THe straunge turning of the Ile of Dogs, frō a commedie to a tragedie two summers past, with the trou­blesome stir which hapned aboute it, is a generall rumour that hath fil­led all England, and such a heauie crosse laide vpon me, as had well neere confounded mee: I meane, not so much in that it sequestred me from the woonted meanes of my maintenance, which is as great a maime to any mans happinesse, as can bee feared from the hands of miserie, or the deepe pit of dispaire wher­into I was falne, beyond my greatest friendes reach to reco­uer mee: but that in my exile and irkesome discontented a­bandonment, the silliest millers thombe, or contemptible stickle-banck of my enemies, is as busie nibbling about my fame, as if I were a deade man throwne amongest them to feede vpon. So I am I confesse in the worldes outwarde apparance, though perhappes I may prooue a cunninger diuer then they are aware, which if it so happen as I am partely assured, and that I plunge aboue water once a­gaine, let them looke to it, for I will put them in bryne, Quassa tamen nostra est, non mersa nec ob­rutunauis. or a piteous pickle euery one. But let that passe, though they shal find I wil not let it passe when time serues, I ha­uing a pamphlet hot a brooding that shall be called the [Page 2] Barbers warming panne, and to the occasion, a fresh of my fal­ling in alliance with this lenten argument. That infortunate imperfit Embrion of my idle houres the Ile of Dogs before mentioned, breeding vnto me such bitter throwes in the tea­ming as it did, and the tempestes that arose at his birth, so astonishing outragious and violent as if my braine had bene conceiued of another Hercules, I was so terrifyed with my owne encrease (like a woman long trauailing to bee deliue­red of a monster) that it was no sooner borne but I was glad to run from it. Too inconsiderate he adlong rashnesse this may be censured in me, in beeing thus prodigall in aduanta­ging my aduersaries, but my case is no smoothred secret, and with light cost of rough cast rethorieke it may be tollerable­ly playstered ouer, if vnder the pardon and priuiledge of in­censed higher powers it were lawfully indulgenst me freely to aduocate my owne astrology. Sufficeth what they in their graue wisedoomes shall proscribe, I in no sorte will seeke to acquite, nor presumptuously attempte to dispute against the equity of their iudgementes, but humble and prostrate ap­peale to their mercies. Auoide or giue grounde I did, scrip­tum est I will not goe from it, and post varios casus, variable Knight arrant aduentures, and outroades, and inroades, at greate Yarmouth in Norfolke, I ariued in the latter ende of Autumne. Where hauing scarse lookt about me, my presa­ging minde saide to it selfe, Hic fanonius serenus est, hic au­ster imbricus, this is a predestinate fit place for Pierse Penni­lesse to set vp his staffe in. Therein not much diameter to my deuining hopes did the euent sort it selfe, for sixe weekes first and last vnder that predodumant constellation of Aquarius or Ioues Nectar filler, tooke I vp my repose, and there mette with such kind entertainment and benigne hospitality when I was Ʋna litera plusquam An imperfit Embriō I ma well call it, for I hauing begun but the induc­tion and first act of it, the o­ther soure acts without my consent, or the least guesse of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine to. Medicus. medicus as Plautus saith, and not able to line to my selfe with my owne iuice, as some of the crummes of it like the crums in a bushy beard after a greate banquet, will remaine in my papers to bee seene when I am [Page 3]deade and vnder ground; from the bare perusing of which infinite posterities of hungry Poets shall receiue good refre­shing, euen as Homer by Galataeon was pictured vomiting in a basō (in the temple that Ptolomy Philopater erected to him) and the rest of the succeeding Poets after him, greedily lap­ping vp what he disgorged. That good old blind bibber of Helicon I wot well, came a begging to one of the chiefe cit­ties of Greece, & promised them vast corpulent volumes of immortallity, if they would bestowe vpon him but a slender outbrothers annuity of muttō & broth, and a pallet to sleep on, and with derision they reiected him, wherupon he went to their enemies with the like profier, who vsed him honou­rably, and whome hee vsed so honourably, that to this daye though it be three thousand ye are since, their name and glo­rie florish greene in mens memory through his industry. I truste you make no question but those dull pated pennifa­thers, that in such dudgen scorne reiected him, drunck deep of the soure cup of repentance for it, when the high flight of his lines in common brute was ooyessed. Yea in the worde of one no more wealthy then hee was, wealthy saide I, nay I'le befworne hee was a grande iurie man in respect of me, those graybeard Huddle-duddles and crusty cum-twangs, were strooke with such stinging remorse of their miserable Euclionisme and sundgery, that hee was not yet cold in his graue but they challenged him to be borne amongst them, and they and sixe citties more, entred a sharpe warre aboute it, euery one of them laying claime to him as their owne, and to this effect hath Bucchanan an Epigram.

I alleadge this tale to shewe howe much better my lacke [Page 4]then Homers (though all the King of Spaines Indies will not create me such a nigling Hexameter-founder as he was) in the first proclayming of my banke-rout indigence and beg­gery, to bende my course to such a curteous compassionate clime as Yarmouth, and to warne others that aduaunce their heades aboue all others, and haue not respected, but rather flatly opposed themselues against the Frier medicants of our profession, what their amercements and vnrepriueable pen­nance will be, excepte they teare ope their oystermouthd pouches quickly, and make double amendes for their parsi­mony. I am no Tiresias or Calchas to prophecie, but yet I cannot tell, there may bee more resounding bel-mettall in my pen then I am aware, and if there bee, the first peale of it is Yarmouthes. For a patterne or tiny-sample what my ela­borate performance would bee in this ease, had I a ful-sayld gale of prosperity to encourage mee, whereas at the dishu­mored composing hereof may iustly complaine with Ouid.

My state is so tost and weather-beaten that it hath nowe no anchor-holde left to cleaue vnto. I care not, if in a dimme farre of launce-skippe, I take the paines to describe this superimente principall Metropolis of the redde Fish. A towne it is that in rich situation exceedeth many citties, and without the which, Caput gentis, the swelling Battlementes of Gurguntus, a head citty of Norffolke, and Suffolke, would scarce retaine the name of a Citty, but become as ruinous and desolate as Thetforde or Ely: out of an hill or heape of sande, reared and enforced from the sea most miraculously, and by the singular pollicy and vncessant inestimable ex­pence of the Inhabitantes, so firmely piled and rampierd a­gainst the funish waues battry, or suyng the leaste action of recouerie, that it is more coniecturall of the twaine, the land with a writ of a Eiectione firma wil get the vpperhande of the Ocean, then the Ocean one crowes skip preuaile against the Continent. Forth of the sands thus struglingly as it exalteth [Page 5]and liftes vp his glittering head. So of the neyboring sands no lesse semblably (whether in recordation of their worn out affinitie or no, I know not) it is so inamorately protected and patronized, that they stand as a trench or guarde about it in the night, to keep off their enemies. Now in that drow­sie empire of the pale-fac't Queene of shades, malgre letting driue vpon their Barricadoes, or impetuously contending to breake through their chaine or barre, but they entombe and balist with sodaine destruction. In this transcursiue reporto­ry without some obseruant glaunce, I may not dully ouer­passe the gallant beauty of their hauen, which hauing but as it were a welte of land, or as M. Camden cals it, lingulam ter­rae, a little tong of the earth betwixte it and the wide Maine, sticks not to mannage armes, and hold his owne vndefeasa­bly against that vniuersall vnbounded empery of surges, and so hath done for this hundreth yeere. Two mile in length it stretched his winding current, and then meetes with a spati­ous riuer or backwater that feedes it. A narrow channell or Isthmus in rash view you woulde opinionate it: when this I can deuoutly auerre, I beholding it with both my eies this last fishing, sixe hundreth reasonable barkes and vesselles of good burden (with a vantage) it hath giuen shelter to at once in her harbour, and most of them riding abrest before the Key betwixt the Bridge and the Southgate. Many bows length beyond the marke, my penne roues not I am certain, if I doe, they stand at my elbow that can correct mee. The delectablest lustie sight and mouingest obiect, me thought it was that our Ile sets forth, and nothng behinde in number with the inuincible Spanish Armada, though they were not such Gargantuan boysterous gulliguts as they, though ships and galeasses they would haue beene reckoned in the nauy of K. Edgar, who is chronicled & registred with three thou­sand ships of warre to haue scoured the narrow seas, and sai­led round about England euery Summer. That which espe­ciallest nourisht the most prime pleasure in me, was after a [Page 6]storme when they were driuen in swarmes, and lay close pestred together as thicke as they could packe; the next day following, if it were faire, they would cloud the whole skie with canuas, by spreading their drabled sailes in the full clue abroad a drying, and make a brauer shew with them, then so many banners and streamers displayed against the Sunne on a mountaine top. But how Yarmouth of it selfe so innumerable populous and replenished, and in so barraine a plot seated, should not onely supply her inhabitants with plentifull purueyance of sustenance, but prouant and victu­all moreouer this monstrous army of strangers, was a matter that egregiously bepuzled and entranced my apprehension. Hollanders, Zelanders, Scots, French, Westerne men, Nor­thren men, besides all the hundreds and wapentakes nine miles compasse, fetch the best of their viands and mangery from her market. For ten weeks together this rabble rout of outlandishers are billetted with her, yet in all that while the rate of no kinde of food is raised, nor the plenty of their markets one pinte of butter rebated, and at the ten weekes end, when the campe is broken vp, no impression of any dearth left, but rather more store then before. Some of the towne dwellers haue so large an opinion of their setled pro­uision, that if all her Maiesties fleet at once should put into their bay, within twelue dayes warning with so much dou­ble beere, beefe, fish and bisket they would bulke them as they could wallow away with.

Here I could breake out into a boundlesse race of orato­ry, in shrill trumpetting and concelebrating the royall mag­nificence of her gouernement, that for state and strict ciuill ordering, scant admitteth any riuals: but I feare it would be a theame displeasant to the graue modesty of the discreet present magistrates; and therefore consultiuely I ouerslip it, howsoeuer I purpose not in the like nice respect to leape o­uer the laudable petigree of Yarmouth, but will fetch her from her swadling clouts or infancy, & reueale to you when [Page 7]and by whom she was first raught out of the oceans armes, and start vp and aspired to such starry sublimitie, as also ac­quaint you with the notable immunities, franchises, priuile­ges she is endowed with beyond all het confiners, by the di­scentine line of kings from the conquest.

There be of you it may be, that will account me a paltrer, for hanging out the signe of the redde Herring in my title page, and no such feast towards for ought you can see. Soft and faire my marsters, you must walke and talke before din­ner an houre or two, the better to whet your appetites to taste of such a dainty dish as the redde Herring, and that you may not thinke the time tedious, I care not if I beare you company, and leade you a sound walke round about Yar­mouth, and shew you the length and bredth of it.

The masters and batchellours commensement dinners at Cambridge and Oxford, are betwixt three and foure in the afternoone, & the rest of the antecedence of the day worne out in disputations: imagine this the act or commensement of the red Herring, that proceedeth batcheler, master & do­ctor all at once, & therefore his disputations must be longer. But to the point, may it please the whole generation of my auditours to be aduertised, how that noble earth where the town of great Yarmouth is now mounted, & where so much fish is sold, in the dayes of yore, hath bin the place where you might haue catch fish, & as plaine a sea within this 600. yere as any bote could tumble in, & so was the whole leuill of the Marshes betwixt it and Norwich. An. Do. 1000. or therea­bouts (as I haue scrapt out of wormeaten Parchment) and in the Raigne of Canutus, hee that dyed drunke at Lambeth or Lome-hith, somewhat before, or some what after, not a prenticeship of yeares varying: Caput extulit vndis, the sands set vp shop for themselues, and from that moment to this sextine centurie (or let me not be taken with a lye, fiue hundred nintie eight, that wants but a paire of yeares to make me a true man) they would no more liue vnder the [Page 8]yoke of the Sea, or haue their heads washt with his bubbly spume or Barbers balderdash, but clearely quitted, dister­minated and relegated themselues from his inflated Capri­ciousnesse of playing the Dictator ouer them.

The Northerne winde was the clanging trumpetter, who with the terrible blast of his throate, in one yeallow heape or plumpe clustred or congested them togither, euen as the Westerne gales in Holland right ouer against them, haue wrought vnruly hauocke, and thresht and swept the sandes so before them, that they haue choakt or clamd vp the middle walke or dore of the Rhene, and made it as sta­ble a clod-mould, or turffe ground, as any hedger can driue stake in. Castter two mile distant from this new Yarmouth we intreate of, is inscribed to be that olde Yarmouth, wher­of there are specialties to be seene in the oldest writers, and yet some visible apparant tokens remaine of a hauen that ran vp to it, and there had his entrance into the sea, by aged Fi­shermen commonly tearmed Grubs Hauen) though now it be graueld vp, and the streame or tyde-gate turned another way. But this is most warrantable, the Alpha of all the Yar­mouths it was, & not the Omega correspondently, & frō her withered roote they branch the high ascent of their genea­logie. Omnium rerum vicissitudo est, ones falling, is anothers rising, and so fell it out with that ruind Dorpe or hamlet, which after it had relapst into the Lordes handes for want of reparations, and there were not men enough in it to defend the shore from inuasion, one Cerdicus a Plashing Saxon, that had reueld here and there with his battleaxe, on the bordring bankes of the decrepite ouerworne village now surnamed Gorlstone threw forth his anchor, and with the af­sistance of his speare, in stead of a pikestaffe, leapt agroūd like a sturdie bruite, and his yeomen bolde cast their heeles in their necke, and friskt it after him, and thence sprouteth that obscene appellation of Sarding sandes, with the draffe of [Page 9]the carterly Hoblobs thereabouts, concoct or disgeast for a scripture, verity, when the right christendome of it, is Cer­dicke sands, or Cerdick shore, of Cerdicus so denominated, who was the first maylord or captaine of the morris daunce that on those embenched shelues stampt his footing where cods & dogfish swomme not a warp of weeks forerunning) & til he had giuen the onset they balkt thē as quicksands. By and by after his iumping vppon them, the Saxons for that Garianonum, or Yarmoth that had giuen vp the ghost, in those slymie plashie fieldes of Gorlstone trowled vp a se­cond Yarmouth, abutting on the West side of the shore of this great Yarmouth, that is, but feeling the ayre to be vn­holsome and disagreeing with them, to the ouerwhart brink or verge of the flud, that writ all one stile of Cerdicke sands, they dislodged with bagge and baggage, and there layde the foundatiō of a third Yarmouth O quam nulla potest abolere vetustas, that I hope will holde vp her head till Doomesday. In this Yarmouth as Master Camden saith, there were sea­uentie inhabitants, or housholders, that payed scot and lot in the time of Edward the Confessor, but a Chronography­cal Latine table, which they haue hanging vp in their Guild hall, of all their transmutations from their Cradlehoode, in­fringeth this a little, and flatters her, shee is a great deale yonger, in a faire text hand texting vnto vs, how in the Scep­terdome of Edward the Confessor, the sands first began to growe into sight at a low water, and more sholder at the mouth of the ryuer Hirus or Ierus, whereupon it was dub­bed Iernmouth or Yarmouth, and then there were two Channels, one on the North, another on the South, where through the fisher-men did wander and wauer vp to Nor­witch, and diuers parts of Suffolke and Norfolke, all the fen­nie Lerna betwixt, that with Reede is so imbristled, being (as I haue forespoke or spoken to fore) Madona, Amphi­tritc, fluctuous demeans or fee simple.

From the Citie of Norwich on the East part, it is sixteene [Page 10]mile disiunct, and dislorated, and though betwixt the Sea and the salt flud it be interposed, yet in no place about it can you digge sixe foote deepe, but you shall haue a gushing spring of fresh or sweete water for all vses, as apt and accom­modate, as Saint Winifrides Well, or Towre-hill water at London, so much praised and sought after. My Tables are not yet one quarter emptied of my notes out of their Table, which because it is, as it were a Sea Rutter diligently kept amongst them from age to age, of all their ebbs and flowes, and winds that blew with or against them, I tie my selfe to more precisely, and thus it leadeth on.

