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
busines at his finger ends And with dumbe Rhetoricke and with Logicke mute Liues and gaines more then many that Dispute If case a Begger be olde weake or Ill It makes his gaines and commings in more still When beggers that are strong are paide with mocks Or threatned with the Cage the Whip or Stocks Hee 's better borne then any Prince or Peere In 's Mothers wombe three quarters of a yeare And when his birth hath made her belly slacke Shee foure or fiue yeares beares him at her backe He liues as if it were Grim Saturnes Raigne Or as the Golden age were come againe Moreouer many vertues doe attend On Beggers and on them doe they depend Humility's a Vertue and they are In signe of Humblenes continuall bare And Patience is a vertue of great worth Which any begger much expresseth forth I saw a Begger Rayl'd at yet stood mute Before a Beadle of but base Repute For Fortitude a begger doth excell There 's nothing can his valiant courage quell Nor heate or colde thirst hunger Famines rage He dares out-dare Stocks whipping-posts or Cage Hee 's of the greatest Temperance vnder heauen And for the most part seeds on what is giuen He waytes vpon a Lady of high price Whose birth-place was Coelestiall paradice One of the Graces a most heauenly Dame And Charity 's her all admired Name Her hand 's ne're shut her glory is in giuing On her the Begger waytes and gets his liuing His State 's more ancient then a Gentleman It from the Elder brother Caine began Of Runagates and vagabonds hee was The first that wandring o're the earth did passe But what 's a Vagabond and a Runagate True Annagramatiz'd I will relate RVNAGATE Annagram AGRANTE VAGABONDE Annagram GAVE A BOND And many well borne Gallants mad and fond Haue with a Graunt so often Gaue a Bond. And wrap'd their states so in a Parchment skin They Vagabonds and Runagates haue bin A begger 's nob'ly borne all men will yeeld His getting and his birth b'ing in the field And all the world knowes 't is no idle fable To say and sweare the field is honourable A begger is most courteous when he begges And hath an excellent skill in making legges But if he could make Armes but halfe so well For Herauldry his cunning would excell A begger in great safety doth remaine He 's out of danger to be rob'd or slaine In feare and perill he is neuer put And for his wealth no thiefe his throat will cut He 's farre more bountifull then is Lord A world of hangers on at bed and boord Which he doth lodge and daily cloath and feed Them and their Issue that encrease and breed For 't is disparagement and open wrong To say a begger 's not a thousand strong Yet haue I seene a begger with his Many Come in at a Play-house all in for one penny And though of creatures Lice are almost least Yet is a Lowse a very valiant beast But did not strength vnto her courage want She would kill Lyon Beare or Elephant What is it that she can but she dares do She 'le combate with a King and stand to 't to She 's not a starter like the dust-bred-Flea She 's a great trauailer by land and sea And dares take any Lady by the Rea. She neuer from a battell yet did flye For with a Souldier she will line and dye And sure I thinke I said not much amis To say a Lowse her selfe a souldier is An Hoast of Lice did to submission bring Hard-harted Pharoh the Egyptian King But when these cruell creatures doe want meate Mans flesh and blood like Canibals they eate They are vnto the begger Natures gifts Who very seldome puts them to their shifts These are his Guard which will not him forsake Till Death course doth of his carkasse make A begger liues here in this vale of sorrow And trauels here to day and there tomorrow The next day being neither here nor there But almost no where and yet euery where He neuer labours yet he doth expresse Himselfe an enemie to Idlenesse In Court Campe Citie Countrey in the Ocean A begger is a right perpetuall motion His great deuotion is in generall He either prayes for all or preyes on all And it is vniuersally profest From South to North from East vnto the West On his owne merits he will not relie By others mens good works he 'le line and die That begg'ry is most nat'rall all men know Our naked comming to the world doth show Not worth a simple rotten ragge or clout Our seely earkasses to wrap about That it will is and hath perpetuall bin All goe as naked out as they came in We leaue our cloathes which were our couers here For Beggers that come after vs to weare Thus all the world in generall beggers are And all alike comes in and goes out bare And who so liues here in the best degree Must euery day a daily begger bee And when his life hath runne vnto his date He dies a begger or a reprobate Good Reader pray misconster not this case I meane no profanation in this place Then since these vertues waite on beggery As milde Humility and Charity With Patience Fortitude and Courtesie And Temp'rance Honour Health Frugality Security Vniuersality Necessity and Perpetuity And since heau'n sends the Subiect and the Prince All Beggers hither and no better hence Since begg'ry is our portion and our lot Our Patrimony birth-right and what not Let vs pursue our function let vs do That which by nature we were borne vnto And whil'st my Muse a little doth repose I 'le Character a Begger out in prose Now it followes that I shew some part of their formes cariage manners and behauiour their seuerall Garbs tones and salutations that they acost their Clyents or Benefactours withall for they can wisely and discreetely suite their Phrase and language to bee correspondent to their owne shape and suteable to whomsoeuer they begge of as for example suppose a Begger hee in the shape or forme of a maundering or wandering Souldier with one arme leg or eye or some such maim then imagine that there passeth by him some Lord Knigt or scarce a Gentleman it makes no matter which then his Honour or his Worship shall be affronted in this manner Braue man of Honour cast a fauourable looke vpon the wounded estate of a distressed Gentleman that hath borne Armes for his Countrey in the hottest broyles of the Netherlāds with the losse of his members Cleueland hath felt my strength I haue bickered with the French at Brest Deep I haue past the Straights the dangerous Gulph the Groyne can speake my seruice Right Honorable with no lesse then two dangerous hurts hardly brought off from Bummil Leaguer which I would vnwillinly discouer to your manliness whose
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