University of Virginia Library

Come then Invention, and call Iudgement in,
Knowledge and Reason fie where have you bin?
Goe whistle of my Muse that wanton,
With Epigrams, Love-Sonnets, Roundelayes,
And such like trifling gaine: bid her come on,
I have found braver prey to seize upon.
Some new inspired power warmes my heart,
And addes fresh courage unto every part:
New bloud hath fild up all my Love-dride veines,
A sacred Fury hath possest my braines:
Something there is swels in my troubled brest,
Till it be utter'd I expect no rest;
For full with matter like a Sibyl Nun,
I shall grow furious if't be long undone.

Then rouse thee Muse, each little Hobby plies,
At Scarabes, and painted Butterflies:
Leave thou such trash, it is not now for us
To flie for pleasure; wee'l in earnest trusse
Leave base attempts to buzzards or the kite,
And checke the bravest in their proudest flight.

But thou me thinks seem'st sickly feathered,
As if thy sprightly heart extinguished,
Had left thee nothing of the same thou wert,
Dejection hath possessed every part,
And thou look'st dull unfit for lofty-things,
As if thy wanton flight had tir'd thy wings.
Lest therefore thou should'st faint, forsake the first,
And turne thy selfe into a Satyrist;
Not of the roughest; nor the mildest sort:
Be most in earnest, but sometimes in sport.
What e'er thou finde to speake be not affraid,
But for assistance crave th' Almighties aide.
And to that grace and power which he shall daigne,
Adde all thy best endeavours to attaine
So thriving an event that men may see,
Heauen had decreed to helpe and favour thee.
Looke to thy taske for know thou must unfold
The strangest nature that was ever told:
Lanch that foule deepe impostumated sore:
Which shamelesse time hath so well skinned ore.
As ripping up thereof some smart will be:
Yet strike it home, and none shall hinder thee;
Search if thou canst, till thou the bottome sound,
Set not too farre lest thou thy selfe confound,
And (by too neere inquirie) smothered lye,
In the unfathom'd depths of villany;
For (doe not mis-conceive what I intend)
No message to th' Antipodes I send:
Nor have I any meaning thou should'st goe
To search th' Earths center, what lies hid below,
Or undermine it for rich Minerals:
Thou shalt not have to doe with Vegetals.
Strange natures have both stones, trees, herbs & plants
Which let them seeke for that imployment wants.

There is a Herbe some say whose vertue's such,
It in the pasture onely with a touch
Vnshooes the new-shod Steed. Within the North
The Scottish Iles eal'd Orcades bring forth
Trees, (or else Writers faine it) from whose seeds,
A certaine kinde of water-foule proceeds.
The Loadstone also drawes the steele unto it,
Yet hath no ginne nor instrument to doe it:
Rare powers in Nature; and yet none of these,
Nor what lies hidden in the vast wilde Seas,
Meane I to speake of: I no knowledge have,
What monsters play with Neptunes boystrous waves:
Nor quality of birds, or beasts I sound,
For soone their open natures may be found:
Mans wisdome may, with little inquisition
Finde out the brutish creatures true condition.
For by experience we for certaine know
The Elephant much love to man will show.
The Tygers, Wolves, and Lions, we doe finde,
Are ravenous, fierce, and cruell even by kinde.
We know at carryon we shall finde the Crowes,
And that the Cock the time of midnight knowes:
By a few daies experience we may see,
Whether the Mastife curst or gentle be.
And many other natures we finde out,
Of which we have no cause at all to doubt:
But there's another Creature called Man,
Note him who will, and tell me if he can,
What his condition is; observe his deeds,
His speech his raiment, yea, and how he feeds,
Try him a yeere, a month, an age, and when
You have so try'd him; say, what is he then?
Retaines he either unto Præster Iohn,
Or else unto the whore of Babylon?
If that you know not which of them to grant,
Is he a Brownist, or a Protestant?
If in an age you cannot finde out whether,
Are you so much as sure that he is either?
Is his heart proud or humble? know you where
Or when he hates, or loves, or stands in feare?
Or who can say (in Conscience I thinke none)
That this mans words and deeds, & thoughts are one
Where shall you him so well resolved finde,
That wants a wandring and a wavering?
Nay he of whom you have most triall, when
You see him dying will you trust him then?
Perhaps you may yet questionlesse he leaves you
A minde misdoubting still that he deceives you.
And no great wonder, for he's such an elfe,
That ever is uncertaine of himselfe,
He is not semper idem in his will,
Nor stands on this or that opinion still,
But varies; he both will and will not too,
Yea even the thing he thinkes and sweares to doe
He many times omits and not alone
Hath from anothers expectation gone,
But least to any one he should prove just,
Himselfe he guiles if in himselfe he trust.

