offence toward thee, tell him of it in an Epistle. And truly this is a great and enormious offence, at which my choller stands pright, neither will I put it vp. Therefore in sadness prouide your Lawier, I haue mine, it will beare as good an action, as if you should haue come into another man's house, and neuer say, Hoe, God be here: that is, you wrote a foule Epistle to mee, and neuer told me of it before: you might have said, By your leaue, sir. I warrant you I write but this small Epistle to you, and I tell you of it as long before as the Epistle is long. But now I remember me, there was no hatred between vs before, and therefore 'twould be prooued but chaunce-medley. Let it euen alone, it cannot be vndone, for a thing easely done; neuer can be vndone and a man may quickly become a knave, but hardly an honest man. And thus (maleuolent Tom) I leaue thee. From my chamber in Camb. to your.*

Yours in love vsque ad aras,†

RICH. LICHField.

You see howe louingly I deale with you in my Epistle, and tell of your vertues, which (God forgiue me for it) is as arrant a lye as euer was told: but to leaue these parergasticall speeches and to come to your trimming, because I will deale roundly with you, I wil cut you with the round cut, in which I inelude two cuts: First, the margent cut: Secondly, the perfect cut: The margent cut is nothing els but a preparation to the perfect cut, wherby I might more perfectly discharge that cut vpon you, for as in a deep standing poole, the brinks therof, which are not vnfitly called the margents being pared away, we may the better see thereinto: so the margents which fitly we may terme the brinkes of your stinking standing poole (for it infects the

• Where ca you tell?

That is, that wold folow thee euen to the gallowes.

All your parts.

eare as doth the stinking poole the smell) being cut away, I may the better finish this perfect cut, and rid myselfe of you, To the margent cut. When first your Epistle came into my hands, I boldly opened it, and scaling the margents of it, espied a seely note, quasi conuersant about heads. I sayd not a word, but turning ouer a leafe or twoo more, to see if you continued in those simple animaduersions, and indeed I saw, you to bee no changling, for there I espied barbers knacking of their fingers, and lowsie naperie, as foolish as the other, semper idem (thought I) might be your mot, and so you will dye.... Now to the perfect cut: I cannot but admire you in the tittle you allow me, seeing wee admire monsters as well as vertuous men, and a foole (as oft I haue heard scholers dispute in mine office) as a monster: other Barbers like not the title, it pleaseth me, and all the Dukes in Spaine cannot shew the like, and I thinke that halfe a yeere's study did not bring it out of thy dunsticall hammer-headed scalpe, but thou dost to disgrace mee, and thinkst thy title decketh a Barber, and that a Barber with thy title is as a rotten chamber hang'd with cloth of arras, but 'tis not so: alas, thy reading affoords thee not to knowe the ancient and valorous power of Barbers. I could speake howe they flourished amongst the Abunts, a fierce and warlike people, and by the Barbers' perpolike cunning as it were amending nature, and shaping their faces to more austeritie, they. became more victorious, as Plutarch recordeth in the life of Theseus and young striplings, newly fit for armes, first were brought to Delphos, and there offered the first fruites of their hair to Jupiter, next him the Barbers were serued and they cut, them, and were as loue's Vises to make them fit for warre. They flourished before with the Arabians, the Mysians, the Dacians, the Dalmacians, the Macedonians, the Thracians, the Seruians, the Sarmacians, the Valachians, and the Bulgarians, as saith Polidorous Virgil: afterwards Alexander entertained into his campes Barbers, as the spurres and whetstones

