you laugh your hearts out. Take me at my word, for I am the man that will do it. This is a light friskin of my wit, like the praise of injustice, the fever quartan, Busiris, or Phalaris, wherein I follow the trace of the famousest scholars of all ages, whom a wantonising humour once in their life-time hath possessed to play with straws, and turn mole-hills into mountains.

Every man can say bee to a battledore, and write in praise of virtue and the seven liberal sciences; thrash corn out of the full sheaves, and fetch water out of the Thames; but out of dry stubble to make an after-harvest, and a plentiful crop without sowing, and wring juice out of a flint, that is " Pierce a god's name", and the right trick of a workman. Let me speak to you about my huge words, which I use in this book, and then you are your own men to do what you list. Know, it is my true vein to be Tragicus Orator, and, of all stiles, I most affect and strive to imitate Aretine's, not caring for this demure, soft mediocre genus, that is like water and wine mixed together; but give me pure wine of itself, and that begets good blood, and heats the brain thoroughly. I had as live have no sun, as have it shine faintly; no fire, as a smothering fire of small coals; no cloaths, rather than wear linsey-wolsey. Apply it for me, for I am called away to correct the faults of the press, that escaped in my absence from the printinghouse.

THE strange turning of the Isle of Dogs, from a comedy to a tragedy two summers past, with the troublesome stir, which happened about it, is a general rumour, that hath filled all England, and such a heavy cross laid upon me, as had well near confounded me: I mean, not so much in that it sequestered me from the wonted means of my maintenance, which is as great a maim to any man's happiness, as can be feared from the hands of misery, or the deep pit of despair, whereinto I was fallen, beyond my greatest friends reach, to recover me; but that in my exile, and irksome discontented abandonment, the silliest miller's thumb, or contemptible stickle-back of my enemics, is as busy nibbling about my fame, as if I were a dead man thrown amongst them to feed upon. So I am, I confess, in the world's outward appearance, though perhaps I may prove a cunninger diver than they are aware; which if it so happen, as I am partly assured, and that I plunge above water once again, let them look to it, for I will put them in brine, or a piteous pickle every one *. But let that pass, though they shall find I will not let it pass, when time serves, I having a pamphlet hot a brooding, that shall be called the Barbers Warming pan, and to the occasion a fresh of my falling in alliance with this lenten argument. That unfortunate, imperfect embryo† of my idle hours, the Isle of Dogs before mentioned, breeding unto me such bitter throws

• Quassa tamen nostra est, non mersa nec obruta navis.

+ An imperfect einbryo, I may well call it, for, I having begun but the introduction and first act of it, the other four acts without my consent, or the least guess of my drift or scope by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine, too.

in the teaming, as it did, and the tempests, that arose at its birth, so astonishing, outrageous, and violent, as if my brain had been conceived of another Hercules; I was so terrified with my own increase (like a woman long traveling to be delivered of a monster) that it was no sooner born, but I was glad to run from it. To inconsiderate headlong rashness this may be censured in me, in being thus prodigal in advantaging my adversaries; but my case is now smothered secret, and, with light cost of rough cast rhetorick, it may be tolerably plaistered over, if under the pardon and privilege of incensed higher powers it were lawfully indulged me freely to advocate my own astrology. Sufficeth what they in their grave wisdoms shall prescribe, I, in no sort, will seek to acquit, nor presumptuously attempt to dispute against the equity of their judgments, but humble and prostrate appeal to their mercies. Avoid or give ground I did, scriptum est, I will not go from it, and post varios casus, variable knight-errant adventures, and outroads, and inroads, in great Yarmouth in Norfolk, I arrived at the latter end of autumn. Where having scarce looked about me, my presaging mind said to itself, Hic favonius serenus est, hic auster umbricus, this is a predestinated fit place for Pierse Pennyless to set up his staff in. Therein not much diameter to my divining hopes, did the event sort itself, for six weeks first and last; under that predominant constellation of Aquarius or Jove's Nectar filled, took I up my repose, and there met with such kind entertainment, and benign hospitality, when I was Una litera plusquam medicus, as Plautus saith, and not able to line to myself with my own juice; as some of the crums of it, like the crums in a bushy beard, after a great banquet, will remain in my papers, to be seen when I am dead and under ground; from the bare perusing of which, infinite posterities of hungry poets shall receive good refreshing, even as Homer by Galatæon was pictured vomiting in a bason (in the temple that Ptolemy Philopater erected to him) and the rest of the succeeding poets after him, greedingly lapping up what he disgorged. That good old blind bibber of Helicon, I wot well, came a begging to one of the chief cities of Greece, and promised them vast corpulent volumes of immortality, if they would bestow upon him but a slender outbrother's annuity of mutton and broth, and a pallet to sleep on; and, with derision, they rejected him; whereupon he went to their enemies, with the like proffer, who used him honourably, and whom he used so honourably, that to this day, though it be three-thousand years since, their name and glory flourish green in men's memory through his industry. I trust you make no question but those dullpated pennifathers, that in such dudgeon scorn rejected him, drunk deep of the sour cup of repentance for it, when the high flight of his lines in common brute was applauded. Yea in the word of one no more wealthy, than he was (wealthy said I, nay I will be sworn, he was a grand juryman, in respect of me) those grey beard huddle-duddles, and crusty cum-twangs, were struck with such stinging remorse of their miserable euclionism and sundgery, that he was not yet cold in his grave, but they challenged him to be born amongst them, and they, and six cities more,

