¶The forme and shape of a Monstrous Child / borne at Maydstone in Kent, the .xxiiij. of October. 1568.

1568
As ye this shape abhorre
In body for to haue:
So flee such Vices farre
As might the soule depraue
In Gods power
all fleshstands,
As the clay to the
Potters hands.
To fashion euen
as he wyll
Jn good shape
or in yll.

AT Maydstone in Kent there was one Marget Mere, Daughter to Richard Mere of the sayd Towne of Maydstone, who being vnmaryed, played the naughty packe, and was gotten with childe, being deliuered of the same childe the .xxiiij. daye of October last past, in the yeare of our Lord. 1568. at .vij. of the clocke in the after noone of the same day being Sonday. Which child being a man child, had first the mouth slitted on the right side like a Libardes mouth, terrible to beholde, the left arme lying vpon the brest, fast therto ioyned, hauing as it were stumps on the handes, the left leg growing vpward toward the head, and the ryght leg bending toward the left leg, the foote therof grow­ing into the buttocke of the sayd left leg. In the middest of the backe there was a broade lump of flesh in fashion lyke a Rose, in the myddest whereof was a hole, which voyded like an Issue. Thys sayd Childe was borne alyue, and lyued .xxiiij. houres, and then departed this lyfe. Which may be a terrour aswell to all such workers of filthynes & iniquity, as to those vngodly liuers. Who (if in them any feare of God be) may mooue them to repentance and amendement of lyfe, which God for Christes sake graunt both to them and vs. Amen. Witnesses hereof were these, William Plomer, Iohn Squier Glasier, Iohn Sadler Goldsmith, besides diuers other credible persons both men and women.

❧A warnyng to England.

THis monstrous shape to thee England
Playn shewes thy monstrous vice.
If thou ech part wylt vnderstand,
And take thereby aduice.
For waying first the gaspyng mouth,
It doth full well declare:
What rauine and oppression both
Is vsed wyth greedy care.
For, for the backe, and gorging paunch,
To lyue in wealth and ease:
Such toyl men take that none may staunch
Their greedy minde, nor please.
For in such sort, their mouthes they infect,
With lying othes, and slaightes:
Blaspheming God, and Prince reiect,
As they were brutish beastes.
Their filthy talke, and poysoned speech,
Disfigures so the mouth:
That som wold think ther stood y e breech
Such filth it breatheth forth.
The hands which haue no fingers right
But stumps fit for no vse:
Doth well set forth the idle plight,
Which we in these daies chuse.
For rich and poore, for age and youth,
Eche one would labour flye:
Few seekes to do the deedes of truth,
To helpe others thereby.
The leg so clyming to the head,
What meaneth it but this?
That some do seeke not to be lead,
But for to leade amis.
And as this makes it most monstrous,
For Foote to clyme to head:
So those Subiects be most vicious,
That refuse to be lead.
The hinder part doth shew vs playne,
Our close and hidden vice,
Which doth behind vs run amayne,
In vyle and shameful wyse.
Wherefore to ech in England now,
Let this Monster them teach:
To mend the monstrous life they show,
Least endles death them reach.

¶Imprinted at London by Iohn Awdeley, dwellyng in little Britain streete without Aldersgate. The .xxiij. of December.

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