A NEW DISCOURSE OF A STOLEN SUBJECT, CALLED THE Metamorphosis of Ajax:  
Written by MISACMOS, to his friend and cousin PHILOSTILPNOS.  
AT LONDON, Printed by Richard Field, dwelling in the Blackfriars. 1596.   

A LETTER WRITTFN BY A GENTLEMAN OF GOOD WORTH, TO the Author of this book.  
SIr, I have heard much of your house, of your pictures, of your walks, of your ponds, and of your two boats, that came one by land, and the other by sea, from London bridge, and met both at Bath bridge: all which God willing (if I live another summer) I will come of purpose to see; as also a swimming place, where if one may believe your brother Frances, Diana did bathe her, and Actaeon see her without horns. But to deal plainly with you, there be three special things that I have heard much boasted of, and therefore would willingliest see. The one a fountain standing on pillars, 
43. Can.  like that in Ariosto, under which you may dine and sup; the second a shooting close with a xii score mark to every point of the card, in which I hear you have hit a mark that many shoot at, viz: to make a barren stony land fruitful with a little cost; the third is a thing that I cannot name well without save-reverence, and yet it sounds not unlike the shooting place, but it is in plain English a shiting place. Though, if it be so sweet and so cleanly as I hear, it is a wrong to it to use save reverence, for one told me, it is as sweet as my parlour, and I would think discourtesy, one should say, save reverence my parlour. But if I might entreat you (as you partly promised me at your last being here) to set down the manner of it in writing, so plain as our gross wits here may understand it, or to cause your man M. Combe (who I understand can paint prettily) make a draft, or plot thereof to be well conceived, you should make many of your friends much beholding to you, and perhaps you might cause reformation in many houses that you wish well unto, that ●●ill think no scorn to follow your good example. Nay to tell you my opinion seriously, if you have so easy, so cheap, and so infallible a way for avoiding such annoyances in great houses: you may not only pleasure many great persons, but do her Majesty good service in her palace of Greenwich and other stately houses, that are oft annoyed with such savours, as where many mouths be fed can hardly be avoided. Also you might be a great benefactor to the City of London, and all other populous towns, who stand in great need of such convayances. But all my fear is, that your pen having been enured to so high a discourse,  
Of Dames, of Knights, of arms, of loves delight,  
will now disdain to take so base a subject,  
Of vaults, of sinks, privies & draughts to write.  
But herein let a public benefit expel a private bashfulness, and if you must now and then break the rules de slovilitate morum, with some of these homely words, you see I have broken the ise to you, and you know the old saying, pens may blot, but they cannot blush. And as old Tarlton was wont to say, this same excellent word save-reverence, makes it all mannerly. Once this I dare assure you, if you can but tell a homely tale of this in prose as cleanly, as you have told in verse a bawdy tale or two in Orlando mannerly, it may pass among the sourest censurers very currently. And thus expecting your answer hereto, at your convenient leisure, I commit you to God this of 1596.  Your loving cousin. PHILOSILPNOS.  

THE ANSWER TO THE LETTER.  
MY good Cousin, if you have heard so well of my poor house with the appurtenances, it were to be wished for preservation of your better conceit thereof; that you would not see them at all, they will seem to you so far short of the report: for I do compare my buildings and my writings together, in which though the common sort think there is some worth and wit, yet the graver Censurers do find many faults and follies; And no marvel for he that builds and hath gathered little, and writes and hath read little, must needs be a bad builder, and a worse writer. But where as you are disposed either in the way of praise, or of play, to extol so much the basest room of my house, as though you preferred it afore the best; your commendation is not much unlike his courtesy, that being invited by a crabbed-favourd host to a neat house, did spit in his hosts face, because it was the foulest part of the house. But such as I have you shall be welcome to, and if I may know when you will begin your progress, I will pray my brother to be your guide, who will direct your jests in such sort, as first you shall come by a fine house that lacks a mistress, then to a fair house that mourns for a master, from whence, by a strait way called the force way, you shall come to a town that is more than a town, where be the waters that be more than waters. But from thence you shall pass down a stream that seems to be no stream by corn fields that seem no fields, down a street no street, in at a gate no gate over a bridge no bridge, into a court no court, where if I be not at home, you shall find perhaps a fool no fool.  
But where as you praise my husbandry, you make me remember an old school fellow of mine in Cambridge, that having lost five shillings abroad at Cards, would boast he had saved two candles at home by being out of his chamber, for such be most of my save. Yet this one point of husbandry, though it may well be called beggarly: yet it is not for all that contemptible, & thus it was. Finding a fair and flat field, though very stony, as all this country is: I made some vagrant beggars (of which by neighbourhood of the Baths, here comes great store) to gather all the stones that might break our arrows, and finding an easy mean to water the ground with a fat water, I have bettered my ground (as you say) and quite rid me of my wandering guests, who will rather walk seven mile about, than come where they shall be forced to work one half hour.  
