THIS solemn Pageant graced with so glorious a presence as your highness' self and others, as you see, that mourn in their gowns and laugh in their sleeves; may perhaps breed a wonder in those that know not the cause, and laughter in those that know it. To see the mighty Emperor of Rome march in a mourning habit, and after him all the state of the Einpire, either present or presented; the peers in person, though with dry eyes, yet God knows their hearts; others in their ranks; one representing the state of a courtier, as I judge by his leg; another of a citizen, as I judge by his head; another of a soldier, as I judge by his look; another the state poetical, as I judge by his clothes; for the state physical it hath no place here; for who ever saw a physician follow a funeral? To see, I say, all this assembly masking in this funeral pomp, could he that saw it imagine any less funeral subject would follow than the hearse of your dear mother Agrippina? or your beloved wife Octavia? or else of her whom you prefer to them both, your divine Poppa? At least, who would imagine that a poor hair broken loose from his fellows, or shaken off like a windfall from the golden tree before his time, should have the honour of this imperial solemnity, and be able to glory like the fly in the cart, "Good heaven, what a troop of fools have I gathered together!" It is fatal to all honourable actions to fall under the scourge of detracting tongues, and, for the most part, to be condemned before they come to trial. In regard whereof, I will borrow so much of your patience as that I may in a word or two examine the whole ground of this spectacle; not doubting but that I shall make it appear to all upright ears, that it is an action most worthy your wisdom, my gracious sovereign, and that this silly, this base, this contemptible hair on this hearse supported, receives no thought of honour but what it well deserveth. Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam was the saying of your master Seneca; and may not your Highness go one step further, and say, Etiam capillus unus habet urnam suam? To enter into the common place of

women's hair, I list not; though it would afford scope enough for my pen to play in. That theme hath been already canvassed, and worn half threadbare by poets and their fellows. My meaning is not to exceed the compass of this hair, which we have here in hand; this sacred beam, fallen from that sun of beauty, Poppaa, whose very name is able to give it honour, though otherwise base. And, albeit, hair were of itself the most abject excrement that were, yet should Poppa's hair be reputed honourable. I am not ignorant that hair is noted by many as an excrement, a fleeting commodity, subject to spring and fall, and he whose whole head last day was not worth one hair, it shall be in as good estate the next day as it was ever before; and such as last year had as fair a crop of hair as ever fruitful head afforded, if there come but a hot summer, it shall be so smooth that a man may slur a die on it. An excrement it is, I deny not; and yet are not all excrements to be vilified as things of no value; for musk, civet, amber, are they not all excrements? yet what more pleasing to the daintiest sense we have? Nature gives many things with the left hand which Art receives with the right: sublimate and other drugs are by nature poison; yet Art turns them to wholesome medicines; so hair, though by Nature given us as an excrement, yet by Art it is made our capital ornament. For whereas the head is accounted the chief member of the body, hair is given us as the chief ornament of the head, I mean of women's heads; for men have other ornaments belonging to their heads, as shall hereafter appear more largely. And howsoever hair falls within the name of excrement, yet it is evermore the argument of a rank or rich soil where it grows, and of a barren where it fails; for I dare boldly pronounce, in despite of all paltry proverbs, that a man's wit is ever rankest when his hair is at the fullest. I say not his wit is best, but rankest; for I am not ignorant that the rankest flesh is not always the soundest, as the rankest breath is not always the sweetest. And thus much more I will add for the general commendation of hair, that

