Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/238

218 meanes you (my Auditors) should be in danger to depart more like woodcockes then when you came to me: O thou venerable father of antient (and therefore hoary) customes, Syluanus, I inuoke thy assistance; thou that first taughtest Carters to weare hob-nailes, and Lobs to play Christmas gambols, and to shew the most beastly horse-trickes: O do thou, or (if thou art not at leasure) let thy Mountibancke, goat-footed Fauni, inspire me with the knowledge of all those silly and ridiculous fashions, which the old dunsticall world woare euen out at elbowes; draw for me the pictures of the most simple fellowes then liuing, that by their patterns I may paint the like. Awake thou noblest drunkerd Bacchus, thou must likewise stand to me (if at least thou canst for reeling), teach me (you soueraigne skinker) how to take the Germanies vpsy freeze, the Danish Rowsa, the Switzers stoap of Rhenish, the Italians Parmizant, the Englishmans healthes, his hoopes, cans, halfecans, Gloues, Frolicks, and flapdragons, together with the most notorious qualities of the truest tospots, as when to cast, when to quarrell, when to fight, and where to sleepe: hide not a drop of thy moist mystery from me (thou plumpest swil-bowle), but (like an honest red-nosed wine-bibber) lay open all thy secrets, and ye mystical Hieroglyphick of Rashers a' th' coales. Modicums and shooing-hornes, and why they were inuented, for what occupations, and when