The most elegant and witty epigrams of Sir Iohn Harrington ... digested into fovre bookes: three whereof neuer before published |
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 | The most elegant and witty epigrams of Sir Iohn Harrington |  |
38 Of a sicknesse grew with a Tobacco pipe.
Vnto a gentle Gentlewomans chamber,Her Pedler came, her husband being thence,
To sell fine linnen, Lawnes and Muske and Amber.
She franke of fauours, sparing of expence,
So bargain'd with her, ere he parted thence,
That for ten Ells of Holland, fiue of Lawne,
To grant dishonest pleasures, she was drawne.
Next day the man repenting of his cost,
Did studie meanes, to get him resolution:
Or to be paid for that he there had lost,
And thus he puts his thought in execution:
He turnes to her, with settled resolution,
And in her husbands presence vnawares,
He asketh fifty shillings for his wares.
Her husband ignorant what cause had bred it,
My wife, said he, had you so spent your store,
You must with petty chapmen runne on credit?
No Sir (quoth she) I meant it to restore.
I tooke it of him onely for a tryall,
And finde it too high prised for a Royall.
Thus neuer changing countenance, she doth rise
With outward silence, inward anger choking.
And going to her closet, she espies
Tobacco in a pype, yet newly smoking.
She takes the pype, her malice her prouoking,
And laps it in his linnen, comming backe,
And so the Pedler put it in his packe,
And packes away, and ioyes that with his wyle,
He had regayn'd the stuffe, yet gayn'd his pleasure.
But hauing walked scarcely halfe a mile,
His packe did smoke, and smell so out of measure,
That opening it vnto his great displeasure,
He found by that Tobacco pype too late,
The fiery force of feeble female hate.
And seeking then some remedy by lawes,
Vnto a neighbour Iustice he complaines:
But when the Iustice vnderstood the cause,
In her examination taking paines,
And found 'twas but a fetch of womens braines:
The cause dismist, he bids the man beware,
To deale with women that could burne his ware.
| The most elegant and witty epigrams of Sir Iohn Harrington | |