In the time of King Herrolde and William the Conque­our, this sand of Yarmouth grew to a setled lumpe, and was as drie as the sands of Arabia, so that thronging theaters of people (as well Aliens as Englishmen) hiued thither about the selling of fish and Herring, from Saint Michael to Saint Martin, and there built sutlers booths and tabernacles, to canopie their heads in from the rhewme of the heauens, or the clouds dissoluing Cataracts. King William Rufus hauing got the Golden wreath about his head, one Herbertus Bi­shop of the sea of Norwich, hearing of the gangs of good fellowes, that hurtled and bustled thither, as thicke as it had beene to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket, or our Ladie of Walsingham, builded a certaine Chappell there for the seruice of God, and saluation of soules.

In the raigne of King Henrie the first, King Steuen, King Henrie the second, and Richard de corde Lyon, the aposta­cie of the sands from the yalping world was so great, that they ioynd themselues to the maine land of Eastflege, and whole tribes of males and females, trotted bargd it thither to build and enhabite, which the saide Kinges whiles they weilded their swords temporall animaduertised of, assigned a ruler or gouernour ouer them, that was called the Kings prouost, and that manner of prouostship or gouernment re­mained in full force and vertue all their fowre Throneships, [Page 11] Alias a hundred yeare, euen till the inanguration of King Iohn, in whose dayes the forewritten-of Bishop of Norwich, seeing the numbrous increase of soules of both kindes that there had framd their nests, and meant not to forsake them till the soule Bell towld them thence, puld downe his Chap­pell, and what by himselfe and the deuout oblations and do­uatines of the fishermen vpon euery returne with their nets full, reedifide and raysed it to a Church of that magnitude, as vnder ministers and Cathedrals verie queasie it admits a­ny hayle fellow well met, and the Church of Saint Nicholas he hallowed it, whence Yarmuoth roade is nicknamed the Roade of Saint Nicholas. King Iohn to comply and keep consort with his auncestors in furthring of this new water­worke, in the ninth yeare of the engirting his annoynted browes with the refulgent Ophir circle, and Anno 1209. set a fresh glosse vppon it, of the towne or free burrough of Yarmouth, and furnisht it with many substantial priuiledges and liberties, to haue and to holde the same of him, and his race, for fifty fiue pound yearely. In Anno 1240. it percht vp to be gouernd by balies, and in a narrower limmitte then the forty yeares vndermeale of the seauen sleepers, it had so much towe to her distaffe and was so well lined and bumba­sted, that in a sea battell her shippes and men conflicted the cinque ports, and therein so laid about them, that they burnt, tooke, and spoyled the most of them, whereof such of them as were sure flights, (sauing a reuerence of their manhoods) ranne crying and complayning to King Henry the second, who with the aduice of his counsaile, set a fine of a thousand pound on the Yarmouth mens heads for that offence, which fine in the tenth of his reigne hee dispenc't with and pardo­ned.

Edward the first, and Edward the second likewise, let them lacke for no priuiledges, changing it from a burrough to a porte towne, and there setting vp a custome house with the appurtenances for the loading and vnloading of shlps. [Page 12]Henry the third in the fortieth of his empery cheard vp their blouds with two charters more, and in Anno 1262. and for­ty fiue of his courte keeping, hee permitted them to wall in their towne and moate it about with a broade ditch, and to haue a prison or iaile in it. In the swindge of his trident hee constituted two Lord admirals ouer the whole nauy of Eng­land, which he disposed in two partes, the one to beare sway from the thames mouth Northwarde, called the Northren nauy, the other to shape his course from the thames mouth to the westwarde termed the westerne nauy, and ouer this northren nauy, for admirall commissionated one Iohn Peer­browne burgesse of the towne of Yarmouth, and ouer the westerne nauy one Sir Robert Laburnus knight.

But Peerebrowne did not only hold his office all the time of that king doeing plausible seruice, but was againe Read­mirald by Edward the third and so died; in the fourteenth of whose raigne he mette with the french Kinges nauy beeing foure-hundred saile, neere to the hauen of Sluse, and there so slic't and slasht them & tore their plancks to mammocks and their leane guttes to kites meate, that their best mercy was fire & water which hath no mercie, and not a victuelar or a drumbler of them hanging in the winde aloofe, but was rib-roasted or had some of his ribbes crusht with their ston­darting engines, no ordinance then beeing inuented. This Edward the thirde of his propensiue minde towardes them, vnited to Yarmouth Kirtley roade, from it seauen mile va­cant, and sowing in the furrowes that his predecessours had entred, hayned the price of their priuiledges & not brought them downe one barley kirnell.

Richard the second vpon a discorde twixt Leystofe and Yarmouth, after diuerse law-dayes and arbitrarie mandates to the counties of Suffolke and Norfolke directed about it, in proper person 1385. came to Yarmouth and in his parlia­mente the yeare ensuing, confirmed vnto it the liberties of Kirtley roade, (the onely motiue of all their contention). [Page 13] Henrie the fifth or the fifth of the Henries that ruled ouer vs, abridged them not amite of their purchast prerogatiues, but permitted them to builde a bridge ouer their hauen and ay­ded and furthered them in it. Henry the sixth, Edward the fourth, Henry the seauenth and King Henry the eight, with his daughters Queene Mary and our Chara deum soboles Queene Elizabeth, haue not withred vp their handes in sig­ning and subscribing to their requests, but our virgin recto­resse most of al, hath shoured downe her bounty vpon them, graunting them greater graunts then euer they had, besides by-matters of the clarke of the marketshippe, and many o­ther beneuolences towardes the reparation of their porte. This and euery towne hath his backewinters or frostes that nippe it in the blade (as not the clearest sunne-shine but hath his shade, and there is a time of sicknes as well as of health). The backewinter, the froste biting, the eclipse, or shade, and sicknesse of Yarmouth was, a greate sicknesse or plague in it 1348, of which in one yeare seauen thousand and fifty peo­ple toppled vp their heeles there. The newe building at the west ende of the Church was begunne there 1330. which like the imperfit workes of kinges colledge in Cambridge, or Christ-church in Oxford haue too costly large foundati­ons to be euer finished,

It is thought if the towne had not beene so scourged and eaten vp by that mortality, out of their owne purses they woulde haue proceeded with it, but nowe they haue gone a neerer way to the woode, for with wooden galleries in the Church that they haue, and stayry degrees of seates in them, they make as much roome to sitte and heare, as a newe west end would haue done.

The length and bredth of Yarmouth I promised to shew you; haue with you, haue with you: but first looke wistly vpon the walles, which if you marke, make a stretcht out quadrangle with the hauen. They are in compasse from the [Page 14]South cheanes to the North cheanes, two thousand one hundreth and fourescore yardes. They haue towres vpon them sixteene: mounts vnderfonging & enflancking them two of olde, now three, which haue their thundring tooles to compell Deigo Spanyard to ducke, and strike the winde col­licke in his paunch, if he praunce to neere them, and will not vaile to the Queene of England. The compasse about the wall of this new mount is fiue hundreth foot, and in the mea­sure of yards eight score and seuen. The bredth of the foun­dation nine foot: the depth within ground eleuen. The heighth to the setting thereof fifteene foot, and in bredth at the setting of it, fiue foot three inches, and the procerous sta­ture of it (so embailing and girdling in this mount) twentie foot and sixe inches. Gates to let in her friends, and shut out her enemies, Yarmouth hath ten, lanes seuenscore: as for her streets, they are as long as threescore streets in London, and yet they diuide them but into three. Voide ground in the towne from the walles to the houses, and from the houses to the hauen, is not within the verge of my Geometry. The li­berties of it on the fresh water one way, as namely from Yarmouth to S. Toolies in Beckles water, are ten mile, and from Yarmouth to Hardlie crosse another way, ten mile, and conclusiuely, from Yarmouth to Waybridge in the narrow North water tenne mile; in all which foords or Meandors: none can attache, arrest, distresse, but their officers; and if any drowne themselues in them, their Crowners sit vpon them.

I had a crotchet in my head, here to haue giuen the raines to my pen, and run astray thorowout all the coast townes of England, digging vp their dilapidations, and raking out of the dust-heape or charnell house of tenebrous eld, the rot­tenest relique of their monuments, and bright scoured the canker eaten brasse of their first bricklayers and founders, & commented and paralogized on their condition in the pre­sent, & in the pretertense, not for any loue or hatred I beare [Page 15]them, but that I would not be snibd, or haue it cast in my dishe, that therefore I prayse Yarmouth so rantantingly, be­cause I neuer elsewhere bayted my horse, or tooke my bowe and arrowes and went to bed. Which leesing (had I bene let alone) I would haue put to bed with a recumbentibus, by vttering, the best that with a safe conscience mought be vttred of the best, or worst of them all, and not withstan­ding all at best, that tongue could speake, or hart could thinke of them, they should bate me an ace of Yarmouth. Mutch brainetossing and breaking of my scull it cost me, but farewell it, and farewel the Baylies of the Cynqueports, whose primordiat Gethneliaca, was also dropping out of my inckhorne, with the syluer oare of their barronry by William the Conquerour conueyed ouer them at that nicke when hee firmed and rubrickt the Kentishmens gauill kinde of the sonne to inherite at fifteene, and the felony of the father not to draw a foot of land from the sonne, & amongst the sonnes the portion to be equally distributed; and if there were no sonnes, much good doe it the daughters, for they were to share it after the same tenure, and might alienate it how they would, either by legacy or bargaine without the consent of the lord.

To shun spight, I smothered these dribblements, & refrai­ned to descant how William the Conquerour hauing heard the prouerbe of Kent and Christendome, thought he had woonne a countrey as good as all Christendome, when he was enfeofed of Kent, for which, to make it sure vnto him after he was entailed thereunto, nought they askt they nee­ded to aske twise, it being enacted ere the words came out of their mouth. Of that profligated labour, yet my breast pants and labours: a whole moneths minde of reuoluing meditation, I raueling out therein (as raueling out signifies Penelopes telam retexere, the vnweauing of a webbe before wouen and contexted:) It pities me, it pities me, that in cut­ting of so faire a diamond as Yarmouth, I haue not a casket [Page 16]dusky Coruish diamonds by me, and a boxe of muddy foiles the better to set it forth. Ʋt nemo miser nisi comparatus, sic nihil pro mirifico nisi cum alijs conferatur. Cedites solistellae scintillan­tes, soli Garrianano cedite reliqua oppida veligera sedium nauali­um speciocissimo sed redeo ad vernaculvm.

All Common wealths assume their prenominations of their common diuided weale, as where one man hath not too much riches, and another man too much pouertie: Such was Platos communitie and Licurgus, and the olde Ro­mans lawes, of measuring out their fields, their meads, their pastures & houses, and meating out to euery one his childes portion. To this Commune bonum (or euery horse his loafe) Yarmouth in propinquity is as the buckle to the thong, and the next finger to the thumbe; not that it is sibbe or cater­cousins to any mūgrel Democratia, in which one is all, & all is one, but that in her as they are not al one so one or two there pockets not vp all the peeces, there beeing two hundreth in it worth three hundred pounde a peece, with poundage and shillings to the lurtched, set a side the Bailifes fowre and twentie, and eight and fourtie. Put out mine eye, who can with such another bragge of my Sea towne within two hundred myle of it. But this common good within it selfe, is nothing to the common good it communicats to the whole state. Shall I particularize vnto you, quibus vijs & modis, how and wherein. There is my hand to, I will doe it, and this is my exordium. A towne of defence it is to the Counties of Suffolke and Norfolke against the enemies, (so acounted at the first graunting of there liberties) and by the naturall strength of the situation so apparant, being both inuironed with many sands, and now of late by great charge, much more fortified then in auncient times. All the Realme it profiteth many waies, as by the free Faire of herring chiefly, maintained by the fisher-men of Yarmouth themselues, by the great plentie of salted fish there, not so little two yeares past as foure hundred thousand, wherein were imployed [Page 17]about fourescore saile of barkes of their owne.

By the furnishing forth of forty boates for mackerell at the spring of the yeare when all thinges are dearest, which is a great reliefe to all the country thereaboutes, and soone after Bartlemewe-tyde, a hundred and twenty sayle of their owne for herrings, and forty sayle of other ships and barkes trading Newe castle, the lowe countries and other voyages. Norwitch at her Maiesties comming in progresse thither, presented her with a shew of knitters on a high stage placed for the nonce, Yarmouth if the like occasiō were, could clap vp as good a shewe of netbrayders, or those that haue no cloathes to wrappe their hides in or breade to put in their mouthes, but what they earne and get by brayding of nets, (not so little as two thousand pound they yearely dispersing amongst the poore women and children of the country, for the spinning of twine to make them with, besides the labour of the enhabitauntes in working them) and for a cōmodious greene place neere the seashoare to mende and drie them, not Salsbury plaine or Newmarket heath (though they haue no vicinity or neighbourhoode with the sea, or scarce with any ditch or pond of freshwater) may ouerpeere or out crow her, there being aboue fiue thousand pounds worth of them at a time vppon her dennes a sunning. A conuenient key within her hauen shee hath, for the deliuery of nets and her­rings, where you may lie a floate at a lowe water; (I beseech you doe not so in the thames), many seruiceable marriners and seafaring-men shee trayneth vp (but of that in the her­ring.)

The marishes and lower grounds lying vpon the three ri­uers that vagary vp to her, (comprehending many thousand acres) by the vigilant preseruation of their hauen are encrea­sed in value more then halfe, which else would be a Maeotis palus, a meare or lake of Eeles Frogges, and wilde-duckes. The citty of Norwitch (as in the Preludium heereof I had a twitch at) fares were the worse for her, nor would fare so wel [Page 18]if it were not for the fishe of all sortes that shee cloyeth her with, and the felowship of their hauen into which their three riuers infuse themselues, and through which their goods and merchandise from beyonde seas are keeled vp with small cost to their very thresholds, and to many good townes on this side, and beyond. I woulde be loth to builde a laborinth in the gatehouse of my booke, for you to loose your selues in, and therefore I shred of many thinges, we will but cast o­uer the bill of her charge, and talke a worde or two of her buildings, and breake vp and go to breakefast with the red herring. The hauen hath cost in these last 28. yeares, sixe and twenty thousand two hundred and sixe and fifty pounde foure shillinges and fiue pence. Fortification and poulder since Anno 1587. two thousand markes, the sea-seruice in Anno 1588. eight hundreth poundes, the Portingale voy­age a thousand pound, the voyage to Cales as much.

It hath lost by the Dunkerkers a thousand pound, by the Frenchmen three thousand, by Wafting eight hundred, by the Spaniardes and other losses not rated, at the least three thousand more. The continuall charge of the Towne in maintenance of their Hauen, fiue hundred pounds a yeare, Omnibus annis for euer, the fee farme of the Towne fiftie fiue pound, and fiue pound a yeare aboue for Kirtley Roade. The continuall charge of the bridge ouer the hauen, their walls, and a number of other odde reckonings we deale not with, towards all which they haue not in certaine reuenewes a­boue fiftie or three-score pounds a yeare, and that is in hou­ses. The yearely charge towards the prouision of fishe for her Maiestie 1000. pounds, as for arable matters of tillage and husbandrie, and grasing of cattell, their barraine sands will not beare them, and they get not a beggers noble by one or other of them, but their whole haruest is by Sea.

It were to be wished that other coasters were so industri­ous as the Yarmouth, in winning the treasure of fish out of those profundities, and then we should haue twentie egges [Page 19]a pennie: and it would be as plentifull a world as when Ab­bies stoode: and now if there be any plentifull world, it is in Yarmouth. Her sumptuous porches and garnisht buildings are such, as no port Towne in our Brittish circumference (nay, take some porte Citties ouer-plus into the bargainer) may suitably stake with, or adequate.

By the proportion of the East surprised Gades or Cales, diuers haue tried their cunning, to configurate a twinlike image of it, both in the correlatiue analagie of the spanbroad rowse running betwixt, as also of the skirt or lappet of earth whereon it stands, heerein onely limitting the difference, that the houses heere are not such flatte custard Crownes at the top as they are. But I for my parte cast it aside as two obscure a Canton, to demonstrate and take the altitude by of so Elizian a habitation as Yarmouth. Of a bounzing side­wasted parish in Lancashire, we haue a flying voyce disper­sed, where they goe nine mile to Church euery Sunday, but Parish for Parish throughout Lancashire, Cheshire, or Win­gandecoy, both for numbers in grosse of honest houshoul­ders, youthfull couragious valiant spirites, and substantiall graue Burgers, Yarmouth shall droppe vie with them to the last Edward groate they are worth. I am posting to my pro­posed scope, or else I could runne tenne quier of paper out of breath, in further trauersing her rightes and dignities.

