All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author [i.e. John Taylor]: With sundry new Additions, corrected, reuised, and newly Imprinted |
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 | All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet |  |
The praise of the Gooses Quill.
And thus for shooters hauing shew'd my skill,I'le now say somewhat for the Gooses Quill.
Great Mars his Traine of Military men
I leaue, and turne the Shaft into a Pen:
The Gooses feather acteth sundry parts,
And is an Instrument both of Armes and Arts.
Many diuine and heauenly mysteries,
And many memorable Histories
Had with blind Ignorance beene ouer-growne,
And (were't not for the Pen) had ne'r bin knowne.
The Muses might in Parnass hill haue staid,
Their fames had ne'r bin through the world displaid
But that the Gooses Quill with full consent,
Was found to be the fittest Instrument
To be their Nuntius, and to disperse
Their glory through the spacious Vniuerse.
Grammar (that of all Science is the ground)
Without it in forgetfulnesse were drownd,
And Rethorick (the sweet rule of eloquence)
Through the Goose Quill distils it's Quintessence:
Logick with definitions (I am sure)
Were nothing, or else very much obscure:
Astronomie would lye, or lye forgot
And scarce remembred, or regarded not;
Arithmetick would erre exceedingly,
Forgetting to deuide and multiply:
Geometry would lose the Altitude,
The crassie Longitude and Latitude:
And Musick in poore case would be o're-throwne,
But that the Goose Quill pricks the Lessons downe.
Thus all the liberall Sciences are still
In generall beholding to the Quill.
Embassages to farre remoted Princes,
Bonds, Obligations, Bills, and Euidences,
Letters twixt foe and foe, or friend and friend,
To gratulate, instruct, or reprehend,
Assurances, where faith and troth is scant,
To make the faithlesse to keepe couenant;
The Potent weapon of the reuerend Law,
That can giue life or death, saue, hang, or draw,
That with a Royall, or a noble dash,
Can from the Kings Exchequer fetch the Cash.
To most shop-keepers it a reckoning makes,
What's got or lost, what he layes out, or takes:
Without the Goose a Scriuener were a foole,
Her Quill is all his onely working toole:
And sure a Goose is of a wondrous nature,
Contrary to each other liuing creature,
Things that in water, earth, or ayre haue growth,
And feede and liue, bite onely with the mouth:
But the Goose with sophisticated skill,
Doth bite most dangerously with her quill,
Yet is she free from prodigality,
And most of all bites partiality:
She oft with biting makes a Knight a detter,
And rankle to a Begger, little better.
She oft hath bit a Gallant from his land
With quick conueyance, and by slight of hand:
Sometimes his biting is as durable,
As is a Gangren most incureable,
And many that into her fangs doe fall,
Doe take the Counters for their Hospitall;
A Forger, or a Villaine that forsweares,
Or a False-witnesse, she bites off their eares:
On me her pow'r she many times hath showne,
And made me pay more debts then were mine own.
Thus doth her Quill bite more then doe her chaps,
To teach fooles to beware of after-claps.
109
Is Anser, which made in Anagram,
Is Snare, in English, which doth plaine declare,
That she to fooles and knaues will be a snare.
Indeede she oft hath beene a snare to mee,
My selfe was in the fault, alas not shee.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |