]
Thou hurt’dst not them till they had injur’d thee.

Thou wast indeed too slothful to thyself,
Hiding thy better talent in thy spleen;
True spirits are not covetous in pelf;
Youth’s wit is ever ready, quick, and keen:
Thou didst not live thy ripen’d autumn-day,
But wert cut off in thy best blooming May:

Else hadst thou left, as thou indeed hast left,
Sufficient test, though now in others’ chests,
T’ improve[727] the baseness of that humorous
theft,[728]
Which seems to flow from self-conceiving breasts:
Thy name they bury, having buried thee;
Drones eat thy honey—thou wert the true bee.

Peace keep thy soul! And now to you, sir ant:
On with your prose, be neither rude nor nice;
In your discourse let no decorum want,
See that you be sententious and concise;
And, as I like the matter, I will sing
A canzonet, to close up every thing.

With this, the whole nest of ants hearing their fellow
was free from danger, like comforters when care is
over, came with great thanks to harmless Philomel, and
made a ring about her and their restored friend,
serving instead of a dull audience of stinkards
sitting in the penny-galleries of a theatre, and
yawning upon the players; whilst the ant began to
stalk like a three-quarter sharer,[729] and was not
afraid to tell tales out of the villanous school of
the world, where the devil is the schoolmaster and the
usurer the under-usher, the scholars young dicing
landlords, that pass away three hundred acres with
three dice in a hand, and after the decease of so much
land in money become sons and heirs of bawdy-houses;
for it is an easy labour to find heirs without land,
but a hard thing indeed to find land without heirs.
But for fear I interrupt this small actor in less than
_decimo sexto_,[730] I leave, and give the ant leave
to tell his tale.

_The Ant’s Tale when he was a ploughman._

I was sometimes, most chaste lady Nightingale, or
rather, queen Philomel the ravished, a brow-melting
husbandman: to be man and husband is to be a poor master
of many rich cares, which, if he cannot subject and keep
under, he must look for ever to undergo as many miseries
as the hours of his years contain minutes: such a man I
was, and such a husband, for I was linked in marriage:
my havings were[731] small and my means less, yet charge
came on me ere I knew how to keep it; yet did I all my
endeavours, had a plough and land to employ it, fertile
enough if it were manured, and for tillage I was never
held a truant.

But my destruction, and the ruin of all painful
husbandmen about me, began by the prodigal downfal of
my young landlord, whose father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather, for many generations had been lords
of the town wherein I dwelt, and many other towns near
adjoining: to all which belonged fair commons for the
comfort of the poor, liberty of fishing, help of fuel by
brush and underwood never denied, till the old devourer
of virtue, honesty, and good neighbourhood, death, had
made our landlord dance after his pipe,—which is so
common, that every one knows the way, though they make
small account of it. Well, die he did; and as soon as he
was laid in his grave, the bell might well have tolled
for hospitality and good housekeeping; for whether they
fell sick with him and died, and so were buried, I know
not; but I am sure in our town they were never seen
since, nor, that I can hear of, in any other part;
especially about us they are impossible to be found.
Well, our landlord being dead, we had his heir, gentle
enough and fair-conditioned,[732] rather promising at
first his father’s virtues than the world’s villanies;
but he was so accustomed to wild and unfruitful company
about the court and London (whither he was sent by his
sober father to practise civility and manners), that in
the country he would scarce keep till his father’s body
was laid in the cold earth; but as soon as the hasty
funeral was solemnised, from us he posted, discharging
all his old father’s servants (whose beards were even
frost-bitten with age), and was attended only by a
monkey and a marmoset;[733] the one being an ill-faced
fellow, as variable as New-fangle[734] for fashions; the
other an imitator of any thing, however villanous, but
utterly destitute of all goodness. With this French page
and Italianate serving-man was our young landlord only
waited on, and all to save charges in servingmen, to pay
it out in harlots: and we poor men had news of a far
greater expense within less than a quarter. For we were
sent for to London, and found our great landlord in a
little room about the Strand; who told us, that
whereas we had lived tenants at will, and might in his
forefathers’ days [have] been hourly turned out, he,
putting on a better conscience to usward, intended to
make us leases for years; and for advice ’twixt him and
us he had made choice of a lawyer, a mercer, and a
merchant, to whom he was much beholding,[735] who that
morning were appointed to meet in the Temple-church.
Temple and church, both one in name, made us hope of a
holy meeting; but there is an old proverb, _The nearer
the church, the farther from God_: to approve[736] which
saying, we met the mercer and the merchant, that, loving
our landlord or his land well, held him a great man in
both their books. Some little conference they had; what
the conclusion was, we poor men were not yet acquainted
with; but being called at their leisure, and when they
pleased to think upon us, told us they were to dine
together at the Horn in Fleet-street, being a house
where their lawyer resorted; and if we would there
attend them, we should understand matter much for our
good: and in the meantime, they appointed us near the
old Temple-Garden to attend their counsellor, whose name
was master Prospero, not the great rider of horse[737]—
for I heard there was once such a one,—but a more
cunning rider, who had rid many men till they were more
miserable than beasts, and our ill hap it was to prove
his hackneys. Well, though the issue were ill, on we
went to await his worship, whose chamber we found that
morning fuller of clients than I could ever see
suppliants to heaven in our poor parish-church, and yet
we had in it three hundred households: and I may tell it
with reverence, I never saw more submission done to
God than to that great lawyer; every suitor there
offered gold to this gowned idol, standing bareheaded
in a sharp-set morning, for it was in booted[738]
Michaelmas-term, and not a word spoke to him but it was
with the[739] bowing of the body and the submissive
flexure of the knee. Short tale to make, he was informed
of us what we were, and of our coming up; when with an
iron look and shrill voice, he began to speak to the
richest of our number, ever and anon yerking out the
word _fines_, which served instead of a full-point to
every sentence.

