THE PRAISE ANTIQVITY and commodity of Beggery Beggers and Begging Beggers Bush. A Maunbering Begger A gallant Begger At London Printed by E. A. for Henry Gosson and are to be sold by Edward Wright neere Christs Church Gate 1621. TO THE BRIGHT EYE-DAZELING MIRROVR OF MIRTH Adelantado of Alacrity the Pump of pastime spout of sport and Regent of ridiculous Confabulations ARCHIBALD ARMESTRONG alias the Court ARCHY ENuie and Hate are such daily followers and deadly enemies of the wife honest and vertuous that my hope is that they will neuer doe you wrong or iniurie And my beliefe is that as you haue euer you will alwayes carie your selfe so worthily in all your actions that your best deserts shall neither merrit envie or hatred I haue heere made bold to present to your illiterate protection a beggerly Pamphlet of my threed-bare inuention I doe assure you that I was more troubled in studying where to finde a fit Patron then I was in writing the Booke I thought to haue dedicated it to Beggers Bush neere Andeuer or to his Hawthorne brother within a mile of Huntington but I considered at last that the laps of your long Coate could shelter me as well â—r better then any beggerly Thorne-lush I did once dedicate a Booke to your patronage of the supposed drowning of M. Thomas Coriat and I did also dedicate tryce small Treatises to a Leash of Knights and because you all foure make a well match'd Murniuall of Patrons for you all alike very illiberally put your hands in your pockets and to make your monies euen gaue me nothing It makes me the bolder at this time to come vpon you againe not doubting but your bounty will require my loue and paines with as much more It may be that your high affaires wherein you are continually pestred with needlesse imployments rubs your minde quite from the Ryas that you doe not see in what declining predicament your owne sometimes esteemed quality is for the dayes hath beene that many men kept Fooles but now to saue that charge the most part of such Benefactors performe the function themselues So that if you take not a speedy order fooling will bee as common as begging or whore-maisters and the sight or presence either of your worthy selfe or any of your long-taild tribe which was wont to be seene and heard with admiration will be no more regarded To preuent which I would counsell you to make a Corporation of fooling and that none shall intrude into the society hereafter but such as shall be Apprentizes to the quality of which those that are now liuing to contribute toward the building or purchasing of a Hall your selfe during your life to be perpetuall Maister of the Company I heare that the valarous Sir Thomas Knight of the Sunne hath had such a proiect in his head end hath presumed to petition for himselfe to haue the sole approbation of all authorized Fooles and Buffones But for aught I see you neede not feare that he will preuent you in this Monopoly hee being so farre from the sufficiencie of a generall super-intendant that he is esteemed unworthy to be a setter vp of the trade for mine owne part a Beadles place is onely my ambition to whip those out of the Society that are malapert fooles surcie fooles prodigall fooles courteous fooles proud fooles counter fait fooles or any one that is more Knaue than Foole. Apart of Bridewell would serue silly for a Hall and the Armes of the brotherhood shall be an Asses head Dormant in a field Gules with a Bable and three Coxcombs rampant and two morice-bels pendant with a Whip passant lashant for the Crest the Esoucheon mantled with powdred Vermine This if you please to take in hand no doubt but the worke will be meritorious and notorious and as the Romane Emperours Nero Caligula and Heliogabelus are as famous for their acts lines and deathes as the good Augustus Alexander Seuerus and Marcus Aurelius So shall you be remembred in succeeding ages beyond the memory of Scoggin or worthy Will Summers I pray you be not angry that I doe not salute you with the flattering Epheihites of honest courteous friendly louing or kinde for as yet you neuer gaue mee occasion to doe you any such iniurie I protest Sir I doe loue you with that affection as is correspondent to the vaccuity of your Worthinesse and I am assured that at all times you will stand my friend in word or deede for as much as comes to an vnbaked Tabacco-Pipe In which assurance I kisse your hand as innocent as the new borne Babe or Lamb in the Cradle and shall euer