Now Sir, to come to the chief point of your desire, which requires a more ample answer, but for a preamble you must be content with this. You tell me, belike to encourage me, that my invention may be beneficial, not only to my private friends, but to towns and Cities, yea even to her majesties service for some of her houses: trust me I do believe you writ seriously as you term it herein, and for my part I am so wholly addicted to her highness service, as I would be glad, yea even proud, if the highest strain of my wit, could but reach, to any note of true harmony in the full consort of her majesties service, though it were in the basest key that it could be tuned to. And if I should fortune to effect so good a reformation, in the Palace of Richmond, or Greenwich (to which Palace, many of us owe service for the tenure of our land) I doubt not but some pleasant witted courtier of either sex● would grace me so much at least; as to say, that I were worthy for my rare invention, to be made one of the Privy (and after a good long parenthesis) come out with chamber, or if they be learned & have read Castalios Courtier, they will say, I am a proper scholar, and well seen in latrina lingua. But let them mock that list, qui moccat moccabitur.  
Who strike with sword, the scabbeted them may strike:  
And sure love eraveth love, like asketh like.  
If men of judgement think it may breed a public benefit, the conceit thereof shall expel all private bashfulness; and I will herein follow the example of that noble Lady, that to save the liberties of Coventry, road naked at noon through the streets thereof, 
Camden in his Britamnia.  and is now thought to be greatly honoured, and nothing shamed thereby.  
Further whereas you embolden my pen, not to be abashed at the baseness of the subject and as it were leading me on the way, you tell me you have broken the y●e for me, to enter me into such broad phrases, as you think must be frequent herein: I will follow your steps and your counsel, neither will I disdain to use the poor help of save reverence if need be, much like as a good friend of yours and mine, that beginning to dispraise as honest a man as himself, to a great Noble man, said, he is the veriest knave, saving your Lordship: But the noble man (ere the words were fully out of his mouth,) said, save thyself knave or be hanged, save not me. Even so I must write in this discourse, sometime indeed as homely (saving your worship) as you shall lightly see, and yet I will endeavour to keep me within the bounds of modesty, and use no words, but such as grave precedents in Divinity, Law, Physic, or good Civility, will sufficiently warrant me.  
Sure I am that many other countrymen, both Dutch, French, and Italians, with great praise of wit, though small of modesty, have written of worse matters. One writes in praise of folly. 2. an other in honour of the Pox. 3. a third defends usury. 4. a fourth commends Nero. 5. a fift extols and instructs bawdry. 6. the sixth displays and describes Puttana errant, which I here will come forth shortly in English. 7. a seventh (whom I would guess by his writing, 
This matter is discoursed by Rabbles, in his 13. chap. of his fift book.  to be groom of the stool to some Prince of the blood in France) writes a beastly treatise, only to examine what is the fittest thing to wipe withal, alleging that white paper is too smooth, brown paper too rough, woollen cloth too stiff, linen cloth too hollow, satin too slippery, taffeta too thin, velvet too thick, or perhaps too costly: but he concludes, that a goose neck to be drawn between the legs against the feathers, 
V● moyen de me torcher le culle plus Seigneurial, le plus excellent, le plus expedient que iamais fut veu.  is the most delicate and cleanly thing that may be. Now it is possible that I may be reckoned after these seven, as sapientum octaws, because I will write of A jakes yet I will challenge of right (if the Heralds should appoint us our places) to go before this filthy fellow, for as according to Aristotle, a rider is an architectonical science to a sadler, and a sadler to a stirrup maker etc. so my discourse must needs be architectonical to his, sith I treat of the house itself, and he but of part of that is to be done in the house, & that no essential part of the business: for they say there be three things that if one neglect to do them, 
This may be omitted in reading.  they will do themselves; one is for a man to make even his reckonings, for who so neglects it will be left even just nothing; as other is to marry his daughters, for if the parents bestow them not, they will bestow themselves; the third is that, which the foresaid French man writes of: which they that omit, their lawndresses shall find it done in their linen. Which mishap a fair Lady once having, a serving man of the disposition of Midas Barber, that could not keep counsel had spied it, & wrote in the grossest terms it could be expressed, upon a wall, what he had seen, but a certain pleasant conceited Gentleman, corrected the barbarism, adding rhyme to the reason in this sort.  
My Lady hath polluted her lineal vesture,  
With the superfluity, of her corporal disgesture.  
