fertis oves Leasure and Solitariness are great impugners of Chastity LAsses intrusted to their own discretion Roaming longst sev'ral rooms and spacious beds Can hardly shun an amorous impression For empty chambers make lascivious maids And serve in thoughts by which they 're so entic'd That when a Lover comes they are surpris'd Of Jack and Doll WHilst Jack was 'twixt Doll's legs Sir marry me Quoth she and you shall do 't although my mother Would not give way thereto Come come says he We must do first one thing before another Then did he put her quickly to the action Without the leasure of one thoughts reflection Of the free-spoken woman Briccona BRiccona being desir'd to let us know The place wherein she first did undergo The touch of man and whether it was in The house or field that she receiv'd Dondin In neither quoth she for as Love did mount To scale my walls I took it in my C Of Pet and his Mistress Kate. PEt's preparation was a complement She being in his account well qualified Kate 's expectation was an implement He being in her account well quantified Thus all the better nature had endow'd her He in her nature all the more imbu'd her Why the carnal union of man and woman is expressed many times by the name of Venery TH' act which both sexes hath so oft combin'd In Loves delight is termed Venery Because the male and female were enjoyn'd On Venus day t' increase and multiply That Planet shining which we now call Venus When God t' obey this precept did ordain us Of Knestiosa LUst is the onely cause of all her love And love alone unto her life gives breath That she may live in lust she lusts to live Without the which life is to her but death Her signes of life meer deeds of lust do prove Nor beats her pulse but by the act of Love The Penance of Licentious writing IF any wanton lines have issu'd from My unaffected Quill I hold it meet They suffer like adulterers and come Inwrap'd before the Readers in a sheet That he or she may give the milder sentence To see them in this habit of repentance Of the Puritane woman Ruth RUth is so taken up with faith that she Hath left no room at all for Charitie Nor cares she for good works her faith being ampler But those which she doth work upon the sampler Of the opposite effects of Printing and Gunpowder discovered to the knowledge of the world within seventy nine yeers of one another PRinting of late hath been found out to further Learning wherby one boy may work more then Ten men could do before for our instruction And Powder invented was so apt to murther That one therewith can now kill many'r men Then twenty formerly for our destruction That being in knowledge sudden this in Choler This kills a Souldier that revives a Scholar How a certain resolute and audacious Wooer was so confident in conversing with his Mistress of her gracious acceptance of and yeelding to his amorous request that being lesâ— eloquent then judicious he broke off on a sudden the thred of those complements he had not the skill to prosecute and supplied his lack of discourse with a more pathetically expressive action THe sprightly courter of a gallant Lady Stopping the current of his lovely speeches Referr'd his mind both time and place being ready T' an orator residing in his Br And said Of what I 've left yet unexprest The bearer Madam will declare the rest Of one Gametes GAm said t' his wife that it was not the fashion Of men of great account and reputation To do it above once a night or twice At most and that t' have carnal dealing thrice Or oftner was the custom but of Scullions Hogrubbers Porters Colliers and Slabgullions But sore repented he that h' had not said It was the fashion rather of the Mede Turk Persian Muscoviter Dane Polonian Hungarian Tartar Swede and Macedonian Who were not to be found so easily As Colliers and the other scondrel fry Of Barnabee and his wife Santarella BAr coming late to a promiscuous meeting Where the lights out each brother was a greeting His sister with a holy touch his lot Was to kiss his own wife whom he knew not Then falling in to be more closely buckel'd By his own knocking made himself a cuckold To one Meg who was modest at the Table and with her Sweet hearts in the Chamber lascivious ALthough you make two morsels of a fig Wherby to some you seem extremely meek Yet well I know it is your humour Meg At no more then one bite to snatch a p As if your touches stomack could digest More substance then the stomack of your tast Of such as being of a disposition kinde enough otherwise will perhaps take exceptions at the freedom of many of my Verses SOme women scorn to read or hear a word Whereof the sense may to the minde afford Without a periphrastical expression The plain downright and literal impression Of any thing they call obscene and bawdy As if the eyes and ears of all the body Were the sole parts must be exposed to Chaste objects Yet seeing Use hath made it so Many of my loose Verses will fall under The burden of their censure though I wonder By what hypocrisie it is they can Hate lines for that which they love best in man And therefore do I