wish you a nimble tongue to make other mens money runne into your Purse and quicke heeles to out-runne the or Hue and crie if occasion require He that admires your vnparallelable parts and wisheth the reuersion of your gaines rather then your Office Iohn Taylor THE PRAISE ANTIQVITY AND COMMODITY of Beggerie Beggers and Begging A Begger from an Antient house begins Old Adams soone and heire vnto his sins And as our father Adam did possesse The world there 's not a Begger that hath lesse For whereof is the world compact and fram'd But Elements which to our fence are nam'd The Earth the Ayre the Water and the Fire With which all liue without which all-expire These euery Begger hath in plenteous store And euery mighty Monarch hath no more Nor can the greatest Potentate aliue The meanest Begger of these things depriue The Earth is common both for birth or Graues For Kings and Beggers Free-men and for Slaues And a poore Begger as much Ayre will draw As he that could keepe all the world in awe The Water be it Riuers Seas or Spring 'T is equall for a Begger as a King And the Celestiall Sunne 's bright fire from Heauen 'Mongst all estates most equally is giuen Giu'n not to be ingrost or bought not sold For gifts and bribes or base corrupting gold These things nor poore or rich can sell nor buy Free for all liuing creatures till they dye An Emperour a great command doth beate But yet a Begger 's more secure from feare A King may vse disports as fits the season But yet a Begger is more safe from Treason A Prince amidst his cares may merry be But yet a Begger is from flatt'rers free A Duke is a degree magnificent But yet a Begger may haue more content A Marquesse is a title of great fame A Begger may offend more with lesse blame An Earle an honourable house may keepe But yet a begger may more soundly sleepe A Vizecoune may be honour'd and renound But yet a begger 's on a surer ground A Barron is a Stile belou'd and Noble But yet a begger is more stee from troble A Knight is good if his deserts be such But yet a begger may not owe so much A good Esquire is worthy of respect A begger 's in lesse care though
beliefe shall be therein as much auailable as eye sight Fortune hath onely left me a tongue to bemone my losses and one eye to be witnesse of your noble bountie I would be loth to weary your Lordship with the relations of my trauels to whom the storie of these warres are as familiar as to my self your worthy liberalitie is the spurre to valour and the sauegard of his country and in your honorable memorie my tong shall supplys the defects of my limbes and proclaime your merit through the 17 Prouinces whither your bountie shall beare this witherd bodie to interre it with the bloud which I left there as a pledge of my returne This is the martiall or decaied military kind of begging which if he speed then he can fit himselfe with a prayer accordingly for the prosperitie of his liberall benefactor as thus Peace be to thy loines Right honourable and plentie at thy board oppression in the country and extortion in the citie embroder thy carkas and keepe thy Concubine constant that Taylers may sue to thee for worke more then for paiment and Sericants may stand and gaze at thy faire progresse by the Compters whist thy coach mares shall whurrie thee free from Attachments Then after a scrub or shrug you must conceiue that he meetes with a Lawyer and fitting his phrase to his language he assaults him thus and ioynes issue Humbly sheweth to your good Worship your poore suppliant hauing aduanced his bill in the late warres of Sweaden Copenhage and Stock Holland after Replications in particular and Reiovnders drawne with bloudy pens and dreadfull characters your petitioner ioyned issue in that fearfull day of hearing at the grand castle of Smolesco where he came off with the losse of his inheritance hauing the euidence of his limbes violently rent from him to make open passage to the beneuolent charitie of such of such pious persons as is your good worship for you are the true souldiers of the country whose warres concerne the domestique peace of our nation as such as my selfe doth the forreine My breeding was Gentle Sir and my birth English a younger brother driuen to my shifts to auoide the soule accidents of home-bred miseries I measured forrein paces and was deliuerd abroad of my breeding at home in which estate the hand of your bountie must support me or else calamitie will crawle euer me which hath