doe
trewage vnto him. What impotent speech with his eight partes may not
specifie this vnestimable guift holding his peace, shall as it were
(with teares I speake it) do wherby as it may seeme or appeare, to
manifest or declare & yet it is, & yet it is not, & yet it may bee a
diminitiue oblation meritorious to your high pusillanimitie & indignity.
Why shoulde I goe gadding and fisgigging after firking flantado
Amphibologies, wit is wit, and good will is good will. With all the wit
I haue, I here according to the premises, offer vp vnto you the Cities
generall good will, which is a guilded Canne, in manner and forme
following, for you and the heires of your bodie lawfully begotten, to
drinke healths in. The scolasticall squitter bookes clout you vp
cannopies & footclothes of verses. Wee that are good fellowes, and liue
as merrie as cup and can, will not verse vpon you as they do, but must
doe as we can, and entertaine you if it bee but with a playne emptie
Canne. He hath learning inough that hath learnd to drinke to his first
man.

Gentle Duke, without paradox be it spoken, thy horses at your owne
proper costs and charges shall kneed vp to the knees all the while thou
art here in spruce beere & lubeck licour. Not a dog thou bringst with
thee but shall be banketted with rhenish wine and sturgion. On our
shoulders we weare no lamb skin or miniuer like these academikes, yet
wee can drinke to the confusion of all thy enemies. Good lambes-wooll
haue we for their lambe skins, and for their miniuer, large minerals in
our coffers. Mechanicall men they call vs, and not amisse, for most of
vs being _Mochi_, yt is, cuckolds & whooremasters, fetch our antiquitie
from the temple of _Mocha_, where Mahomet is hung vp. Three parts of the
world, America, Affrike and Asia, are of this our mechanike religion.
_Nero_ when he crid _O quantus artifex pereo_, profest himselfe of our
freedome. Insomuch as _Artifex_ is a citizen or craftsman, as wel as
_Carnifex_ a scholler or hangman. Passe on by leaue into the precincts
of our abhomination. Bony Duke, frolike in our bowse, and perswade thy
selfe that euen as garlike hath three properties, to make a man winke,
drinke, and stinke, so wee wyll winke on thy imperfections, drinke to
thy fauorites, & all thy foes shall stinke before vs. So be it Farewell.

The Duke laught not a little at this ridiculous oration, but that verie
night, as great an ironicall occasion was ministred, for he was
bidden