Last, that he never his young master beat,
But he must ask his mother to define,
How many jerks she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented be,
To give five marks and winter livery.
This satire constitutes Satire Seven of Book III. The phrase of dining with Duke Humphrey, which is still occasionally heard, originated in the following manner :-In the body of old St. Paul's was a huge and conspicuous monument of Sir John Beauchamp, buried in 1358, son of Guy, and brother of Thomas, Earl of Warwick. This by vulgar mistake was called the tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was really buried at St. Alban's. The middle aisle of St. Paul's was therefore called "The Duke's Gallery". In Dekker's Dead Terme we have the phrase used and a full explanation of it given; also in Sam Speed's Legend of His Grace Humphrey, Duke of St. Paul's Cathedral Walk (1674).
EE'ST thou how gaily my young master goes,
Vaunting himself upon his rising toes;
And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;
And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?
'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?
In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier;
An open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feathered crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,
To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touched no meat of all this livelong day;
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seemed sunk for very hollowness,
But could he have-as I did it mistake
So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt
That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
See'st thou how side1 it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er passed the English shore,
Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.
His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,
One lock2 Amazon-like dishevelled,
As if he meant to wear a native cord,
If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard, both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,
Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in a new-sown field,
Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield,
Or, if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.
2 the love-locks which were so condemned by the Puritan Prynne. Cf. Lyly's Midas and Sir John Davies' Epigram 22, In Citrum.
Despised nature suit them once aright,
Their body to their coat both now disdight.
Their body to their clothes might shapen be,
That will their clothes shape to their bodie.
Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back,
Whiles the empty guts loud rumblen for long lack.
x. AN INVECTIVE WRITTEN BY MR. GEORGE CHAPMAN AGAINST MR. BEN JONSON.
This satire was discovered in a "Common-place Book" belonging to Chapman, preserved among the Ashmole MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
REAT, learned, witty Ben, be pleased to light
The world with that three-forked fire; nor fright All us, thy sublearned, with luciferous boast
That thou art most great, most learn'd, witty most
Of all the kingdom, nay of all the earth;
As being a thing betwixt a human birth
And an infernal; no humanity
Of the divine soul shewing man in thee.
Though thy play genius hang his broken wings
Full of sick feathers, and with forced things,
Imp thy scenes, labour'd and unnatural,
And nothing good comes with thy thrice-vex'd call,
Comest thou not yet, nor yet? O no, nor yet;
Yet are thy learn'd admirers so deep set
In thy preferment above all that cite
The sun in challenge for the heat and light
Of heaven's influences which of you two knew
And have most power in them; Great Ben, 't is you.
Examine him, some truly-judging spirit,
That pride nor fortune hath to blind his merit,
He match'd with all book-fires, he ever read
His dusk poor candle-rents; his own fat head
With all the learn'd world's, Alexander's flame
That Cæsar's conquest cow'd, and stript his fame,
He shames not to give reckoning in with his ;
As if the king pardoning his petulancies
Should pay his huge loss too in such a score
As all earth's learned fires he gather'd for.
What think'st thou, just friend? equall'd not this pride
All yet that ever Hell or Heaven defied?
And yet for all this, this club will inflict
His faultful pain, and him enough convict
He only reading show'd; learning, nor wit;
Only Dame Gilian's fire his desk will fit.
But for his shift by fire to save the loss
Of his vast learning, this may prove it gross:
True Muses ever vent breaths mixt with fire
Which, form'd in numbers, they in flames expire
Not only flames kindled with their own bless'd breath
That gave th' unborn life, and eternize death.
Great Ben, I know that this is in thy hand
And how thou fix'd in heaven's fix'd star dost stand
In all men's admirations and command;
For all that can be scribbled 'gainst the sorter
Of thy dead repercussions and reporter.
The kingdom yields not such another man;
Wonder of men he is; the player can
And bookseller prove true, if they could know
Only one drop, that drives in such a flow.
Are they not learned beasts, the better far
Their drossy exhalations a star
Their brainless admirations may render;
For learning in the wise sort is but lender
Of men's prime notion's doctrine; their own way
Of all skills' perceptible forms a key
Forging to wealth, and honour-soothed sense,
Never exploring truth or consequence,
Informing any virtue or good life;
And therefore Player, Bookseller, or Wife
Of either, (needing no such curious key)
All men and things, may know their own rude way.
Imagination and our appetite
Forming our speech no easier than they light
All letterless companions; t' all they know
Here or hereafter that like earth's sons plough
All under-worlds and ever downwards grow,
Nor let your learning think, egregious Ben,
These letterless companions are not men
With all the arts and sciences indued,
If of man's true and worthiest knowledge rude,
Which is to know and be one complete man,
And that not all the swelling ocean
Of arts and sciences, can pour both in:
If that brave skill then when thou didst begin
To study letters, thy great wit had plied,
Freely and only thy disease of pride
In vulgar praise had never bound thy [hide]
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