THE

MASQUE OF OWLS.

Enter Captain Cox, on his Hobby-horse.

Room! room! for my horse will wince,
If he come within so many yards of a prince;
And though he have not on his wings,
He will do strange things.

He is the Pegasus that uses
To wait on Warwick Muses;
And on gaudy-days he paces
Before the Coventry Graces;
For to tell you true, and in rhyme,
He was foal'd in queen Elizabeth's time,
When the great earl of Lester

In this castle did feast her.

The captain enters on, or rather in, the paste-board hobbyhorse used by the morris-dancers of the county, whom Jonson calls the Warwickshire Muses, and capers round the circle to make room, according to the usual practice. This little jeud'esprit formed perhaps an episode in some amusement of a more extensive nature, for it could scarcely occupy ten minutes. It is not easy to say before whom it was played. The first couplet speaks of the Prince, and, from a subsequent passage, it would seem to be the prince of Wales: but there was none at this period add too, that the earl of Leicester (if he was the possessor of Kenelworth castle,) died in 1626; so that the date is probably too late, by a year.

Now, I am not so stupid

To think, you think me a Cupid,
Or a Mercury that sit him;

Though these cocks here would fit him:
But a spirit very civil,

Neither poet's god, nor devil,
An old Kenelworth fox,
The ghost of captain Cox,
For which I am the bolder,
To wear a cock on each shoulder.
This captain Cox, by St. Mary,
Was at Bullen with king Ha-ry;
And (if some do not vary)
Had a goodly library,'

His library is given at great length, by the author of the "Letter." It is curious and amusing. "And fyrst Captain Cox, an od man I promiz yoo: by profession a mason, and that right skilfull; very cunning in fens, (fencing) and hardy as Gavin; for his ton-sword hangs at hiz tablz eend; great oversight hath he in matters of storie: For az for King Arthurz book, Huan of Burdiaus, the foour sons of Aymon, Bevys of Hampton, The Squyre of lo degree, The Knight of Courtesy, and the Lady Faguell, Frederik of Gene, Syr Eglamoour, Syr Tryamoour, Syr Lamwell, Syr Isenbras, Syr Gawyn, Olyver of the Castle, Lucres und Curialus, Virgil's Life, the Castle of Ladiez, the Wido Edyth, the King and the Tanner, Frier Rous, Howleglas, Gargantua, Robin Hood, Adam Bel, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudsley, the Churl and the Burd, the Seven Wise Masters, the Wife lapt in a Morels skin, the Sak full of Nuez, the Seargeaunt that became a Fryar, Skogan, Collyn Clout, the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the Nutbrooun Maid, with many moe than I rehearz here: I beleeve hee have them all at hiz fingers endz.

Then in Philosophy, both morale and naturale, I think he be az naturally overseen: beside Poetrie and Astronomie, and oother hid Sciencez, as 1 may gesse by the omberzt of his books: whereof part, az I remember, The Shepherdz Kalender, The Ship of Foalz, Danielz Dreamz, the Booke of Fortune, Stans puer ad Mensam, The hy wey to the Spitl-house, Julian of Brainford's Testament, The Castle of Love, the Booget of Demaunds, the Hun dred merry Talez, the Booke of Riddels, the Seaven Sororz of

By which he was discerned
To be one of the learned,
To entertain the queen here,
When last she was seen here.
And for the town of Coventry
To act to her sovereignty.
But so his lot fell out,
That serving then a-foot,
And being a little man;
When the skirmish began
'Twixt the Saxon and the Dane,
(From thence the story was ta'en)
He was not so well seen

As he would have been o' the queen.

Wemen, the Prooud Wives Pater-Noster, the Chapman of a Peniworth of Wit: Beside his Auncient Playz, Yooth and Charitee, Hikskorner, Nugizee, Impacient Poverty, and herewith Doctor Boords Breviary of Health. What shoold I rehearz heer, what a Bunch of Ballets and Songs, all auncient; az Broom broom on Hil, So wo is me begon, truly lo, Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony lass upon a green, My bony on gave me a bek, By a bank as I lay and a hundred more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whip-cord. And as for Almanaks of Antiquitee (a point for Ephemeridees), I ween he can sheaw from Jasper Laet of Antwerp unto Nostradam of Frauns, and thens untoo oour John Securiz of Salsbury. To stay ye no longer heer in, I dare say he hath az fair a Library for theez sciencez, and as many goodly monuments both in prose and poetry, and at afternoonz can talk az much without book az ony inholder betwixt Brainford and Bagshot, what degree soever he be."

-

The letter-writer evidently meant to raise a smile at the Captain's expense; but there is no occasion for it. The list shews him to have been a diligent and successful collector of the domestic literature of his country, and so far he is entitled to praise. Some of the fugitive pieces here mentioned are now lost; one of them however, the Hundred Merry Tales, which has long set the Shakspeare commentators by the ears, has partly been recovered within these few days, pasted into the binding of an old book. It is now in Mr. Bindley's possession, and proves to be a collection of jests, of no great novelty or value.

Though his sword were twice so long

As any man's else in the throng;
And for his sake, the play

Was call'd for the second day.
But he made a vow

(And he performs it now)

That were he alive or dead,

Hereafter it should never be said

But captain Cox would serve on horse
For better or for worse,

If any prince came hither,

And his horse should have a feather;
Nay such a prince it might be
Perhaps he should have three.
Now, sir, in your approach,
The rumbling of your coach
Awaking me, his ghost,
I come to play your host;
And feast your eyes and ears,
Neither with dogs nor bears,"
Though that have been a fit
Of our main-shire wit,

In times heretofore,

But now, we have got a little more.
These then that we present

With a most loyal intent,

And, as the author saith,

No ill meaning to the catholic faith,
Are not so much beasts, as fowls,
But a very nest of owls,

And natural, so thrive I,

I found them in the ivy,

3 Neither with dogs nor bears.] This alludes to the following passage in the Letter. "On the syxth day of her Majestyes cumming, a great sort of bandogs whear thear tyed in the utter cooart, and thyrteen bears in the inner," &c. See Massinger, vol. i. p. 44.

A thing, that though I blunder'd at,
It may in time be wonder'd at,
If the place but affords
Any store of lucky birds,
As I make them to flush,

Each owl out of his bush.

Now, these owls, some say, were men,
And they may be so again,

If once they endure the light
Of your highness' sight:

For bankrupts, we have known
Rise to more than their own,
With a little-little savour
Of the prince's favour;

But as you like their tricks,
I'll spring them, they are but six.

HEY, OWL FIRST! *

This bird is London-bred,

As you may see by his horn'd head.
And had like to have been ta'en
At his shop in Ivy-lane,

Where he sold by the penny
Tobacco as good as any;
But whether it did provoke
His conscience, he sold smoke;
Or some other toy he took,
Towards his calling to look:
He fled by moon-shine thence;
And broke for sixteen pence.

HEY, OWL SECOND!

This too, the more is the pity,
Is of the breed of the same city;

Hey, Owl first!] Here the captain probably produced, from beneath the foot-cloth of the hobby-horse, a block ridiculously dressed or painted to correspond with the description.