him; but ye
abbot, spying through ye key-hole, did see a tuft of brownish hair with
fair white flesh about it, wherefore when ye priest's prayer was done,
his chance was gone, forasmuch as ye little maid had but ye one cunt,
and that was already occupied to her content.
Then conversed they of religion, and ye mightie work ye old dead Luther
did doe by ye grace of God. Then next about poetry, and Master Shaxpur
did rede a part of his King Henry IV., ye which, it seemeth unto me, is
not of ye value of an arsefull of ashes, yet they praised it bravely,
one and all.
Ye same did rede a portion of his "Venus and Adonis," to their
prodigious admiration, whereas I, being sleepy and fatigued withal, did
deme it but paltry stuff, and was the more discomforted in that ye blody
bucanier had got his wind again, and did turn his mind to farting with
such villain zeal that presently I was like to choke once more. God damn
this windy ruffian and all his breed. I wolde that hell mighte get him.
They talked about ye wonderful defense which old Sr. Nicholas
Throgmorton did make for himself before ye judges in ye time of Mary;
which was unlucky matter to broach, sith it fetched out ye quene with a
'Pity yt he, having so much wit, had yet not enough to save his doter's
maidenhedde sound for her marriage-bed.' And ye quene did give ye damn'd
Sr. Walter a look yt made hym wince--for she hath not forgot he was her
own lover it yt olde day. There was silent uncomfortableness now; 'twas
not a good turn for talk to take, sith if ye queene must find offense
in a little harmless debauching, when pricks were stiff and cunts
not loathe to take ye stiffness out of them, who of this company was
sinless; behold, was not ye wife of Master Shaxpur four months gone
with child when she stood uppe before ye altar? Was not her Grace of
Bilgewater roger'd by four lords before she had a husband? Was not ye
little Lady Helen born on her mother's wedding-day? And, beholde, were
not ye Lady Alice and ye Lady Margery there, mouthing religion, whores
from ye cradle?
In time came they to discourse of Cervantes, and of the new painter,
Rubens, that is beginning to be heard of. Fine words and dainty-wrought
phrases from the ladies now, one or two of them being, in other days,
pupils of that poor ass, Lille, himself; and I marked how that Jonson
and Shaxpur did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm, yet dared
they not in the presence, the queene's grace bei
|