But that word _fines_ was no fine word, methought, to
please poor labouring husbandmen, that can scarce sweat
out so much in a twelvemonth as he would demand in
a twinkling. At last, to close up the lamentable
tragedy of us ploughmen, enters our young landlord, so
metamorphosed into the shape of a French puppet, that at
the first we started, and thought one of the baboons had
marched in in man’s apparel. His head was dressed up in
white feathers like a shuttlecock, which agreed so well
with his brain, being nothing but cork, that two of the
biggest of the guard might very easily have tossed him
with battledores, and made good sport with him in his
majesty’s great hall. His doublet was of a strange cut;
and to shew the fury of his humour, the collar of it
rose up so high and sharp as if it would have cut his
throat by daylight. His wings,[740] according to the
fashion now, were[741] as little and diminutive as a
puritan’s ruff, which shewed he ne’er meant to fly out
of England, nor do any exploit beyond sea, but live and
die about London, though he begged in Finsbury. His
breeches, a wonder to see, were full as deep as the
middle of winter, or the roadway between London and
Winchester, and so large and wide withal, that I think
within a twelvemonth he might very well put all his
lands in them; and then you may imagine they were big
enough, when they would outreach a thousand acres:
moreover, they differed so far from our fashioned
hose[742] in the country, and from his father’s old
gascoynes,[743] that his back-part seemed to us like a
monster; the roll of the breeches standing so low, that
we conjectured his house of office, sir-reverence,[744]
stood in his hams. All this while his French monkey bore
his cloak of three pounds a-yard, lined clean through
with purple velvet, which did so dazzle our coarse eyes,
that we thought we should have been purblind ever after,
what with the prodigal aspect of that and his glorious
rapier and hangers[745] all bost[746] with pillars of
gold, fairer in show than the pillars in Paul’s or the
tombs at Westminster; beside, it drunk up the price of
all my plough-land in very pearl, which stuck as thick
upon those hangers as the white measles upon hog’s
flesh. When I had well viewed that gay gaudy cloak and
those unthrifty wasteful hangers, I muttered thus to
myself: That is no cloak for the rain, sure; nor those
no hangers for Derrick;[747] when of a sudden, casting
mine eyes lower, I beheld a curious pair of boots of
king Philip’s[748] leather, in such artificial wrinkles,
sets, and plaits, as if they had been starched lately
and came new from the laundress’s, such was my ignorance
and simple acquaintance with the fashion, and I dare
swear my fellows and neighbours here are all as
ignorant as myself. But that which struck us most into
admiration, upon those fantastical boots stood such huge
and wide tops, which so swallowed up his thighs, that
had he sworn, as other gallants did, this common oath,
Would I might sink as I stand! all his body might very
well have sunk down and been damned in his boots.
Lastly, he walked the chamber with such a pestilent
gingle,[749] that his spurs over-squeaked the lawyer,
and made him reach his voice three notes above his fee;
but after we had spied the rowels of his spurs, how we
blest ourselves! they did so much and so far exceed the
compass of our fashion, that they looked more like the
forerunners of wheelbarrows. Thus was our young landlord
accoutred in such a strange and prodigal shape,[750]
that it amounted to above two years’ rent in apparel. At
last approached[751] the mercer and the merchant, two
notable arch-tradesmen, who had fitted my young master
in clothes, whilst they had clothed themselves in his
acres, and measured him out velvet by the thumb, whilst
they received his revenues by handfuls; for he had not
so many yards in his suit as they had yards and houses
bound for the payment, which now he was forced to
pass over to them, or else all his lands should
be put to[752] their book and to their forfeiting
neck-verse;[753] so my youngster was now at his
pension, not like a gentleman-pensioner, but like a
gentleman-spender. Whereupon entered master Bursebell,
the royal scrivener, with deeds and writings hanged,
drawn, and quartered, for the purpose: he was a valiant
scribe, I remember; his pen lay mounted between his ear
like a Tower-gun, but not charged yet till our young
master’s patrimony shot off, which was some third part
of an hour after. By this time, the lawyer, the mercer,
