Works

Here lies Jonson with the rest
Of the poets: but the best.
Reader, would'st thou more have known?
Ask his story, not this stone.
That will speak what this can't tell
Of his glory. So farewell.

Bice laughs, when no man speaks; and doth protest.
It is his own breech there that breaks the jest.

Blanch swears her husband's lovely; when a scald
Has blear'd his eyes: besides, his head is bald
Next, his wild ears, like leathern wings full spread,
Flutter to fly, and bear away his head.

I have seen many maidens to have hair,
Both for their comely need and some to spare;
But Blanch has not so much upon her head
As to bind up her chaps when she is dead.

Tom Blinks his nose is full of weals, and these
Tom calls not pimples, but pimpleides;
Sometimes, in mirth, he says each whelk's a spark,
When drunk with beer, to light him home i' th' dark.

Blisse, last night drunk, did kiss his mother's knee;
Where will he kiss, next drunk, conjecture ye.

Boreman takes toll, cheats, natters, lies; yet Boreman,
For all the devil helps, will be a poor man.

What made that mirth last night? the neighbours say,
That Bran the baker did his breech beray:
I rather think, though they may speak the worst,
'Twas to his batch, but leaven laid there first.

Of four teeth only Bridget was possest;
Two she spat out, a cough forced out the rest.

To cleanse his eyes, Tom Brock makes much ado,
But not his mouth, the fouler of the two.
A clammy rheum makes loathsome both his eyes:
His mouth, worse furr'd with oaths and blasphemies.

Buggins is drunk all night, all day he sleeps;
This is the level-coil that Buggins keeps.

Money thou ow'st me; prethee fix a day
For payment promis'd, though thou never pay:
Let it be Dooms-day; nay, take longer scope;
Pay when th'art honest; let me have some hope.

Bungy does fast; looks pale; puts sackcloth on;
Not out of conscience, or religion:
Or that this younker keeps so strict a Lent,
Fearing to break the king's commandement:...

Burr is a smell-feast, and a man alone,
That, where meat is, will be a hanger on.

End now the white loaf and the pie,
And let all sports with Christmas die.

You have undone Horace, - what should hinder
Thy Muse from falling upon Pindar?
But ere you mount his fiery steed,
Beware, O Bard, how you proceed: -
For should you give him once the reins,...

Case is a lawyer, that ne'er pleads alone,
But when he hears the like confusion,
As when the disagreeing Commons throw
About their House, their clamorous Aye or No:
Then Case, as loud as any serjeant there,...

Center is known weak-sighted, and he sells
To others store of helpful spectacles.
Why wears he none? Because we may suppose,
Where leaven wants, there level lies the nose.

When Chub brings in his harvest, still he cries,
"Aha, my boys! here's meat for Christmas pies!"
Soon after he for beer so scores his wheat,
That at the tide he has not bread to eat.

A roll of parchment Clunn about him bears,
Charg'd with the arms of all his ancestors:
And seems half ravish'd, when he looks upon
That bar, this bend; that fess, this cheveron;...