,
In such abundant food for beasts and men;
That I ne'er saw more plenty or more cheap.
Thus what mine eyes did see, I do believe;
And what I do believe, I know is true:
And what is true unto your hands I give,
That what I give, may be believed of you.
But as for him that says I lie or dote,
I do return, and turn the lie in's throat.
Thus gentlemen, amongst you take my ware,
You share my thanks, and I your moneys share.
_Yours in all observance and gratefulness,
ever to be commanded_,
JOHN TAYLOR.
FINIS.
[Decoration]
[Footnote 1: PROVANT.--Provender; provision.]
[Footnote 2: FEGARY.--A vagary.]
[Footnote 3: TRUNDLE.--_i.e._, John Trundle of the sign of _No-body_
(see note page 6).]
[Footnote 4: It is reasonable to conjecture that at this date the custom
of "Swearing-in at Highgate was not in vogue--or, _No-body_ would have
taken the oath.]
[Footnote 5: NAMED LEAN AND FEN.--Some jest is intended here on the
Host's name.--Qy., Leanfen, or, the anagram of A. FENNEL.]
[Footnote 6: NO-BODY was the singular sign of John Trundle, a
ballad-printer in Barbican in the seventeenth century [and who seems to
have accompanied our author as far as _Whetstone_ on his "Penniless
Pilgrimage"--and, certainly up to this point a very "wet" one!] In one
of Ben Jonson's plays Nobody is introduced, "attyred in a payre of
Breeches, which were made to come up to his neck, with his armes out at
his pockets and cap drowning his face." This comedy was "printed for
John Trundle and are to be sold at his shop in Barbican at the sygne of
No-Body." A unique ballad, preserved in the Miller Collection at
Britwell House, entitled "The Well-spoken No-body," is accompanied by a
woodcut representing a ragged barefooted fool on pattens, with a torn
money-bag under his arm, walking through a chaos of broken pots, pans,
bellows, candlesticks, tongs, tools, windows, &c. Above him is a scroll
in black-letter:--
"Nobody.is.my.Name.that.Beyreth.Every.Bodyes.Blame."
The ballad commences as follows:--
"Many speke of Robin Hoode that never shott in his bowe,
So many have layed faultes to me, which I did never knowe;
But nowe, beholde, here I am,
Whom all the worlde doeth diffame;
Long have they also scorned me,
And locked my mouthe for speking free.
As many a Godly man they have so served
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