Wit in a Wildernesse of Promiscuous Poesie :: :: University of Virginia Library

Farevvel pale Beauties, you that deal
In chalk and oatmeal, salt and meal,
Which your curral current hinders;
You that feed on loam and cindars,
Parch'd pease, and bisket, till ye vvalk
Like moving figures cut in chalk;
Depart, and give my muse leave to disclose,
The ranting riches of a Rubrick Nose.

2

Give ear to me you scarlet sinners,
That svvallovv Seas in Fish-street dinners;
Who deal in gimlets, quills, and favvcets,
Hate morning caudles, broths, and possets,
And think there may be lesser errings,
In gammons, tongues, and pickled herrings:
You knovv vvhat costly composition goes
To the vvell forming of a right red Nose.

3

My phantsie shall make large defence
Of the red Nose his excellence;
As Pond in's Almanacks doth paint,
It is the tincture of the Saint;
The thriving colour; vvhat a loss
The Dutch have had by George his Cross;

And can he want of dignity and grace,
That wears the badg of England in his face?

4

Walk i'th' garden, can your nose,
Or eyes chuse better then the Rose?
Look in Cabinets, can you be
Better pleas'd, then with a Ruby?
The flaming Topaz, blazing Stone,
The Garnet, and Vermilion?
Then he that hath a right red nose on's own,
Commands the brightest Jewels of a Crown.

5

If the men of old had chose,
Not by stature, but by Nose;
Their proper Prince, it was most fit,
That the red Nose should carry it;
For then he partly might make good
His title, by the right of bloud:
Yet had they voted it, I much surmize,
Their Noes had been too hard for all their I's.

6

How like a Comet doth he show,
That wears the brightness on his brow?
So leaps the Sun from Thetis bed,
As he from his sublime hogshead
Of rich Canary, when he flings
His healths abroad to Queens and Kings:
Nay more, I'le find in a good fellows Snout,
A banquet of fish, flesh, fowl, wine, and fruit:

7

A Crab well boyld, a Salmon raw,
Prawns, Crawfish, and the Lobsters claw;
And for flesh, there you may spy
The corner of a red Deer Pye,
Peacocks thighs, and Turkyes heads,
Cherries, Strawberries in beds,
Ripe Respas, red cheek'd Codlings, and (for wine)
Claret, Tent, Aligant, and Muscadine.

8

Then let your paler fronts give place
Unto the Royal red nos'd face,
For it contains (without an oath)
Land and Trade, Meat, Drink, and Cloth,
'Tis a Garden, 'tis a Ship,
A Treasury, a Ladies lip:
To leave particulars, and sum up all,
The red Nose carries it in General.