But soft, I fear I give you too great a taste of my slovenly eloquence, in this sluttish argument. Wherhfore to conclude, I dare undertake, that though my discourse will not be so wise as the first of those seven I spoke of, that praises folly: yet it shall be civiller than the second, truer than the third, honester than the fourth: chaster than the sift, modester than the sixth, and cleanlier than the seventh. And that you and other of my good friends may take the less offence at it, I will clothe it (like an Ape in purple,) that it may be admitted into the better company: and if all the art I have cannot make it mannerly enough, the worst punishment it can have, is but to employ it in the house it shall treat of, only craving but that favour, that a noble man was wont to request of your good father in law, to tear out my name before it be so employed; and to him that would deny me that kindness, I would the paper were nettles, and the letters needles for his better ease: or that it were like to the friars book, dedicated as I take it to Pius quintus; of which one writes merrily, that his holiness finding it was good for nothing else, employed it (in steed of the goose neck) to a homely occupation, and forsooth the phrase was so rude, the style so rugged, and the Latin so barbarous, that therewith as he writes, scortigavit sedem Apostolicam. He galled the seat Apostolic: and so I commend me to you, till I send you the whole discourse.  Your loving cousin and true friend. MISAKMOS.  

THE PROLOGUE TO THE READER OF the Metamorphω-sis of Ajax.  
GReat Captain Ajax, as is well known to the learned, and shall here be published for the unlearned, was a warrior of Graecia; strong, heady, rash, boisterous, and a terrible fight fellow, but neither wise, learned, staid, nor Politic. Wherefore falling to bate with Ulysses, & receiving so fowl a disgrace of him, 
ovid. Meta. lib. 12.  to be called fool afore company, and being bound to the peace, that he might not fight with so great a Counsellor; he could endure it no longer, but became a perfect malcontent, viz. his hat without a band, his hose without garters, his waist without a girdle, his boots without spurs, his purse without coin, his head without wit, and thus swearing he would kill & slay; first he killed all the horned beasts he met, which made Agamemnon and Menelaus now, more afraid than Ulysses, whereupon he was banished the towns presently, and then he went to the woods and pastures, and imagining all the fat sheep he met, to be of kin to the coward Ulysses, because they ran away from him, he massacred a whole flock of good not Ewes. Last of all having no body else to kill, poor man killed himself; what became of his body is unknown, some say that wolves and bears did eat it, and that makes them yet such enemies to sheep and cattle. 
Lib. supra dicto.  But his blood as testifieth Povidius the excellent Historiographer, was turned into a Hiacint, which is a very notable kind of grass or flower.  
Now there are many miracles to be marked in this Metamorphosis, to confirm the credit of the same: for in the grass itself remains such pride of this noble blood, that as the graziers have assured me of their credits, (and some of them may be trusted for 100000 pounds) the rudder beasts that eat too greedily hereof will swell till they burst, the poor sheep still for an old grudge, would eat him without salt (as they say) but if they do, 
Salt recovers baned sheep.  they will soon after rot with it.  
Further I read that now of late years, 
Rabbles lib. 1. cap. 13.  a French Gentleman son to one Monsieur Gargasier, 
come Gargasier cognoit l'esprit excellent de Gargantua a l'inuentiond, untorche cull.  & a young Gentleman of an excellent spirit & towardness, as the reverent Rabbles (quem honoris causa nomino, that is, whom I should not name without savereverence) writeth in his first book 13. Cham but the story you shall find more at large in the xiv. book of his tenth Decad. 
Lib. Fictitius  This young gentleman having taken some three or four score pills to purge melancholy, every one as big as a Pome Cittern, commanded his man to mow an half acre of grass, to use at the privy, and notwithstanding that the owners (to save their hay perhaps) swore to him it was of that ancient house of Ajax, and therefore reserved of purpose only for horses of the race of Bucephalus, or Rabycano, yet he would not be persuaded: but in further contempt of his name, used a phrase that he had learned at his being in the low Countries, and bad Skite upon Ajax. But suddenly (whether it were the curse of the people, or the nature of the grass I know not (he was stricken in his posterioruns with S. Anthony's fire; and despairing of other help, he went on Pilgrimage in hope of remedy hereof to japana, near Chyna: where he met a French Surgeon, in the university of Miaco that cured him both of that & the Verol, that he had before in his prioruns; with the Momio, of a Graecian wench, that Ulysses buried in his travel, upon the coast of the further Aethiopia; and so he came back again by Restinga des ladrones, through S. Lazaro, and crossing both the Tropics, Cancer & Capricorn, he came by Magellanes, swearing he found no straits there; but came from thence strait home. And so in 24. hours sail, and two or three odd years beside, he accomplished his voyage, not forgetting to take fresh wine & water at Capon de bona speranza. Yet ere he could recover his healthfully, he was feign to make diverse vows (for now he was grown very religious with his long travel.) Among which one was, that in remembrance of China, of all meats, he would honour the Chine of beef most: an other was, that of all offices of the house, he should do honour to that house of office, where he had committed that scorn to Ajax: and that there, he should never use any more such fine grass, but rather, tear a leaf out of holinshed's Chronicles, or some of the books that lie in the hall; then to commit such a sin against Ajax. Wherefore immediately on his coming home, he built a sumptuous privy, and in the most conspicuous place thereof, namely just over the door; he erected a statue of Ajax, with so grim a countenance, that the aspect of it being full of terror, was half as good as a suppositor: and further to honour him, he changed the name of the house, & called it after the name of this noble Captain of the greasy ones (the Grecians I should say) Ajax: though since, by ill pronunciation, and by a figure called Cacophonia, the accent is changed, and it is called a jakes.  