and the merchant, were whispering and consulting
together about the writings and passage of the land in
very deep and sober conference; but our wiseacres all
the while, as one regardless of either land or money,
not hearkening or inquisitive after their subtle and
politic devices, held himself very busy about the
burning of his tobacco-pipe (as there is no gallant but
hath a pipe to burn about London), though we poor simple
men never heard of the name till that time; and he might
very fitly take tobacco there, for the lawyer and the
rest made him smoke already. But to have noted the apish
humour of him, and the fantastical faces he coined in
the receiving of the smoke, it would have made your
ladyship have sung nothing but merry jigs[754] for a
twelvemonth after,—one time winding the pipe like a horn
at the Pie-corner of his mouth, which must needs make
him look like a sow-gelder,[755] and another time
screwing his face like one of our country players, which
must needs make him look like a fool; nay, he had at
least his dozen of faces, but never a good one amongst
them all; neither his father’s face, nor the face of his
grandfather, but yet more wicked and riotous faces than
all the generation of him. Now their privy whisperings
and villanous plots began to be drawn to a conclusion,
when presently they called our smoky landlord in the
midst of his draught, who in a valiant humour dashed his
tobacco-pipe into the chimney-corner: whereat I started,
and beckoning his marmoset[756] to me, asked him if
those long white things did cost no money? to which the
slave replied very proudly, Money! yes, sirrah; but I
tell thee, my master scorns to have a thing come twice
to his mouth. Then, quoth I, I think thy master is more
choice in his mouth than in any member else: it were
good if he used that all his body over, he would never
have need, as many gallants have, of any sweating
physic. Sweating physic! replied the marmoset; what may
thy meaning be? why, do not you ploughmen sweat too?
Yes, quoth I, most of any men living; but yet there is a
difference between the sweat of a ploughman and the
sweat of a gentleman, as much as between your master’s
apparel and mine, for when we sweat, the land prospers,
and the harvest comes in; but when a gentleman sweats, I
wot how the gear[757] goes then. No sooner were these
words spoken but the marmoset had drawn out his poniard
half-way to make a show of revenge, but at the smart
voice of the lawyer he suddenly whipt it in again. Now
was our young master with one penful of ink doing a far
greater exploit than all his forefathers; for what they
were a-purchasing all their lifetime, he was now passing
away in the fourth part of a minute; and that which many
thousand drops of his grandfather’s brows did painfully
strive for, one drop now of a scrivener’s inkhorn did
easily pass over: a dash of a pen stood for a thousand
acres: how quickly they were dashed in the mouth by our
young landlord’s prodigal fist! it seemed he made no
more account of acres than of acorns. Then were we
called to set our hands for witnesses of his folly,
which we poor men did witness too much already; and
because we were found ignorant in writing, and never
practised in that black art—which I might very fitly
term so, because it conjured our young master out of
all—we were commanded, as it were, to draw any mark with
a pen, which should signify as much as the best hand
that ever old Peter Bales[758] hung out in the Old
Bailey. To conclude, I took the pen first of the lawyer,
and turning it arsy-versy, like no instrument for a
ploughman, our youngster and the rest of the faction
burst into laughter at the simplicity of my fingering;
but I, not so simple as they laughed me for, drew the
picture of a knavish emblem, which was a plough with the
heels upward, signifying thereby that the world was
turned upside down since the decease of my old landlord,
all hospitality and good housekeeping kicked out of
doors, all thriftiness and good husbandry tossed into
the air, ploughs turned into trunks,[759] and corn into
apparel. Then came another of our husbandmen to set his
mark by mine: he holding the pen clean at the one side
towards the merchant and the mercer, shewing that all
went on their sides, drew the form of an unbridled colt,
so wild and unruly, that he seemed with one foot to kick
up the earth and spoil the labours of many toiling
beasts, which was fitly alluded to our wild and
unbridled landlord, which, like the colt, could stand
upon no ground till he had no ground to stand upon.

