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238 tax, which was so obnoxious, and was a principal occasion of the Rebellion.

The attorney-general one day was entertaining King Charles I. and the nobility of the court at dinner in his house in London. Ben Jonson and other choice spirits were at the same time in a tavern on the opposite side of the street, very much out of pocket, and with their stomachs equally empty. Ben, knowing what was going on opposite, wrote this little metrical epistle and sent it to the attorney-general on a white wood trencher:—

The presentation of this billet caused great amusement, and Noyes sent back a dish of venison with the rhymes recast, at the dictation of the king, in this fashion:—

Halls says:—

"William Noye was blow-coal, incendiary, and stirrer up of the Civil Wars by assisting and setting up the King's prerogative to the highest pitch, as King James I. had done before, beyond the laws of the land. As counsell for the