Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	wont_a	write_v	writer_n	42	3	7.9182	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02649	A nevv discourse of a stale subiect, called the metamorphosis of Aiax: vvritten by Misacmos, to his friend and cosin Philostilpnos	Harington, John, Sir, 1560-1612.	1596 (1596)	STC 12779.5; ESTC S103861	58,895	147

I write of the basest the barrennest and most witlesse subiect that may be described Quod decuit tantos cur mihi turp● putem I forbeare to shew examples of it least I should be thought to disgrace men of holy and worthy memory For such as shall find fault that it is too Satyricall surely I suppose their iudgement shall sooner be condemned by the wiser sort then my writings For when all the learned writers godly preachers and honest liuers ouer all England yea ouer all Europe renew that old complaint Regnare nequitiam in deterius res humanas labi When wee heare them say daily that there was neuer vnder so gracious ahead so gracelesse members after so sincere teaching so sinfull liuing in so shining light such workes of darkenesse When they crie out vpon vs yea cry indeed for I haue seene thē speake it with teares that lust and hatred were neuer so hote loue and charitie were neuer so colde that there was neuer lesse deuotion neuer more diuision that all impiety hath all impunity finally that the places that were wont to be the samples of all vertue and honour are now become the sinkes of all sinne and shame These phrases I say being written and recorded sounded and resounded in so many bookes and Sermons in Cambridge in Oxford in the Court in the countrey at Paules crosse in Paules church-yard may not I as a sorie writer among the rest in a merie matter and in a harmelesse manner professing purposely Of vaultes and prîuies sinkes and draughts to write proue according to my poore strength to draw the readers by some pretie draught to sinke into a deepe and necessary consideration how to amend some of their priuy faultes Beleeue it worthy readers for I write not to the vnworthy A IAX when he is at his worst yeeldes not a more offensiue sauour to the finest nostrils then some of the faultes I haue noted doe to God and the world Be not offended with me for saying it more then I am with some of you for seeing it But this I say if we would amend our priuy faultes first we should afterward much the better reforme the open offences according to the old prouerbe Euerie man mend one and all would be amended Trust me they do wrong me that count me Satyricall Alas I do but as the phrase is pull a haire frō their beards whose heades perhaps by the old lawes and canons should be shorne If you will say there is salt in it I will acknowledge it but if you will suspect there is gall in it I renounce it I name not many and in those I do name I swarue not farre from the rule Play with me and hurt me not Iest with me and shame me not For some that may seeme secretly touched and be not openly named if they will say nothing I will say nothing But as my good friend M. Dauies sayd of his Epigrams that they were made like dublets in Birchen lane for euery one whom they will serue so if any man finde in these my lines any raiment that sutes him so fit as if it were made for him let him weare it and spare not and for my part I would he could weare it out But if he will be angrie at it then as the old saying is I beshrew his angrie hart and I would warne him thus much as his poore friend that the workeman that could with a glaunce onely and a light view of his person make a garment so fit for him if the same workman come and take a precise measure of him may make him another garment of the same stuffe for there neede go but a payre of sheeres betweene them that in what sheere soeuer he dwelleth he may be knowne by such a coate as long as he liueth Well to conclude let both the writer and the readers endeuour to mend our selues and so we shall the easier amend others and then I shall thinke my labour well bestowed in writing and you shall thinke yours not altogether lost in reading And with this honest exhortation I would make an end imitating herein the wisest Lawyers who when they haue before the simplest Iurers long disputed their cases to litle purpose are euer most earnest and eager at the parting to beat into the Iuries head some speciall point or other for the behoofe of their client For so would I howsoeuer you do with the rest of the matter I would I say faine beate still into your memorie this necessarie admonition which my new takē name admonisheth me of to cleause amend and wipe away all filthinesse To the which purpose I could me thinke allegorise this homely subiect that I haue so dilated and make almost as good a Sermon as the Frier did before the Pope saying nothing but Matto San Pietro three times and so came downe from the pulpit againe and being afterward examined what he meant to make a Sermon of three wordes but three