here conjure them by Their thoughts as be'ng less rigorous that they Geld not my book for it may furnish wit Will serve t' ingender others out of it Of Ralph the Logician and his Sweet-heart Grisel RAlph made by vertue of his Genitories In spight of Grisel's dialectick Criticks An Isagoge to her Categories And Hermenia to her Analyticks Keeping the method thus of Aristotle To taste the Nectar of her Paphian bottle Of the two robbed Merchants Dick and Ben. AS Dick and Ben were trav'ling to Belfast They met with robbers who first bound them fast And having pick'd their Cloakbags left them then O I 'm undone quoth Dick Be pleas'd quoth Ben T' undo me then for I would fain b' unty'd Thus of these two it may be certifi'd That each of them was fast bound with strong ropes And both undone for having lost their hopes Of Hanse and Ned. HAnse with an unstretch'd hand and the palm down Pretending strength said he might lay a crown That Ned could not with all the force he had Fold in his middle and ring-finger Ned Thinking Hanse spoke it out of bravery Employ'd his pith and did those fingers ply Which done Hanse fore and little one in scorn Did point out Ned the double-forked horn How a certain Lover and his Mistress played together on the Virginals THey touch'd the keys with lovely strokes most quaintly And in their motion s'uniformly dangled That tails did up whilst heads went down conjoyntly The found-boord echoing as the start-up brangled Being in their sharps and breaks so quick and present That never
have above the English and all our other Vernaculary Languages is easily understood by those that are well acquainted with the majestick pace of the Dactyl and Spondae feet which is of a much more graceful and lofty trip then can be performed by our lame Iambos Another sort of gallant Poesie there is called the Lyrick wherein are comprehended Sonnets Madrigals Hymns Ballets Odes whether amorous rural military symposiastick or what you will Epithalamions to Nuptials Epinicions for Victories Genethliacks on Nativities Congratulatories and such-like copies of Verses which cannot be expressed by any known Language in the world with more advantage then in the Italian the whole words whereof some few syncategorematical monosyllables onely excepted and those not above six in all most smoothely terminating in vowels and consisting of syllables by reason of their paucity of consonants exceeding neatly materiated do afford a Phraseologie so admirably fluent that the very sound more then most sweetly dropping in the ear bedews to the inexpressible ravishment of the hearers the nimble spirits of the brain with Nectar and Honey deliciosissimamente Yet in matter of Elegies Threnodies or any long-breathed Poem on luctiferous subjects the Spanish and French Tongues may come in competition with the best The latitude of Poesie extending yet a great deal further there is a species thereof called the Drammatick which includeth Tragedies Comedies Interludes Masks Entertainments Dialogues Satyrs Frolicks Georgicks Pastorals Piscatories Nauticals which last three pass commonly by the name of Eclogues and other such-like in all which to the English I would allow a comparative but no superlative degree For that and no less in so far as concerns the English I would reserve to the onely Epigram even in its utmost extent as it comprehendeth Epitaphs Characters Emblemes Devices Motto's Hieroglyphicks Definitions Aphorisms Distributions Paradoxes Rebus Problemes Charientilogetick Quirks in facetious Encounters Gnomologetick in Sentences Paraemial in Adages Ethological in Moral Precepts Epistemonical in Sciences Technical in Liberal Arts Mechanologetick in Manual Trades Cabalistick in Mysterious Speculations Philistoretick in Narratives Palaestrick in Field-exercises Umbratilary in House-games Paidathyreutick in Childish Sports Androgynathletical in Amourets betwixt man and woman Polemick Knacks in the Milice Politick in the State Mythological in all maner of Fables Aenigmatick in Riddles Arithmologetick in Numbers Biographical in the institution of a mans life Zoopaedeutick in observing for our instruction the actions of meer Animals Rhetorical Whimseys whether Ironical for Similitudes or Antipophoretick for Discrepances Epitatick Hyperboles in Exuperancie or Hypocoristick in Extenuation with all the other Tropes and Figures not omitting the Pathologie thereto subservient ingenious Fallacies in extra dictionem Encomiasticks Vituperatories Scoffs Sarcasms Witty Gybes Jeers Jests Tales Quibbles Clinches Quips Bulls Anagrams Chronograms Logogriphs Acrosticks Teleuticks Palindromies Retrogrades Antistrophs Criticisms Dipnosophisms Technopaegnions and in a word all maner of succinct and concise Poetry on what subject soever purely fancied and in a quaint diction apparelled for if in either of those qualifications it fail though it may possibly merit the stile of an Epigram yet will it always be with the addition of a scurvie paltry and bad one The Epigram therefore I again avouch is that which of all maner of Poetizing doth best befit the