A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
L9 From a Gipsie in the morneing
Notes. In the only known source of this poem, it is attributed to “B. Johnson”. While it is heavily based on a song in Jonson’s masque, The Gypsies Metamorphosed (Jonson 367-69), the poem translates Jonson’s prayer for the wellbeing of “our sovereign” into a prayer for “great Buckinghame”. The poem’s tone is inscrutable: it may be read as a sincere panegyric on Buckingham, or it may instead be taken as an ironic comment on the increasingly monarchical status assumed by the Duke (who had sponsored Jonson’s masque). The scribe’s appreciation of satire is evident throughout the manuscript in which this piece is found. Notably, a few pages after this poem there is a copy of the more popular appropriation of Jonson’s song, “From such a face whose Excellence”.
From a Gipsie in the morneing [m. note: “seeing”]
or a paire of Squirt1 eyes turneing
From the goblyn & the Specter
From a drunckard though with Nectar
From a rampant smocke that ytches
5To bee puting on the breeches
Wheresoe’re they have a beinge
Blesse great Buckinghame & his seeing
From ymproper serious toyes [m. note: “heareing”]
From a Lawyers three part noies
10From ympertinence lyke a drumme
Beate att dynner in the roome
From a tonge without a Fyle
All of phrases and noe style
From a Fiddle out of tune
15As a Cuckoe is in June
From the Candlesticks of Loathburie2
or the lewd pure wines3 of banbury4
Both the tymes & yeares out weareing
Blesse great Buckingham his heareing
20From birdlyme tarre & from all pitch [m. note: “Feeling”]
From dyrtie doxes & theire ytch
From the bristles of a hogge
From the Ringworme of a dogge
From the Court-shippe of a bryer
25From St Anthonies old fyre5
From a nedle pin or thorne
From bad even or bad morne
If hee bee druncke & a reelinge
Blesse great Buckingham his feeleing
30From a lousie tynkers sheete [m. note: “Smelling”]
From stinking toes of Carriers Feete
From a lady that doth breath
worse above then underneath
From the dyet & the knowledge
35of the Studients in beares Colledge6
From Tobacco with the type
of the devills glister pipe7
Or a stinke or stinkes excelling
A Fishmonger and his dwelling
40Blesse great Buckingham & his smelling
From gapeing oysters & fryed fishe [m. note: “Tasteing”]
From a Sowes baby in a dish
From any portion of Swine
From bad venison, & worse wine
45From Ling8 what Cooke soe ere yt boyle
Or what else may keepe man fasteing
Blesse great Buckingham his tasteing
A recapitulacion
Blesse him to from all offences
in his sporte & in his sences
50From a hare to crosse his waye
From a fall, or fowle day
Blesse him heaven, and grant him longe
To be the burthen of my songe
Source. St. John’s MS S.32, fols. 27v-28v
L9
1 Squirt: probable scribal error; read “squint”. <back>
2 Loathburie: Lothbury; area of London associated with iron foundries. <back>
3 wines: probable scribal error; read “wives”. <back>
4 banbury: town in Oxfordshire known for Puritanism. <back>
5 St Anthonies old fyre: St. Anthony’s Fire is a term for erysipelas, a disease with symptoms including skin inflammation. <back>
6 the Studients...Colledge: i.e. the bears in the bear-garden. <back>
7 glister pipe: a tube for the delivery of an enema (“glister”). <back>
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