But of that fraught I must not take in two liberall, in case I want stowage for my red Herring, which I rely vpon as my wealthiest loading. Farewell flourishing Yarmouth, and be euery day more flourishing then other vntill the latter day, whiles I haue my sence or existence, I will persist in louing thee, and so with this abrupt Post script I leaue thee. I haue not trauaild farre, though conferred with farthest tra­uailers, from our owne Realme, I haue turnd ouer venerable Bede, and plenteous beadrowles of frierly annals following on the backe of him. Polidore Virgill, Bucchanan, Camdens Brittania and most recordes of friendes, or enemies I haue [Page 20]searcht as concerning the later modell of it, none of the in­land partes thereof but I haue traded them as frequently as the middle walke in Poules, or my way to bed euery night, yet for ought I haue read, heard, or seene, Yarmouth regall Yarmouth of all maritimall townes that are no more but fi­sher townes soly raigneth sance peere.

Not any where is the word seuerer practised, the prea­cher reuerentlier obserued and honoured, iustice sounder ministred, and a warlike people peaceablier demeanourd, betwixte this and the Grand Cathay, and the strand of Pre­ster Iohn.

Adew adue, tenne thousand folde delicate paramour of Neptune, the nexte yeare my standish may haps to addresse another voyage vnto thee, if this haue any acceptāce. Now it is high heaking time, and bee the windes neuer so easterly aduerse and the tyde fled from vs, wee must violently towe and hale in our redoubtable Sophy of the floating kingdom of Pisces, whome so much as by name I shoulde not haue ac­knowledged, had it not beene that I mused how Yarmouth should be inuested in such plenty and opulence, considering that in M. Hackluits English discoueries, I haue not come in ken of one mizzen mast of a man of warre bound for the In­dies or medireranean sternebearer sente from her Zenith or Meridian; Mercuriall brested M. Harborne alwaies accep­ted a rich sparke of eternity first lighted and enkindled at Yarmouth, or there first bred and brought forth to see the light, who since in the hottest degrees of Leo, hath ecchoing noysed the name of our Ilande and of Yarmouth so Tritonly that not an infant of the curtaild skinclipping pagans but talk of London as frequently as of their Prophets tombe at Mae­cha, & as much worships or maidenpeace as it were but one sun that shin'd ouer them all. Our first embassadour was he to the Behemoth of Constantinople, and as Moses was sent from the omnipotent God of heauen to perswade with Sul­tan Pharao to let the children of Israell goe, so from the pre­potent [Page 21]goddesse of the earth Eliza was hee sent to set free the English capriues and open vnto vs the passage into the redde sea and Euphrates. How impetrable hee was in mol­lyfying the The adamāt [...] mollifide with nothing but bloud. adamantinest tiranny of mankinde, and houre­ly crucifier of Iesus Christ crucifyde & wrooter vp of Palle­stine those that be scrutinus to pry into, let them reuolue the Digests of our English discoueries cited vp in the prece­dence, and be documentized most locupleatly. Of him and none but him who in valuation is woorth 18. huge Argosees full of our present dated mishapen childish trauailers, haue I took sent or come in the wind of, that euer Yarmoth vnshel led or ingendred to weather it on till they lost the North­starre, or sailed iust Antipodes against vs, nor walking in her streetes so many weekes togither could I meete with any of these swaggering captaines, (captaines that wore a whole antient in a scarfe which made them goe heaue shouldred it was so boysterous) or huftituftie youthfull ruffling com­rades wearing euery one three yeardes of feather in his capfor his mistris fauour, such as wee stumble on at each second step at Plimmouth, Southampton, and Portsmouth, but an eniuersal marchantly formallity, in habitte, speach, gestures, though little merchandise they beate their heades aboute, Queene Norwitch for that goeing betweene them and home, at length (ô that length of the full pointe spoiles me, all gentle readers I beseech you pardon mee). I fell a com­muning herupon with a gentleman a familiar of mine, & he eftsoones defined vnto mee that the redde herring was this old Ticklecob, or Magister fac totum, that brought in the red ruddocks and the grummell seed as thicke as oatmeale, and made Yarmouth for argent to put dowue the citty of Ar­gentine. Doe but conuert said hee the slenderest twinckling reflexe of your eie-sight to this flinty ringe that engirtes it, these towred walles, port-cullizd-gates and gorgeous archi­tectures that condecorate and adorne it, and then perpon­der of the red herringes priority and preualence, who is the [Page 22]onely vnexhaustible mine that hath raisd and begot all this, and minutely to riper maturity fosters and cherisheth it. The red herring alone it is that counteruailes the burdensome detrimentes of our hauen, which euery twelue-month de­uoures a Iustice of peace liuing, in weares and banckes to beate off the sand and ouerthwart ledging and fencing it in; that defrayes all impositions and outwarde payments to her Maiestie (in which Yarmouth giues not the wall to sixe, though sixeteene moath-eaten burgesse townes that haue dawbers and thatchers to their Mayors, challenge in parlia­ment the vpper hand of it) and for the vaward or subburbes of my narration, that empals our sage senatours or Ephori, in princely scarlet as pompous ostentyue as the Vinti quater or Lady Troynonant; wherefore quoth he if there be in thee any whit of that vnquē chable sacred sire of Appollo (as al men re­pute) and that Minerua amongest the number of her heires hath addopted thee, or thou wilt commend thy muse to sem­piternity, and haue images and statutes erected to her after her vnstringed silent interment and obsequies, rouze thy spi­rites out of this drowsie lethargy of mellancholly they are drencht in, and wrest them vp to the most outstretched ayry straine of elocution to chaunt and carroll forth the Alteza an excelsitude of this monarchall fluddy Induperator.

Very tractable to this lure I was trained, and put him not to the full anniling of me with any sound hammering per­suasion, in that at the first sight of the top-gallant towers of Yarmouth, and a weeke before he had broken any of these words betwixt his teeth, my muse was ardently inflamed to do it some right, and how to bring it about fitter I knew not, then in the praise of the red herring, whose proper soile and nursery it is. But this I must giue you to wit, how euer I haue tooke it vpon me, that neuer since I spouted incke, was I of woorse aptitude to goe thorow with such a mighty March brewage as you expect, or temper you one right cup of that ancient wine of Falernum which would last fourty yeere, or [Page 23]consecrate to your fame a perpetuall temple of the Pine­trees of Ida which neuer rot. For besides the loud bellow­ing prodigious flaw of indignation, stird vp against me in my absence and extermination from the vpper region of our celestiall regiment, which hath dung mee in a maner downe to the infernall bottome of desolation, and so trou­bledly bemudded with griefe and care euery cell or organ­pipe of my purer intellectuall faculties, that no more they consort with any ingenuous playful merriments, of my note­books and all books else here in the countrey I am berea­ued, whereby I might enamell and hatch ouer this deuice more artificially and masterly, and attire it in his true orient varnish and tincture, wherefore heart and good wil, a work­man is nothing without his tooles, had I my topickes by me in stead of my learned counsell to assist me, I might haps marshall my termes in better aray, and bestow such costly coquery on this Marine magnifico as you would preferre him before tart and galingale, which Chaucer preheminentest encomionizeth aboue all iunquetries or confectionaries whatsoeuer.

Now you must accept of it as the place serues, and in stead of comfittes and sugar to strewe him with, take well in worth a farthing worth of flower to white him ouer and wamble him in, and I hauing no great pieces to discharge for his ben-uenue, or welcomming in, with this volley of Rhapsodies or small shotte, he must rest pacified, and so Adrem, spurre cutte through thicke and thinne, and enter the triumphall charriot of the red herring.

HOmer of rats and frogs hath heroiqut it, other oaten pi­pers after him in praise of the Gnat, the Flea, the Hasill nut, the Grashopper, the Butterflie, the Parrot, the Popiniay, Phillip sparrow, and the Cuckowe; the wantonner sort of them sing descant on their mistris gloue, her ring, her fanne, her looking glasse, her pantofle, and on the same iurie, I might impannell Iohannes Secundus, with his booke of the [Page 24]two hundred kinde of leises. Phylosophers come sneaking in with their paradoxes of pouertie, imprisonment, death, sickenesse, banishment, and baldnesse, and as busie they are aboute the bee, the storke, the constant turtle, the horse, the dog, the ape, the asse, the foxe, and the ferret. Physiti­ons deafen our eares with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heauenly Panachaea their soueraigne Guiacum, their glisters, their triacles, their mithridates of fortie seuerall poysons compacted, their bitter Rubarbe, and torturing Stibium.

The posterior Italian and Germane cornugraphers, sticke not to applaude and cannonize vnnaturall sodomitrie, the strumpet errant, the goute, the ague, the dropsie, the sciati­ea, follie, drunckennesse, and slouenry. The Galli Gallina­cei, or cocking French swarme euery pissing while in their primmer editions, Imprimedaiour duy, of the vnspeakeable healthfull condiciblenesse of the Gomorrian great Poco, a Po­co, their true countriman euery inch of him, the prescript lawes of Tennis or Balonne (which is most of their gentle­mens chiefe liuelyhoodes) the commoditie of hoarsenes, bleare-eyes, scabdhams, threed-bare cloakes, potcht eggs, and Panados. Amongst our English harmonious calinos, one is vp with the excellence of the browne bill and the long bowe, another playes his prizes in print, in driuing it home with all weapons in right of the noble science of defence: a third writes passing enamorately, of the nature of white­meates, and iustifies it vnder his hand to be bought & sould euery where, that they exceede Nectar, & Ambrosia: a fourth comes foorth with something in prayse of nothing: a fift of an enflamed heale to coppersmithes hal, all to beerimes it of the diuersitie of red noses, and the hierarchy of the nose magnificat. A sixt, sweeps behinde the dore all earthly fe­licities, and makes Bakers maulkins of them, if they stand in competencie with a strong dozen of poyntes; marrie they must be poyntes of the matter, you must consider, where­of [Page 25]the formost codpisse poynt is the cranes prouerbe in pain­ted clothes feare God, and obey the king, and the rest some haue tagges, and some haue none. A seuenth settes a To­bacco pipe in stead of a trumpet to his mouth, and of that diuine drugge proclaimeth miracles. An eygth cap­pers it vp to the spheares in commendation of daunsing. A ninth, offers sacrifice to the goddesse Cloaca, and disportes himselfe very schollerly and wittilie aboute the reformation of close stooles and houses of office, and spicing and embal­ming their rancke intrailes, that they stincke not. A tenth, settes forth remedies of Tosted turnes against famine.

To these I might wedge in Cornelius the brabantine, See the Epistle comemndato­rie, before M. Samuell Dani­els translatiō of the Empreses of Paulus Ioui­us. who was felloniously suspected in 87. for penning a discourse of Tuftmockados, and a countrey gentleman of my acquain­tance who is launching forth a treatise as bigge garbd as the french Academy of the Cornucopia of a cowe and what an ad­uantageable creature shee is, beyonde all the foure footed rablement of Herbagers and grasse champers, day nor night that shee can rest for filing and tampring aboute it) as also a sworne brother of his that so bebangeth poore paper in laud of a bag-pudding as a swizer would not belieue it. Neither of their Decads are yet stampt but eare midsummer tearme they will be if their wordes bee sure payment, and then tell me if our English sconses be not right Sheffield or no.

The application of this whole catalogue of wast authours is no more but this, Quot capita tot sententiae, so many heades so many whirlegigs, and if all these haue Terlery-ginckt it so friuolously of they reckt not what I may Cum gratia & priue­ligio pronounce it, that a red herring is wholsesome in a fro­sty morning, and rake vp some fewe scattered sillables to­gether in the exornation and pollishing of it. No more ex­cursions and circumquaques but Totaliter a appositum.

That English marchandise is most precious which no country can be without, if you aske Suffolke, Essex, Kent, Sus­sex, or Lemster, or Cotswold, what marchandise that shoulde [Page 26]bee, they will answere you it is the very same which Polidore Ʋirgill cals Ʋerè aureum vellus, the true golden fleece of our woll and English cloth and nought else, other engrating vp­land cormorants will grunt out it is Grana paradisi our grain or corne that is most sought after. The Westerners and Northerners that it is lead tinne and iron. Butter and cheese, butter and cheese saith the farmer, but frō euery one of these I dissent and wil stoutely bide by it, that to trowle in the cash throughout all nations christendome there is no fellowe to the red herring. The French Spanish and Italian haue wool inough of their owne wherof they make cloth to serue their turne, though it be somewhat courser then ours. For corne, none of the East parts but surpasseth vs, of leade and tinne is the most scarsity in forraine dominions, and plenty with vs, though they are not vtterly barraine of them. As for iron about Isenborough and other places of Germany, they haue quadruple the store that wee haue. As touching butter and cheese the Hollanders cry by your leaue wee must goe before you, and the Transalpiners with thier lordly Par­masin, (so named of the citty of Parma in Italy where it is first clout-crushed and made) shoulder in for the vpper hand as hotly, when as of our appropriate glory of the red herring, no region twixt the poles articke and antartick may can or will rebate from vs one scruple.

On no coast like ours is it caught in such abundance, no where drest in his right cue but vnder our Horizon; hosted rosted and tosted heere alone it is, and as well poudred and salted as any Duchman would desire. If you articulate with me of the gaine or profit of it, without the which the newe fanglest raritie, that no body can boast of but our selues, af­ter three dayes gazing is reuerst ouer to children for babies to play with, behold, it is euery mans money from the King to the Courtier; euery housholder or goodman Baltrop, that keepes a family in pay, casts for it as one of his standing pro­uisions. The poorer sort make it three parts of there suste­nanuce, [Page 27]with it for his dinnier the patchedest Leather piltche laboratho may dine like a Spanish Duke, when the niggard­liest mouse of biefe will cost him sixpence. In the craft of catching or taking it, and smudging it Marchant and chap­manable as it should be, it sets a worke thousands, who liue all the rest of the yeare gayly well, by what in some fewe weekes they scratch vp then, and come to beare office of Questman and Scauinger in the Parish where they dwell, which they could neuer haue done, but would haue begd or starud with their wiues and brattes, had not this Captaine of the squamy cattell so stoode their good Lord and master: Carpenters, Shipwrights, makers of lines, roapes and cables, dressers of Hempe, spinners of thred, and net weauers it giues their handfuls to, sets vp so many salt-houses to make salt, and salt vpon salt; keepes in earnings the Cooper, the Brewer the Baker, and numbers of other people, to gill, wash and packe it, and carrie it and recarrie it.

In exchange of it from other Countries they returne wine and Woades, for which is alwaies paide ready Golde, with salt, Canuas, Vitre, and a great deale of good trash. Her Maiesties tributes and customes, this Semper Augustus of the Seas finnie freeholders, augmenteth & enlargeth vncoun­tably, and to the encrease of Nauigation, for her seruice hee is no enemie.

Voiages of purchase or reprisals, which are now grown a common traffique, swallow vp and consume more Saylers and Marriners then they bree de, and lightly not a slop of a ropehaler they send forth to the Queenes ships, but hee is first broken to the Sea in the Herring mans Skiffe or Cock­boate, where hauing learned to brooke all waters, and drinke as he can out of a tarrie Canne, and eate poore Iohn out of swuttie platters when he may get it without butter or mustard, there is no ho with him but once hartned thus, hee will needes be a man of warre, or a Tobacco taker, and weare a siluer Whistle. Some of these for their haughtie climbing [Page 26] [...] [Page 27] [...] [Page 28]come home with woodden legges and some with none, but leaue body and all behinde, those that escape to bring news, tell of nothing but eating Tallow and yong black-amores, of fiue and fiue to a Rat in euery messe, and the ship-boy to the tayle, of stopping their noses when they drunke stinking water that came out of the pumpe of the ship, and cutting a greasie bufreierkin in tripes and broiling it for their dinners. Diuers Indian aduentures haue beene seasoned with direr mishaps, not hauing for eight dayes space the quantity of a candles-end among eight score to grease their lippes with, and landing in the end to seeke food, by the canibal Sauages they haue bene circumuented, and forced to yeeld their bo­dies to feed them.

