As the last day; and that great officers
  Do with the pirates share and Dunkirkers. 
  Who wastes in meat, in clothes, in horse, he notes;
  Who loves whores, who boys, and who goats. 
  I, more amaz’d than Circe’s prisoners, when
  They felt themselves turn beasts, felt myself then
  Becoming traitor, and methought I saw
  One of our giant statues ope his jaw
  To suck me in for hearing him:  I found
  That as burnt venomous leachers do grow sound
  By giving others their sores, I might grow
  Guilty, and be free; therefore I did show
  All signs of loathing; but since I am in,
  I must pay mine and my forefathers’ sin
  To the last farthing:  therefore to my power
  Toughly and stubbornly I bear this cross; but th’ hour
  Of mercy now was come:  he tries to bring
  Me to pay a fine to ’scape his torturing,
  And says, Sir, can you spare me?  I said, Willingly. 
  Nay, Sir, can you spare me a crown?  Thankfully I
  Gave it as ransom.  But as fiddlers still,
  Though they be paid to be gone, yet needs will
  Thrust one more jigg upon you; so did he
  With his long complimented thanks vex me. 
  But he is gone, thanks to his needy want,
  And the prerogative of my crown.  Scant
  His thanks were ended when I (which did see
  All the court fill’d with such strange things as he)
  Ran from thence with such or more haste than one
  Who fears more actions doth haste from prison. 
  At home in wholesome solitariness
  My piteous soul began the wretchedness
  Of suitors at court to mourn, and a trance
  Like his who dreamt he saw hell did advance
  Itself o’er me:  such men as he saw there
  I saw at court, and worse, and more.  Low fear
  Becomes the guilty, not th’ accuser; then
  Shall I, none’s slave, of high born or rais’d men
  Fear frowns, and my mistress, Truth! betray thee
  To th’ huffing braggart, puft nobility? 
  No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been
  Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen,
  O Sun! in all thy journey vanity
  Such as swells the bladder of our court?  I
  Think he which made your waxen garden, and
  Transported it from Italy, to stand
  With us at London, flouts our courtiers; for
  Just such gay painted things, which no sap nor
  Taste have in them, ours are!

[Footnote 165:  fop, early form of macaroni.]

BEN JONSON.

(1573-1637.)

    These two pieces are taken from Jonson’s Epigrams.  The first of
    them was exceedingly popular in the poet’s own lifetime.

XII.  THE NEW CRY.