Nature in no part hath expressed such curious and subtle skill as in this, as we term it, excrement; for what more excellent point of Art can there be than to indurate and harden a thin vapour into a dry and solid substance? And this whole bush of hair, hath both his being and his nourishment from those sweet vapours which breathe and steam from the quintessence of the brain, through those subtle pores of the head in which they are fashioned and spun by nature's finger into so slender and delicate a thread; as if she intended to do like the painter that came to see Apelles, drew that subtle line for a masterpiece of his workmanship. And besides the highest place given to the hair, and singularity of workmanship expressed in it, nature hath endowed it with this special privilege, and left therein so great an impression of herself, as it is the most certain mark by which we may aim at the complexion and condition of every man; as red hair on a man is a sign of treachery, what 'tis in a woman let the sweet music of rhyme inspire us ;* a soft hair, chicken-hearted; a harsh hair, churlishly natured; a flaxen hair, foolish brained; what a black-haired man is ask the proverb; if ye believe not that, ask your wives; if they will not tell you, look in your glasses, and ye shall see it written on your foreheads. So that nature having honoured hair with so great a privilege of her favour, why should we not think it worthy all honour in itself without any addition of other circumstance? And if nature hath graced the whole garland with this honour, may not every flower challenge his part? If any hair, then this hair (the argument of our present mourning) more than any. But we must not think, princes and senators, that the undaunted heart of our Emperor, which never was known to shrink at the butchering of his own mother Agrippina, and could without any touch of remorse hear, if not behold, the murder of his most dear wife Octavia, after her divorce; we must not think, I say, this adamantine heart of his could resolve into softness for the loss of a common or ordinary hair. But this was-alas, why is it not?-a hair of such rare and matchless perfection, whether ye take it by the colour or by the substance, as it is impossible for nature in her whole shop to pattern it; so subtil and slender as

* [i.e. lechery.]

it can scarce be seen, much less felt; and yet so strong as it is able to bind Hercules hand and foot, and make it another of his labours to extricate himself. In a word, it is such a flower as grows in no garden but Poppæa's; born to the wonder of men, the envy of women, the glory of the gods, &c. A hair of such matchless perfection that if anywhere it should be found by chance, the most ignorant would esteem it of infinite value, as certainly some hairs have been. The purple hair of Nisus, whereon his kingdom and life depended, may serve for an instance. And how many young gallants do I know myself, every hair of whose chin is worth a thousand crowns; and others, but simple fornicators, that have never a hair on their crowns but is worth a king's ransom ! At how much higher rate then shall we value this hair, which, if it were not Poppa's, yet being such as it is, it deserved high estimation; but being Poppaa's, if it were not such, it can be worth no less? When, therefore, a hair of this excellence is fallen like an apple from the golden tree, can the loss be light? And can such loss do less than beget a just and unfeigned grief, not proceeding from humour in our Emperor, nor flattery in us, but out of true judgment in us all? Albeit, I must add this for the qualifying of your grief, most sacred Emperor, that this divine hair is not utterly lost. It is but sent as a harbinger before; the rest must follow it. And in the meantime this remains in blessed estate; it is at rest; it is free from the trouble and incumbrance which her miserable fellows that survive are daily enforced to endure. The cruel comb shall no more fasten his teeth upon it; it shall no more be tortured with curling bodkins, tied up each night in knots, wearied with tires, and by all means barred of that natural freedom in which it was born; and, which is a torment above torments, subject to the fearful tincture of age, and to change his amber hue into a withered and mortified grey. From all this fear and trouble this happy hair is freed; it rests quietly in his urn, straight to be consecrated as a relic upon this altar of Venus, there to be kept as her treasure till it hath fetched to it a fair number more; and then to be employed by Venus either as a bracelet for her paramour Mars, or else, which I rather believe, for a periwig for herself; all his fellows and his mistress having from it taken the infection of the falling sickness. Dixi.

IF, of thy purpose yet, thou takest no shame,

But keep'st thy mind, immutably, the

same,

That thou esteem'st it as a good in chief
At others' trenchers to relieve thy life;
If those things thou canst find a back to
bear,

That not Sarmentus nor vile Galba were
So base to put in patience of a guest,
No, not for Cæsar's far-exceeding feast;
Fear will affect me to believe thy troth
In any witness, though produced by oath.
For nothing in my knowledge falls that is
More frugal than the belly. But say this,
That not enough food all thy means can
find,

To keep thy gut from emptiness and wind, Is no creek void? no bridge? no piece of shed

Half, or not half? Would thy not being

To quake for cold, and gnaw the mustiest grounds

Of barley-grist, baked purposely for hounds?