Our mitred Archpatriarch Leopald herring exacts no such That is for a man to be his owne executi­oner, and at his Princes becke to go vp to the top of the rock, and thence throw himselfe headlong. Fol. 63. pag. 2. Muscouian vassailage of his liegemen, though hee put them to their trumps other while, and scuppets not his be­nificence into their mouthes with such fresh water facility as M. Ascham in his Schoolemaster would imply. His wordes these in his censure vpon Ʋarro: Hee enters not (sayth he) into any great depth of eloquēce, but as one carried in a small low vessell by himselfe very nigh the common shore, not much vnlike the fi­sher men of Rie, or herring men of Yarmouth, who deserue by commonmens opinion small commendation for any cunning sailing at all. Well, he was her Maiesties Schoolemaster, and a S. Iohns man in Cambridge, in which house once I tooke vp my inne for seuen yere together lacking a quarter and yet loue it still, for it is and euer was the sweetest nurse of know­ledge in all that Vniuersity. Therefore I will keepe faire quarter with him, and expostulate the matter more tamely. Memorandum non abuno, I vary not a minnum from him, that in the captious mystery of Mounsieur herring low ves­sels will not giue their heads for the washing, holding their owne pell-mell in all weathers as roughly as vaster timber men, though not so neere the shore, as through ignorance of the coast he soundeth, nor one man by himselfe alone to [Page 29]do euery thing, which is the opinion of one man by himselfe alone, and not beleeu'd of any other. Fiue to one if he were aliue, I would beate against him, since one without fiue is as good as none, to gouerne the most egshell shallop that floa­teth, and spread her nets, and draw them in, As stifly could I controuert it with him about pricking his card so badly in Cape Norfolke or Sinus Yarmouthiensis and discrediting our countrymen for shore creepers, like these Colchester oy­stermen, or whiting-mungers and sprot-catchers. Solyman Herring woulde you shoulde perswade your selues is loftier minded and keepeth more aloofe then so, and those that are his followers if they will seeke him where hee is, more then common daunger they must incurre in close driuing vnder the sands which alternately or betwixt times when he is dis­posed to ensconse himselfe are his entrenched Randevowe or castle of retiring, and otherwhile fortie or threescoare leagues in the roaring territory they are glad on their wod­den horses to post after him, and scoure it with their ethiope pitchbordes till they be windlesse in his quest and pursuing. Returning from waiting on him, haue with you to the Adri­atique and abroade euery where far and neere to make port­sale of their perfumed smoaky commodities, and that toyle rockt a sleepe they are for Ʋltima Theule the northse as or Is­land, and thence yerke ouer that worthy Pallamede don pedro de linge, and his worshipfull nephew Hugo Habberdine, and a trundle-taile tike or shaugh or two, and towardes Michel­mas scud home to catch Herring againe. This argues they shoulde haue some experience of nauigation, and are not such Halcyons to builde their neastes all on the shoare as M. Ascam supposeth.

Rie is one of the antient townes belonging to the cinque ports yet limpeth cinque ace behinde Yarmouth, and it wil sincke when Yarmouth riseth, and yet if it were put in the ballance against Yarmouth, it woulde rise when Yarmouth sincketh, and to stand threshing no longer about it, Rie is Ry [Page 30]and no more but Rie and Yarmouth wheate compared with it. Wherefore had he bene a right clarke of the market, he would haue set a higher price on the one then the other, and set that one of highest price aboue the other.

Those that deserue by common mens opinion small com­mendation for any cunning sailing at all, are not the Yar­mouthers how euer there is a foule fault in the print escapt, that curstly squinteth and leereth that way, but the bonnie Northren cobbles of his countrey, with their Indian canaos or boats like great beefe trayes or kneading troughs, firking as flight swift thorow the glassy fieldes of Thetis, as if it were the land of yee, and sliding ouer the boiling defert so earely, and neuer bruise one bubble of it, as though they contended to out-strip the light-foot tripper in the Metamorphisis, who would run ouer the ripe-bending eares of corne, and neuer shed or perish one kirnell. No such yron-fisted Ciclops to hew it out of the flint, and runne thorow any thing as these frost-bitten crab-tree fac't lads spunne out of the hards of the towe, which are Donsel herrings lackeys at Yarmouth euery fishing.

Let the carreeringest billow confesse and absolue it selfe, before it pricke vp his bristles against them, for if it come vp­on his dancing horse, and offer to tilt it with them, they will aske no trustier lances then their oares to beat out the brains of it, and stop his throat from belching.

These rubbes remooued, on with our game as fast as wee may, & to the gaine of the red herring againe another crash. Item if it were not for this Huniades of the liquid element, that word Quadragesima, or Lent might be cleane spung'd out of the Kalender, with Rogation weeks, Saints eues, and the whole Ragmans roule of fasting dayes, and Fishmon­gers might keepe Christmasse all the yeere, for any ouerla­uish takings they should haue of clownes and clouted shoes, and the rubbish menialty their best customers, and their bloudy aduerfaries the butchers would neuer leaue clea­uing [Page 31]it out in the whole chines, till they had got a Lord Maior of their company as well as they. Nay out of their wits they would be haunted with continuall takings, & stand crosse-gag'd with kniues in their mouthes from one Shroft­tuisday to another, and weare candles-endes in their hattes at midsommer, hauing no time to shaue their-prickes, or washe their flye blowne aprons if Domingo Rufus or Sacra­pant herring caused not the dice to runne contrary.

The Rhomish rotten Pithagoreans or Carthusian friers, that mumpe on nothing but fishe, in what a flegmatique predicament would they be, did not this counterpoyson of the spitting sickenesse (sixtiefolde more restoratiue then Be­zer) patch them out and preserue them, which being dub­ble rosted and dryde as it is, not onely sucks vp all rhewma­tique inundations, but is a shooing-horne for a pinte of wine ouer-plus.

The sweete smacke that Yarmouth findes in it, and how it hath made it Lippitudo Atticae (as it was saide of Aegina her neere adiacent comfronter) the blemish and staine of all her salt-water sisters in England, and multiplide it from a moul­hill of sand, to a cloude-crowned mount Teneriffe, abbreui­atly and meetely according to my old Sarum plaine song I haue harpt vpon, and that, if there were no other certificat or instance of the inlinked consanguinitie twixt him and Lady Lucar, is Instar mille, worth a million of witnesses, to exemplifie the ritches of him. The Poets were triuiall, that set vp Helens face for such a top-gallant Summer May-pole for men to gaze at, and strouted it out so in their buskind braues of her beautie, whereof the onely Circes Heypasse, and Repasse was that it drewe a thousand ships to Troy, to fetch her backe with a pestilence. Wise men in Greece in the meane while to swagger so aboute a whore.

Eloquious hoarie beard father Nestor, you were one of them, and you M. Vlisses the prudent dwarfe of Pallas ano­ther, of whome it is Illiadizd that your very nose dropt su­gar [Page 32]candie, and that your spittle was honye. Natalis Comes if he were aboue ground, [...]olde time [...]ey vsed to [...]ing out at a­ [...] miracle. would be sworne vpon it. As loude a ringing miracle as the attractiue melting eye of that strū­pet can we supply thē with of our dappert Piemont Huldrick Herring, which draweth more barkes to Yarmouth bay, then her beautie did to Troy. O he is attended vpon most Babilo­nically, and Xerxes so ouercloyd not the Hellespont with his foystes, gallies, and brigandines, as he mantleth the narrow seas with his retinue, being not much behinde in the check­roule of his Ianissaries and contributories, with Eagle-soaring Bullingbrooke, that at his remouing of houshold into banish­ment (as father Froysard threapes vs downe) was accompa­nied with 40000, men wemen and children weeping, from London to the landes end at Douer. A colony of criticall Zenos should they sinnow their sillogisticall cluster-fistes in one bundle to confute and disproue mouing, were they but during the time they might lap vp a messe of buttred fish, in Yarmouth one fishing, such a violent motion of toyling Mir midons they should be spectators of and a confused stirring to and fro, [...]he sea bat­ [...]ile at Lepan­ [...] fought in [...]e beginning [...]f her Maie­ [...]ies raigne. of a Lapantalike hoast of vnfatigable flud bickerers and foame-curbers, that they woulde not moue or stir one foote till they had disclaimd and abiurd their bedred spittle-positiōs. In verament and sincerity I neuer crouded through this confluent herring faire, but it put me in memory of the great yeare of Iubile in Edward the thirds time, in which it is sealed and deliuered vnder the handes of a publique nota­ry, three hundred thousand people romed to Rome for pur­gatorie pils and paternal veniall benedictions, and the waies beyond sea were so bungd vp with your dayly oratours or Beads-men and your crutchet or croutchant friers or crosse­creepers and barefoote penitentiaries, that a snaile coulde not wriggle in her hornes betwixt them. Small thinges we may expresse by great, and great by smal, though the great­nesse of the redde herring be not small as small a hoppe on my thumbe as hee seemeth) It is with him as with great per­sonages, [Page 33]which from their high estate and not their high sta­tures propagate the eleuaute titles of their Gogmagognes, Cast his state who will and they shall finde it to be very high coloured (as high coloured as his complexion if I saide there were not a pimple to be abated) In Yarmouth he hath set vp his state house, where one quarter of a yeare he keepes open court for Iewes and gentiles.

To fetch him in, in The fattall wodden horse at Troy fetcht in with such pompe. Troian Equipage some of euery of the Christ-crosse Alphabet of outlandish Cosmopoli furrowe vp the rugged brine, and sweepe through his tumultuous oous will or nill hee rather then in tendring their alleagance they should be benighted with tardity. For our English Mikro­kosmos or Phenician Didos hide of grounde; no shire, county count palatine, or quarter of it, but rigs out some oken squa­dron or other to waft him along The solemne bringing of the champions at Olimpus. 1. Tugging forth by the strength of their armes. Cleopatraean The solemne bringing of the champions at Olimpus. 1. Tugging forth by the strength of their armes. Olimplickly, Cleopatras glorious say­ling to meete Anthony. and not the dimunutiuest nooke or creuise of them but is parturiēt of the like superofficiousnes, The solemne bringing of the champions at Olimpus. 1. Tugging forth by the strength of their armes. arming forth though it be but a catch or pinck no capabler then a rundlet or wa­shing bowle, to impe the wings of his conuoy. Holy S. Taur­bard in what droues the gouty bagd Londoners hurry down and die the watchet aire of an yron russet hue with the dust that they raise in hot spurd rowelling it on to performe cō­plementes vnto him. One becke more to the balies of the cinque portes, whome I were a ruder Barbarian then Smill the Prince of the Crims & Nagayans if in this actiō I should forget (hauing had good cheare at their tables more then once or twice whiles I loytred in this paragōlesse fish town) Citty, towne, cuntry, Robin hoode and little Iohn and who not, are industrious and carefull to squire and safe conduct him in, but in vshering him in next to the balies of Yarmoth, they trot before all, and play the prouost marshals helping to keep good rule the first three weeks of his ingresse, and ne­uer leaue roaring it out with their brasen horne as long as they stay, of the freedomes and immunities soursing frō him. Beeing thus entred or brought in the consistorians or setled [Page 34]standers of Yarmouth, commense intestine warres amongst themselues who should giue him the largest hospitality, and gather about him as flocking to hansell him and strike him good luck as the Sweetkin Madans did about valiāt S. Wal­ter Manny the martiall tutor vnto the Blacke prince (he that built Charterhouse) who being vpon the point of a hazzar­dous iourney into France, either to win the horse or lose the saddle (as it runs in the Prouerb) & taking his leaue at Court in a sute of male frō top to toe, all the ladies clung about him, and would not let him stretch out a step till they had enset­tred him with their variable fauours, and embroidred ouer his armour like a gaudy Summer meade, with three scarfes, bracelets, chains, ouches: in generous reguerdoment wher­of he sacramentally obliged himselfe, that had the French king as many giants in his countrey as hee hath peares or grapes, and they stood all enranged on the shore to interdict his disimbarking, through the thickest thornie quickset of thē he would pierce, or be tost vp to heauen on their speares, but in honour of those debonaire Idalian nimphs and their spangled trappings, he would be the first man should set foot in his kingdome, or vnsheath steele against him. As he pro­mised so was his Manny quafi Manly, & from him I take it the Mannies of Kent are de­scended. manly blades execution, and in emula­tion of him, whole heards of knights and gentlemen clos'd vp their right eyes with a piece of silke euery one, & vowed neuer to vncouer them or let thē see light, til in the aduance­ment of their mistresse beauties, they had enacted with their brandisht bilbowblades some chiualrous Bellerophons trick at armes, that from Salomons Ilands to S. Magnus corner might cry clang againe. O it was a braue age then, and so it is euer, where there are offensiue wars, and not defensiue, & men fight for the spoile, and not in feare to be spoiled, & are as lions seeking out their pray, and not as sheepe that lie still whiles they are prayd on. The redde herring is a legate of peace, and so abhorrent from vnnatural bloudshed, that if in his quarrell or bandying, who should harbing him, there be [Page 35]any hewing or slashing, or trials of life & death, there where that hang-man embowelling is, his pursuiuants or balier re­turne non est inuentus, out of one bailiwick he is fled, neuer to be fastened on there more. The Scotish Iockies or Red­shanks (so surnamed of their immoderate raunching vp the red shanks or red herrings) vpholde & make good the same. Their clacke or gabbling to this purport: How in diebus illis, when Robert de Breaux their gud king sent his deare heart to the haly land, for reason he caud not gang thider himselfe (or then or thereabout, or whilome before, or whilome after, it matters not) they had the staple or fruits of the herring in their road or chan­nell, till a foule ill feud arose amongst his sectaries and seruitours, and there was mickle tule, and a blacke warld, and a deale of whi­nyards drawne about him, and many sacklesse wights and praty barnes run through the tender weambs, and fra thence ne sarry taile of a herring in thilke sound they caud gripe. This language or parley haue I vsurpt from some of the deftest lads in all E­denborough towne, which it will be no impeachment for the wisest to turne loose for a trueth, without any diffident wrastling with it. The sumpathy thereunto in our owne fro­thy streames we haue tooke napping, wherfore without any further bolstring or backing, this Scotish history may beare palme, & if any further bolstring or backing be required, it is euident by the confession of the sixe hundred Scotish wit­ches executed in Scotland at Bartelmewtide was twelue­moneth, that in Yarmouth road they were all together in a plumpe on Christmasse eue was two yere when the great floud was, & there stird vp such ternados & furicanos oftem­pests, in enuy (as I collect) that the staple of the herring from them was tranflated to Yarmouth, as will be spoke of there whiles any winds or stormes & tempests chafe & puffe in the lower region. They and all the seafaring townes vnder our temperate zone of peace, may well enuy her prosperity, but they cannot march cheeke by iowle with her or coequall her, and ther's no such manifest signe of great prosperity as a [Page 36]generall enuy encompassing it. Kings, noble-men it cleaues vnto that walke vpright, and are any thing happy, & euen a­mongst meane artificers it thrusts in his foot, one of thē en­uying another if he haue a knack aboue another, or his gains be greater, and if in his arte they cannot disgrace him, they will finde a starting hole in his life that shall confound him: for example: There is Iohn Thurkle a mathematicall Smith or artificer in Yarmouth that hath made a locke and key that weighes but three farthings, and a chest with a paire of knit gloues in the till of it, whose whole poise is no more but a groat, now I do not thinke but all the Smiths in London, Norwich or Yorke (if they heard of him) would enuy him, if they could not out­worke him. Hydra herring will haue euery thing The Sybarites [...]euer woulde [...]ake any ban­ [...]et vnder a [...]elue-mo­ [...]ths warn­ [...]g. Sybarite dainty, where he lays knife aboord, or he wil fly them, he wil not looke vpon them. Stately borne, stately sprung he is, the best bloud of the Ptolomies no statelier, and with what state he hath bene vsed from his swadling clouts, I haue reiterated vnto you, and which is a note aboue ela, stately Hyperion or the lordly sonne, the most rutilant planet of the seuē, in Lent when Heralius herring enters into his chiefe reign and scep­terdome, skippeth and danseth the goats iumpe on the earth for ioy of his entrance. Do but marke him on your walles a­ny morning at that season how he sallies & Iaualtos, and you wil say I am no fabler. Of so eye bewitching a deaurate rud­die dy is the skincoat of this Lantsgraue, that happy is that nobleman who for his colours in armory can neerest imitate his chimicall temper, nay which is more, if a man should tell you that god Himens saffron colour'd robe were made of nothing but red herrings skins, you would hardly beleeue him: such is the obduracy & hardnesse of heart of a number of infidels in these dayes, they will teare herrings out of their skins as fast as one of these Exchequer tellers can turne ouer a heape of money, but his vertues both exterior and interior they haue no more taste of, then of a dish of stockfish. Some­where I haue snatcht vp a ieast of a king that was desirous to [Page 37]try what kinde of flesh-meat was most nutritiue prosperous with a mans body, and to that purpose he commanded foure hungry fellowes, in foure separate roomes by themselues to bee shut vp for a yeare and a day, whereof the first shoulde haue his gut bumbasted with biefe and nothing else, till hee cride hold belly holde, and so the second to haue his paunch cramd with porke, the third with mutton, & the fourth with veale. At the tweluemonths ende they were brought before him, & he enquired of euery one orderly what he had eate. Therewith outstept the stallfed foreman that had bin at host with the fat oxe, and was growne as fat as an oxe with tiring on the surloynes, and baft in his face Biefe, Biefe, Biefe. Next the Norfolke hog or the swine-wurrier, who had got him a sagging paire of cheeks like a sows paps that giues suck, with the plentyfull mast set before him, came lazily wadling in, and puft out Porke, Porke, Porke. Then the sly sheepe-biter issued into the midst, and summer setted & fliptflapt it twen­ty times aboue ground as light as a feather and cride mitton, mitton, mitton, last the Essex calfe or lagman, who had lost the calues of his legs with gnawing on the horslegs, shudring and quaking limpte after, with a visage as pale as a peece of white leather, and a staffe in his hande and a kirchiefe on his head, and very lamentably vociferated veale, veale, veale. A witty toy of his noble grace it was, and different from the recipes and prescriptions of our moderne phisitions, that to any sicke languishers if they be able to waggle their chaps, propound veale for one of the highest nourishers.