Further when the funeral oration was ended, 
Hic desunt non paucae de sermone aeth clerum.  to do him all other compliments, that appertained to his honour; they searched for his petigrew, and an excellent Antiquary, and a Harold, by great fortune, found it out in an old Church book in the Austen Friars at Genova: and it was proclaimed on this fashion. 
Thus far ovid.   Ajax son of Telamonius. 
Thus much lib. 6. S. Aug. de civit. Dei. Ster●utius the God of dung.  son of Aeacus. son of jupiter. jupiter, aliâs dictus Picus. son of old Saturn. Aliâs dictus Stercutius. 
Which when it was made known unto the whole fraternity of the brethren, there was nothing but rejoicing and singing, unto their god Sarcotheos' a devout Shaame in honour of this Stercutius the great great grandfather of Ajax. Which Sonnet hath a marvelous grace in their country, by means they do greatly affect the same similiter desinentia, every Friar singing a verse, and a brother answering him in the tune following, amounting just to four and twenty, which is the mystical number of their order.  
But by the way, if any severe Cato's take exceptions, & any chaste Lucrecias take offence at the matter or music here following, let them pardon me, that sought but to keep decorum, in speaking of a slovenly matter, and of slovenly men somewhat slovenly.  
Vos verò viri eruditi si quae hic scurriliter nimis dicta videbuntur, ignoscite: aequissimum ●●im est, ut quam voluptatem scelerati male saciendo capiant▪ ●●ndem (quoad fieri potest) male audiendo amittant▪ Videt●● autem cuiusmodi farinae homines taxare instituimus: ●●n plos, doctos, sanctos, continentes, sed lu●urios●s, hereticos, barburos, impios. Quibus ego me per ●mne● vitam ace●●imum hostem, ut & verum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 semper pro●i●ebor. Nostis proverbium, Cretisandum cum Cretensibus, & cert● hoc dignum est pa●ella operculum. 
Such lips such lettuce.  Name similes habere debent labr● lactucas.  
O Tu qui dans, O tu qui dans, o ra cu lafoy, oracula, scindis cotem no vacula, cu-la, da nostra ut tabernacula, lingua canant vernacula, cu-la, lingua canant vernacula cula.  
O Tu qui dans, O tu qui dans, oracula, oracula, scindis cotem no vacula cula, da nostra ut tabernacu-la, cula, ut taberna-cula, lingua canant vernacula, cula, cula, lingua canant verna-cula.  

1. O tu qui dans oraculae  
2. Scindis cotem novacula  
3. Da nostra ut tabernacula  
4. Lingua canant vernacula  
5. Opima post gentacula  
6. Huiusmodi miracula●  
7. Sit semper plaenum poculum.  
8. Habentes plaenum loculum  
9 Tu serva nos ut specula●  
10. Per longa & laeta secular  
11. Vt clerus & plebecula  
12. Nec nocte nec diecula  
13. Curent de ulla recula,  
14. Sed intuentes specula  
15. Dura vitemus spicula  
16. jacentes cum amicula  
17. Quaegarrit ut cornicula●  
18. Seutristis ●euridicula  
19 Tum porrigamus oscula  
20. Tum colligamus floscula  
21. Ornemus ut caenaculum  
22. Et totum habitaculum  
23. Tum culi post spiraculum.  
24. Spectemus ho● spectaculu●.   
Then suitable to this hymn, they had ● dirge for Ajax, with a prayer to all their chief Saints whose names begin with A. 

Ora pro A JAX.  
Sauntus Ablabius  
Sauntus Acachius 
Some of these denied the godhead of Christ with Arrius, some the authority of Bishops as Aerius which you may see in Prateolo de vita●●ret●corum.   
Sauntus Arrius  
Sauntus Aerius  
Sauntus Aetius  
Sauntus Almaricus  
Saunti Adiophoristae 
Almarieus denied the resurrection of the body, which is an heresy that mars all, as S. Paul saith 1. Cor. 15. 14. That then our faith were vain.   