But this same diverse and inconstant creature,
That is so contrary in his owne nature,
'Tis he that now my Muse must here devise,
Whilst he is living to Anatomize;
'Tis his Abusive and ill-taught condition
(Although it be beyond all definition)
She must discover with the boundlesse rage,
Of the unbridled humours of this age
Yet 'tis a mighty taske, whose undertaking,
Would make all Argus eyes, forget their waking:
And I doe feare I may attempt as well,
To dragge againe to light the dogge of hell.
For all Alcides toiles had not beene more,
Though his twice-sixe had beene twice-sixty-score.
So infinite is this I must unfold;
That I might write and speake till I were old,
I know that I should leave unspoken then,
Most of those humours I ave seene in Man;
And still confesse in him that hidden be
Thousands of humors more than I can see,
Somewhat he hath to doe would trace him out
In every action that he goes about:
Or but looke after him and see the path,
He trtades, what contraries it hath.
To finde him by his words were to assay,
To seeke a fish out by his watry way;
Or chase the Swallow to her home at night,
Through all the pathlesse windings in her flight,
But to observe him in his thoughts were more
Than all the labours mentioned before.
The never ending, winding, turning way
That the unbounded minde of man doth stray,
So full of wonder is that admiration
Hath nigh confounded my imagination
With too much musing thereupon: but yet
Sith either want of yeeres or want of wit,
Or lacke of worke, or lacke of all, hath brought me
To be more needfull than a number thought me;
Sith it some time and study too hath cost me,
And many an humour of mine owne hath lost me;
Sith it hurts none and sith perhaps some may
Be benefited by't another day:
Though as I said, the taske be not alone,
Too huge to be perform'd by any one,
But more than all the world can well dispatch;
Looke what I could by observation catch,
And my weake memory well bare away,
I registred against another day:
Nor will I ought that I remember spare,
Save things unfit and such as needlesse are;
Here I will teach my rough Satyricke Rimes
To be as madde and idle as the times
Freely I will discover what I spy,
And in despight of curiosity,
Maske in a homely phrase as simply plaine,
As other men are mystically vaine;
I'l breake the closet of mans private sin,
Search out the villanies conceal'd therein;
And if their sight may not infectious be,
Draw them to view in spight of secrecie;
Greatnesse and Custome shall not have their will
Without controule so to Authorize still,
That though much be amisse, yet no man dare
Seeme to take notice that offences are.
Weele brand them, and so brand them all shall see,
We durst not onely say such faults there be;
But startle those who had securely long
Slept senselesse of all shame and others wrong.
None will I spare for favour or degree,
My verse like death shall so impartiall be,
If that my father or my brother halt,
Though I spare them, I will not spare their fault:
No, mine owne follies that are most belov'd,
Shall not escape their censures unreprov'd,

Now some will say, fit 'twere I held my tongue,
For such a taske as this I am too young:
I ne'er had dealings in the world with men,
How can I speake of their conditions then?
I cannot, they conclude: strong reason, why,
Know none how market goes but such as buy?
We finde that it is oft and daily seene
When a deceitfull shifting knave hath beene
Playing at Cards with some unskilfull gull,
Whose purse is lin'd with crownes and penny-full,
He by some nimble passage may deceive,
Which though the simple Gamester nere perceive
Another may the Cheaters craft espie
That is no Player, but a stander by.
So I aloofe may view without suspition,
Mens idle humors and their weake condition,
Plainer perhaps than many that have seene
More daies and on Earth stage have actors beene.
And tis no marvell: for imployments takes them
Quite from themselves, & so dim-sighted make them
They cannot see the fooleries they doe,
Nor what ill Passions they are subject to:
Then who e'er carpe, the course I have begun,
If God assist me spight of them I'l runne:
And lest the Exordium hath too tedious bin,
What I intended loe I now begin.