But had his principalitie gone thorough with fish as well as flesh, and put a man to liuery with the red herring but as long, he would haue come in Hurrey, Hurrey, Hurrey, As much to say as Vrrey, Vr­rey, Vrrey one of the princi­pall places where the her­ring is caught. as if he were harrying and chasing his enemies, & Beuis of Hampton after he had bene out of his diet, should not haue bene able to haue stood before him. A chollericke parcell of food it is, that who so ties himselfe to racke and manger to for fiue summers, and fiue winters, he shall beget a child that will be a souldiour and a commaunder before hee hath cast his first [Page 38]teeth, & an Alexander, a Iulius Caesar, a Scanderbega Barba­rossa he will proue ere he aspire to thirtie,

But to thinke on a red Herring, such a hot stirring meate it is, is enough to make the crauenest dastard proclaime fire and sword against Spaine. The most intenerate Virgine wax phisnomy, that taints his throate with the least ribbe of it, it will embrawne and Iron crust his flesh, and harden his soft bleding vaines as stiffe and robustious, as branches of Cor­rall. The art of kindling of fires that is practised in the smo­king or parching of him, is old dog against the plague. Too foule-mouthed I am to becollow or becollier, him with such chimnie sweeping attributes of smoking and parching. Wil you haue the secrete of it, this well meaning Pater patriae, & prouiditore and supporter of Yarmouth (which is the locke and key of Norfolke) looking pale and sea-sicke at his first landing, those that be his stewards or necessariest men about him, whirle him in a thought out of the raw colde ayre, to some stew or hot house, where immuring himselfe for three or foure dayes, when he vn-houseth him, or hath cast off his shel, he is as freckled about the gils, & lookes as red as a Fox, clumme & is more surly to be spoken with then euer he was before, and like Lais of Corinth, will smile vpon no man ex­cept he may haue his owne asking. There are that number of Herrings vented out of Yarmouth euery yeare (though the Grammarians make no plurall number of Halec) as not onely they are more by two thousand Last then our owne land can spend, but they fil all other lands, to whome at their owne prises they sell them, and happie is he that can first lay hold of them. And how can it bee otherwise, for if Cornish Pilchards otherwise called Fumados, taken on the shore of Cornewall, from Iuly to Nouember, bee so saleable as they are in Fraunce, Spaine and Italy, (which are but countefets to the red Herring as Copper to Golde, or Ockamie to sil­uer, much more, there elbows itch for ioy, when they meete with the true Golde, the true red Herring it selfe. No true flying fish but he, or if there be, that fish neuer flies but when [Page 39]his wings are wet, and the red Herring flyes best when his wings are dry, throughout Belgia, high Germanie, Fraunce, Spaine and Italy hee flyes, and vp into Greece, and Africa South, and Southwest, Estritch-like walkes his stations, and the Sepulcher, Palmers or Pilgrims, because hee is so portable fill their Scrips with them, yea no dispraise to the bloud of the Ottamans, the Nabuchedonesor of Constantino­ple, and Giantly Antaeus that neuer yawneth nor neezeth but he affrighteth the whole earth, gormandizing muncheth him vp for imperiall dainties, and will not spare his Idol Ma­homet a bit with him, no not though it would fetch him from heauen fortie yeares before his time, whence with his Doue that he taught to pecke Barley out of his eare, and brought his Disciples into a fooles paradise, that it was the holy ghost in her similitude, he is expected euery minute to discend, but I am affraid, as he was troubled with the falling sicknesse, in his life time, in felfe manner it tooke him in his mounting vp to heauen, & so ab inferno nulla redemptio, he is falne back­ward into hell, and they are neuer more like to heare of him. Whiles I am shuffling and cutting with these long coated Turkes, would any antiquarie would explicate vnto mee this remblere or quidditie, Turbanto, the great Iawne roule Turkes were aboute their heads. whether those Turbanto grout­heads, that hang all men by the throates on Iron hookes, e­uen as our Toers hang all there Herrings by the throates on wodden spits, first learnd it of our Herring men, or our herringmen of them. Why the Alcheronship of that Belza­bub of Saracens, Rhinoceros Zelim aforesaid, should so much delight in this shinie animall I cannot gesse, except hee had a desire to imitate Midas in eating of gold, or Dionisius in stripping of Iupiter out of his golden Coate; and to shoote my fooles bolt amongst you, that fable of Midas eating gold had no other shadow or inclusiue pith in it, but he was of a queasie stomacke, and nothing hee coulde fancie, but this newe found guilded fish, which Bacchus at his request gaue him, (though it were not knowne here two thousand yeare [Page 40]after, for it was the delicates of the gods, & no mortall foode til of late yeares) Midas vnexperienst of the nature of it, (for he was a foole that had asses eares) snapt it vp at one blow, & because in the boyling or seathing of it in his maw, he felt it commotion a little and vpbraide him, he thought he had ea­ten golde in deede, and thereupon directed his Orizons to Bacchus afresh, to helpe it out of his crop againe, and haue mercy vpon him and recouer him, hee propensiue inclining to Midas deuotion in euery thing, in lieu of the friendly hos­pitalities, drunken Silenus his companion found at his hands when he strayed from him, bad him but goe wash himselfe in the riuer Pactolus, that is, goe wash it downe soundly with flowing cups of Wine and he should be as well as euer hee was. By the turning of the riuer Pactolus into golde, after he had ren'ct and clarified himselfe in it (which is the close of the fiction) is signified that in regard of that blessed operati­on of the iuice of the grape in him, from that day forth in no­thing but golden cups he would drinke or quaffe it, whereas in wodden Mazers, and Agathocles earthen stuffe, they tril­lild it off before, and that was the first time that any golden cups wervsed.

Follow this tract in expounding the tale of Dionisius and Iupiter, and you cannot goe amisse. No such Iupiter, no such golden coated image was there: but it was a plaine golden coated red herring without welt or garde, whome for the strangenes of it (they hauing neuer beheld a beast of that hue before) in their temples inshrined for a God, and in so­much as Iupiter had shewed thē such slippery pranckes more then once or twise, in shifting himselfe into sundry shapes, and rayning himselfe downe in golde into a womans lappe, they thought this too might be a rricke of youth in him, to alter himselfe into the forme of this golden Scali-ger, or red herring. And therefore as to Iupiter they fell downe on their marybones, & lift vp their hay-cromes vnto him. Now king Dionisius being a good wise-fellow, for he was afterwards a schoolemaster, & had plaid the coatchman to Plato & spit in [Page 41]Aristippus the Philosophers face many a time and oft, no sooner entred their tēple, & saw him sit vnder his Canopie so budgely with a whole Goldsmiths stall of iewelles and rich offerings at his feete, but to him he stept, and pluckt him from his state with a wennion, then drawing out his knife most iracundi­ously, at one whiske lopt off his head, and stript him out of his golden de my or mandillion, and flead him, and thrust him downe his pudding house at a gobbe: yet long it prospered not with him, (so reuengefull a iust Iupiter is the red Herring) for as he tare him from his throne, and vncased him of his habiliments, so in smal deuolution of yeres, from his throne was he cha­ced, and cleane stript out of his royalty, & glad to go play the Schoole maister at Corinth, and take a rodde in his hand for his scepter, and horne-booke Pigmeis for his subiects, idest, (as I intimated some dozen lines before) of a tyrant to become a frowning pedant or schoolemaister.

Many of you haue read these stories, and coulde neuer picke out any such English, no more woulde you of the Ismael Persians Haly, or Mortus Alli, they worship, whose true etimologie is, mortuum halec, a dead red herring, and no other, though by corrupti­on of speech, they false dialect and misse-sound it. Let any Persian oppugne this, and in spite of his hairie tuft or loue-locke he leaues on the top of his crowne, to be pulld vp, or pullied vp to heauen by, Ile set my foot to his, & fight it out with him, that their fopperly god is not so good as a red Herring. To recount ab [...]o­uo, or from the church-booke of his birth, howe the Herring first came to be a fish, and then how he came to be king of fishes, and gradionately, how from white to red he changed, would require as massie a toombe as Hollinshead, but in halfe a penniworth of paper I [Page 42]will epitomize them. Let me see, hath any bodie in Yarmouth heard of Leander and Hero, of whome di­uine Musaeus sung, and a diuiner Muse than him, Kit Marlow?

Twoo faithfull louers they were, as euerie ap­prentise in Paules churchyard will tell you for your loue, and sel you for your mony: the one dwelt at A­bidos in Asia, which was Leander, the other which was Hero, his Mistris or Delia, at Sestos in Europe, and she was a pretty pinckany and Venus priest; and but an arme of the sea diuided them: it diuided them and it diuided them not, for ouer that arme of the sea could be made a long arme. In their parents the most diuision rested, and their townes that like Yar mouth and Leystoffe were stilat wrig wrag, & suckt frō their mothers teates serpentine hatred one against each other. Which droue Leander when he durst not deale aboue boord, or be seene aboorde any ship, to saile to his Lady deare, to play the didopper and ducking wa­ter spaniel to swim to her, nor that in the day, but by owlelight.

What will not blinde night doe for blinde Cu­pid? and what will not blinde Cupid doe in the night which is his blindmans holiday? By the sea side on the other side stoode Heroes tower, such an other tower as one of our Irish castles, that is not so wide as a bel­free, and a Cobler cannot iert out his elbowes in; a cage or pigeonhouse, romthsome enough to compre­hend her and the toothlesse trotte her nurse, who was her onely chatmate and chambermaide; consultiuely by her parents being so encloistred frō resort, that she might liue chaste vestall Priest to Venus the queene of vnchastitie. Shee would none of that she thanked them, for shee was better prouided, and that which they thought serued their turn best of sequestring her [Page 43]from company, serued her turne best to embrace the company she desired. Fate is a spaniel that you can­not beate from you; the more you thinke to crosse it, the more you blesse it, and further it.

Neither her father nor mother vowed chastitie when she was begote, therefore she thought they be­gat her not to liue chaste, & either she must proue hir selfe a bastard, or shew herselfe like them. Or Leander you may write vpon, and it is written vpon, she likte well, and for all he was a naked man, and cleane dis­poyled to the skinne, when hee sprawled through the brackish suddes to scale her tower, all the strength of it could not hold him out. O ware a naked man, Ci­thereaes Nunnes haue no power to resiste him: and some such qualitie is ascribed to the lion. Were hee neuer so naked when he came to her, bicause he shuld not skare her, she found a meanes to couer him in her bed, & for he might not take cold after his swimming, she lay close by him, to keepe him warme. This scuf­fling or bopeepe in the darke they had a while with­out weame or bracke, and the olde nurse (as there bee three things seldome in their right kinde till they bee old, a bawd, a witch, and a midwife) executed the huck string office of her yeres very charily & circumspect­ly til their shding starres reuolted from them: and then for seauen dayes togither, the winde and the Helles­pont contended which shuld howle lowder, the waues dashed vp to the cloudes, and the clouds on the other side spit and driueld vpon them as fast.

Hero wept as trickling as the heauens, to thinke that heauen should so diuorce them. Leander stor­med worse than the stormes, that by them hee should be so restrained from his Cinthya. At Sestos was his soule, and hee coulde not abide to tarry in Abidos. Rayne, snowe, haile, or blowe it howe it could, [Page 44]into the pitchie Helespont he leapt when the moone and all her torch-bearers were afraide to peepe out their heads; but he was peppered for it, hee hadde as good haue tooke meate, drinke, and leisure, for the churlish frampold waues gaue him his belly full of fish-broath, ere out of their laundry or washe-house they woulde graunt him his coquet or transire, and not onely that, but they sealde him his quietus est, for curuetting any more to the mayden tower, and tossed his dead carcasse, well bathed or parboyled, to the sandy threshold of his leman or orenge, for a disiune or morning break fast. All that liue long night could she not sleepe, she was so troubled with the rheume, which was a signe she should heare of some drowning: Yet towards cocke-crowing she caught alittle slum­ber, and then shee dreamed that Leander and shee were playing at checkestone with pearles in the bot­tome of the sea.

You may see dreames are not so vaine as they are preached of, though nor in vaine, Preachers inueigh against them, and bende themselues out of the peo­ples mindes, to exhale their foolish superstition. The rheume is the students disease, and who study most, dreame most. The labouring mens hands, glowe and blister after their dayes worke: the glowing and bli­string of our braines after our day labouring cogita­tions are dreames, and those dreames are reaking va­pours of no impression, if our matelesse cowches bee not halfe empty. Hero hoped, and therefore shee dreamed (as all hope is but a dreame) her hope was where her heart was, and her heart winding and turning with the winde, that might winde her heart of golde to her, or else turne him from her. Hope and feare both combatted in her, and both these are wakefull, which made her, at breake of day (what an [Page 45]old crone is the day, that is so long a breaking) to vn­loope her luket or casement, to looke whence the blasts came, or what gate or pace the sea kept, when foorthwith her eyes bred her eye-sore, the first white whereon their transpiercing arrowes stuck, being the breathlesse corps of Leander: with the sodaine con­templation of this piteous spectacle of her loue, sod­den to haddocks meate, her sorrowe could not choose but be indefinite, if her delight in him were but indif­ferent; and there is no woman but delights in sorrow, or she would not vse it so lightly for euery thing.

