How many liue by it being Paper.
All this and more is paper, and all this,
From fruitfull Hempseed still produced is.
Were't not for rags of this admired Lint,
Dead were the admirable Art of Print.
Nor could the Printers with their formes & proofes.
Worke for their owne and other mens behoofes.
Octauo, Quarto, Folio, or sixteene:
Twelues, nor yet sixty foure had e're beene seene,
Nor could their Pages be the meanes to feed
And cloth them and their families at need.
The Stationer that liues, and gaineth well,
And doth the word of God, both buy and sell,
I know not which way he could liue and eate,
If printed paper did not yeeld him meat.
Some foolish knaue (I thinke) at first began
The slander that three Taylers are one man:
When many a Taylers boy, I know hath beene,
Hath made tall men much fearefull to be seene,
The boy hath had no weapon, nor no skill,
But armed with a Taylers Paper-bill,
Which being edgd with Jtems, stiffnings facings,
With Bumbast, cottons, linenings, and with laceings,
The boy hath made a man his head to hide
And not the bare sight of the Bill abide.
When boyes with paper Bils frights men so sore,
'Tis doubtlesse but their Masters can doe more,
And many millions both of boyes and men,
Doe onely liue, and flourish with the pen:
Yet though the pen be through the world renown'd
'Twere nothing except paper were the ground.
All Lawyers from the high'st degree or marke,
Vnto the lowest Barrester or Clarke.
How could they doe if paper did not beare
The memory of what they speake or heare?
And Iustice Clarkes could hardly make strong warrants.
For Theeues, or Baudes, or whores, or such like arrants,
But that in Paper 'tis their onely vse
To write, and right the Common-wealths abuse.
Thus much of Paper here my Muse hath said,
But yet if all its profits were displaid,
Ten Paper Mils could not affoord enough
To write vpon in praise of writing stuffe.