These marks, set down under the shape of simplicity,
were the less marked with the eyes of knavery; for they
little dreamed that we ploughmen could have so much
satire in us as to bite our young landlord by the elbow.
Well, this ended, master Bursebell, the calves’-skin
scrivener, was royally handled, that is, he had a
royal[760] put in his hand by the merchant. And now I
talk of calves’-skin, ’tis great pity, lady Nightingale,
that the skins of harmless and innocent beasts should be
as instruments to work villany upon, entangling young
novices and foolish elder brothers, which are caught
like woodcocks in the net of the law; for[761] ’tis
easier for one of the greatest fowls to slide through
the least hole of a net, than one of the least fools to
get from the lappet of a bond. By this time the
squeaking lawyer began to re-iterate that cold word
_fines_, which struck so chill to our hearts, that it
made them as cold as our heels, which were almost frozen
to the floor with standing. Yea, quoth the merchant and
the mercer, you are now tenants of ours; all the right,
title, and interest of this young gentleman, your late
landlord, we are firmly possessed of, as you yourselves
are witnesses: wherefore this is the conclusion of our
meeting; such fines as master Prospero here, by the
valuation of the land, shall, out of his proper
judgment, allot to us, such are we to demand at your
hands; therefore we refer you to him, to wait his answer
at the gentleman’s best time and leisure. With that,
they stiffled two or three angels[762] in the lawyer’s
right hand:—right hand, said I? which hand was that,
trow ye? for it is impossible to know which is the right
hand of a lawyer, because there are but few lawyers that
have right hands, and those few make much of them. So,
taking their leaves of my young landlord that was, and
that never shall be again, away they marched, heavier by
a thousand acres at their parting than they were before
at their meeting. The lawyer then, turning his Irish
face to usward, willed us to attend his worship the next
term, when we should further understand his pleasure.
We, poor souls, thanked his worship, and paid him his
fee out in legs;[763] when, in sight of us, he embraced
our young gentleman (I think, for a fool), and gave him
many riotous instructions how to carry himself, which he
was prompter to take than the other to put into him;
told him he must acquaint himself with many gallants of
the Inns-of-Court, and keep rank with those that spend
most, always wearing a bountiful disposition about him,
lofty and liberal; his lodging must be about the Strand
in any case, being remote from the handicraft scent of
the city; his eating must be in some famous tavern, as
the Horn, the Mitre, or the Mermaid;[764] and then after
dinner he must venture beyond sea, that is, in a choice
pair of noblemen’s oars, to the Bankside,[765] where he
must sit out the breaking-up[766] of a comedy, or the
first cut of a tragedy; or rather, if his humour so
serve him, to call in at the Blackfriars,[767] where he
should see a nest of boys able to ravish a man. This
said, our young goose-cap, who was ready to embrace such
counsel, thanked him for his fatherly admonitions, as he
termed them, and told him again that he should not find
him with the breach of any of them, swearing and
protesting he would keep all those better than the ten
commandments: at which word he buckled on his rapier and
hangers,[768] his monkey-face casting on his cloak by
the book; after an apish congee or two, passed down
stairs, without either word or nod to us his old
father’s tenants. Nevertheless we followed him, like so
many russet servingmen, to see the event of all, and
what the issue would come to; when, of a sudden, he was
encountered by a most glorious-spangled gallant, which
we took at first to have been some upstart tailor,
because he measured all his body with a salutation, from
the flow of the doublet to the fall of the breeches; but
at last we found him to be a very fantastical sponge,
that licked up all humours, the very ape of fashions,
gesture, and compliment,—one of those indeed, as we
learned afterward, that fed upon young landlords,
