University of Virginia Library

XCII. The New Cry.

Ere Cherries ripe, and Straw-berries be gone,
Unto the cryes of London I'le adde one;
Ripe Statesmen, ripe: They grow in every street;
At sixe and twenty, ripe. You shall 'hem meet,
And have 'hem yeeld no savour, but of State.
Ripe are their ruffes, their cuffes, their beards, their gate,
And grave as ripe, like mellow as their faces.
They know the States of Christendome, not the places:
Yet have they seen the maps, and bought 'hem too,
And understand 'hem, as most chapmen do.
The counsels, projects, practises they know,
And what each Prince doth for intelligence owe,
And unto whom: They are the almanacks
For twelves yeares yet to come, what each State lacks.
They carry in their pockets Tacitus,
And the Gazetti, or Gallo-Belgicus:
And talke reserv'd, look'd up, and full of feare,
Nay, aske you, how the day goes, in your eare.
Keep a Starre-chamber sentence close, twelve dayes:
And whisper what a Proclamation sayes.
They meet in sixes, and at every mart,
Are sure to con'the catalogue by heart;
Or, every day, some one at Rimee's looks,
Or Bils, and there he buyes the names of books.
They all get Porta, for the sundry wayes
To write in cypher, and the severall keyes,
To ope' the character. They 'have found the sleight
With juyce of limons, onions, pisse, to write;
To breake up seales, and close 'hem. And they know,
If the States make peace, how it will go
With England. All forbidden books they get.
And of the poulder-plot, they will talke yet.
At naming the French King, their heads they shake,
And at the Pope, and Spaine slight faces make.
Or 'gainst the Bishops, for the Brethren, raile,
Much like those Brethren; thinking to prevaile
With ignorance on us, as they have done
On them: And therefore do not only shun
Others more modest, but contemne us too,
That know not so much State, wrong, as they do.