Downe shee ranne in her loose night-gowne, and her haire about her eares (euen as Semiramis ranne out with her lie-pot in her hand, and her blacke dangling tresses about her shoulders with her iuory combe en­snarled in them, when she heard that Babilon was ta­ken) and thought to haue kist his dead corse aliue a­gaine, but as on his blew iellied sturgeon lips, she was about to clappe one of those warme plaisters, boy­strous woolpacks of ridged tides came rowling in, and raught him from her, (with a minde belike to carrie him backe to Abidos.) At that she became a franticke Bacchanal outright, & made no more bones but sprāg after him, and so resignd vp her Priesthood, and left worke for Musaeus and Kit Marlowe. The gods, and gods and goddesses all on a rowe bread and crow, from Ops to Pomona, the first apple wife, were so dumpt with this miserable wracke, that they beganne to ab­horre al moysture for the seas sake: and Iupiter could not endure Ganimed his cup-bearer to come in his pre­sence, both for the dislike he bore to Neptunes baneful licour, as also that hee was so like to Leander. The sunne was so in his mumps vppon it, that it was almost noone before hee could goe to cart that day, and then with so ill a will hee went, that hee had [Page 46]thought to haue topled his burning carre or Hurrie currie into the sea (as Phaeton did) to scorch it and dry it vppe, and at night when hee was begrimed with dust and sweate of his iourney, he would not descend as hee was woont, to wash him in the Ocean, but vn­der a tree layde him downe to rest in his cloathes all night, and so did the scouling Moone vnder another fast by him, which of that are behighted the trees of the Sunne and Moone, and are the same that Syr Iohn Mandeuile tels vs hee spoke with, and that spoke to Alexander. Venus, for Hero was her priest, and Iuno Lucina the midwifes goddesse, for she was now quick­ned, and cast away by the cruelty of Aeolus, tooke bread and salt and eate it, that they would bee smartlie reuenged on that truculent windy iailour, and they forgot it not, for Venus made his sonne and his daugh­ter to committe incest together. Lucina, that there might bee some lasting characters of his shame, helpt to bring her to bedde of a goodly boy, and Aeolus boulting out al this, heapt murder vppon murder.

The dint of destiny could not be repeald in the re­uiuing of Hero & Leander, but their heauenly hoods in theyr synode thus decreede, that for they were ei­ther of them seaborderers and drowned in the sea, stil to the sea they must belong, and bee diuided in ha­bitation after death, as they were in their life time. Leander, for that in a cold darke testie night he had his pasport to Charon, they terminated to the vn­quiet cold coast of Iseland, where halfe the yeare is nothing but murke night, and to that fish translated him, which of vs is termed Ling. Hero, for that she was pagled and timpanized, and sustained two losses vn­der one, they footebald their heades togither, & pro­tested to make the stem of her loynes of all fishes the flanting Fabian or Palmerin of England, which is [Page 47]Cadwallader Herring, and as their meetings were but seldome, and not so oft as welcome, so but seldome should they meete in the heele of the weeke at the best mens tables, vppon Fridayes and Satterdayes, the holy time of Lent exempted, and then they might be at meate and meale for seuen weekes togither.

The nurse or mother Mampudding that was a cow­ring on the backe side whiles these things were a tra­gedizing, led by the scritch or outcry to the prospect of this sorrowfull heigh [...], as soone as through the raueld button holes of her bleare eyes, she had suckt in & receiued such a reuelatiō of Doomesday, & that she saw her mistris mounted a cockhorse, & hoysted away to hell or to heauen on the backs of those rough headed ruffians, down she sunk to the earth, as dead as a doore naile, and neuer mumpt crust after. Whereof their supernalities (hauing a drop or two of pitty left of the huge hogshead of teares they spent for Hero & Leander) seemed to be something sorie, though they could not weepe for it, and because they would bee sure to haue a medicine that should make them weep at all times, to that kinde of graine they turned her, which wee call mustard-seede, as well for shee was a shrewish snappish bawd, that wold bite off a mās nose with an answere, and had rumatique sore eyes that ran alwaies, as that she might accompany Hero & Leander after death, as in hir life time: & hēce it is that mustard bites a mā so by the nose, & makes him weep & water his plants when he tasteth it: & that Hero & Leander, the red Herring and Ling, neuer come to the boord without mustard, their waiting maid: & if you marke it, mustard looks of the tanned wainscot hue, of such a withered wrinklefaced beldam as she was, that was altred thereinto. Louing Hero, how euer altered, had a smack of loue stil, & therfore to the coast of louing­land [Page 48](to Yarmouth neere adioyning, & within her liberties of Kirtley roade) she accustomed to come in pilgrimage euery yeare, but contentions arising there, and shee remembring the euent of the contentions betwixt Sestos and Abidos, that wrought both Le­anders death and hers, shunneth it off late, and retireth more northwards, so she shunneth vnquiet Humber, because Elstred was drownd there, and the Scots Seas, as before, & euery other sea where any bloud hath bin spilt, for her owne seas sake, that spilt her sweete sweete hearts bloud and hers.

Whippet, turne to a new lesson, and strike wee vp Iohn for the King, or tell howe the Herring scram­bled vp to be King of all fishes. So it fel vpon a time and tide, though not vppon a holiday, a faulco­ner bringing ouer certaine hawkes out of Ireland, and airing them aboue hatches on ship-boord, and gi­uing them stones to cast & scoure, one of them broke loose from his fist ere he was aware, which beeing in her Kingdome when shee was got vppon her wings, and finding her selfe emptie gorged after her casting, vp to heauen she towred to seeke pray, but there be­ing no game to please her, downe she fluttered to the sea againe, and a speckled fish playing aboue the wa­ter, at it she strooke, mistaking it for a partrich. A sharke or Tuberon that lay gaping for the flying fish hard by, what did me he, but seeing the marke fall so iust in his mouth, chopt aloft, and snapt her vp belles and all, at a mouthfull. The newes of this murderous act, carried by the Kings fisher to the eares of the land foules, there was nothing but arme, arme, arme, to sea, to sea, swallow & titmouse, to take chasticemēt of that trespasse of bloud & death committed against a peere of their bloud royal. Preparation was made, the muster taken, the leaders allotted, and had their [Page 49]bils to take vp pay; an old goshawke for general was appointed, for Marshall of the field a Spathawke, whom for no former desert they putte in office, but because it was one of their linage had sustained that wrong, and they thought they would be more im­placable in condoling and commiserating. The Pea­cocks with their spotted coates and affrighting voy­ces for heralds they prickt and enlisted, and the cockadoodling cocks for their trumpeters, (looke v­pon any cocke, and looke vpon any trumpeter, and see if hee looke not as red as a cocke after his trumpe­ting, and a cocke as red as he after his crowing.) The kistrilles or windfuckers that filling themselues with winde, fly against the winde euermore, for their ful­sailed standerdbearers, the Cranes for pikemen, and the woodcocks for demilances, and so of the rest eue­ry one according to that place by nature hee was most apt for. Away to the landes ende they trigge all the skie-bred chirpers of them, when they came there, Aequora nos terrent & ponti tristis imago, They had wings of good wil to fly with, but no webbes on their feete to swimme with, for except the water­foules had mercie vpon them, and stood their faith­full confederates and backe-friends, on their backes to transport them, they might returne home like good fooles, and gather strawes to build their nests, or fal to theyr old trade of picking wormes. In sum, to the water foules vnanimately they recourse, and besought Ducke, and Drake, Swanne and Goose Halcions & Seapies, Cormorants & Sea-guls of their oary assistance, & aydeful furtherance in this action.

They were not obdurate to be intreated, though they had little cause to reuenge the hawkes quar­rell from them, hauing receiued so many high dis­pleasures, and slaughters, and rapines of their race, [Page 50]yet in a generall prosecution priuate feuds they trode vnderfoote, and submitted their endeuors to be at theyr limitation in euery thing.

The puffin that is halfe fish, halfe flesh (a Iohn in­different, and an Ambodexter betwixt either) bewray­ed this conspiracie to Protaeus heards, or the fraternity of fishes, which the greater giants of Russia & Island, as the whale, the sea horse, the Norse, the wasserman, the Dolphin the Grampoys fleered and geered at as a ridiculous danger, but the lesser pigmeis & spawne of them, thought it meete to prouide for themselues betime, and elect a king amongst them that might deraine them to battaile, and vnder whose colours they might march against these birdes of a feather, that had so colleagued themselues togither to destroy them.

Who this king should bee, beshackled theyr wits, and layd them a dry ground euery one. No ra­uening fish they would putte in armes, for feare after he had euerted their foes, and flesht himselfe in bloud, for interchange of diet, hee woulde rauen vp them.

Some politique delegatory Scipio, or witty pated Petito, like the heire of Laertes per apheresin, Vlysses, (well knowne vnto them by his prolixious seawan­dering, and dauncing on their toplesse tottering hilles) they would single forth, if it might bee, whom they might depose when they list, if he should begin to tyranize, and such a one as of himselfe were able to make a sound partie if all fayled, and bid base to the enemie with his owne kindred and followers.

None woonne the day in this but the Herring, whom al their clamorous suffrages saluted with Viue le roy, God saue the King, God saue King, saue only the Playse and the Butte, that made wry mouthes at [Page 51]him, and for their mocking haue wry mouthes euer since, and the Herring euer since weares a coronet on his head, in token that hee is as he is. Which had the worst end of the staffe in that sea iourney or canua­zado, or whether some fowler with his nets (as this host of fethermungers were getting vp to ride dou­ble) inuolued or intangled them, or the water foules playde them false (as there is no more loue betwixt them, then betwixt saylers and land souldiours) and threw them off their backs, and lette them drowne when they were launched into the deepe, I leaue to some Alfonsus) Poggius or Aesope to vnwrap, for my penne is tired in it: but this is notorious, the Herring from that time to this, hath gone with an army, and neuer stirres abroade without it, and when he stirs abroad with it, he sendes out his scowts or sentinels before him, that oftentimes are intercepted, and by theyr parti-coloured liueries described, whom the ma­riners after they haue tooke, vse in this sort: eight or nine times they swinge them about the maine mast, and bid them bring them so many last of Her­rings as they haue swinged them times, and that shall be theyr ransome, and so throw them into the sea, a­gaine. King by your leaue, for in your kingshippe I must leaue you, and repeate how from white to redde you camelionized.

It is to bee read, or to bee heard of, howe in the Punieship or nonage of Cerdicke sandes, when the best houses and walles there were of mudde or can­uaze, or Poldauies entiltments, a Fisherman of Yar­mouth hauing drawne so many herrings hee wist not what to do withall, hung the residue that he could not sel nor spēd, in the sooty roofe of his shad a drying: or say thus, his shad was a acbbinet in decimo sexto, buil­ded on foure crutches, and hee had no roome in it, but in that garret or Excelsis to lodge them, where if they [Page 52]were drie, let them bee drie, for in the sea they had drunke too much, and now hee would force them doo penance for it.

The weather was colde, and good fires hee kept, (as fishermen, what hardnesse soeuer they en­dure at sea, they will make all smoake, but they will make amendes for it when they come to land) and what with his fiering and smoking, or smo­kie firing in that his narrow lobby, his herrings which were as white as whales bone when hee hung them vp, nowe lookt as red as a lobster. It was foure or fiue dayes before either hee or his wife espied it, & when they espied it, they fell downe on their knees & bles­sed themselus, & cride, a miracle, a miracle, & with the proclaiming it among their neighbours they could not be content, but to the court the fisherman would, and present it to the King, then lying at Borrough Ca­stle two mile off.

Of this Borrough Castle, because it is so aunci­ent, and there hath beene a Citie there, I will enter into some more speciall mention. The floud Waue­ny running through many Townes of hie Suffolke vp to Bungey, and from thence incroching neerer and neerer to the sea, with his twining & winding it cuts out an Iland of some amplitude, named Louingland. The head Towne in that Iland is Leystofe, in which bee it knowne to all men I was borne, though my father sprang from the Nashes of Herefordshire.

The next Towne from Leystofe towardes Yar­mouth is Corton, and next Gorlston. More inward­ly on the left hande, where Waueny and the riuer Ierus mixe their waters, Cnoberi vrbs, the Cittie of Cnober, at this day termed Burgh or Borough Ca­stle, had his being.

This cittie and castle saith Bede and Maister Cam­den, or rather M. Camden out of Bede, by the woodes [Page 53]about it, and the driuing of the sea vppe to it, was most pleasant. In it one Furfaeus a Scot builded a mo­nastery, at whose perswasion Sigebert king of the east Angles, gaue ouer his kingdome and led a mona­sticall life there, but forth of that monastery hee was haled against his will, to incourage his subiects in their battaile against the Mercians, where he perished with them.

Nothing of that Castle saue tartered ragged walles nowe remaines, framed foure square, and ouer­growne with briars and bushes, in the stubbing vp of which, erst whiles they digge vppe Romane coynes, and booies and anchors. Well, thither our Fisherman set the best legge before, and vnsardled to the King, his whole sachel of wonders. The King was as super­stitious in worshipping those miraculous herrings at the fisherman, licenced him to carry thē vp & downe the realme for strange monsters, giuing to Cerdek sands (the birth place of such monstrosities) many priuileges, and in that the quantitie of them that were caught so encreased, he assigned a broken sluce in the Iland of Louingland, called Herring Fleete, where they shoulde disburden and discharge their boates of them, and render him custome. Our Herring smoker hauing worn his monsters stale throughout England, spirted ouer seas to Rome with a Pedlers packe of thē in the Papall chaire of Vigilius, he that first instituted Saints eeues or Vigils to be fasted. By that time hee came thither, he had but three of his Herrings left, for by the way he fell into the theeuish hands of malcon­tents, and of launceknights, of whom he was not only robbed of all his mony, but was faine to redeeme his life besides with the better parte of his ambry of bur­nisht fishes

These herrings three he rubbed and curried ouer [Page 54]till his armes aked againe, to make them glowe and glare like a Turkie brooch, or a London Vintners signe, thicke iagged, and round fringed, with theam­ing Arsadine, and folding them in a diaper napkin as lilly white as a Ladies marrying smocke, to the mar­ket steade of Rome he was so bold as to prefer them, and there on a hie stoole, vnbraced and vnlaced them, to any chapmans eie that woulde buye them. The Popes caterer casting a licorous glaunce that way, as­ked what it was he had to sell: the king of fishes hee answered: the king of fishes replied hee, what is the price of him? A hundred duckats he tolde him: a hun­dred duckats quoth the Popes caterer, that is a kingly price indeede, it is for no priuate man to deale with him: then hee is for mee sayde the Fisherman, and so vnsheathed his cuttle-bong, and from the nape of the necke to the taile dismembred him, and pauncht him vp at a mouthfull. Home went his Beatitudes ca­terer with a flea in his eare, and discoursed to his Ho­linesse what had happened. Is it the king of fishes? the Pope frowningly shooke him vp like a catte in a blanket, and is any man to haue him but I that am king of kings, and lord of lords? Go giue him his price I commaund thee, and lette mee taste of him inconti­nently. Backe returned the Caterer like a dogge that had lost his taile, and powred downe the herringmer­chant his hundred ducats for one of those two of the king of fishes vnsolde, which then he woul dnot take, but stoode vppon twoo hundred. Thereuppon they broke off, the one vrging that he had offered it him so before, and the other, that hee might haue tooke him at his proffer, which since he refused, and now halperd with him: as he eate vp the first, so would he eate vpp the second, and let Pope or patriarch of Constantino­ple fetch it out of his belly if they could: Hee was as [Page 55]good as his word, and had no sooner spoke the worde, but he did as he spoke. With a heauy heart to the pal­lace the yeoman of the mouth departed, and rehear­sed this second il successe, wherwith Peters successour was so in his mulliegrums that he had thought to haue buffeted him, & cursed him with bell book & candle, but he ruled his reasō, & bade him, thogh it cost a mil­lion, to let him haue that third that rested behind, and hie him expeditely thither, lest some other snatched it vp, and as fast from thence againe, for hee swore by his triple crowne, no crumme of refection woulde he gnaw vpon, till he had sweetened his lippes with it.

