Works of John Taylor the Water Poet not included in the folio volume of 1630

To the neither Noble or Ignoble, Lord or Lady, kind or cruell, learned or ignorant, curteous or currish, Christian or Barbarian, Man or Woman, rich or poore: but to all and every one in generall and particular.

My Verse is honest, seemly, neat and cleane,
Yet is my Theame polluted and obsceane:
Ile touch foule pitch, yet will not be defild,
My Muse shall wade through dirt, & not be soild.
The Sun on noysome dunghills shines as well,
As on faire flowers that doe fragrant smell:
The Ayre by which we live, doth every where
Breathe still alike upon the poore and Peere.
The Sea bears many an old despised Boat,
Yet on the Sea the best Ships doe but float,
And Earth allowes to all her scattred brood,
Food, Clothes and Lodging to the bad and good.
Yet Sun, Ayre, Sea, nor Earth receive disgrace
By any bountie which they give the base.
Even so my Muse, (free from all foule intents)
Doth take example from the Elements,
In laying better studies by a while,
And in cleane fashion write a beastly stile:
Yet will I not my sense or meaning marre;
With tearmes obscure, or phrases sercht from farre
Nor will I any way equivocate,
With words sophisticall, or intricate,
Vtopian-Fustianisme, poore heathen Greeke,
To put my Readers wits to groape and seeke.

Small eloquence men must expect from me,
My Schollership will name things as they be.
I thinke it good, plaine English, without fraud,
To call a spade a spade, a Bawd a Bawd.
Two little Pamphlets I have wrote before,
Which I was bold to call a Thiefe, and Whore,
Yet was my Whore so chaste, that she had not,
From end to end, one foule offensive spot;
Nor did my Thiefe from any man purloyne,
Or liv'd by filching either goods or coyne.
And now by chance it came into my mind,
That with the Bawd my Pen was much behind:
My Whore was honest, and my Thiefe was true,
And in this sort Ile give the Bawd her due.
Strange fruit from my poore barren labour springs,
I modestly must use immodest things:
'Tis somewhat hard, but yet it is no riddle,
All Bawdry doth not breed below the middle.
So many severall sorts of Bawds doe grow,
That where there's not a Bawd, 'tis hard to know.
The first with spirituall Bawds, whose honor high
Springs from the whoredome of Idolatry,
Cast but your eyes upon the Man of Rome,
That stiles himselfe the Head of Christendome,
Christs universall Vicar, and Vicegerent,
In whom fooles thinke the Truth is so inherent,
That he can soules to Heaven or Hell preferre,
And being full of Errours, cannot erre:

And though his witchcraft thousands hath entic'd
Hee will be call'd Lieutenant unto Christ.
How hath that false Conventicle of Trent,
Made lawes wch God, or good men never meant,
Commanding worshipping of stones and stocks,
Of Relikes, dead mens bones, and senslesse blocks,
From which adultrate painted Adoration,
Men (worse then stocks or blocks) must seek salvation?
The Soules of men are His that dearly bought thē,
And he the only way to Heav'n hath taught them.
And who so forceth them to false adoring,
Is the maine Bawd unto this Spirituall Whoring.
Besides, it is apparent, and most cleare,
That he's the greatest Bawd the Earth doth beare:
For hee that tolerates the Stewes erection,
Allowes them Priviledges and Protection,
Shares in the profit of their sordid sweat,
Reapes yearely Pensions and Revenues great,
Permits the Pole-shorne fry of Friers and Monks,
For Annuall stipends to enjoy their Puncks.
When Paul the third the Romish Miter wore,
He had contributary Trulls such store,
To five and fortie thousand they amount,
As then Romes Register gave true account.
Besides, it was approv'd, the gaine was cleere
Full twentie thousand Duckats every yeere.

