ousand mo
So oft he hath recited to his friends,
That now himself persuades himself 'tis so.
But why doth Crassus tell his lies so rife,
Of bridges, towns, and things that have no life?
He is a lawyer, and doth well espy
That for such lies an action will not lie. 20

FOOTNOTES:

[532] So MS.--Eds. "not."

[533] Ghent.

[534] The reference probably is to the Pont Neuf, begun by Henry III.
and finished by Henry IV.

[535] So MS.--Old eds. "That."

[536] MS. "day!"

IN PHILONEM. XXXVIII.

Philo, the lawyer,[537] and the fortune-teller,
The school-master, the midwife,[538] and the bawd,
The conjurer, the buyer and the seller
Of painting which with breathing will be thaw'd,
Doth practise physic; and his credit grows,
As doth the ballad-singer's auditory,
Which hath at Temple-Bar his standing chose,
And to the vulgar sings an ale-house story:
First stands a porter; then an oyster-wife
Doth stint her cry and stay her steps to hear him; 10
Then comes a cutpurse ready with his[539] knife,
And then a country client presseth[540] near him;
There stands the constable, there stands the whore,
And, hearkening[541] to the song, mark[542] not each other;
There by the serjeant stands the debitor,[543]
And doth no more mistrust him than his brother:
This[544] Orpheus to such hearers giveth music,
And Philo to such patients giveth physic.

FOOTNOTES:

[537] Isham copy and MS. "gentleman."

[538] MS. "widdow."

[539] So Isham copy and MS.--Other eds. "a."

[540] So Isham copy.--Other eds. "passeth."--MS. "presses."

[541] So Isham copy, ed. A, and MS.--Eds. B, C "listening."

[542] So Isham copy, ed. A, and MS.--Eds. B, C "heed."

[543] So eds. B, C.--Isham copy, MS., and ed. A, "debtor poor."--With
the foregoing description of the "ballad-singer's auditory" compare
Wordsworth's lines _On the power of Music_, and Vincent Bourne's
charming Latin verses (entitled _Cantatrices_) on the Ballad Singers of
the Seven Dials.

[544] So MS.--Eds. "Thus."

IN FUSCUM. XXXIX.

Fuscus is free, and hath the world at will;
Yet, in the course of life that he doth lead,
He's like a horse which, turning round a mill,
Doth always in the self-same circle tread:
First, he doth rise at ten;[545] and at eleven
He goes to Gill's, where he doth eat till one;