no Surgeon but the gallowes to which I hope the Law will not deliuer me seeing it carries so faire a face as the reuerend aspect of your maisterships countenance By this time you must suppose that his bount being awak'd he giues him somewhat when with a correspondent prayer he thus takes his benevale May the Termes be euerlasting to thee thou man of tong and may contentions grow and multiply may Actions beget Actions and Cases engender Cases as thicke as hops may euery day of the yeare be a Shroue tuesday let Proclamations forbid fighting to increase actions of battry that thy Cassock may be three pilde and the welts of thy gowne may not grow thread bare Perhaps he meetes with some countrey Farmer or some honest Russet home-spun plaine-dealing plowiogger whom he assaults with a volley of lyes and brauadoes in maner and forme following You shall do well to take notice countryman and friend that I am a souldier and a gentleman who hauing bin made Fortunes tennis ball was lately cast vpon these coasts of my country by the mercilesse crueltie of the raging tempestuous seas where I haue bin in that distresse that the whole Christian world durst not so much as looke on mine Armes hath bin feared by all the enemies that euer beheld them aduanc'd and my command hath bin dreadfull through Europe Asia Africa and America from the Suns Easterne rising to his Westerne declination I was the first man that entred despight the mouth of the cannon into the famous city of Portrega a citie fiue times greater then Constantinople where the great Turke then kept his Seraglio Basha Caphy Basha Indae and Mustapha Despot of Seruia being my prisoners whose ransomes yeelded my sword three millions of Hungarian duckets with which returning thinking to make thee and the rest of my nation rich the ship which transported me being ouerladen tooke such a leake that she sunke not a mortall eye being able to see one pennie of that vncountable treasure my selfe as you see preserued a miserable spectacle of vnfortunate chance for getting astride vpon a demyculuering of brasse I was weather-beaten three leagues on shore as you see an ominous map of manquelling calamitie to the reliefe whereof my fellow and friend for so my now pouertie makes me vouchsafe to call thee I must intreat thy manhood by offering a parcell of thy substance make no delayes Sir for I would be loth to exercise my valour on thee and make thee the first Christian that should feele the impregnable strength and vigour of my victorious arm which hath done to death so many Turkes Pagans and Infidels as cannot truly be numbred After all this superfluous fustian the poore man vnwillingly drawes and giues him some small mite more for feare or lying then either for loue or charitie His fury being abated he takes his leaue thus Faire be thy Haruest and foule thy winter that plentie may fil thy barnes and feare of scarcitie raise thy price may thy Landlord liue vnmarried that thy fine may not be raisde to buy thy new Landladie a French petlicoate or a new Blocke Beauer nor thy rents raisde to keepe her tire in fashion INuention many thousand waies could go To shew their variations to and fro For as vpon the soule of man attends The world the flesh the diuell three wicked friends So likewise hath a begger other three With whom his humour neuer could agree A Iustice to the world he doth compare And for his flesh a Beadle is a snare But he that he of all accounts most euill He thinks a Constable to be the deuill And 't is as easie for him as to drinke To blind the world and make a Iustice winke The Beadle for the flesh ' is little paine Which smart he can recouer soone againe But yet the Diuells the Constable a spirit From hole to hole that hunts him like a ferrit Both day and night he haunts him as a ghost And of all furies he torments him most All 's one for that though some things fa'l out ill A begger seldome rides vp Holborne hill Nor is he taken with a theeuish trap And made dispute with Doctors Stories cap. A common theefe for euery groute he gaines His life doth venture besides all his paines For euery thing he eates or drinkes or weares To lose his eares or gaine a rope he feares But for a begger be it hee or shee They are from all these choaking dangers free And though for sinne when mankind first began A curse was laid on all the race of man That of his labours he should liue and eate And get his bread by trauell and by sweate But if that any from