Moreover, once a Bishop (boasting said,
He had Ten Thousand Priests that paid
(Some more, some lesse (by way of Rent or fines,
Each one of them for keeping Concubines.
And he that keepes none, payes as much as he
As for his vse doth keepe one, two or three.
Al's one, the Priests must pay t'augmēt the treasure
Keepe or not keep, Whore or not Whore at pleasure.
Now judge, good Reader, have I said amisse,
Was ever any Bawdry like to this?
Pope Alexander of that name the sixt,
With his owne childe incestuously commixt.
And Paul the third (affecting the said Game)
With his owne daughter did commit the same:
And after with his sister tooke such course,
That he with her did doe as bad or worse.
Iohn the thirteenth, and other more, 'tis plaine
Have with their sisters and their daughters laine.
And when their stomacks have been gone & past,
To Princes they have married them at last.

Here's Bawds of State, of high and mighty place,
Our Turnbul street poore Bawds to these are base.
But these brave doings better to disclose,
A little while Ile turne my Verse to Prose.

Besides a most pernicious Bawd is hee,
That for poore scraps, and a bare ten pounds fee,
Dares not his mighty Patron to offend,
Or any way his vices reprehend,
Nor preach 'gainst pride, oppression, usury,
Dice, drinke, or drabbes, vaine oathes or simony,

Nor Veniall sinne or Mortall, or nothing
That may his Worship in the Withers wring:
But every way must fit his Text and time,
To leave untoucht th'Impropriators crime?
Thus those whose functions Heaven doth signifie,
(Who should like trumpets lift their voices high)
Are mute and muzled, for a hireling price,
And so are Bawds unto their Patrons vice;
For hee's a Bawd who doth his living winne,
By hiding, or by flattring peoples sinne;
The Prince of darknesse, King of Acheron,
Great Emperour of Styx and Phlegeton,
Cocytus Monarch, high and mighty Dis,
Who of Great Limbo-lake Commander is,
Of Tartary, of Erebus, and all
Those Kindomes which men Barathrum doe call,
Hee is the chiefest Bawd, and still he plods
To send us whoring after godlesse gods:
And by his sway, and powerfull instigation,
Hath made the world starke drunke with fornication.
For since the first Creation, never was
The least degree of Bawdry brought to passe,
But he began it, and contriv'd it still,
He layd the plot, and did the Act fulfill.
So that of all the Bawds that ever were,
The Devill himselfe the Bell away doth beare:
Yet all his whoring base Idolatrie,
Did seeme Religious zealous sanctitie.

To close up all, the Summe of all is this,
I'le end my Booke as Ovid ended his.

So long as on the Poles the spangled
firmament shall whirle,
So long as Procreation shall
beget a Boy or Girle,
So long as winter shall be cold,
or Summer shall be hot,
So long as poverty and spight
shall be true Vertues lot,
When Phœbus in the West shall rise,
and in the East shall set,
When children on (their mothers)
their owne fathers shall beget;
Then shall this Booke, or Bawd lye dead,
and never till that day,
Shall Booke or Bawd, or Bawd or Booke,
be scarse, if men will pay.
Till Sun and Moone shall cease to shine,
and all the World lye wast;
So long this booke, or else a Bawd,
I'me sure, so long shall last.

FJNJS.

Witnesse my paper Boat.

Hen. Smith in his Treat. of Herodot cap. 38 pag 303.

Cornelius Agrippa in his vanity of sciences.

Idem.

Lucrece was first married to her own brother the sonne of Pope Alexander the sixt, she being daughter to the said Pope, and daughter in law to him by the marriage with his son. And being concubine to the said Pope, he caused her after his sonne her husbands death, to be married to three princes one after another: First to Duke Iohn Sforza. Secondly, to Lewis sonne to Alphonsus King of Arragon. Thirdly, to Alphonsus D'Est Duke of Ferara.

Her name was Constancia, she was married to a Duke named Sforza, but the Pope her father poysoned her because he could not lawfully enioy her. Also for the like he poysoned his sister.

A flattering hireling Preacher, is a Bawd to the vices of his surly Patron, and an hypocriticall conniver at the crying sinnes of his Audience.

The Devill is the chiefe Bawd.

University of Virginia Library

A BAWD. A vertuous Bawd, a modest Bawd: As Shee Deserves, reproove, or else applaud.