Saunti 11000 Anabaptistae  
Et tu Sauntiss. Atheos   And so ended the black Sauntus.  
By all which you may see, that it is but lack of learning, that makes some fellows seek out stolen English Etymologies of this renowned name of Ajax. One imagined, it was called so of black jacks; because they look so slovenly, that a mad French man wrote, we did carry our drink in our boots: but that is but a bald Etymology, and I will never agree, that jacke, though he were never so black, should be thus slandered. But if you stand so much upon your English, and will not admit our Greek, and our Roman tongue, you shall see I will cast about, to have one in English for you. First then, you have heard the old proverb (age breeds aches) now you must imagine, that an old man, almost pound with an ugly Mopsa, said, not without a greatsigh; Oh, what a match were this, were the woman away? But the devise that shall be hereafter discovered, will so confound this Gentleman with the strong breath, that save we carry about us some traitors, that are ready to take his part, he should never be able so much as to blow upon you. Yet I would have the favourable readers (of what sort soever) thus far satisfied, that I took not this quarrel upon me voluntarily, but rather in mine own defence; and standing upon the puntilio of honour, having been challenged, as you may partly see in the letter precedent, by one, as it seems, of the Captains own countrymen: for his name is Philostilpnos, which I thought at first, was a word to conjure a spirit, till at last, a fellow of mine of Cambridge, told me the Philo was Greeke, and that he would say in English, that he loveth cleanliness. Now I being bound by the Duello, having accepted the challenge, to seek no advantage, but even to deal with him at his own weapon, entered the lists with him, and fight after the old English manner without the stockadoes, (for to voine or strike below the girdle, we counted it base and too cowardly) after half a score downright blows, we grew to be friends, and I was content to subscribe, Yours &c. And to the end I may answer him in the same language, I am called Misacmos, which is cousin and ally to his name, and it signifies a hater of filthiness, and to all such as are of kin to either of our names or conditions, we commend this discourse ensuing.  

Ad Zoilum & Momum.  
Cease masters any more,  
To grudge, chafe, pine, and fret,  
Lo stuff for you good store  
To gnaw, chew, bite and eat.    

A short advertisement of the author to the Reader.  

The discourse ensuring is divided into three parts or sections (as it were breathing places) lest it may seem confused, or too tedious to be read all at once.  
1 The first justifies the use of the homelyest words.  
2 The second proves the matter not to be contemptible.  
3 The third shows the form, & how it may be reform.   

1. The first gins gravely, and ends lightly.  
2 The second gins pleasantly, and ends soberly.  
3 The third is mixed both seriously and merrily.   

1 I would pray you to weigh the grave authorities reverently, for they are true and authentical.  
2 I would wish you to regard the pleasant histories respectively, for they be honest and commendable.  
3 I would advise you to use the merry matters modestly, for so they may be faultless and harmless.   

1 If you mean not to read it, than dispraise it not, for that would be counted folly.  
2 Till you have fully read it, censure it not, for that may be deemed rashness.  
3 When you have read it, say both of us have lost more time than this in our days, and that perhaps would be judged the right.    

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF Ajax.  

THere was a very tall and serviceable Gentleman, sometime Lieutenant of the ordinance, called M. jaques Wingfield; who coming one day, either of business, or of kindness to visit a great Lady in the Court; the Lady bade her Gentlewoman ask, which of the Wingfields' is was; he told her jaques Wingfield: the modest Gentlewoman, that was not so well seen in the French, to know that jaques was but james in English, was so bashfoole, that to mend the matter (as she thought) she brought her Lady word, not without blushing, that it was M. Privy Wingfield; at which, I suppose the Lady then, I am sure the Gentleman after, as long as he lived, was wont to make great sport.  
I fear the homely title prefixed to this Treatise (how warlike a sound so ever it hath) may breed a worse offence, in some of the finer sort of readers; who may upon much more just occasion condemn it, as a noisome and unsavoury discourse: because, without any error of equivocation, I mean indeed, to write of the same that the word signifies. But if it might please them a little better to consider, how the place we treat of (how homely soever) is visited by themselves, once at least in four and twenty hours, if their digestion be good, and their constitution sound; then I hope they will do me that favour, and themselves that right, not to reject a matter teaching their own ease, and cleanliness, for the homeliness of the name; and consequently, they will excuse all broad phrases of speech, incident to such a matter, with the old English proverb that ends thus; For Lords and Ladies do the same. I know that the wiser sort of men will consider, & I wish that the ignorant sort would learn; how it is not the baseness, or homeliness, either of words, or matters, that make them foul and obscenous, but their base minds, filthy conceits, or lewd intents that handle them. He that would scorn a Physician, because for our infirmities sake, he refuseth not sometime the noisome view of our lothsomest excrements, were worthy to have no help by Physic, and should break his divine precept, that saith; Honour the Physician, for necessity's sake God hath ordained him. And he that would honour the makers of Aposticchios, or rebatoes, because creatures much honoured use to wear them, might be thought, perhaps full of courtesy, but void of wit.  