Systeme of the English Language because it is that I mean the good one which of all Poems requireth the richest and most pregnant conceit a sublime and piercing acumen in the close to be sprucely worded and in few terms which last clause to wit shortness being in a maner essential to the Epigram as circularity or more properly orbicularity to the Heavens makes that kind of Poesie by reason of the Polymonosyllabicalogies of the English more convenient and sutable to that Idiome then to any of the above-named Languages Truely as for composing Poetical Treatises upon Didascalary subjects as did Lucretius Epistolary after the maner of Ovid Historical like Lucan or any other such long-winded Tractates upon serious purposes whatever the subjected matter be Divine or Humane it will not in my opinion still salva doctioribus reverentia relish neer so well in Verse as Prose which set afoot once by a dextrous Writer cannot be with any apparence of truth said to walk on crutches more then Verses do for it having answerable to the metrical feet in the learned Tongues and parity of syllables tipped with semblable terminations vulgarly called Rhymes in the vernaculary another kinde of feet every whit as proportionable swift and vigorous on which being set forward an Isocoly of members closing in correspondent desinences without Homoiotely the discoursed or treated-on subject will on such lively props run along the field of the Period stop change turn flie out again and with a most sprightly motion full of alacrity by excitating Passion and perswading Reason forcibly seize at last upon all the both upper and under faculties of the soul and shut them up as close prisoners in the final close of the expression Hereby as I must acknowledge my self obliged in the parallel of Prose with Verse to ascribe the pre-eminence unto Prose even in the English as well as in all other Languages so on the other part when one kind of Poem comes in competition with another and that it shall be asked me which in the English would prove most graceful my answer truely will be for the reason above recited that what rank soever the Epigram keep in other Tongues it should above all other Poetry obtain the superiority in the English This in very deed proved no mean motive to me when my Genius led me in the vein of Poetizing to any favourable opportunity of embracing a diversion with the sacred Quire of Parnassus to set aside all other maner of Poems and lay hold on the Epigram but that which incontroversibly may be called the main cause of that my choice was my unavoidable want of leasure to ply the Muses in any long purpose of great deliberation For although my minde had been never so much bent upon the prosecuting of another strain and that the English diction had been able to furnish me with advantages beyond any other Speech for such a task yet for having been always so unfortunately involved either in publike interests private difficulties businesses of friends disturbances of foes or other such-like entanglements oftentimes with an accumulative impetuousness thronging upon me all together at once that I do not remember the sun ever shined that day since the time elapsed of my subferulary age wherein I was master of the space of two whole hours which I might be sure to call mine own without the urgencie of some pressing interruption I could not with pretext of reason or shew of understanding the proportion of the measure of motion to the actions thereupon depending have adventured to launch forth my little Skiff of Invention Poetically rigged into the large and profound Ocean of Polystichetick undertakings or yet
together Of Virginity VIr in the Latine yeelds of man th' expression Gini in Greek a woman doth imply Tie in our Tongue importeth copulation Which three words spell us out Virginity Hence that no maidenheads are lost we gather If male and female be not joyn'd together Of that masculine love which tends to lust MAn's love is drawn from the circumference Inscribing th' outward Pentagon of sense Unto that female inward tactil center Like a diameter which there doth enter To a certain Gentlewoman concerning Cupid and a new born babe of hers BEcause one lovely boy your eyes did enter Another issu'd at a lower center The first got access at the sight and such As made the last finde egress from the touch The babe was blinde which stepped in and took His passage at the sense whereby you look But there did sally at the part whereat No optick vertue is a seeing brat So interlaced are the faculties Of View and Feeling in the exercise Which sets abroach an infants generation Or labour which gives children procreation That by their mixture you had a full measure First of the cause then the effect of pleasure The Bell-man BRave youths who with your handsom sweet-hearts lie Charm'd with a tactil sensuality Let each and all of you observe your mate Both when she lougeth and when she 's repleat For be assur'd that in the greater measure You ' il please your selves the more you mind their pleasure 'T is a fair morning but one a clock Give therefore