So said, so done, thither he flew as swift as Mercury, and threw him his two hundred ducats, as hee before demaunded. It would not fadge, for then the market was raised to three C. and the Caterer grumbling thereat, the fisher swayne was forward to settle him to his tooles, and tire vpon it, as on the other two, had not he held his hands, and desired hym to keep the peace for no mony should part them: with that speech hee was quallified, and pursed the three hundred ducats, and deliuered him the king of fishes, teaching hym how to geremumble it, sawce it, and dresse it, and so sent him away a glad man. All the Popes cookes in their white sleeues and linnen aprons met him middle way, to entertaine and receyue the king of fishes, and together by the eares they went, who shoulde first handle him or touch him: but the clarke of the kichin appeased that strife, and would admit none bu thim selfe to haue the scorching and carbonadoing of it, and he kissed his hand thrice, and made as many Hum­blessos ere hee woulde finger it: and such obeysances performed, he drest it as he was enioyned, kneeling on his knes, and mumbling twenty aue Maryes to hymselfe in the sacrifizing of it on the coales, that his [Page 56]diligent seruice in the broyling and combustion of it, both to his kingship and to his fatherhood might not seeme vnmeritorious. The fire had not perst it, but it being a sweaty loggerhead greasie sowter, endūgeond in his pocket a tweluemonth, stunk so ouer the popes pallace, that not a scullion but cryed foh, and those which at the first flocked the fastest about it, now fled the most from it, and sought more to rid theyr hands of it, than before they sought to blesse theyr handes with it. Wyth much stopping of theyr noses, between two dishes they stued it, and serued it vp. It was not come wythin three chambers of the Pope, but he smelt it, and vpon the smelling of it enquiring what it should be that sent forth such a puissant perfume, the standers by declared that is was the king of fishes: I conceyted no lesse sayde the Pope, for lesse than a king he could not be that had so strong a sent, and if his breath be so strong, what is he hymself? like a great king, like a strong king I will vse hym, let hym be ca­ried backe I say, and my Cardinalls shall fetch hym in with dirge and processions vnder my canopy.

Though they were double and double weary of hym, yet his Edict being a lawe, to the kitchin they returned him, whither by and by the whole Colledge of scarlet Cardinalles, wyth theyr crosiers, theyr cen­sors, their hosts, their Agnus deies and crucifixes, flock­ed togither in heapes as it had beene to the con­claue or a generall counsaile, and the senior Cardinall that stood next in election to bee Pope, heaued him vp from the Dresser with a dirge of De profundis na­tus est fex, rex he should haue sayd, and so haue made true latine, but the spirable odor & pestilent steame ascending from it, put him out of his bias of congrui­ty, & as true as the truest latin of Priscian would haue queazened him, like the dampe that tooke both Bell [Page 57]and Baram away, and many a woorthy man that day, if hee had not beene protected vnder the Popes ca­nopy, and the other Cardinalles with theyr holi-wa­ter sprinkles, quencht his foggy fume and euapora­ting. About and about the inward and base court they circumducted him, with Kirielyson and Halleluiah, and the chaunters in their golden copes and white surplesses, chaunted it out aboue gloria patri, in pray­sing of him, the Organs playde, the Ordonance at the Castle of Saint Angelos went off, and all wind in­struments ble was loude as the winde in winter, in his passado to the Popes ordinary or dining cham­ber, where hauing sette him downe, vppon their fa­ces they fell flatte, and lickt euery one his ell of dust, in douking on all foure vnto him.

The bufie epitasis of the commedy was, when the dishes were vncouered, and the swarthrutter sowre tooke ayre, for then hee made such an ayre, as Alcides himselfe that clensed the stables of Agaeus nor any hostler was able to endure.

This is once, the Pope it popt vnder boord, and out of his pallace worse it scared him then Neptunes Phocases, that scard the horses of Hippolitus, or the harpies Iupiters dogges sent to vexe Phineus; the Car­dinalles were at their ora pro nobis, and held this suffo­cation a meete sufferance for so contemning the king of fishes and his subiects, and fleshly surfetting in their carniualles. Negromantick sorcery, negroman­ticke sorcerie, some euill spirit of an heretique it is, which thus molesteth his Apostoliqueship. The fri­ars and munkes caterwawled from the abbots and priors to the nouices, wherfore tanquam in circo, wee will trownse him in a circle, and make him tell what Lanterneman, or groome of Hecates close stoole hee is, that thus nefarrously and proditoriously propha­ning [Page 58]& penetrates our holy fathers nostrils, what needes there any more ambages, the ringoll or rin­ged circle was compast and chalkt out, and the king of fishes by the name of the king of fishes, coniured to appeare in the center of it, but surdo cantant absur­di, siue surdum, incantant fratres sordidi, hee was a king absolute, and woul dnot be at euery mans cal, & if fri­er Pendela and his fellowes had any thing to say to him, in his admiral court of the sea, let them seek him, and neither in Hull, Hell, nor Halifax.

They seeing that by theyr charmes and spels they could spell nothing of him, fell to a more charitable suppose, that it might bee the distressed soule of some king that was drownd, who being long in Pur­gatorie, and not releeued by the praiers of the church, had leaue in that disguised forme, to haue egresse and regresse to Rome, to craue theyr beneuolence of dirges, trentals, and so foorth, to helpe him on­ward on his iourney to Limbo patrum or Elisium, and because they woul dnot easily beleeue what tortures in purgatory hee had sustained, vnlesse they were eye-witnesses of them, hee thought to represent to all theyr sences the image and Idea of his combustion and broyling there, and the horrible stinch of his sins accompanying both vnder his frying and broyling on the coles in the Popes kitchin, & the intollerable finel or stink he sent forth vnder either. Ʋna voce in this splene to Pope Vigilius they ran, and craued that this king of fishes might first haue Chrstian buriall, next, that hee might haue masses sung for him, and last, that for a saint hee would canonize him. Al these hee graunted, to bee ridde of his filthy redolence, and his chiefe casket wherein he put all his iewelles, hee made the coffin of his enclosure, and for his ensain­ting, looke the Almanack in the beginning of Aprill, [Page 59]and see if you can finde out such a saint as saint Gil­darde, which in honour of this guilded fish the Pope so ensainted: nor there hee rested and stopt, but in the mitigation of the very embers wheron he was sindged, that after he was taken of them, fumed most fulsomly of his fatty droppings) hee ordained ember weekes in their memory, to be fasted euerlastingly.

I had well nie forgot a speciall poynt of my Ro­mish history, & that is how Madam Celina Cornificia, one of the curiosest curtizans of Rome, when the fame of the king of fishes was canon-rored in her eates, shee sent all hir iewells to the iewish lumbarde to pawne, to buy and encaptiue him to her trenchour, but her purue your came a day after the faire, & as he came, so hee farde, for not a scrap of him but the cobs of the two Herrings the Fisherman had eaten remai­ned of him, and those Cobbes, rather than hee woulde go home wyth a sleeuelesse answer, he bought at the rate of fourescore ducats (they were rich cobbes you must rate them) and of them all cobbing countrey chuffes which make their bellies and their bagges theyr Gods are called riche Cobbes. Euery manne will not clappe hands to this stale, the Norwichers imprimis, who say, the first guilding of Herrings was deducted from them: and after this guise they tune the accent of theyr speech, how that when Ca­stor was Norwich (a Towne twoo mile beyond this Norwich, that is termed to this day Norwich Castor, and hauing monuments of a castle in it enuironing fif­ty acres of ground, and ringbolts in the walles whereto ships were fastned) our Norwich now vpon her leggs was a poore fisher towne, and the sea spawled and springed vp to her common stayres in Confur streete.

All this may passe in the Queenes peace, and no mā say bo to it: but bawwaw quoth Bagshaw to that [Page 60]which drawlacheth behinde, of the first taking of her­rings there, and currying and guylding them amongst thē, wherof if they could whisper to vs any simple like­lihood, or rawbond carcasse of reason, more than their imaginary dreame of Guilding crosse in theyr parish of S. Sauiours (now stumpt vp by the rootes) so na­med, as they would haue it, of the smoaky guilding of herrings there first inuented, I could wel haue allowed of, but they must bring better cardes ere they winne it from Yarmouth.

As good a toy to mocke an ape was it of hym that shewed a country fellow the red sea, where all the red Herrings were made (as some places in the sea where the sunne is most transpercing, and beates wyth his rayes feruentest, will looke as red as blood:) and the ieast of a Scholler in Cambridge, that standing ang­ling on the towne bridge there, as the country people on the market day passed by, secretly bayted his hook wyth a red Herring wyth a bell about the necke, and so conueying it into the water that no man perceiued it, all on the sodayn, when he had a competent throng gathered about hym, vp he twicht it agayne, and layd it openly before them, whereat the gaping rurall fooles, driuen into no lesse admiration than the com­mon people about Londō some few yeares since were at the bubbling of Moore-ditch, sware by their chri­stendomes that as many dayes and yeeres as they had liued, they neuer sawe such a myracle of a red herring taken in the fresh-water before. That greedy seagull ignorance is apt to deuoure any thing. For a new Mes­sias they are ready to expect of the bedlam hatmakers wife by London bridge, he that proclaymes hymselfe Elias, and sayeth he is inspired wyth mutton and por­redge, and with them it is currant, that Don Sebastian king of Portugall (slayne twenty yeares since wyth [Page 61]Stukeley at the battell of Alcazar) is raysed from the dead like Lazarus, and aliue to be seene at Venice. Let them looke to themselues as they will, for I am theirs to gull them better than euer I haue done, and this I am sure I haue destributed gudgeon dole amongst them, as Gods plenty as any stripling of my slen­der portion of witte farre or neere. They needes will haue it so, much good do it them, I can not doe wythall: For if but carelesly betwixt sleeping and waking I write I knowe not what against plebeian Publicans and sinners (no better than the sworne bro­thers of candlesticke turners and tinkers) and leaue some termes in suspence that my post-haste want of argent will not giue mee elbowe roome enough to explane or examine as I would, out steps me an infant squib of the Innes of Court, that hath not halfe grea­sed his dining cappe, or scarce warmed his Lawyers cushion, and he to approue hymselfe an extrauagant statesman catcheth hold of a rush, and absolutely con­cludeth, it is meant of the Emperour of Ruscia, and that it will vtterly marre the traffike into that country if all the Pamphlets bee not called in and suppressed, wherein that libelling word is mentioned. An other, if but a head or a tayle of any beast, he boasts of in his crest or his scutcheon, be reckoned vp by chaunce in a volume where a man hath iust occasion to reckon vp all beasts in armory, he strait engageth hymselfe by the honor of his house, and his neuer reculed sword to thresh downe the hayry roofe of that brayne that so seditiously mutined against hym with the mortife­rous bastinado, or cast suche an vncurable Italian trench in his face, as not the basest creeper vpon pat­tens by the high way side, but shall abhor him worse than the carrion of a dead corse, or a man hanged vp in gibbets.

I will deale more boldly, & yet it shall be securelie, and in the way of honestie, to a number of Gods fooles, that for their wealth might be deep wise men, and so foorth (as now a daies in the opinion of the best lawyers of England there is no wisedome without wealth, alleadge what you can to the contrarie of all the beggarly sages of greece) these I say out of some discourses of mine, which were a mingle mangle cumputre, and I knew not what to make of my selfe, haue fisht out such a deepe politique state meaning as if I had al the secrets of court or common-wealth at my fingers endes. Talke I of a beare, O it is such a man that emblazons him in his armes, or of a woolfe, a fox, or a camelion, any lording whom they do not affect, it is meant by. The great potentate stirred vppe with those peruerse applications, not looking into the text it selfe, but the ridiculous comment, or if hee lookes into it, followes no other more charitable com­ment then that, straite thunders out his displeasure, & showres downe the whole tempest of his indignation vpon me, and to amend the matter, and fully absolue himselfe of this rash error of misconstruing, he com­mits it ouer to be prosecuted by a worse misconstruer then himselfe, vidilicet, his learned counsaile (God for­giue me if I slander them with that title of learned, for generally they are not) and they being compoun­ded of nothing but vociferation and clamour, rage & fly out they care not howe against a mans life, his per­son, his parentage, twoo houres before they come to the poynt, little remembring their owne priuy scapes with their landresses, or their night walkes to Pan­credge, togither with the hobnaylde houses of their carterly ancestrie from whence they are sprung, that haue coold plow-lades buttocks time out of minde, with the breath of their whistling, and with retailing [Page 63]theyr dung to manure landes, and selling strawe and chaffe, scracht vp the pence to make them gentlemen. But Lord howe miserably do these Ethnicks when they once march to the purpose, set words on the ten­ters, neuer reading to a period (which you shal scarse find in thirtie sheetes of a lawyers declaration) wher­by they might comprehende the intire sence of the writer togither, but disioynt and teare euery sillable betwixt their teeth seuerally, and if by no meanes they can make it odious, they wil be sure to bring it in disgrace by ilfauoured mouthing and missounding it. These bee they that vse mens writings like bruite beasts, to make them draw which way they list, at a principall agent in church controuersies of this our time complaineth. I haue red a tale of a poore man and an aduocate, which poore man complained to the King of wrong that the aduocate hadde doone him, in taking away his cow. The king made him no answere but this, that hee woulde sende for the aduo­cate, and heare what hee could say. Nay quoth the poore man, if you bee at that passe that you wil pawse to heare what he wil say, I haue vtterly lost my cowe, for hee hath woords inough to make fooles of tenne thousand. So hee that shal haue his liues bandied by our vsuall plodders in Fitzherbart, lette him not care whether they bee right or wrong: for they will writhe and turne them as they list, and make the author beleeue he meant that which hee neuer did meane: and for a knitting vp conclusion, his credite is vnrepriueably lost, that on bare suspitiō in such cases, shal but haue his name controuerted amongest thē, & if I should fall into their handes, I would be pressed to death for obstinate filence, and neuer seeke to cleere my selfe, for it is in vaine, since both they will con­found a mans memory wyth their tedious babbling, [Page 64]and in the first three wordes of his Apology with im­pudent exclamations interrupt him, when as their mercenary tongues (lie they neuer so lowdly) without checke or controule must haue their free passage for fiue houres together.

I speake of the worser sort, not of the best, whom I holde in high admiration, as well for theyr singular gifts of art and nature, as theyr vntaynted consciences wyth corruption: and from some of them I auowe I haue heard as excellent things flowe, as euer I obser­ued in Tully or Demosthenes. Those that were pre­sent at the arraignmēt of Lopus, (to insist in no other particular) hereof I am sure will beare me record. La­tinelesse dolts saturnine heauy headed blunderers, my inuectiue hath relation, to such as count al Artes pup­pet-playes, and pretty rattles to please children, in comparison of their confused barbarous lawe, which if it were set downe in any christian language, but the Getan tongue it would neuer grieue a man to studie it.

Neyther Ouid nor Ariosto coulde by any perswasi­ons of their parents be induced to study the Ciuil law for the harshnesse of it, how much more, (had they bin aliue at this day, and borne in our nation) would they haue consented to study this vnciuill Norman hor­potch, this sow of lead, that hath neuer a ring at the end to lift it vp by, is without head or foote, the defor­medest monster that may bee. I stand lawing heere what with these lawyers, and selfe-conceited misinter­preters so long, that my redde herring which was hot broyling on the coles, is waxt starke cold for want of blowing. Haue with them for a riddle or two, onely to set their wittes a nibbling, and their iobbernowles a working, and so good night to their segniories, but with this indentment and caution, that though there [Page 65]be neither time nor reason in it, (as by my good will there shal not) they according to their accustomed gentle fauors, whether I wil or no, shall supply it with either, and runne ouer al the peeres of the land in pee­uish moralizing and anatomizing it.

There was a Herring, or there was not, for it was but a cropshin, one of the refuse sort of herrings, and this herring or this cropshin was sensed and thurified in the smoake, and had got him a suit of durance, that would last longer then one of Erra Paters Alma­nacks, or a cunstables browne bill, onely his head was in his tayle, and that made his breath so strong, that no man could abide him. Well, he was a Triton of his time, and a sweete singing calander to the state, yet not beloued of the shoury Pleyades or the Colossus of the sunne, howeuer hee thought himselfe another tumidus Antimachus, as compleate an Adelantado as hee that is knowne by wearing a cloake of tuftaffatie eighteene yeare, and to Lady Turbut there is no de­murre but he would needs goe a wooing, and offered her for a dowre whole hecatombs and a twoo-hand-sword, shee starde vpon him with Megaras eyes, like Iris the messenger of Iuno, and bad him go cate a fooles head and garlick, for she would none of him, thereup­pon particularly strictly and vsually he replied, that though thunder nere lights on Phoebus tree, and Am­phion that worthy musition, was husband to Niobe, and there was no such acceptable incense to the heauens as the bloud of a traitour, reuenged hee would bee by one Chimera of imagination or other, and ham­per and embrake her in those mortal straights for hir disdain, that in spite of diuine simnietry & miniature, into her buskie groue shee should let him enter, and bid adew sweete Lord, or the crampe of death should wrest her heart strings.