times repeated before the triple crowned Prelat and so many Cardinals He told them they might finde a good Sermon in Matto San Pietro as namely if heauen might be gotten notwithstanding all the pride pleasures and pompe of the world with ●ase sensualitie and Epicurisme then what a foole was S. Peter to liue so strict so poore so painfull 〈◊〉 With which it is possible his auditorie was more edified or at least more terrified then they would haue bene at a longer Sermon But I will neither end with Sermon nor prayer lest some wags liken me to my L. players who when they haue ended a baudie Comedy as though that were a preparatiue to deuotion kneele downe solemnly and pray all the companie to pray with them for their good Lord and maister Yet I wil end with this good counsell not vnsuting to the text I haue thus long talked of To keepe your houses sweet cleanse priuy vaults To keepe your soules as sweet mend priuie faults FINIS 43. Can. Camden in his Britānia This matter is discoursed by Rables in his 13. chap. of his fift booke V● moyē de me torcher le culle plus Seigneurial le plus excellent le plus expedient que iamais fut veu This may be omitted in reading Ouid. Meta. lib. 12. Lib. supra dicto Salt recouers baned sheepe Rabbles lib. 1. cap. 13. Cōme Gargasier cognoit l'esprit excellent de Gargantua a l'inuētiōd vntorche cul Lib. Fictitius Hic desunt non paucae de sermone aeth clerum Thus farre Ouid. Thus much lib. 6. S. Aug. de ciuit Dei Ster●utius the God of doung Such lipp●s such let●uce Some of these denied the godhead of Christ with Arrius some the authority of Bishops as Aerius which you may see in Prateolo de vita●●ret●corum Almarieus denied the resurrection of the body which is an heresie that mars all as S. Paule saith 1. Cor. 15. 14. That then our faith were vaine Some say amend and so done were verie well

of her Maiesties seruice though it were in the basest key that it could be tuned to And if I should fortune to effect so good a reformation in the Pallace of Richmond or Greenewich to which Pallace manie of vs owe seruice for the tenure of our land I doubt not but some pleasāt witted courtier of either sex● would grace me so much at least as to say that I were worthy for my rare inuētion to be made one of the Priuy and after a good long parenthesis come out with chamber or if they be learned haue read Castalios Courtier they will say I am a proper scholer and well seene in latrina lingua But let them mocke that list qui moccat moccabitur Who strike with sword the scabbeted them may strike And sure loue eraueth loue like asketh like If men of iudgement thinke it may breede a publike benefite the conceit thereof shall expell all priuate bashfulnesse and I will herein follow the example of that noble Lady that to saue the liberties of Couentry rode naked at noone through the streetes thereof and is now thought to be greatly honored and nothing shamed thereby Further whereas you embolden my pen not to be abasht at the basenesse of the subiect and as it were leading me on the way you tell me you haue broken the y●e for me to enter me into such broad phrases as you thinke must be frequent herein I will follow your steppes and your counsell neither will I disdaine to vse the poore helpe of saue reuerence if neede be much like as a good friend of yours and mine that beginning to dispraise as honest a man as him selfe to a great Noble man said he is the veryest knaue sauing your Lordship But the noble man ere the wordes were fully out of his mouth said saue thy self knaue or be hangd saue not me Euen so I must write in this discourse sometime indeede as homely sauing your vvorship as you shall lightly see and yet I will endeuour to keepe me within the boundes of modestie and vse no wordes but such as graue presidents in Diuinitie Law Phisicke or good Ciuilitie will sufficiently warrant me Sure I am that many other country●men both Dutch French and Italians with great praise of wit though small of modesty haue writtē of worse matters One writes in praise of folly 2. an other in honour of the Pox. 3. a third defendes vsury 4. a fourth commends Nero. 5. a fift extols and instructs bawdery 6. the sixt displaies and describes Puttana Errante which I here will come forth shortly in English 7. a seuenth whom I would guesse by his writing to be groome of the stoole to some Prince of the bloud in France writes a beastly treatise only to examin what is the fittest thing to wipe withall alledging that white paper is too smooth browne paper too rough wollen cloth too stiffe linnen cloth too hollow satten too slippery taffeta too thin veluet too thicke or perhaps too costly but he concludes that a goose necke to be drawne betweene the legs against the fethers is the most delicate and cleanely thing that may be Now it is possible that I may be reckned after these seuen as sapientum octauus because I will write of A Iakes yet I will challenge of right if the Heralds should