Surely, if we would enter into a sober and sad consideration of our estates, even of the happiest sort of us, as men of the world esteem us; whether we be noble, or rich, or learned, or beautiful, or healthy, or all these (which seldom happeneth) joined together we shall observe, that the joys we enjoy in this world, consist rather in indolentia (as they call it) which is an avoiding of grievances and inconveniences, then in possessing any passing great pleasures; so durable are the harms, that our first parent's fall hath laid on us, and so poor the helps that we have in ourselves: finally so short, and momentany the contentments that we fish for, in this Ocean of miseries, which either we miss, (fishing before the net, as the proverb is) or if we catch them they prove but like Eels, sleight and slippery. The chiefest of all our sensual pleasures, I mean that which some call the sweet sin of lechery, though God knows, it hath much sour sauce to it; for which notwithstanding, many hazard both their fame, their fortune, their friends, yea their souls; which makes them so oft break the sixth Commandment, that when they hear it read at Church, they leave the words of the Communion book, and say, Lord have mercy upon us, it grieves our hearts to keep this Law. And when the Commination is read on Ash-wednesday, wherein is read, Cursed be he that lieth with his neighbour's wife, and let all the people say, Amen; these people either say nothing, or as a neighbour of mine said, 
Some say amend, and so done, were very well said.  he hem; I say this surpassing pleasure, that is so much in request, and counted such a principal solace, I have heard confessed before a most honourable person, by a man of middle age, strong constitution, and well practised in this occupation, to have bred no more delectation to him (after the first heat of his youth was past) then to go to a good easy close stool, when he had a lust thereto (for that was his very phrase.) Which being confessed by him, and confirmed by many; makes me take this advantage thereof in the beginning of this discourse, 
Aiak's house preferred before a ba●●die house.  to prefer this house I mind to speak of, before those which they so much frequent; neither let any disdain the comparison. For I remember, how not long since, a grave & godly Lady, and grandmother to all my wives children, did in their hear, and for their better instruction, tell them a story; which though I will not swear it was true, yet I did wish the auditory would believe it; namely, how an Hermit being carried in an evening, by the conduct of an Angel, through a great city, to contemplate the great wickedness daily and hourly wrought therein; met in the street a gongfarmer with his cart full laden, no man envying his full measure. The poor Hermit, as other men did, stopped his nostrils, and betook him to the other side of the street, hastening from the sour carriage all he could; but the Angel kept on his way, seeming no whit offended with the savour. At which while the Hermit marveled, there came not long after by them, a woman gorgeously attired, well perfumed, well attended with coaches, & torches, to convey her perhaps to some noble man's chamber. The good Hermit somewhat revived with the fair sight, and sweet savour, began to stand at the gaze. On the other side, the good Angel now stopped his nose, and both hastened himself away, and beckoned his companion from the place. At which the Hermit more marveling then before, he was told by the Angel, that this fine courtesan laden with sin, was a more stinking savour afore God and his holy Angels, than that beastly cart, laden with excrements. I will not spend time to allegorize this story, only I will wish all the readers may find as sure a way to cleanse, and keep sweet the noblest part of themselves, that is, their souls; as I shall show them a plain and easy way, to keep sweet the basest part of their houses, that is, their sinks. But to the intent I may bind myself to some certain method, I will first awhile continue as I have partly begun, to defend by most authentical authorities and examples, the use of these homely words in so necessary matters. Secondly, concerning the matter itself, I will show how great, and extraordinary care hath been had in all ages, for the good ordering of the same. Lastly, for the form, I will set down the cheapest, perfectest, and most infallible, for avoiding all the inconveniences the matter is subject to; that hitherto (if I and many more be not much deceived) was ever found out.  
When I was a truantly scholar in the noble University of Cambridge (though I hope I had as good a conscience as other of my pewfellows, to take but a little learning for my money) yet I can remember, how a very learned and reverent Divine help this question in the schools. Scripturae stylus non est barbarus. The style, or phrase of the Scripture is not barbarous. Against whom one replied with this argument. 
