I saw with two poor chambers taken in,
And razed; ere thought could urge this might have
See the World's ruins! nothing but the piles
Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles.
The brethren they straight nosed it out for news,
'Twas verily some relict of the stews;
And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,
That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,
Bred on the Bank in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain'd the mystery.3
But others fell, with that conceit, by the ears,
And cried it was a threatning to the bears,
And that accursed ground, the Paris-garden:
Nay, sigh'd a sister, Venus' nun, Kate Arden,
Kindled the fire!—but then, did one return,
No fool would his own harvest spoil or burn!-
If that were so, thou rather wouldst advance
The place that was thy wife's inheritance.
O no, cried all, Fortune, for being a whore,
Scap'd not his justice any jot the more :*
He burnt that idol of the Revels too.
Nay, let Whitehall with revels have to do,
2 I saw with two poor chambers taken in,] i. e. destroyed with two small pieces of ordnance.
3 And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,
That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,
Bred on the Bank in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintain'd the mystery.] Anciently the Bank-side was a continued row of brothels, which were put down by proclamation in the time of Henry VIII. As this place was within the limits of the bishop of Winchester's jurisdiction, a person who had suffered in venereal combats, was opprobriously called a Winchester goose. WHAL.
Fortune, for being a whore,
'Scap'd not his justice any jot the more.] There was in the city a theatre called the Fortune play-house, which likewise suffered by fire about this time. WHAL.
This is a very convenient mode of
Though but in dances, it shall know his power;
There was a judgment shewn too in an hour.
He is right Vulcan still! he did not spare
Troy, though it were so much his Venus' care.
Fool, wilt thou let that in example come?
Did not she save from thence to build a Rome?
And what hast thou done in these petty spites,
More than advanced the houses and their rites?
I will not argue thee, from those, of guilt,
For they were burnt but to be better built :
'Tis true, that in thy wish they were destroy'd,
Which thou hast only vented, not enjoy'd.
So would'st thou've run upon the rolls by stealth, 5
And didst invade part of the common-wealth,
But the Fortune was not burnt down till more than eight years after the Globe, that is, not till 1621.
It appears from Heywood's English Travellers, that this theatre took its name from a figure of Fortune.
"Old Lio. Sirrah, come down.
Reig. Not till my pardon's seal'd: I'll rather stand here,
Like a statue, in the full front of your house
For ever; like the picture of dame Fortune,
Before the Fortune play-house."
In the preface to this comedy, Heywood says, "that modesty prevents him from exposing his plays to the public view in numerous sheets, and a large volume, under the title of works, as others." Here, says the Biographia Dramatica, a stroke was probably aimed at Ben Jonson, who gave his plays the pompous title of "Works." This stupid falsehood has been repeated a thousand times. Jonson no more gave his plays the title of "Works," than Shakspeare, Fletcher, Shirley, or any other writer; nor is there a single instance of such a fact in existence. The whole matter is, that, when he collected his various pieces, consisting of Comedies, Tragedies, Masques, Entertainments, Epigrams, and a selection of Poetry, under the name of Forest, with equal taste and judgment, and with a classical contempt of the mountebank titles of his time, he called the multifarious assemblage simply "The Works of Ben Jonson." For this proof of his good sense, he was slandered even in his own time; and the charge of arrogance and vanity is, in our's, still repeated from fool to fool.
5 So would'st thou've run upon the rolls, &c.] This alludes to a
In those records, which, were all chronicles gone,
Would be remembered by Six Clerks to one.
But say all six, good men, what answer ye?
Lies there no writ out of the Chancery
Against this Vulcan ? no injunction,
No order, no decree?-though we be gone
At common-law; methinks, in his despite,
A court of equity should do us right.