riotous sons and heirs, till either he or the Counter in
Wood-street had swallowed them up; and would not stick
to be a bawd or pander to such young gallants as our
young gentleman, either to acquaint them with harlots,
or harlots with them; to bring them a whole dozen of
taffeta punks at a supper, and they should be none of
these common Molls neither, but discontented and
unfortunate gentlewomen, whose parents being lately
deceased, the brother ran away with all the land, and
they,[769] poor squalls,[770] with a little money, which
cannot hold out long without some comings in; but they
will rather venture a maidenhead than want a head-tire;
such shuttlecocks as these, which, though they are
tossed and played withal, go still[771] like maids, all
white on the top: or else, decayed gentlemen’s wives,
whose husbands, poor souls, lying for debt in the King’s
Bench, they go about to make monsters in the King’s-Head
tavern; for this is a general axiom, all your
luxurious[772] plots are always begun in taverns, to be
ended in vau[l]ting-houses;[773] and after supper, when
fruit comes in, there is small fruit of honesty to be
looked for,—for you know that the eating of the apple
always betokens the fall of Eve. Our prodigal child,
accompanied with this soaking swaggerer and admirable
cheater, who had supt up most of our heirs about
London like poached eggs, slips into White-Friars’
nunnery,[774] whereas[775] the report went he kept his
most delicate drab of three hundred a-year, some
unthrifty gentleman’s daughter, who had mortgaged his
land to scriveners, sure enough from redeeming again;
for so much she seemed by her bringing up, though less
by her casting down. Endued she was, as we heard, with
some good qualities, though all were converted then but
to flattering villanies: she could run upon the lute
very well, which in others would have appeared virtuous,
but in her lascivious, for her running was rather jested
at, because she was a light runner besides: she had
likewise the gift of singing very deliciously, able to
charm the hearer; which so bewitched away our young
master’s money, that he might have kept seven noise[776]
of musicians for less charges, and yet they would have
stood for servingmen too, having blue coats[777] of
their own. She had a humour to lisp often, like a
flattering wanton, and talk childish, like a parson’s
daughter; which so pleased and rapt our old landlord’s
lickerish son, that he would swear she spake nothing but
sweetmeats, and her breath then sent forth such a
delicious odour, that it perfumed his white-satin
doublet better than sixteen milliners. Well, there we
left him, with his devouring cheater and his glorious
cockatrice;[778] and being almost upon dinner-time, we
hied us and took our repast at thrifty mother Walker’s,
where we found a whole nest of pinching bachelors,
crowded together upon forms and benches, in that most
worshipful three-halfpenny ordinary,[779] where
presently they were boarded[780] with hot monsieur
Mutton-and-porridge (a Frenchman by his blowing); and
next to them we were served in order, every one taking
their degree: and I tell you true, lady, I have known
the time when our young landlord’s father hath been a
three-halfpenny eater there,—nay more, was the first
that acquainted us with that sparing and thrifty
ordinary, when his riotous son hath since spent his five
pound at a sitting. Well, having discharged our small
shot (which was like hail-shot in respect of our young
master’s cannon-reckonings in taverns), we plodded home
to our ploughs, carrying these heavy news to our wives
both of the prodigality of our old landlord’s son, as
also of our oppressions to come by the burden of
uncharitable fines. And, most musical madam Nightingale,
do but imagine now what a sad Christmas we all kept in
the country, without either carols, wassail-bowls,[781]
dancing of Sellenger’s round[782] in moonshine nights
about May-poles, shoeing the mare, hoodman-blind,
hot-cockles, or any of our old Christmas gambols; no,
not so much as choosing king and queen on twelfth night:
such was the dulness of our pleasures,—for that one word
_fines_ robbed us of all our fine pastimes.