That which is obscenous, may be called barbarous:  
But the Scripture is in many places obscenous:  
Therefore the Scripture may be called barbarous.  To which syllogism was truly answered (as I now remember denying the minor) that though such phrases to us seem obscenous, and are so when they are used to ribaldry, or lasciviousness, yet in the Scripture they are not only void of incivility, but full of sanctity; that the Prophets do in no place more effectually, more earnestly, nor more properly beat down our pride and vanity, and open to our eyes the filthiness, and horror of our sins, then by such kind of phrases, of which they recited that, where it is said, that the sins of the people were, 
●sa. 64.  quasi pannus menstruatae universae justitiae nostrae, that a common or strange woman (for so the Scripture covertly termeth a harlot) hath her quiver open for every arrow; that an old lecherous man, is like a horse that neigheth after every mare, etc. To which I could add many more, if I affected copiousness in this kind; some in broad speeches, some in covert terms, expressing men's shame, men's sins, men's necessities. Quinque aureos anos facietis pro quinque satrapis, which our English of Geneva translates very modestly. Ye shall make ●iue golden Emeralds for five Noblemen or Princes. Which word I am sure, many of the simple hearers, and readers, take for a precious stone of the Indians, set in gold; & so they shall still take it for me, for that ignorance, may perhaps do them less hurt in this matter, than further knowledge; but yet what a special Scripture that is to God's glory & their shame, appears by David's prophecy in the 77. Psalm, where he saith; Percussit inimicos suos in posteriora, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis. He smote his enemies in the hinder parts, and put them to a perpetual shame; in remembrance whereof, in some solemn liturgies, until this day the same Chap. of Aureos anos is read.  
What should I speak of the great league between God and man, made in Circumcision? impressing a painful stigma, or character in Gods peculiar people, though now, most happily taken away in the holy Sacrament of Baptism. What the word signified, I have known reverent & learned men have been ignorant; and we call it very well Circumcision, and uncircumcision, though the Remists (of purpose be like to vary from Geneva) will needs bring in Prepuse; which word was after admitted into the Theatre with great applause, by the mouth of Master Tarlton the excellent Comedian; when many of the beholders that were never circumcised, had as great cause as Tarlton, to complain of their Prepuse. But to come soberly, & more nearly to our present purpose; In the old Testament, the phrase is much used of covering the feet, and in the new Testament, he that healeth & helpeth all our infirmities, used the word draft; that that goeth into the man, is digested in the stomach, and cast out into the draft. Lastly, the blessed Apostle S. Paul, being rapt in contemplation of divine blissfulness, compares all the chief felicities of the earth, esteeming them (to use his own word) as stercora, most filthy dung, in regard of the joys he hoped for. In imitation of which zealous vehemency, some other writers have affected to use such phrase of speech, but with as ill success, as the ass that leapt on his master at his coming home, because he saw a little spaniel, that had so done, much made of: for in deed, these be counted but foul mouthed beasts for their labours.  
But to conclude these holy authorities, worthy to be alleged in most reverent and serious manner; and yet here also I hope without offence: let us come now to the ridiculous, rather than religious customs of the Pagans, and see, if this contemptible matter I treat of, were despised among them; nay rather observe, if it were not respected with a reverence, with an honour, with a religion, with a duty, yea with a deity, & no marvel. For they that had Gods and Goddesses, for all the necessaries of our life, from our cradles to our graves, viz. 1. for sucking, 2. for swathing, 3. for eating, 4. for drinking, 5. for sleeping, 6. for husbandry, 7. for venery, 8. for fight, 9 for physic, 10. for marriage, 11. for childbed, 12. for fire, 13. for water, 14. for the thresholds, 15. for the attorneys; the names of which I do set down by themselves, to satisfy those that are curious. 1. Lacturtia, 2. Cunina, 3. Edulicae, 4. Potina, 5. Morpheus, 6. Pan, 7. Priapus, 8. Bellona, 9 Aesculapius, 10 Hymen, 11. Lucina, and Vagitanus, 12. Aether, 13. Salacia, 14. Lares, 15. Penates. I say, you must not think, they would commit such an oversight, to omit such a necessary, as almost in all languages, hath the name of necessity, or ease: wherefore they had both a God and a Goddess, that had the charge of the whole business; the God was called Stercutius, as they writ, because he found so good an employment for all manner of dung, as to lay it upon the land: or perhaps it was he, that first found the excellent mystery of the kind setting of a Parsnippe (which I will not here discover, because I heard of a truth, that a great Lady that loved Parsnips very well, after she had heard how they grew, could never abide them) and I would be loath, to cause any to fall out of love with so good a dish. Nevertheless (except they will have better bread than is made of wheat) they must (how fine so ever they be) give M. Stercutius leave, to make the land able to bear wheat. But the Goddess was much more especially, and properly assigned for this business, whose name was Dea Cloacina, her statue was erected by Titus Tacius, he that reigned with Romulus, in a goodly large house of office (a fit shrine for such a Saint) which Lodovicus Vi●es cities out of Lactantius. But he that will more particularly inform himself of the original of all these petty Gods and Goddesses; as also of the greater, which they distinguished by the name of Dij consentes, which are according to old Ennius' verse, divided into two ranks of Lords and Ladies. 
