A True Description of the Pot-Companion Poet

A TRVE DESCRIPTION OF THE Pot-Companion Poet.

T He Pot-Companion Poet is the Dregs of wit, yet mingled with good Drink, may have some Relish, his inspirations are more real then others, for they do but feign a God, but he has his by him, his verses run like the Tap, and his inventions as the Barrel, ebbs and flows at the mercy of the Spiggot, in Thin drink he aspires not above a Ballad, but a cup of Sack inflames him, and sets his muse and nose a fire together; the Press is his mint, and stamps him now and then a six-pence or two, in regard of the baser coin his Pamphlet, his works would scarce sell for three half pence, though they are oftentimes given for three shillings, but only for the pretty title that allures the Country Gentlemen, and for which the Printer maintains him in Ale a whole fortnight, his verses are like his clothes, miserable Centos and Patches; yet their pace is not altogether so hobling as an Almanac. The death of a great man, or the burning of a house doth furnish him with an Argument, and the 9. muses are out straight in mourning Gowns, and Melpomine cries fire, fire; his other Poems are but brief in ryme, and like the poor Greeks Collections, to redeem him from captivity; he is a man now much employed in commendations of our Navy, and a bitter inveigher against the Spaniard; his frequents works go out in single sheets, and are fomed in every part of the City, and then chanted from Market to Market, to a vile tune, and a worse throat, while the poor Country wench melts like her butter to hear them, and these are the stories of Sam men of Tyburn, or some strange Monster, or a notorious lie out of Germany, or sitting in a Baudy-house: he writes God's Judgments, and ends at the last in some obscure painted cloth, to which himself made the verses, and his life is like a Can too full, spills upon the bench. But in conclusion, leaves twenty shillings on the score, which my Hostesse must lose.

A CHARACTER Of the Swill-Bole Cook.

THe Kitchen is his Hell, and he the Devil in it; where his meat and he fries together, his Revenues are shower'd down from the fat of the Land, and he interlards his own grease among it to help the dripping, Cholerick he is, not by Nature so much as by Art; and it is a shred temptation, his Chopping-knife lies so near him; his offensive weapons are a mess of hot Broth, or scalding water: and woe be to him that comes in his way. In the Kitchen he domineers and rules the Rost, in spite of who says nay, and Curses is the very dialect of his calling; his labor is mere blustering and fury, and his Speech like that of Saylors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once, yet in all this tumult he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that will go and quench it; he is never good Christian till a hissing pot of ale hath shakt him like water cast on a fire-brand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed, his cunning is not small in Architecture; for he builds strange Fabrics in Paste, Towers, and Castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant Teeth, and like Darius his Palace, in one Banquet demolisht. He is a pitiless murder of Innocents, and mangles poor souls with unheard of Tortures, and it is thought the Martyrs Persecution were devised from hence? Sure, we are St. Laurence his Grid-iron, came out of his Kitchen; his best faculty is at the Dresser, where he seems to have great skill in the Tracticks, ranging his Dishes in Order Military, and placing with great discretion in the fore-front meats more strange and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the Rear; As quaking Tarts, and quavering Custards, and such milksop Dishes, which scape many times the fury of the Encounter. But now the second course is gone up, and he down into the Cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four a clock in the Afternoon, and then returns again to his Regiment.