But to confine him to the brew-houses,
The glass-house, dye-fats, and their furnaces;
To live in sea-coal, and go forth in smoke;
Or, lest that vapour might the city choak,
Condemn him to the brick-kilns, or some hill-
Foot, (out in Sussex,) to an iron mill;
Or in small faggots have him blaze about
Vile taverns, and the drunkards piss him out;
Or in the Bellman's lanthorn, like a spy,
Burn to a snuff, and then stink out and die :
I could invent a sentence, yet were worse;
But I'll conclude all in a civil curse.
Pox on your flameship, Vulcan ! if it be
To all as fatal as't hath been to me,
And to Paul's steeple; which was unto us
'Bove all your fire-works had at Ephesus,
Or Alexandria ; and, though a divine
Loss, remains yet as unrepair'd as mine.
Would you had kept your forge at Etna still!
And there made swords, bills, glaves, and arms
your fill:
Maintain'd the trade at Bilboa, or elsewhere,
Struck in at Milan with the cutlers there;
fire which took place in the Six Clerks' Office; but I cannot specify the date of it: nor of that at Whitehall, mentioned in the preceding page.
'Bove all your fire-works had at Ephesus
And Alexandria.] The burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, and the library at Alexandria. WHAL.
Or staid but where the friar and
Who from the devil's arse did guns beget;
Or fixt in the Low Countries, where you might
On both sides do your mischief with delight:
Blow up and ruin, mine and countermine,
Make your petards and granades, all your fine
Engines of murder, and enjoy the praise
Of massacring mankind so many ways!
We ask your absence here, we all love peace,
And pray the fruits thereof and the encrease;
So doth the king, and most of the king's men
That have good places: therefore once agen,
Pox on thee, Vulcan! thy Pandora's pox,
And all the ills that flew out of her box
Light on thee! or, if those plagues will not do,
Thy wife's pox on thee, and Bess Broughton's too!
A SPEECH, ACCORDING TO HORACE.
HY yet, my noble hearts, they cannot say,
But we have powder still for the king's day,
And ordnance too: so much as from the
Tower,
T' have wak'd, if sleeping, Spain's ambassadour,
Old Æsop Gundomar : the French can tell,
For they did see it the last tilting well,
That we have trumpets, armour, and great horse,
Lances and men, and some a breaking force.
Old Æsop Gundomar.] Gundomar appears not to have owed many obligations to nature: he was however a shrewd politician, and a bold and able negotiator. He was dreaded by the court, and disliked by the people, of which we have sufficient proof in the repeated attacks made upon him by the dramatic poets, the true mirrors of their times.
They saw too store of feathers, and more may,
If they stay here but till St. George's day.
All ensigns of a war are not yet dead,
Nor marks of wealth so from a nation fled,
But they may see gold chains and pearl worn then,
Lent by the London dames to the Lords' men:
Withal, the dirty pains those citizens take,
To see the pride at Court, their wives do make;
And the return those thankful courtiers yield,
To have their husbands drawn forth to the field,
And coming home to tell what acts were done
Under the auspice of
young Swinnerton.
What a strong fort old Pimlico had been!
How it held out! how, last, 'twas taken in !—
Well, I say, thrive, thrive, brave Artillery-yard,
Thou seed-plot of the war! that hast not spar'd
Powder or paper to bring up the youth
Of London, in the military truth,
These ten years day; as all may swear that look
But on thy practice, and the posture book.
He that but saw thy curious captain's drill,
Would think no more of Flushing or the Brill,
But give them over to the common ear,
For that unnecessary charge they were.
Well did thy crafty clerk and knight, Sir Hugh,
Supplant bold Panton, and brought there to view
Translated Ælian's tactics to be read,
And the Greek discipline, with the modern, shed
So in that ground, as soon it grew to be
The city-question, whether Tilly or he
Were now the greater captain ? for they saw
The Berghen siege, and taking in Bredau,
So acted to the life, as Maurice might,
And Spinola have blushed at the sight.
8 Young Swinnerton.] Sir John Swinnerton was mayor of London in 1612. This aspiring and heroic youth was probably his son. The father had endeared himself to the citizens by many benefactions.
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