Way[564] for an innocent, ho! What, a poor fool?
Not so, pure ass. Ass! where went you to school?
With innocents. That makes the fool to prate.
Fool, will you any? Yes, the fool shall ha’t.
Wisdom, what shall he have? The fool at least.
Provender for the ass, ho! stalk up the beast.
What, shall we have a railing innocent?
No, gentle gull, a wise man’s precedent.
Then forward, wisdom. Not without I list.
Twenty to one this fool’s some satirist.
Still doth the fool haunt me; fond[565] fool, begone!
No, I will stay, the fool to gaze upon.
Well, fool, stay still. Still shall the fool stay? no.
Then pack, simplicity! Good innocent, why so?
Nor go nor stay, what will the fool do then?
Vex him that seems to vex all other men.
’Tis impossible; streams that are barr’d their course
Swell with more rage and far more greater force,
Until their full-stuft gorge a passage makes
Into the wide maws of more scopious[566] lakes.
Spite me! not spite itself can discontent
My steelèd thoughts, or breed disparagement:
Had pale-fac’d coward fear been resident
Within the bosom of me, innocent,
I would have hous’d me from the eyes of ire,
Whose bitter spleen vomits forth flames of fire.
A resolute ass! O for a spurring rider!
A brace of angels![567] What, is the fool a briber?
Is not the ass yet weary of his load?
What, with once bearing of the fool abroad?
Mount again, fool. Then the ass will tire,
And leave the fool to wallow in the mire.
Dost thou think otherwise? good ass, then begone!
I stay but till the innocent get on.
What, wilt thou needs of the fool bereave me?
Then pack, good, foolish ass! and so I leave thee.

EPILOGUE

TO THE

LAST SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK.[568]

Thus may we see by folly of[t] the wise
Stumble and fall into fool’s paradise,
For jocund wit of force must jangling be;
Wit must have his will, and so had he:
Wit must have[569] his will, yet, parting of the fray,
Wit was enjoin’d to carry the fool away.
Qui color[570] albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo.

On the death[571] of that great master in his art and quality, painting and playing, R[ichard] Burbage.

Astronomers and star-gazers this year
Write but of four eclipses; five appear,
Death interposing Burbage; and their staying
Hath made a visible eclipse of playing.
Tho. Middleton.

In the just worth[572] of that well-deserver, Master John Webster, and upon this masterpiece of tragedy.

In this thou imitat’st one rich and wise,
That sees his good deeds done before he dies;
As he by works, thou by this work of fame
Hast well provided for thy living name.
To trust to others’ honourings is worth’s crime;
Thy monument is rais’d in thy life-time;
And ’tis most just, for every worthy man
Is his own marble, and his merit can
Cut him to any figure, and express
More art than death’s cathedral palaces,
Where royal ashes keep their court. Thy note
Be ever plainness, ’tis the richest coat:
Thy epitaph only the title be,—
Write Duchess, that will fetch a tear for thee;
For who e’er saw this duchess live and die,
That could get off under a bleeding eye?
In Tragœdiam.
Ut lux ex tenebris ictu percussa tonantis,
Illa, ruina malis, claris fit vita poetis.
Thomas Middletonus,
Poeta et Chron. Londinensis.