appoint vs our places to go before this filthy fellow for as according to Aristotle a ryder is an Architectonicall science to a sadler and a sadler to a stirop maker c. so my discourse must needes be Architectonicall to his sith I treat of the house it self and he but of part of that is to be done in the house that no essentiall part of the businesse for they say there be three things that if one neglect to do them they will do themselues one is for a man to make euen his recknings for who so neglects it will be left euen iust nothing as other is to mary his daughters for if the parents bestow them not they will bestow them selues the third is that which the foresaide French man writes of which they that omit their lawndresses shall finde it done in their linnen VVhich mishap a faire Lady once hauing a seruing mā of the disposition of Mydas Barber that could not kepe coūsell had spyed it wrate in the grossest termes it could be exprest vppon a wall what he had seen but a certaine pleasant conceited Gentleman corrected the barbarisme adding rime to the reason in this sort My Ladie hath polluted her lineall vesture With the superfluitie of her corporall disgesture But soft I feare I giue you too great a tast of my slouenly eloquence in this sluttish argument VVherefore to conclude I dare vndertake that though my discourse will not be so wise as the first of those seuen I spake of that praises folly yet it shall be ciuiller then the second truer then the third honester then the fourth chaster thē the sift modester then the sixt and clenlier then the seuenth And that you and other of my good friends may take the lesse offence at it I will cloth it like an Ape in purple that it may be admitted into the better cōpany and if all the art I haue cannot make it mannerly enough the worst punishmēt it can haue is but to employ it in the house it shall treat of only crauing but that fauour that a noble man was wont to request of your good father in law to teare out my name before it be so employed and to him that would deny me that kindnesse I would the paper were nettles and the letters needles for his better ease or that it were like to the Friers booke dedicated as I take it to Pius quintus of which one writes merily that his holinesse finding it was good for nothing else imployed it in steed of the goose necke to a homely occupation and forsooth the phrase was so rude the stile so rugged and the Latin so barbarous that therewith as he writes scortigauit sedem Apostolicam He galled the seat Apostolicke and so I commend me to you till I send you the whole discourse Your louing cosin and true friend MISAKMOS THE PROLOGVE TO THE READER OF the Metamorphω-sis of AIAX GReat Captaine AIAX as is well knowen to the learned and shall here be published for the vnlearned was a warrier of Graecia strong headdy rash boisterous and a terrible fighting fellow but neither wise learned staide nor Polliticke Wherefore falling to bate with Vlisses receiuing so fowle a disgrace of him to be called foole afore company and being bound to the peace that he might not fight with so great a Counseller he could indure it no longer but became a perfit mal-content viz. his hat without a band his hose without garters his wast without a girdle his bootes without spurs his purse without coine his head without wit and thus swearing he would kill slay first he killed

and yet I could not couch it into a cleanely distichon But yet because I know Mistresse Philostilpnos will haue a great minde to know what it meanes I will tell her by some handsome circumlocution His meaning is that a Ladie of Ladies did for zeale to the Lord of Lordes take the like paines to purge some Popish abuses as the great giantly Hercules did for Augeus Now what maner of worke that was in the processe of this discourse one way or other you shall see me bring it in though yet I know not where will be the fittest place for it here yet you see by the way I haue told the mās meaning reasonable mannerly yet still me thinke I can say of his metaphor That still me thinke he vsde a phrase as pliant That said his Mistres was for wit a giant But I pray you let me go backe againe to mery Martiall for I should haue one more of his if I haue not lost it Ad Phoebum Oh here I haue it Vtere lactucis mollibus vtere maluis Nam faciem durum Phoebe cacantis habes He aduises him to take somewhat to make him soluble for his face looked as if he were asking who should be M. Mayor the next yeare But I thinke this iest was borrowed of Vespasianus foole or else the foole borrowed it of him but the iest is worthy to be receiued into this discourse This foole had iested somewhat at all the boord saue Vespasian him selfe and belike he thought it was ill playing with edge tooles and Emperours but Vespasian commaunded him and promised him franke pardon to breake a good iest vpon him Well Sir then said the foole I will but tary till you haue done your businesse whereby