1 Our resident Tom,
    From Venice is come,
And hath left the statesman behind him;
    Talks at the same pitch,
    Is as wise, is as rich;
And just where you left him, you find him.

2 But who says he was not
    A man of much plot,
May repent that false accusation;
    Having plotted and penn’d
    Six plays, to attend
The farce of his negotiation.

3 Before you were told
    How Satan[1] the old
Came here with a beard to his middle;
    Though he changed face and name,
    Old Will was the same,
At the noise of a can and a fiddle.

4 These statesmen, you believe,
    Send straight for the shrieve,
For he is one too, or would be;
    But he drinks no wine,
    Which is a shrewd sign
That all’s not so well as it should be.

5 These three, when they drink,
    How little do they think
Of banishment, debts, or dying? 
    Not old with their years,
    Nor cold with their fears;
But their angry stars still defying.

6 Mirth makes them not mad,
    Nor sobriety sad;
But of that they are seldom in danger;
    At Paris, at Rome,
    At the Hague, they’re at home;
The good fellow is no where a stranger.

[1] ‘Satan’:  Mr. W. Murrey.

TO SIR JOHN MENNIS,

BEING INVITED FROM CALAIS TO BOULOGNE, TO EAT A PIG.

1 All on a weeping Monday,
  With a fat vulgarian sloven,
    Little admiral John
    To Boulogne is gone,
  Whom I think they call old Loven.

2 Hadst thou not thy fill of carting,[1]
  Will Aubrey, Count of Oxon,
    When nose lay in breech,
    And breech made a speech,
  So often cried, A pox on?

3 A knight by land and water
  Esteem’d at such a high rate,
    When ’tis told in Kent,
    In a cart that he went,
  They’ll say now, Hang him, pirate.

4 Thou might’st have ta’en example
  From what thou read’st in story;
    Being as worthy to sit
    On an ambling tit
  As thy predecessor Dory.

5 But, oh, the roof of linen,
  Intended for a shelter! 
    But the rain made an ass
    Of tilt and canvas,
  And the snow, which you know is a melter.

6 But with thee to inveigle
  That tender stripling Astcot,
    Who was soak’d to the skin,
    Through drugget so thin,
  Having neither coat nor waistcoat.

7 He being proudly mounted,
  Clad in cloak of Plymouth,
    Defied cart so base,
    For thief without grace,
  That goes to make a wry mouth.

8 Nor did he like the omen,
  For fear it might be his doom
    One day for to sing,
    With gullet in string,
  A hymn of Robert Wisdom.

9 But what was all this business? 
  For sure it was important;
    For who rides i’ th’wet
    When affairs are not great,
  The neighbours make but a sport on’t.