this curse be free A begger must he be and none but he For euery foole most certainly doth know A begger doth not dig delue plow or sow He neither harrowes plants lops fels nor rakes Nor any way he paines or labour takes Let swine be meazeld let sheepe die and rot Let moraine kill the cattell he cares not He will not worke and sweat and yet hee 'l feed And each mans labour must supply his need Thus without paines of care his life hee 'l spend And liues vntill he dies and there 's an end But I this reekning do of beggry make That it much better is to giue then take Yet if my substance will not serue to giue Lie of my betters take with thankes and liue FINIS A Gleek Antiquity of Beggers Vniuersality Earth Ayre Water Fire If these elements could bee bought and solde the poore beggers should haue small roome for birth life or buriall Wit wisedom wealth and conscience are not vsually heredetary or in one man The barrennesse of Parnassus The pouerty or beggery of the Muses * Virgill hee was borne in a ditch and afterward being in Rome in seruice with Augustus Caesar to whom hee many times gaue learned verses and the Emperour alwayes rewarded him with bread A Lowse the ground of the first Hexameters * Parnassus * Chris. Marlo A Begger neuer growes mad with too much study Dumbe Rhetorick moues Charity The weake Begger haue a great aduantage over the strong Beggers for th' most part well borne Virtues that Beggers haue Humility Patience Fortitude Temperance It waytes on Charity a worthy bountiful Mistres Antiquity Beggery descended from Caine who was the first man that euer was borne heire apparant to the whole world Honour Curtesie Security Bounty Power Frugality A Begger is no shifting fellow True friendship Beggers are trauellers He is seldom idle though hee neuer works Deuotion Vniuersality He is a louer of good works Peggery is naturall and generall to all the world Beggery is perpetual The generality of beggerie It is most necessary for euery one to liue and dye a Begger A Iustice of peace is as the world to a begger a Beadle as the flesh and a Constable as the diveil A Iustice will wink or conniue at a beggers faults often partly for pity partly to a cold trouble A whipping wil be looue cured A Constable in a Bugbeare to a begger * Sybutae
more neglect A Gentleman may good apparell weare A begger from the Mercers booke is cleare A Seruing-man that 's young in older yeares Oft proues an aged begger it appeares Thus all degrees and states what o're they are With beggers happinesse cannot compare Heau'n is the roofe that Canopies his head The cloudes his Curtaines and the earth his bed The Sunne his fire the Starre's his candle light The Moone his Lampe that guides him in the night When scorching Sol makes other mortals sweat Each tree doth shade a begger from his heat When nipping Winter makes the Cow to quake A begger will a Barne for harbour take When Trees and Steeples are o're-turn'd with winde A begger will a hedge for shelter finde And though his inconueniences are store Yet still he hath a salue for eu'ry sore He for new fashions owes the Tayler nothing Nor to the Draper is in debt for cloathing A begger doth not begger or deceaue Others by breaking like a bankerupt Knaue He 's free from shoulder-clapping Sergeants clawes He 's out offeare of Enuies canker'd iawes He liues in such a safe and happy state That he is neither hated nor doth hate None beares him malice rancour or despight And he dares kill those that dare him back-bite Credit he neither hath or giues to none All times and seasons vnto him are one He longs not for or feares a quarter day For Rent he neither doth receiue or pay Let Nation against Nation warres denounce Let Cannons thunder and let Muskets bounce Let armies armies force 'gainst force oppose He nothing feares nor nothing hath to lose Let Townes and Towres with batt'ry be o're-turn'd Let women be deflowr'd and houses burn'd Let men sight pell-mell and loose life and lim If earth and skies-escafe all 's one to him O happy begg'ry euery liberall Art Hath left the thanklesse world and takes thy part And learning conscience and simplicity Plaine dealing and true perfect honesty Sweet Poetry and high Astronomy Musickes delightfull heau'nly harmony All these with begg'ry most assuredly Haue made a friendly league to liue and dye For Fortune hath decreed and holds it fit Not to giue one man conscience wealth and wit For they are portions which to twaine belong