you shall be sure your cockscombs shall not be missed, but
pierced to the skulls. I profess railing, and think it as good a
cudgel for a martin, as a stone for a dog, or a whip for an ape,
or poison for a rat.

"Yet find fault with no broad terms, for I have measured yours
with mine, and I find yours broader just by the list. Say not my
speeches are light, for I have weighed yours and mine, and I find
yours lighter by twenty grains than the allowance. For number you
exceed, for you have thirty ribald words for my one, and yet you
bear a good spirit. I was loth so to write as I have done, but
that I learned, that he that drinks with cutters, must not be
without his ale daggers; nor he that buckles with Martin, without
his lavish terms.

"Who would curry an ass with an ivory comb? Give the beast
thistles for provender. I do but yet angle with a silken fly, to
see whether martins will nibble; and if I see that, why then I
have worms for the nonce, and will give them line enough like a
trout, till they swallow both hook and line, and then, Martin,
beware your gills, for I'll make you dance at the pole's end.

"I know Martin will with a trice bestride my shoulders. Well, if
he ride me, let the fool sit fast, for my wit is very hickish:
which if he spur with his copper reply, when it bleeds, it will
all to besmear their consciences.

"If a martin can play at chess, as well as his nephew the ape, he
shall know what it is for a scaddle pawn to cross a Bishop in his
own walk. Such diedappers must be taken up, else they'll not
stick to check the king. Rip up my life, discipher my name, fill
thy answer as full of lies as of lines, swell like a toad, hiss
like an adder, bite like a dog, and chatter like a monkey, my pen
is prepared and my mind; and if ye chance to find any worse words
than you brought, let them be put in your dad's dictionary. And
so farewell, and be hanged, and I pray God ye fare no worse.

"Yours at an hour's warning,

"DOUBLE V."

[48] Well-known stage characters in Preston's _Cambyses_.

* * * * *

"By this time I think, good-man Puritan, that thou art persuaded,
that I know as well as thy own conscience thee, namely Martin
Makebate of England, to be a most scurvy and be