Part 3 (1/2)
THE EPILOGUE TO ALL MY ADVENTURERS AND OTHERS.
Thus did I neither spend, or beg, or ask, By any course, direct or indirectly: But in each t.i.ttle I performed my task, According to my bill most circ.u.mspectly.
I vow to G.o.d, I have done SCOTLAND wrong, (And (justly) against me it may bring an action) I have not given it that right which doth belong, For which I am half guilty of detraction: Yet had I wrote all things that there I saw, Misjudging censures would suppose I flatter, And so my name I should in question draw, Where a.s.ses bray, and prattling pies do chatter: Yet (armed with truth) I publish with my pen, That there the Almighty doth his blessings heap, In such abundant food for beasts and men; That I ne'er saw more plenty or more cheap.
Thus what mine eyes did see, I do believe; And what I do believe, I know is true: And what is true unto your hands I give, That what I give, may be believed of you.
But as for him that says I lie or dote, I do return, and turn the lie in's throat.
Thus gentlemen, amongst you take my ware, You share my thanks, and I your moneys share.
_Yours in all observance and gratefulness,
ever to be commanded_,
JOHN TAYLOR.
FINIS.
[Decoration]
[Footnote 1: PROVANT.--Provender; provision.]
[Footnote 2: FEGARY.--A vagary.]
[Footnote 3: TRUNDLE.--_i.e._, John Trundle of the sign of _No-body_ (see note page 6).]
[Footnote 4: It is reasonable to conjecture that at this date the custom of ”Swearing-in at Highgate was not in vogue--or, _No-body_ would have taken the oath.]
[Footnote 5: NAMED LEAN AND FEN.--Some jest is intended here on the Host's name.--Qy., Leanfen, or, the anagram of A. FENNEL.]
[Footnote 6: NO-BODY was the singular sign of John Trundle, a ballad-printer in Barbican in the seventeenth century [and who seems to have accompanied our author as far as _Whetstone_ on his ”Penniless Pilgrimage”--and, certainly up to this point a very ”wet” one!] In one of Ben Jonson's plays n.o.body is introduced, ”attyred in a payre of Breeches, which were made to come up to his neck, with his armes out at his pockets and cap drowning his face.” This comedy was ”printed for John Trundle and are to be sold at his shop in Barbican at the sygne of No-Body.” A unique ballad, preserved in the Miller Collection at Britwell House, ent.i.tled ”The Well-spoken No-body,” is accompanied by a woodcut representing a ragged barefooted fool on pattens, with a torn money-bag under his arm, walking through a chaos of broken pots, pans, bellows, candlesticks, tongs, tools, windows, &c. Above him is a scroll in black-letter:--
”n.o.body.is.my.Name.that.Beyreth.Every.Bodyes.Blame.”
The ballad commences as follows:--
”Many speke of Robin Hoode that never shott in his bowe, So many have layed faultes to me, which I did never knowe; But nowe, beholde, here I am, Whom all the worlde doeth diffame; Long have they also scorned me, And locked my mouthe for speking free.
As many a G.o.dly man they have so served Which unto them G.o.d's truth hath shewed; Of such they have burned and hanged some.
That unto their ydolatrye wold not come: The Ladye Truthe they have locked in cage, Saying of her n.o.bodye had knowledge.
For as much nowe as they name n.o.bodye I thinke verilye they speke of me: Whereffore to answere I nowe beginne-- The locke of my mouthe is opened with ginne, Wrought by no man, but by G.o.d's grace, Unto whom be prayse in every place,” &c.
Larwood and Hotten's _History of Signboards_.]
[Footnote 7: PULSE.--All sorts of leguminous seeds.]
[Footnote 8: See Dedication to _The Scourge of Baseness_.]