• Medicus.

entered a sharp war about it, every one of them laying claim to him aş their own and to this effect hath Buchanan an epigram:

Urbes certarunt septem de patria Homeri,

Nulla domus vivo patria nulla fuit.

Seven cities strove, whence Homer first should come,
When living, he no country had nor home,

I alledge this tale to shew how much better my lack was than Homer's (though all the King of Spain's Indies will not create me such a niggling hexameter-founder, as he was) in the first proclaiming of my bank-rout indigence and beggary, to bend my course to such a courteous compassionate clime as Yarmouth; and to warn others that advance their heads above all others, and have not respected, but rather flatly opposed themselves against the friar mendicants of our profession, what their amercements, and unreprieveable penance, will be, except they tear open their oystermouthed pouches quickly, and make double amends for their parsimony. I am no Tiresias or Calchas to prophesy, but yet I cannot tell, there may be more resounding bell metal in my pen, than I am aware; and, if there be, the first peel of it is Yarmouth's: for a pattern or tiny sample, what my elaborate performance would be in this case, had I a full-sailed gale of prosperity to encourage me; whereas, at the dishumoured composing hereof, I may justly complain with Ovid:

Anchora jam nostram non tenet ulla ratem,

My state is so tost and weather-beaten, that it hath now no anchorhold left to cleave unto. I care not, if, in a dim fair of landskip, I take the pains to describe this supereminent principal metropolis of the red fish. A town it is, that, in rich situation, exceedeth many cities, and without the which, Caput gentis, the swelling battlements of Gurguntus, a head city of Norfolk and Suffolk, would scarce retain the name of a city, but become as ruinous and desolate as Thetford or Ely, out of an hill or heap of sand, reared and forced from the sea most miraculously, and by the singular policy and uncessant inestimable expence of the inhabitants, so firmly piled and rampired against the fumish waves battery, or suing the least action of recovery, that it is more conjectural of the twain, the land, with a writ of an Ejectio firma, will get the upper hand of the ocean, than the ocean one crow's skip prevail against the continent. Forth of the sands, thus strugglingly as it exalteth and lifts up its glittering head; so of the neighbouring sands, no less semblably (whether, in recordation of their worn out affinity, or no, I know not) it is so inamorately protected and patronised, that they stand as a trench or guard about it in the night, to keep off their enemies. Now, in that drowsy empire of the pale-faced queen of shades, maugre letting drive upon their barricadoes, or impetuously contending to break through their chain or bar, but they intomb and balist with sudden destruction. In this transcursive reportory, without some observant

