Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/240

220 : for thou art humble, and from the Courts of Princes hast vouchsafed to be acquainted with penny galleries, and (like a good-fellow) to be drunke for company, with Water-men, Carmen, and Colliers; whereas before, and so still, Knights and wise Gentlemen were, & are thy companions. Last of all, thou Lady of Clownes and Carters, Schoolmistres of fooles and wiseacres, thou homely (but harmelesse) Rusticity, Oh breath thy dull and dunsticall spirit into our ganders quill; crowne me thy Poet, not with a garland of Bayes (Oh no! the number of those that steale lawret is too monstrous already) but swaddle thou my browes with those unhansome boughes, which, (like Autums rotten haire), hang dangling ouer thy dusty eye-lids. Helpe me (thou midwife of vnmannerlinesse) to be deliuered of this Embryon that lies tumbling in my braine: direct me in this hard and dangerous voyage, that being safely arriued on the desired shore, I may build up Altars to thy Vnmatcheable Rudeness; the excellency whereof I know will be so great, that Grout-nowles and Moames will in swarmes fly buzzing about thee. So Herculean a labour is this, that I vndertake, that I am enforced to ball out for all your succours, to the intent I may aptly furnish this feast of Fooles, vnto which I solemnely inuite all the world; for at it shall sit not only those whom Fortune fauours, but euen those whose wits are naturally their owne. Yet