And to giue all to one were double wrong Therefore although the Goddesse want her eyes Yet in her blinded bounty she is wise I will not say but wealth and wisedome are In one ten or in more but 't is most rare And such men are to be in peace or warres Admir'd like black Swans or like blazing Starres Two sorts of people fills the whole world full The witty Begger and the wealthy Gull A Scholler stor'd with Ares with not one crosse And Artlesse Naball stor'd with Indian drosse I haue seene learning tatter'd bare and poore Whil'st Barbarisme hath domineerd with store I haue knowne knowledge in but meane regard Whil'st Ignorance hath rob'd it of reward And witlesse Coxcombs I haue heard dispute Whil'st profound Indgements must be dumb and mute Apollo with aduice did wisely grant That Poets should be poore and line in want And though plaine Beggers they doe not appeare Yet their estates doth shew their kin is neere Parnassus Mount is fruitlesse bare and sterill And all the Muses poore in their apparell Bare legg'd and footed with disheuel'd haire Nor Buskins Shooes or Head-tires for to weare So farre they are from any shew of thrist They scarce haue e're a smock themselues to shift Homer that was the Prince of Poetry Was a blinde Begger and in pouerty And matchlesse Ouid in poore wretched case Exil'd from Rome to Pontus in disgrace And Maniun Maro for some space in Rome Was to Augustus but a Stable Groome His verses shew he had a learned head Yet all his profit was but bread and bread A Lowse hath sixe feete from whose creeping sprawl'd The first Hexameters the euer crawl'd And euer since in mem'ry of the same A Lowse amongst the Learned is no shame Then since the mountaines barren Muses bare And Prince of Poets had ae Beggers share Since their blinde Soueraigne was a Begger poore How can the Subiects but be voyd of store What are their figures numbers types and tropes But Emblems of poore shadowes and vaine hopes Their allegories similies allusions Threed-bare doe end in beggerly conclusions Nor can their Comedies and Tragedies Their Comitragy Traggecomedies No pastorall preterplupastorall Their Morall studies and Historicall Their sharp I-ambick high Heroick Saphique And all where with their painefull studies traffique All these cannot allow a meanes compleate To keepe them out of Debt with Clothes and meate And though a Poet have th' accomplish'd partes Of Learning and the Axiomes of all Artes What though he study all his braines to dust To make his Fame Immortall and not rust Reuoluing day by day and night by night And waste himselfe in giuing others light Yet this is all the Guerdon he shall haue That begg'ry will attend him his Graue He in his owne Conceit may haue this blisse And sing My minde to me a Kingdome is But 't is a Kingdome wanting forme or matter Or substance like the Moonshine in the water For as a learned Poet wrote before Grosse Golde runnes headlong from them to the Bore For which this vnauoyded Vow I le make To loue a Begger for Poets sake I that ne're dranke of Agganippes Well That in Parnissus Suburbes scarce doe dwell That neuer tasted the Pegassiar Spring Or Tempe nor e'reheard the Muses sing I that in Vearse can onely Rime and matter Quite from the purpose Method or the matter Yet some for friendship Ignorance or pitty Will say my lines may passe indifferent pritty And for this little Itching Vearsing vaine With me the Begger vowes he will remaine But if I could but once true Poetry win He would sticke close to me as is my Skin And sure if any man beneath the Sky Had to his Nurse a Witch it must be I For I remember many yeares agoe When I would Cry as Children vse to doe My Nurse to still me or to make me cease From crying would say hush lambe prey thee peace But I like many youth or froward boyes Would yaule and baule and make a wewling noyse Then shee in anger in her armes would snatch me And bid the Begger or bulbegger catch me With take him Begger take him would she say Then did the Begger such hard hold fast lay Vpon my backe that yet I neuer could Nor euer shall in force him leaue his holde The reason therefore why I am not Rich I thinke is cause my Nurse was halfe a witch But since it is decreed that I must be A begger welcome begg'ry vnto me I le patiently embrace my destir'd Fate And liue as well on some of higher Rate Yet shall my begg'ry no strange Suites deuise As Monopolies to catch Fleas or Flyes Or the Sole making of all Bleachers prickes Or