This sour-faced Christmas thus unpleasantly past over,
up again we trotted to London, in a great frost, I
remember, for the ground was as hard as the lawyer’s
conscience; and arriving at the luxurious Strand some
three days before the term, we inquired for our
bountiful landlord, or the fool in the full, at his neat
and curious lodging; but answer was made us by an old
chamber-maid, that our gentleman slept not there all the
Christmas time, but had been at court, and at least in
five masques; marry, now, as she thought, we might find
him at master Poops his ordinary, with half-a-dozen of
gallants more at dice. At dice? at the devil! quoth I,
for that is a dicer’s last throw. Here I began to rail,
like Thomas Nash[783] against Gabriel Harvey, if you
call that railing; yet I think it was but the running a
tilt of wits in booksellers’ shops on both sides of John
of Paul’s[784] churchyard; and I wonder how John scaped
unhorsing. But when we were entered the door of the
ordinary, we might hear our lusty gentleman shoot off a
volley of oaths some three rooms over us, cursing the
dice, and wishing the pox were in their bones, crying
out for a new pair of square ones, for the other belike
had cogged[785] with him and made a gull of him. When
the host of the ordinary coming down stairs met us with
this report, after we had named him, Troth, good
fellows, you have named now the most unfortunatest
gentleman living, at passage[786] I mean; for I protest
I have stood by myself as a heavy eye-witness, and seen
the beheading of five hundred crowns, and what pitiful
end they all made. With that he shewed us his embost
girdle and hangers[787] new-pawned for more money, and
told us beside, not without tears, his glorious cloak
was cast away three hours before overboard, which was,
off the table. At which lamentable hearing, we stood
still in the lower room, and durst not venture up
stairs, for fear he would have laid all us ploughmen to
pawn too; and yet I think all we could scarce have made
up one throw. But to draw to an end, as his patrimony
did, we had not lingered the better part of an hour, but
down came fencing[788] his glittering rapier and
dagger, as if he had been newly shoulder-clapt by a
pewter-buttoned sergeant and his weapons seized upon. At
last, after a great peal of oaths on all sides, the
court broke up, and the worshipful bench of dicers came
thundering down stairs, some singing, with such a
confusion of humours, that had we not[789] known before
what rank of gallants they were, we should have thought
the devils had been at dice in an ordinary. The first
that appeared to us was our most lamentable landlord,
dressed up in his monkey’s livery-cloak, that he seemed
now rather to wait upon his monkey than his monkey upon
him, which did set forth his satin suit so excellent
scurvily, that he looked for all the world like a French
lord in dirty boots. When casting his eye upon us, being
desirous, as it seemed, to remember us now if we had any
money, brake into these fantastical speeches: What, my
whole warren of tenants?—thinking indeed to make
conies[790] of us,—my honest nest of ploughmen, the only
kings of Kent! More dice, ho! i’faith,[791] let’s have
another career, and vomit three dice in a hand again.
With that I plucked his humour at one side, and told him
we were indeed his father’s tenants, but his we were
sorry we were not; and as for money to maintain his
dice, we had not sufficient to stuff out the lawyer.
Then replied our gallant in a rage, tossing out two or
three new-minted oaths, These ploughmen are politicians,
I think; they have wit, the whorsons; they will be
tenants, I perceive, longer than we shall be landlords.
And fain he would have swaggered with us, but that his
weapons were at pawn: so, marching out like a turned
gentleman, the rest of the gallants seemed to cashier
him, and throw him out of their company like a blank
die—the one having no black peeps[792], nor he no white
pieces. Now was our gallant the true picture of the
prodigal; and having no rents to gather now, he gathered
his wits about him, making his brain pay him revenues in
villany; for it is a general observation, that your sons
and heirs prove seldom wise men till they have no more
land than the compass of their noddles. To conclude,
within few days’ practice he was grown as[793] absolute
in cheating, and as exquisite in pandarism, that he
outstripped all Greene’s books[794] _Of the Art of
Cony-catching_; and where[795] before he maintained his
drab, he made his drab now maintain him; proved the only
true captain of vaulting-houses,[796] and the valiant
champion against constables and searchers; feeding upon
the sin of White-Friars, Pict-hatch, and Turnboll
Street.[797] Nay, there was no landed novice now but he
could melt him away into nothing, and in one twelvemonth
make him hold all his land between his legs, and yet but
straddle easily neither; no wealthy son of the city but
within less than a quarter he could make all his stock
not worth a Jersey stocking: he was all that might be in
dissolute villany, and nothing that should be in his
forefathers’ honesty. To speak troth, we did so much
blush at his life, and were so ashamed of his base
courses, that ever after we loathed to look after them.
But returning to our stubble-haired lawyer, who reaped
his beard every term-time (the lawyer’s harvest), we
found the mercer and the merchant crowdd in his study
amongst a company of law-books, which they justled so
often with their coxcombs, that they were almost
together by the ears with them; when at the sight of us
they took an _habeas corpus_, and removed their bodies
into a bigger room. But there we lingered not long for
our torments; for the mercer and the merchant gave fire
to the lawyer’s tongue with a rope of angels,[798] and
the word _fines_ went off with such a powder, that the
force of it blew us all into the country, quite changed
our ploughmen’s shapes, and so we became little ants
again.