glance, I may not dully overpass the gallant beauty of their haven, which having but as it were a welt of land, or as M. Camden calls it lingulam terræ, a little tongue of the earth, betwixt it and the wide main, sticks not to manage arms, and hold its own undefeasably against that universal unbounded empire of surges, and so hath done for this hundred years. Two miles in length it stretches its winding current, and then meets with a spacious river or back-water, that feeds it. A narrow channel or isthmus, in rash view, you would opinionate it; when this I can devoutly aver, I beholding it with both my eyes this last fishing, six hundred reasonable barks and vessels of good burthen, with advantage, it hath given shelter to, at once, in her harbour, and most of them riding abreast before the key betwixt the bridge and the south-gate. Many bows length beyond the mark, my pen roves not, I am certain; if I do, they stand at my elbow that can correct me. The delectablest lusty sight and movingest object methought it was that our isle sets forth, and nothing behind in number with the invincible Spanish Armada, though they were not such Gargantuan boisterous gulliguts as they; though ships and galleasses they would have been reckoned in the navy of King Edgar, who is chronicled and registered, with three thousand ships of war, to have scoured the narrow seas, and sailed round about England every summer. That which especially nourished the most prime pleasure in ine, was after a storm, when we were driven in swarms, and lay close pestered together as thick as they could pack; the next day following, if it were fair, they would cloud the whole sky with canvas, by spreading their drabbled sails in the full clue abroad a drying, and make a braver shew with them, than so many banners and streamers displayed against the sun, on a mountain top, But how Yarmouth, of itself so innumerably populous and replenished, and in so barren a spot seated, should not only supply her inhabitants with plentiful purveyance of sustenance, but provide and victual moreover this monstrous army of strangers, was a matter that egregiously puzzled and intranced my apprehension. Hollanders, Zelanders, Scots, French, Western-men, Northern-men, besides all the hundreds, and wapentakes, nine miles distance, fetch the best of their viands and mangery from her market. For ten weeks together, this rabble-rout of outlandishers are billetted with her, yet, in all that while, the rate of no kind of foot is raised, nor the plenty of their markets one pint of butter rebated; and at the ten weeks end, when the camp is broken up, no impression of any dearth left, but rather more store than before. Some of the town dwellers have so large an opinion of their settled provision, that if all her Majesty's fleet at once should put into their bay, within twelve days warning, with so much double beer, beef, fish, and bisket, they would Bulk them as they could wallow away with.

. Here I could break out into a boundless race of oratory, in shrill trumpeting and concelebrating the royal magnificence of her government, that, for state and strict civil ordering, scarcely admitteth any rivals. But I fear it would be a theme displeasing to the grave modesty of the discreet present magistrates; and therefore consultively I overslip it; howsoever I purpose not in the like nice respect to leap over the

Aaudable pedigree of Yarmouth, but will fetch her from her swadling clouts or infancy; and reveal to you when and by whom she was fisrt forced out of the ocean's arms, and started up and aspired to such starry sublimity; as also acquaint you with the notable immunities, franchises, and privileges she is endowed with, beyond all her confiners, by the descending line of Kings from the conquest.

There are of you, it may be, that will account me a palterer for hanging out the sign of the Red-Herring in my title-page, and no such feast towards, for aught you can see. Soft and fair, my masters; you must walk and talk before dinner an hour or two, the better to whet your appetites to taste of such a dainty dish as the red-herring; and, that you may not think the time tedious, I care not if I bear you company, and lead you a sound walk round about Yarmouth, and shew you the length and breadth of it.

The masters and batchelors commencement dinners, at Cambridge and Oxford, are betwixt three and four in the afternoon, and the rest of the antecedence of the day worn out in disputations. Imagine this the act or commencement of the red-herring, that proceedeth batchelor, master, and doctor, all at once; and therefore his disputations must be longer. But to the point: May it please the whole generation of my auditors to be advertised, how that noble earth, where the town of Great Yarmouth is now mounted, and where so much fish is sold, in the days of yore hath been the place where you might have catched fish, and as plain a sea, within these six-hundred years, as any boat - could tumble in; and so was the whole level of the marshes betwixt it and Norwich, Anno Domini 1000, or thereabouts (as I have scraped out of worm-eaten parchment) and in the reign of Canutus, he that died drunk at Lambeth, or Lome-hith, somewhat before, or somewhat after, not an apprenticeship of years varying,

and, from that moment to this sextine century (or, let me not be taken with a lye, five-hundred ninety-eight, that wants but a paire of years to make me a true man) they would no more live under the yoke of the sea, or have their heads washed with his bubbly spurn, or barber's balderdash, but clearly quitted, disterminated, and relegated themselves from his inflated capriciousness of playing the dictator over them.

The northern wind was the clanging trumpeter, who, with the terrible blast of his throat, in one yellow heap, or plump-clustered, or congested them together, even as the western gales in Holland, right overagainst them, have wrought unruly havock, and thrashed and swept the sands so before them, that they have choaked or clammed up the middle walk, or door of the Rhine, and made it as stable a clod-mould, or turf-gronnd, as any hedger can drive stake into. Caster, two miles distant from this New Yarmouth we treat of, is inscribed to be that Old Yarmouth, whereof there are specialties to be seen in the oldest writers, and yet, some visible apparent tokens remain of a haven that ran up to it, and there had its entrance into the sea, by aged