Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/245

Rh mans sonne shall no sooner peepe out of the shell of his minority but he shall straightwaies be begd for a concealement, or set vpon (as it were, by free-booters) and tane in his owne purse-nets by fencers and cony-catchers. To driue which pestilent infection from the heart, heeres a medicine more potent, and more precious, than was euer that mingle-mangle of drugs which Mithrydates boyld together. Feare not to tast it: a cawdle will not goe downe halfe so smoothly as this will: you neede not call the honest name of it in question, for Antiquity puts off his cap, and makes a bare oration in praise of the vertues of it: the Receipt hath beene subscribed vnto, by all those that haue had to doe with Simples, with this moth-eaten Motto, Probatum est: your Diacatholicon aureum, that with gun-powder brings threaten[ing]s to blow vp all diseases that come in his way, and smels worse then Assafœtida in respect of this. You therefore whose bodyes, either ouerflowing with the corrupt humours of this ages phantasticknesse, or else being burnt vp with the inflāmation of vpstart fashions, would faine be purgd: and to shew that you truly loath this polluted and mangy-fisted world, turne Timonists, not caring either for men or their maners. Doe you pledge me, spare not to take a deepe draught of our homely councel. The cup is full, and so large, that I boldly drinke a health vnto all commers. /