he quipped the Emperours ill feature of face that euen when he was meriest looked as if he had bene wringing hard on a close stoole But let vs seek some better authorities then Epigrams and Iesters sure I am I shall finde in historie which is called nuncia vetustatis vita memoriae the reporter of antiquities the life of memory many phrases expressing the same action and not thinking their stile any whit abased thereby He that writes the first booke of Samuel tels that Dauid did cut off the lap of Saules coate leaues not to tell what Saule was then doing The writer of Bassianus life telles how he was not onely priuily murdred but murdred at the priuy Heliogabulus body was throwen into a Iakes as writ●th Suetonius Lastly the best and best written part of all our Chronicles in all mens opinions is that of Richard the third written as I haue heard by Moorton but as most suppose by that worthy and vncorrupt Magistrate Sir Thomas More sometime Lord Chancelor of England where it is writtē how the king was deuising with Teril how to haue his nephews priuily murdred and it is added he was thē sitting on a draught a fit carpet for such a coūsel But to leaue these tragicall matters and come to comicall looke into your sports of hauking and hunting of which noble recreations the noble Sir Philip Sidney was wont to say that next hunting he liked hauking worst but the faulconers and hunters would be euen with him and say that these bookish fellowes such as he could iudge of no sports but within the verge of the faire fields of Helicon Pindus and Pernasus Now I would aske you Sir lest you should thinke I neuer read Sir Tristram Doe you not sometime beside the fine phrase or rather Metaphor of inewing a woodcock talke both of putting a heron to the mount then of his s●cing ●ell of springing a pheasant and a partridge and finde them out by their dropping Doe you not further to iudge of your haulkes health looke on her casting if it be blacke at one end and the rest yellow you feare she hath the phillanders if it be all blacke you shall see and smell she is not sound Lastly you haue a speciall regard to obserue if she make a cleane mute Moreouer for hūting when you haue harbourd a stag or lodged a buck doth not the keeper before he comes to rouse him from his lodging not without some ceremony shew you his femishing that thereby you may iudge if he be a seasonable deare And soone after followes the melodious cry of the hounds which the good Lady could not heare because the dogs kept such a barking And when all this is done and you are rehearsing at dinner what great sport you haue had in the middest of your sweet meates in comes Melampus or Ringwood that sang the base that morning and in the returne home lighted vppon some powderd vermin and layes a chase vnder the table that makes all as sweet as any suger-carrion all this you willingly beare with because it is your pastime Thus you must needes confesse it is more then manifest that without reproofe of ribaldry or scurrility writings both holy and prophane Emblemes Epigrams Histories and ordinary and familiar communication admits the vse of the words with all their apurtenaunces in citing examples whereof I haue bene the more copious because of this captious time so ready to backebite euery mans worke and I would forewarne men not to bite here lest they bite an vnsauory morsell But here me thinke it were good to make a pause as it were at a long dinner to take away the first course which commonly is of the coursest meate as powdred bie●e and mustard or rather to compare it fitter fresh biefe and garlicke for that hath three properties more suting to this discourse viz. to make a man winke drinke and stinke Now for your second course I could wish I had some larkes and quailes but you must haue such as the market I come from will affoord alwaies remembred that our retiring place or place of rende vous as is expedient when men haue filled their bellies must be Monsieur AIAX for I must still keepe me to my tesh wherefore as I say here I will make the first stop and if you mislike not the fare thus farre I will make the second course make you some amends THE SECOND SECTION prouing the matter not to be contemptible IT hath bene in the former part hereof sufficiently proued that there is no obscenity or barbarisme in words concerning our necessaries but now for the place where these necessaries are to be done perhaps some will obiect that it was neuer of that importāce but that it was left to each mans own care to prouide for that which concerned his owne peculiar necessitie It is not so for I can bring very aut●nticall proofs out of auncient records and histories that the greatest magistrates that euer were haue employed their wits their care and their cost about these places as also haue made diuerse good lawes proclamations and decrees about the same all thereto belonging as by this that ensues shall more plainely appeare In the handling