of his armies. Dionisius, that blood-thirstie tyrant, that feared no peeres, stoode alwaies in feare of Barbers, and rather would haue his hayre burnt off, than happen into the Barber's handes. Therefore in a Barber's shop (as Plutarche reporteth) where some few were talking of the tyrany of the tyger Dionysius. What (said the Barber) are you talking of King Dionysius, whome. within these two or three daies I must shaue? When Dionysius heard of this, he gate the Barber secretly to be put to death, for feare of after-claps. The Barber's chaire is the verie RoyallExchange of newes, Barbers the head* of all trades. I could speake of their excellencie, for that a man's face (the principall part of him) is committed onely to Barbers. All trades adorne the life of man, but none (except Barbers) haue the life of man in their power, and to them they hold vp their throates readie. If they be happie, whom pleasure, profit and honor make happie, then the Barbers with great facilitie attaine to happines. For pleasure, if they be abroad, they are soght too of the best companions, Knights and Esquires send for them: if at home and at worke, they are in pleasing conference; if idle, they passe that time in life-delighting musique. For profite, a Barber hath liuing in all parts of England: he hath money brought in as due as rents, of those whom he neuer saw before. For honour, Kings and ruling Monarchs, (to whom all men crouch with cap in hand and knee on ground) onely to Barbers sit barehead, and with bended knees. But for all this, thou sparest not to raile on Barbers, as on all others.... You knowe or at the least ought to knowe that writers shoulde eschew lyes as scorpions, but your lyes that you deuised of one are the greatest parte of the matter of your Epistle, as, My shoppe in the towne, the teethe that hange out at my windowe, my painted may-poole, with many others which fill vp roome in the Epistle in aboundant manner, and which are nothing else but meere lyes and fictions to yeeld the matter, whereby I

None but Barbers meddle with the head.

perceiue howe threade-bare thou art waxen, howe barren thy inuention is, and that thy true amplifying vaine is quite dryed vppe. Repent, repent, I say, and leaue of thy lying, which without repentance is very haynous, that one lye I make of thee in this booke is presently washed away with repentance. An other lye I cannot but tell you off, which you clappe in my teeth in the very beginning of your Epistle, which nothinge greeueth mee for that I suppose it to bee committed of ignorance, that is, you tell mee that you come vpon mee with but a dicke of Dickes, but you come vppon mee with seuenteene or eighteene Dickes, whereby I see thy ignorance in the Greeke tongue, thou knowest not what a dicker is, a dicker is but ten of any thing, for it commeth of the Greeke word ds'ya which is by interpretation, Ten. Thou obiectest that olde Tooly and I differed, I confesse it, I am a man alone, I scorne suche ragged rent-foorth speech, yet thou mayest well praye for the duall number, thou scabbed, scalde, lame, halting adjectiue as thou art, in all thy guiles, thou neuer hadest that guile as alone to get thee one crust of breade: no, I knowe not who had a hande with you in this seely Epistle, goe too, hee is not a minister, he hadde but small reason for it."

These Extracts are probably enough to awaken if not entirely to gratify the reader's curiosity. At sig. E. 2. there is an exhibition of Nash in fetters, intended, no doubt, to rebut the effect of the one of Harvey, already noticed in the preceding article it is founded' on the story of his confinement relative to the play of the "Isle of Dogs."

Eu. H.

t

The XV. Bookes of P. Ouiduis Naso, entituled, Metamorphosis. # A work very pleasant and delectable. Translated out of Latin into English Meeter, by Arthur Golding,

gentleman.

With skill, heed, and iudgement this worke must be read,
For else to the reader it stands in small stead.

At London,

Imprinted by Robert Walde-graue, #

Anno Domini, 1587."

4to. ff. 200.

"To the right honourable and his singular good Lord, Robert Earl of Leicester, Baron of Denbigh, Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, &c. Arthur Golding, gent. wisheth continuance of health, with prosperous estate and felicity.

At length my chariot wheel about the mark hath found the

way,

'And at their weary race's end, my breathless horses stay.
The work is brought to end, by which the author did account
(And rightly) with eternal fame above the stars to mount.
For whatsoever hath been writ of ancient time in Greek
By sundry men dispersedly, and in the Latin eke,

Of this same dark philosophy of turned shapes, the same
Hath Ovid into one whole mass in this book brought in frame.
Four kind of things in this his work the Poet doth contain:
That nothing under heaven doth ay in stedfast state remain.
And next that, nothing perisheth, but that each substance takes
Another shape than that it had: of these two points he makes