First, take it for a rule, that if my lord Shall once be pleased to grace thee with his board,

The whole revenues that thy hopes inherit,
Rising from services of ancient merit,
In this requital amply paid will prove.
O'tis the fruit of a transcendent love
To give one victuals; that thy table-king
Lays in thy dish though ne'er so thin a
thing,

Yet that reproach still in thine ears shall ring.

If, therefore, after two months' due neglect,

He deigns his poor dependant to respect,

And lest the third bench fail to fill the rank,

He shall take thee up to supply the blank. "Let's sit together, Trebius," says my lord; See all thy wishes summ'd up in a word. What canst thou ask at Jove's hand after this?

This grace to Trebius enough ample is To make him start from sleep before the lark,

Posting abroad untruss'd, and in the dark, Perplex'd with fear, lest all the servile rout Of his saluters have the round run-out Before he come; while yet the fixed star Shows his ambiguous head, and heaven's cold car

The slow Bootes wheels about the Bear. And yet, for all this, what may be the cheer?

To such vile wine thy throat is made the sink,

As greasy wool would not endure to drink, And we must shortly look to see our guest Transform'd into a Berecynthian priest. Words make the prologue to prepare the fray,

And in the next scene pots are taught to play

The parts of weapons: thy red napkin now
Descends to tell thee of thy broken brow;
And such events do evermore ensue
When you poor guests and Virro's serving

Next day he likes to taste another field, The Alban hills', or else the Setine yield, Whose race and rich succession if you ask,

Age hath decay'd, and sickness of the cask;

Such Thrasea and Helvidius quaff'd, still crown'd,

When Brutus' birth and Cassius', they renown'd.

Virro himself in solemn bowls is served,
Of amber and disparent beryl kerv'd ;
But to thy trust no such cup they commit,
Or, if they do, a spy is fix'd to it,

To tell the stones; whose firm eye never fails

To watch the close walks of thy vulturous nails.

"Give leave," says Virro, and then takes

Whose gallon drunk-off must thy blood enflame,

And is so crazed, that they would let it pass

To them that matches give for broken glass.

Now, if by fumes of wine, or fiery meat, His lordship's stomach over-boil with heat,

There's a cold liquor brought that's made t' outvie

The chill impressions of the north-east sky.
I formerly affirm'd, that you and he
Were served with wines of a distinct de-
gree,

But now remember, it belongs to you

To keep your distance in your water too. And (in his page's place) thy cups are brought

By a swarth footman, from Getulia bought, Or some sterved negro, whose affrightful

sight

A jewel purchased at a higher rate Than martial Ancus', or king Tullus' state (Not to stand long), than all the idle things

That graced the courts of all our Roman kings.

If then thy bowl his nectar's store shall need,

Address thee to his Indian Ganymede. Think not his page, worth such a world, can skill

Or does not scorn, for thread-bare coats to fill,

And, to say truth, his form and prime beside

May well allow him some few grains of pride.

But when does he to what thou want'st descend,

Or thy entreaties not contemn t'attend,
Supply of water craving, hot or cold?
No, he, I tell you, in high scorn doth
hold

To stir at every stale dependant's call;
Or that thou call'st for anything at all,
Or sitt'st where he's forced stand, his pride
depraves.

Houses of state abound with stately slaves.
And see, another's proud disdains resist
His hand to set thee bread; and yet what
is't

But hoary cantles of unboulted grist,
That would a jaw-tooth rouse, and not
admit,

Though ne'er so base, thy baser throat abit?
But for his bread, the pride of appetite,
Tenderly soft, incomparably white,
The first flour of fine meal subdued in
paste,

That's a peculiar for my lord's own taste. See then thou keep'st thy fingers from offence,

And give the pantler his due reverence. Or say thou shouldst be malapertly bold,

Seest thou not slaves enough, to force thy hold

From thy attempted prize, with taunts like these,

"Hands off, forward companion, will you please

With your familiar crible to be fed,
And understand the colour of your bread ?"
Then grumbles thy disgrace: "And is
it this

night

Passing the monuments of Latia.

In his eye waits the flower of Asia,

Of my fair wife, to post with earliest speed Up to Mount Esculine, where agues breed?