Bring me ale some in, that Elinour Rumming, Right good, might have brew'd-nappy, sparkling and humming!" Then his pipe forth he drew and set lustily to 'Till his nostrils and mouth came the smoke curl ing thro'! Quicker and quicker the smoke curl'd, and thicker! When Simon the Simple march'd in with the liquor! "Fire! fire! fire!"-Nor stopp'd to enquire But flung, in a crack, all the liquor, alack! tobacco-purse affixed to their belt, so necessary an article of dress - the form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original!—and, lastly, the preparation of the yellow leaves, which are merely rubbed to pieces and then put into the pipe, so peculiar; that we cannot possibly derive all this from America by way of Europe; especially as India, where the habit of smoking is not so general, intervenes between Persia and China. May we not expect to find traces of this custom, in the first account of the Voyages of the Portuguese and Dutch to China ?" 95 "Next for variety of drinking cups we have divers and sundry sorts, some of glass, some of box, some of maple, some of holly, &c., mazers, broad-mouthed dishes, Noggins, Whiskins, Piggins, Crinzes, Ale-bowles, Court. dishes, Tankards, Kannes, &c., from a pottle to a pint, Sir Walter up rose to slit the knave's nose The Knight disabused, simple Simon excused, O Jamie! King Jamie! 96 thy stupid crown'd head Was glory's proud pillow, mean tyrant! to thine. from a pint to a gill; other bottles we have of leather, but they most used amongst the shepherds and harvest people of the country; small jacks we have in many Alehouses in the City and suburbs, tipt with silver, besides great black-jacks, and bombards at the Court, which when the Frenchmen first saw, they reported, at their return into their country, that the Englishmen used to drink out of their boots."-Heywood's Philocothonista, 1635. 96 King James, lying sicke, one prayed in publicke that hee might raigne as long as the Sun and Moone should endure, and the Prince his Sonne after him.-The Booke of Bulls. 1636. "The time of Sir Walter Raleigh's execution," observes Aubrey," was contrived to be on my Lord Mayor's day, that the pageants and fine shows might avocate and draw away the people from beholding the tragedie of the Sir P. Live to sing some racy relic on Festive days, sweet Swan of Helicon ! 98 When the rosy god of wine Makes our happy faces shine! A murrain on that organ player! [A street organ is heard. Gramercy! what a grind was there! Is with music at right angles! Hark! his tuneable proboscis 99 (Could his back my cane but cross!) is Going to give us, as a favor! Some excruciating quaver (To the love-and-murder muses An annuity the noose is!) gallantest worthie that England ever bred.” . . —Aubrey's MS. in the Ashmolean Museum. A rare judicial mockery was the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh! The public prosecutor was the unprincipled and ruffianly Attorney General Coke, who bullied the noble patriot; and the Judge was Popham the reformed Highway-Robber! 98"Recreation is intended to the minde, as whetting is to the sithe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull, and blunt; hee therefore that spends his whole time in recreation, is ever whetting, never mowing; his grasse may grow, and his steed starve; as contrarily, he that alwaies toyles, and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting; labouring much to little purpose: as good no sithe, as no edge." Bishop Hall. 99 Brathwait (see Whimzies) thus describes the accom Telling how the tender passion Tucks its tools up Tyburn fashion! The Musician's SONG.1 In the olden time his rueful rhyme a ballad-singing clown The streets of merry Abingdon was chanting up and down, But from the squires (no ballad buyers!) few farthings did he finger, For Puck had on their purses put a padlock, a distringer! A tavern nigh just caught the eye of this poor metre-monger, plishments of a ballad-singer. "Now he counterfeits a natural base, then a perpetual treble, and ends with a counter-tenure. You shall heare him feigne an artfull straine through the nose, purposely to insinuate into the attention of the purer brother-hood." 1 "After he (Richard Corbet, Bishop of Oxford) was a Doctor of Divinity we are told he sung ballads at the High Cross at Abingdon : being at a tavern in that town, a ballad singer came into that house, complaining that he could not dispose of his stock; the doctor in a frolic took off his gown, and assuming the ballad singer's leather jacket, went out into the street, and soon drew a crowd of admiring purchasers."-Chalmers. This frolicsome divine is the author of Poetica Stromata, or Collection of Sundrie Pieces in Poetry, 1648, in which there are a rare superabundance of wit, and constitutional hilarity. How long'd for flip his thirsty lip, how crew his crop with hunger! How shiver'd, shook for ingle nook his bag of bones and skin! And, ah! how faint his tuneful plaint," Sure Poverty's no sin!" No surly "Stand!" no hostile hand him at the porch opposed, Not him before they barr'd the door, nor yet their hearts they closed! But blazing coal, and wassail-bowl, and roasted crabs and ale Made glad a true and jolly crew, to whom he told his tale. A holy priest was at the feast, a doctor, (inter nos!) Who many a time a ballad rhyme had trowl'd at the High Cross! And risen gay at dawn of day with merry chanti cleer, To wend to the wood with Robin Hood in the spring-tyde of the year! "Thy lenten nose looks lachrymose, thy tatter'd garments tell Thou'rt not too rich in purse or breech; the world don't use thee well! Jack Frost's sharp gripe has crack'd thy pipethou shalt not hie thee hence Until a cup has cheer'd thee up, and thou hast pouch'd some pence. |