breath unto your hic in hoc For there is nothing stands but once must fall And so good morrow t' ye my masters all Of the widow Machlis MAchlis in her return from th' obsequies Of her deceased mate finding the ways To be quite broken in the cawsey which She trod on utter'd this ambiguous speech Ev'n whilst her hand was dangling carelesly On her feminian overture if I But have the luck to live another year Many a pretty store shall be laid here And that in honour of my husband who Past sev'ral times upon it to and fro That it is a very natural thing in a woman to lose her maidenhead SEeing Nature to shun voids in th' Universe Doth mounting floods falling air embos'm Why shall a woman from that course b' averse To fill the vac'um of her Microcosm Vacuity with it confusion carries And women should eschew 't lest mankind perish To a lusty strong man named Bently on the day of his marriage with a young weak stripling Girl I Would not wish you wholly to forbear Because the Bride is young from colling her Yet this I would desire you Master Bently If so the ground be tender rake it gently Of the Lover Eron and his Sweet-heart Phileta ERron when first the blind brat did him move To Venery abandoning all arts For the enjoyment of Phileta's love Became a Sentry at her lower parts Waiting as constantly upon her nates As ever on Aeneas did Achates The reason why wearing of Gowns is peculiar to Scholars and Women TO call him Scholar that knows much is common A maid by knowing man is made a woman He in the head with knowledge is endowed She in the tail her knowledge hath imbued This is the cause why both wear Gowns and why From head to tail they reach talariately Of one Strigo a Farmer in Aragon who for his matchless activity in Love-duels was sent for by Alfonse the then king of that country THe Yeoman Strigo was in reins so strong That he could foil ten gilts in Venery And please them all This made Alphonse to long For his acquaintance but unhappily As he was coming towards him he di'd The King did notwithstanding ask his son If like his father he was fortifi'd ' Gainst amorous debates in the back-bone I am not Sir so like my father as My mother quoth he but I have a sister That is a vigorous and bouncing lass Known to be such by all that ever kist her Who though she be therein but a beginner Hath right much of her fathers nature in her Of one Amalia a Poetess of a very amorous disposition AM 's best conceptions are her vein being tactil Infus'd by Cupid rather then Apollo Th' enthousiasm proceeding from the dactyl Where after one long measure two short follow For she expresseth to the life Love's stances When by this foot she scans her couched fancies How hard a thing it is to judge of the minde by the outward carriage SIgnes that in nothing differ to the sense Give of the minde no certain evidence For many women make the self-same face At the bruise of a blistred finger as At the reception of a Paphian cane Yet th' one yeelds pleasure and the other pain Of Dorothie the wife of John-a-Stiles WHen Dorothy in the night-time had found The Cyprian Nag of honest John-an-Oke Some damage fesant in her husbands ground She straight laid hold on him ev'n in her smock And put him legally in her pound ouvert For Dorothy was John-a-Stiles fem covert Of Womens precellencie ALl Lovers should their Mistresses as oft As they can on their knees serve with affection Whilst these sweet thing lets looking still aloft Rejoyce upon their backs at mans subjection Hence the she 's Mistress call'd as I suppose And he the Servant who with her doth close Of Tib and her sweet-heart Vere I 'Ve lost my blade quoth Tib come search it Vere Some higher ho some lower ho there there Of the loving carriage of one Bosens to his wife Mary after his return from a great Lord. AT each of the four times that Bosens had Bebumped Mary in her genial bed He telling her that this bout was for Dick That other in remembrance of kinde Nick This other yet in memory of Jack And finally this last for one Ned's sake Which four he said were all of my Lords kinred By me quoth Moll then you shall not be hindred In this kinde your respects to testifie To the remainder of his pedigree But finding weariness to seize on Bosens She asked if my Lord had no more cosens Concerning the souldier John Gerthudenberg's Art of Printing and the finding out of Gunpowder by Bartholdus Swart a Franciscan Fryar FAte so ordain'd who knew best how conjunct Arts must needs be with Arms to gain desert That Powder was th' invention of a Monk And from a Souldier came the Printing art Since when great things by arts in gowns proposed Have often been by Mars with guns disposed The expression of one who did not love to burn for Religion T' Expose my self to death I have no maw For this or that opinion of the Law Those that court Martyrdom must have a motion Of secret breathing towards that promotion They 're fittest to be Martyrs whom God skills With the spruce art of doing Miracles All I can do 's within the bounds of Nature Which makes me think that for so high a matter I have no call and