This, madam Nightingale, is the true discourse of our
rural fortunes, which, how miserable, wretched, and full
of oppression they were, all husbandmen’s brows can
witness, that are fined with more sweat still year by
year; and I hope a canzonet of your sweet singing will
set them forth to the world in satirical harmony.

The remorseful[799] nightingale, delighted with the
ant’s quaint discourse, began to tune the instrument of
her voice, breathing forth these lines in sweet and
delicious airs.

_The Nightingale’s Canzonet._

Poor little ant,
Thou shalt not want
The ravish’d music of my voice!
Thy shape is best,
Now thou art least,
For great ones fall with greater noise:
And this shall be the marriage of my song,
Small bodies can have but a little wrong.

Now thou art securer,
And thy days far surer;
Thou pay’st no rent upon the rack,
To daub a prodigal landlord’s back,
Or to maintain the subtle running
Of dice and drabs, both one in cunning;
Both pass from hand to hand to many,
Flattering all, yet false to any;
Both are well link’d, for, throw dice how you can,
They will turn up their peeps[800] to every man.

Happy art thou, and all thy brothers,
That never feel’st the hell of others!
The torment to a luxur[801] due,
Who never thinks his harlot true;
Although upon her heels he stick his eyes,
Yet still he fears that though she stands she lies.

Now are thy labours easy,
Thy state not sick or queasy;
All drops thou sweat’st are now thine own;
Great subsidies be as unknown
To thee and to thy little fellow-ants,
Now none of you under that burden pants.

Lo, for example, I myself, poor worms,[802]
That have outworn the rage of Tereus’ storms,
Am ever blest now, in this downy shape,
From all men’s treachery or soul-melting rape;
And when I sing _Tereu_, _Tereu_,
Through every town, and so renew

The name of Tereus, slaves, through fears,
With guilty fingers bolt their ears,
All[803] ravishers do rave and e’en fall mad,
And then such wrong’d souls as myself are glad.

So thou, small wretch, and all thy nest,
Are in those little bodies blest,
Not tax’d beyond your poor degree
With landlord’s fine and lawyer’s fee:
But tell me, pretty toiling worm,
Did that same ploughman’s weary form
Discourage thee so much from others,
That neither thou nor those thy brothers,
In borrow’d shapes, durst once agen[804]
Venture amongst perfidious men?

ANT.

Yes, lady, the poor ant replied,
I left not so; but then I tried
War’s sweating fortunes; not alone
Condemning rash all states for one,
Until I found by proof, and knew by course,
That one was bad, but all the rest were worse.

NIGHTINGALE.

Didst thou put on a rugged soldier then?
A happy state, because thou fought’st ’gainst men.
Prithee, discourse thy fortunes, state, and harms;
Thou wast, no doubt, a mighty man-at-arms.

_The Ant’s Tale when he was a soldier._