THE

POETICAL DECAMERON.

THE FIFTH CONVERSATION.

MORTON. If we make no faster progress to-day than yesterday, it will be long before we conclude the examination of English satirists to the end of the reign of James I.

BOURNE. Not so long as you imagine, for we have not a great deal to do. One principal object of curiosity to-day, is a very small unique work: from thence we shall proceed, without more delay than is necessary, to another very rare production; and afterwards to those notorious writers Wither and Brathwayte, omitting several works by minor hands.

ELLIOT. Of course, to go through them all, and thus to make the inquiry quite complete, would be a tedious labour.

BOURNE. It would be attended with little pleasure, and less useful information. I shall therefore quite exclude several authors of, what they are pleased to call, satires.

MORTON. Such as whom?

BOURNE. Such as Henry Parrot, whose work, or supposed work, called "The Mastiue or young Whelp of the olde Dogge," is partially criticised in Restituta. Such too as Henry Hutton's "Follies Anatomie, or Satyres and satiricall Epigrams," 1619, an author of about the same stamp. I do not think, however, that he was quite so great a plagiary as Parrot.

ELLIOT. From whom did Parrot steal?

BOURNE. From Sir John Harington and several others—not unfrequently from himself, if that can properly be called theft; for in his later works he repeats a great deal of what he printed in his earlier performances. If I were to include him, there is no reason why I should exclude old John Heywood, the epigrammatist, of whom we have before spoken, and many more who after him have produced works of much the same kind.

MORTON. That would open a wide field indeed.

ELLIOT. And very likely a barren one, not worth travelling over. Yet Shakespeare couples them, when he says, in "Much ado about Nothing," "Do you think I care for a satire or an epigram?"

BOURNE. You are not much in error: there are few books more dull than old collections of epigrams; they are generally only interesting when they relate, or are addressed to persons of eminence. The most entertaining of these writers is Sir John Harington,

and his principal merit depends upon the great difference between his epigrams and those of his rivals: Ben Jonson truly called them" narrations" and not epigrams.

ELLIOT. No doubt entertaining ones too, though not written exactly stans pede in uno, for the author was unquestionably a man of wit and talent.

BOURNE. If they have not the brevitas which of old was required in an epigram, they have generally both the argutia and venustas. They are appended to the edition of Harington's Orlando Furioso, of 1634, as you here see: there are no less than four books of them.

MORTON. They are too long for us to enter upon now; nor, perhaps, would it be worth while, as they are not difficult to be procured.

ELLIOT. Allow me to look at them, at all events: I should be glad to hear one or two as specimens.

BOURNE. I protest against it as a bad precedent. ELLIOT. Well then, I will read one or two to myself.

MORTON. If they are to be read at all, they may as well be read aloud: we shall lose no more time by it.

BOURNE. Be it so then; if you will permit me, I will point your attention to an epigram, as the author calls it, that is, in truth, a very clever and amusing story.

MORTON. Although the book may be common, I have never seen the epigrams criticised.

BOURNE. Why, its very commonness has prevented bibliographers from touching it, unless to quote some passage illustrative of the literature of the time.

ELLIOT. Well, where is this entertaining story? Is it "Of a faire woman, translated out of Casaneus," or this "Of a household fray friendly ended?"

BOURNE. Neither; but it follows just after them : it is headed, "Of a precise Taylor"--read it. ELLIOT. A most unworthy subject.

"Of a precise Taylor.

"A Taylor, a man of an vpright dealing,
True but for lying, honest but for stealing,
Did fall one day extreamly sicke by chance,
And on the sudden was in wondrous trance.
The Fiends of hell mustring in fearfull manner,
Of sundry coloured silkes display'd a banner,
Which he had stolne, and wish't, as they did tell,
That one day he might finde it all in hell.
The man affrighted at this apparision
Vpon recouery grew a great Precision.
He bought a Bible of the new translation,
And in his life he shew'd great reformation.
He walked mannerly and talked meekely;
He heard three Lectures, and two Sermons weekely;
He vowed to shunne all companies vnruly,
And in his Speech he us'd no oath but truly:
And zealously to keepe the Sabboths rest,
His meat for that day on the eu'n was drest.

And least the custome that he had to steale,
Might cause him sometime to forget his zeale,
He giues his iournyman a speciall charge,
That if the stuffe allow'd fell out too large,
And that to filch his fingers were inclin'd,
He then should put the Banner in his minde.
This done, I scant the rest can tell for laughter,
A Captaine of a ship came three daies after

And brought three yards of Velvet, and three quarters
To make Venetians downe below the garters.
He that precisely knew what was enuffe,
Soone slipt away three quarters of the stuffe :
His man, espying it, said in derision,
Remember Master, how you saw the vision!

Peace (knaue) quoth he, I did not see one ragge
Of such a colour'd silke in all the flagge."

MORTON. That is told with great point and spirit; but it undoubtedly only resembles an epigram in ending in a point.

ELLIOT. I do not know that the word epigram has ever been very strictly limited or defined in English: it is now generally understood to mean a short poem ending in a point.

BOURNE. Formerly in England they seem to have had no precise notion of its meaning and application. Timothy Kendall, in his "Flowres of Epigrammes," 1577 (a book of great rarity, an imperfect copy of which lately sold for between fifteen and twenty