This speech was no spireable odor to the Achelous of her audience, wherefore she charged him by the extreame lineaments of the Erimanthian beare, and by the priuy fistula of the Pierides, to committe no more such excruciating sillables to the yeelding ayre, for she would sooner make her a French-hood of a cowsharde and a gowne of spiders webbes, with the sleeues drawn out with cabbages, then be so contami­nated any more with his abortiue loathely motiues: With this in an olympick rage, he calles for a cleane shirt, and puttes on fiue paire of buskins, and seeketh out eloquent Zenophon, out of whose mouth the Mu­ses spake, to declaime in open Courte against her.

The action is entred, the complaint of her win­tered browes presented, of a violent rape of his heart shee is indited and conuinced. The circumstaunce that followes you may imagine or suppose: or with­out supposing or imagining, I will tell you, the nutte was crackt, the strife discust, and the center of her heart layd open, and to this wild of sorrowes and ex­cruciament she was confined, either to bee helde a flat thornebacke, or sharpe pricking dog-fish to the weale publique, or seale her selfe close to his seale-skind riueld lippes, and suffer her selfe as a spi­rit to be coniured into the hellish circle of his embra­ces.

It would not be good cropshin, Madam Turbut could not away with such a drie withered carkasse to lie by her, currat rex, viuat lex, come what would, shee would none of him, wherfore as a poysoner of man­kind with her beautie, she was adiudged to be boyled to death in hot scalding water, and to haue her poste­rity throughly sawst and sowst and pickled in bar­relles of brinish teares, so ruthfull and dolorous, that [Page 67]the inhabitants on Bosphoros should bee laxatiue in deploring it. O for a Legion of mice-eyed deciphe­rers and calculaters vppon characters, now to augu­rate what I meane by this; the diuell, if it stood vpon his saluation cannot do it, much lesse petty diuels, and cruell Rhadamants vppon earth, (else where in France and Italy subintelligitur, and not in our aspici­ous Iland climate) men that haue no meanes to pur­chase credit with theyr Prince, but by putting him still in feare, and beating into his opinion, that they are the onely preseruers of his life, in sitting vp night and day in sifting out treasons, whē they are the most traytours themselues, to his life, health, and quiet, in continual commacerating him with dread and terror, when but to gette a pension, or bring him in theyr debt next to God, for vpholding his vital breath, it is neither so, nor so, but some foole, some drunken man, some madde man in an intoxicate humour hath vtte­red hee knewe not what, and they beeing starued for intelligence, or want of employment, take hold of it with tooth and nayle, and in spite of all the wayters, will violently breake into the kings chamber, and a­wake him at midnight to reueale it.

Say that a more piercing Linceus sight should diue into the intrailes of this insinuating parasites knauery; to the strapado and the stretching torture, hee will referre it for triall, and there eyther teare him limbe from limbe, but hee will extract some capitall confession from him, that shal concerne the Princes life, and his crowne and dignity, and bring him­selfe in such necessary request about his prince, as hee may holde him for his right hand, and the onely staffe of his royalty, and thinke hee were vndoone if hee were without him, when the poore fellow so ty­rannously handled, would rather in that extremitie of [Page 66] [...] [Page 67] [...] [Page 68]conuulsion, confesse hee crucified Iesus Christ, then abide it any longer. I am not against it, (for God for­bid I should) that it behooues all loyall true subiects to bee vigilant and iealous for their princes safetie, and certaine too iealous and vigilant of it they cannot bee, if they bee good princes that raigne ouer them, nor vse too many meanes of disquisition by tortures, or otherwise to discouer treasons pretended against them, but vppon the least wagging of a straw to put them in feare where no feare is, and make a hurlibur­lie in the realme vpon had I wist, not so much for a­ny zeale or loue to their princes, or tender care of theyr preseruation, as to picke thankes, and curry a little fauour, that thereby they may lay the founda­tion to build a sute on, or crosse some great enemie they haue, I will maintaine it is most lewd and dete­stable. I accuse none, but such there haue beene be­longing to Princes in former ages, if there bee not at this houre.

Stay, let me looke about, where am I in my text, or out of it? not out for a groate: out for an angell, nay I'le lay no wagers, for nowe I perponder more sadlie vppon it, I thinke I am out indeede. Beare with it, it was but a pretry parenthesis of Princes and theyr parasites, which shall doo you no harme, for I will cloy you with Herring before wee part.

Will you haue the other riddle of the cropshin to make vppe the payre that I promised you, you shall you shall (not haue it I meane) but beare with mee, for I cannot spare it, and I perswade my selfe you wil be well contented to spare it, except it were bet­ter then the former, and yet I pray you what fault can you finde with the former, hath it any more sence in it then it should haue? is it not right of the merry cob­lers cutte in that witty Play of, the Case is altered.

I will speake a proude word (though it may bee counted arrogancy in me to prayse mine owne stuffe) if it bee not more absurde then Philips his Venus, the white Tragedie, or the greene Knight, or I can tell what English to make of it in part or in whole, I wish in the foulest weather that is, to goe in cutte spanish le­ther shooes, or silke stockings, or to stand barehead to a nobleman, and not gette of him the price of a periwig to couer my bare crown, no not so much as a pipe of Tabacco to rayse my spirites, and warme my braine.

My readers peraduenture may see more into it then I can, for in comparison of them, in whatsocuer I set forth, I am Bernardus non vidit omnia, as blinde as blinde Bayard, and haue the eyes of a beetle, nothing from them is obscure, they being quicker sighted then the sunne, to spie in his beames the moates that are not, and able to transforme the lightest murmuring gnat to an Elephant. Carpe or descant they as theyr spleene mooues them, my spleene mooues me not to file my handes with them, but to fall a crash more to the redde herring.

Howe many bee there in the worlde that chil­dishly depraue Alchumy, and cannot spell the first letter of it; in the black booke of which ignorant band of scorners, it may be I am scorde vp with the highest, if I be, I must intreate them to wipe me out, for the red herring hath lately beene my ghostly fa­ther to conuert me to their fayth: the probatum est of whose transfiguration ex Luna in Solem, from his duskie tinne hew into a perfit golden blandishment, onely by the foggy smoake of the grossest kind of fire that is, illumines my speculatiue soule, what muche more, not sophisticate or superficiall effects, but ab­solute essentiall alterations of mettalles there may bee [Page 70]made by an artificiall repurified flame, and diuerse o­ther helpes of nature added besides.

Cornelius Agrippa maketh mention of some Phi­losophers that held the skinne of the sheepe that bare the golden fleece, to be nothing but a booke of Al­cumy written vpon it, so if wee should examine mat­ters to the proofe, wee shoulde finde the redde Her­rings skinne to be little lesse: the accidens of Al­cumy I will sweare it is, be it but for that experiment of his smoaking alone, and which is a secret that all Tapsters will curse mee for blabbing, in his skinne there is plaine witchcraft, for doe but rubbe a kanne or quarte por round about the mouth wyth it, let the cunningest lickespiggot swelt his heart out, the beere shal neuer foame or froath in the cupp, whereby to deceyue men of their measure, but be as setled as if it stoode al night.

Next, to draw on hounds to a sent, to a redde her­ring skinne there is nothing comparable. The round or cobbe of it dride and beaten to powlder is ipse ille agaynst the stone: and of the whole body of it selfe, the finest Ladies beyond seas frame their kickshawes.

The rebel Iacke Cade was the first that deuised to put redde herrings in cades, and from hym they haue their name. Nowe as wee call it the swinging of her­rings when hee cade them, so in a halter was hee swung, and trussed vppe as hard and round as any cade of herring he trussed vppe in his tyme, and perhappes of his being so swung and trussed vp, hauyng first found out the tricke to cade herring, they woulde so much honour him in his death, as not onely to call it swinging, but cading of herring also. If the text will beare this, we wil force it to beare more, but it shall be but the weight of a strawe, or the weight of Iacke Straw more, who with the same Graeca fide I marted [Page 71]vnto you the former, was the first that putte the redde herring in straw ouer head and eares like beggars, & the Fishermen vpon that Iacke strawd him euer after: & some, for he was so begarly a knaue that chalenged to be a gentleman, and had no witte nor wealth but what hee got by the warme wrapping vp of herring, raised this Prouerbe of him, Gentleman Iacke Herring that puttes his breeches on his head for want of wearing. O­ther disgraceful prouerbes of the herring there be, as, Nere a barrell better herring: Neither flesh nor fish, nor good red herring, which those that haue bitten with ill bargaines of either sort, haue dribd forth in reuenge, and yet not haue them from Yarmouth, many coast towns besides it, enterprising to curry salt and pickle vp herrings, but marre them, because they want the right feate how to salt and season them. So I coulde plucke a crowe wyth Poet Martiall for calling it pu­tre halec, the scauld rotten herring, but he meant that of the fat reasty Scottish herrings, which will endure no salt, and in one moneth (bestow what cost on them you wil) waxe ramish if they be kept, whereas our embarreld white herrings, flourishing with the state­ly brand of Yarmouth vpon them, scilicet the three halfe Lions and the three halfe fishes with the crowne ouer the head, last in long voyages, better than the redde herring, and not onely are famous at Roan, Pa­ris, Diepe, Cane (whereof the first, which is Roan, ser­ueth all the high countries of Fraunce with it, and Diepe which is the last saue one, victualles all Pi­cardy with it) but heereat home is made account of like a Marquesse, and receiued at court right solemn­ly, I care not much if I rehearse to you the maner, and that is thus.

Euery yeare about Lent tide, the sherifes of Nor­wich bake certayne herring pies (foure and twenty as [Page 72]I take it) and send them as a homage to the Lorde of Caster hard by there, for lands that they hold of him, who presently vpō the like tenure, in bouncing ham­pers couered ouer with his cloth of armes, sees them conueyed to the court in the best equipage: at court when they are arriued, his man rudely enters not at first, but knocketh very ciuilly, and then officers come and fetch him in with torch light, where hauing dis­fraughted and vnloaded his luggage, to supper he sets him downe like a Lord, with his waxe lights before him, and hath his messe of meate allowed him with the largest, & his horses (quatenus horses) are prouen­dred as epicurely: after this, some foure marke see towardes his charges is tendred him, and hee iogges home againe merrily.

A white pickled herring? why it is meate for a Prince, Haunce Ʋanderuecke of Roterdame (as a dutch Post informed me) in bare pickled herring layd out twenty thousand pound the last fishing: hee had lost his drinking belike, and thought to store himselfe of medicines enow to recouer it.

Noble Caesarean Charlemaine herring, Plinie and Gesner were too blame they sluberd thee ouer so neg­ligently. I do not see why any man should enuy thee, since thou art none of these lurcones or epulones, glutōs or fleshpots of Egypt (as one that writes of the chri­stians captiuity vnder the Turke enstileth vs English mē) nor liuest thou by the vnlyuing or euiscerating of others, as most fishes do, or by any extraordinary filth whatsoeuer, but as the Cameleon liueth by the ayre, and the Salamander by the fire, so onely by the water arte thou nourished, and nought else, and must swim as wel dead as aliue.

Be of good cheere my weary Readers, for I haue e­spied land, as Diogenes said to his weary Schollers whē [Page 73]he had read to awaste leafe. Fishermen I hope wil not finde fault with me for fishing before the nette, or ma­king all fish that comes to the net in this history, since as the Athenians bragged they were the first that in­uented wrastling: and one Ericthonius amongst them that he was the first that ioyned horses in collar cou­ples for drawing, so I am the first that euer sette quill to paper in prayse of any fish or fisherman.

Not one of the Poets aforetime could giue you or the sea a good word: Ouid sayth, Nimium ne credite ponto, the sea is a slippery companion take heed how you trust him: And further, Periurij poenas repetit ille locus, it is a place like Hel, good for nothing but to pu­nish periurers; with innumerable inuectiues more against it throughout in euery booke.

Plautus in his Rudens bringeth in fishermen cow­thring and quaking dung wet after a storme, and com­plaining their miserable case in this forme, Captamus cibum è mari, sieuent us non venit, neque quicquam cap­tum est piscium, salsilauti{que} domum redimus clancubnn, dormimus incoenatum: All the meate that we eate we catch out of the sea, and if there wee misse, wel washed and salted, wee sneake home to bed supperlesse: and vpon the taile of it hee brings in a parasite that flowt­eth and bourdeth them thus: Heus vos familica gens bo­minum vt viuitis vt peritis? hough you hungerstarued gubbins or offalles of men, how thriue you, howe pe­rish you, and they cringing in their neckes, like rattes, smothered in the holde, poorely replicated, Ʋiuimus fame, spe{que} siti{que}, with hunger, and hope, and thirst wee content our selues. If you would not misconceit that I studiously intended your defamation, you shoulde haue thicke haileshot of these.

Not the lowsie riddle wherewith fishermen con­strayned (some say) Homer, some say another Philo­sopher [Page 74]to drowne hymselfe, because he could not ex­pound it, but should be dressed and set before you su­pernagulum, with eight score more galliarde crosse­poynts, and kickshiwinshes of giddy care-wig brains, were it not I thought you too fretfull and chollericke with feeding altogether on salt meates, to haue the se­crets of your trade in publique displayed. Will this appease you, that you are the predecessors of the A­postles, who were poorer Fishermen than you, that for your seeing wonders in the deepe, you may be the sonnes and heires of the Prophet Ionas, that you are all Caualiers and Gentlemen since the king of fishes vouchsafed you for his subiects, that for your selling smoake you may be courtiers, for your keeping of fa­sting dayes Friar Obseruants, and lastly, that looke in what Towne there is the signe of the three mari­ners, the huffe-cappest drink in that house you shal be sure of alwayes.

No more can I do for you than I haue done, were you my god-children euery one: God make you his children and keepe you from the Dunkerks, and then I doubt not but when you are driuen into harbour by foule weather, the kannes shall walke to the health of Nashes Lenten-stuffe, and the praise of the redde Herring, and euen those that attend vppon the pitch­kettle, will bee druncke to my good fortuues, and re­commendums. One boone you must not refuse mee in, (if you be bonisocij and sweete Oliuers) that you let not your rustie swordes sleepe in their scabberds, but lash them out in my quarrell as hotely, as if you were to cut cables, or hew the main mast ouer boord, when you heare mee mangled and torne in mennes mouthes about this playing with a shettlecocke, or tossing empty bladders in the ayre.

Alas poore hungerstarued Muse, wee shall haue [Page 75]some spawne of a goose-quill or ouer worne pander quirking and girding, was it so hard driuen that it had nothing to feede vpon but a redde herring? ano­ther drudge of the pudding house (all whose lawfull meanes to liue by throughout the whole yeare will scarce purchase him a redde herring) sayes I might as well haue writte of a dogges turde (in his teeth surre­uerence.) But let none of these scumme of the sub­vrbs, be too vineger tarte with mee; for if they bee, Ile take mine oath vppon a redde herring and eate it, to prooue that their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great grandfathers, or any other of their kinne, werescullions dishwash, & durty draffe and swil set a­gainst a redde herring. The puissant red herring, the golden Hesperides red herring, the Meonian red her­ring, the red herring of red Herrings Hal, euery preg­nant peculiar of whose resplendent lande and honour, to delineate and adumbrate to the ample life, were a woorke that would drinke drie fourescore and eigh­teene Castalian fountaines of eloquence, consume an­other Athens of facunditie, and abate the haughtiest poeticall fury twixt this and the burning Zone, and the tropike of Cancer. My conceit is cast into a sweat­ing sickenesse, with ascending these few steps of his renowne: into what a hote broyling saint Laurence feuer would it relapse then, should I spend the whole bagge of my winde in climbing vp to the lofty moun­taine creast of his trophees. But no more winde will I spend on it but this, Saint Denis for Fraunce, Saint Iames for Spaine, Saint Patrike for Ireland. Saint George for England, and the red Herring for Yarmouth.

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