Iun●, 
These Gods were of the privy council to jupiter, 23. Chap. 4. book.  Vesta, Minerva, Ceresque Diana, Venus, Mars,  
Mercurius, Neptunus, lovis, Vulcanus, Apollo.  Of all which S. Augustine writes most divinely, to overthrow their divinity; and therefore I refer the learned and studious reader, to his fourth and sixth book de Civitate Dei, where the original, and vanity of all these Gods and Goddesses, is more largely discoursed: with a pretty quip to Seneca the great Philosopher, who being in heart half a Christian, as was thought; yet because he was a Senator of Rome, 
S. Augustine 6. book 10. chap. L.  was feign (as S. Augustine saith) to follow that he found fault with, to do that he disliked, to adore that he detested. But come we to my stately Dame Cloacina, and her Lord Stercutius, though these were not of the higher house, called Consentes; yet I hope for their antiquity, they may make great comparison: for he is said to have been old Saturn, father to Pycus that was called jupiter; and Cloacina was long before Priapus, and so long before Felicity, that S. Augustine writes merrily, that he thinks verily, Felicity forsook the Romans, for disdain that Cloacina and Priapus were deified so long before her; adding Imperium Romanorum propterea grandius, quam felicius fuit. The Roman Empire therefore was rather great, then happy. But how so ever Lady Felicity disdains her, no question but Madam Cloacina was always a very good fellow: for it is a token of special kindness, to this day among the best men in France, to reduce a Syllogism in Bocardo together. Insomuch as I have heard it seriously told, that a great Magnifico of Venice, being Ambassador in France, and hearing a Noble person was come to speak with him, made him stay till he had untied his points; and when he was new set on his stool, sent for the Noble man to come to him at that time; as a very special favour. And for other good fellowships I doubt not, but from the beginning it hath often happened, that some of the Nymphs of this gentle goddess, have met so luckily with some of her devout chaplains, in her chapels of ease, and paid their privy tithes so duly, and done their service together with such devotion; that for reward, she hath preferred them within forty weeks after to juno Lucina, and so to Vagitana, Lacturtia, and Cunina: for even to this day, such places continue very fortunate. And whereas I named devotion, I would not have you think, how homely soever the place is, that all devotion is excluded from it. For I happening to demand of a dear friend of mine, concerning a great companion of his, whether he were religious or no, and namely if he used to pray; he told me, that to his remembrance he never heard him ask any thing of God, nor thank God for any thing; except it were at a jakes, he heard him say, he thanked God, he had had a good stool. Thus you see, a good stool might move as great devotion in some man, as a bad sermon; & sure it suits very well, that Quorum Deus est venture, eorum templum sit cloaca. he that makes his belly his god, I would have him make a jakes his chapel. But he that would in deed call to mind, how Arrius, that notable and famous, or rather infamous heretic, came to his miserable end upon a jakes; might take just occasion even at that homely business, to have godly thoughts; rather then as some have, wanton, or most have, idle. To which purpose I remember in my rhyming days, I wrote a short Elegy upon a homely Emblem; which both verse and Emblem, they have set up in Cloacinas chapel, at my house very solemnly. And I am the willinger to impart it to my friends, because I protest to you truly, a sober Gentleman protested to me seriously; that the conceit of the picture & the verse, was an occasion to put honest and good thoughts into his mind. And Plutarch defends with many reasons, in his book called Symposeons, 
Lib. 5. qu●st. 1.  that where the matters themselves often are unpleasant to behold, their counterfeits are seen not without delectation.  
Sprint● non spint●. More feared then hurt.  
A godly father sitting on a draft,  
To do as need, and nature hath us taught;  
Mumbled (as was his manner) certain prayers,  
And unto him the Devil strait repayr's:  
And boldly to revile him he gins,  
Alleging that such prayer's are deadly sins;  
And that it showed, he was devoid of grace,  
To speak to God, from so unmeet a place.  
The reverent man, though at the first dismayed,  
Yet strong in faith, to Satan thus he said;  
Thou damned spirit, wicked, false and lying,  
Dispa●ring thin● own good, and ours envying:  
Each take his due, and me thou canst not hurt,  
To God my prayer I meant, to thee the dirt.  
Pure prayer ascends to him that high doth sit,  
Down falls the filth, for fiends of hell more fit.  
Wherefore, though I grant many places and times are much fit for true devotion, yet I dare take it upon me; that if we would give the Devil no kinder entertainment in his other suggestions, than this father gave him in his causeless reproof (for he gave it him in his teeth, take it how he would,) I say we should not so easily be overthrown with his assaults, as daily we are, 
For want of the good take heed.  for lack of due resistance. But come we now to more particular and not so serious matter; have not many men of right good conceit, served themselves with diverse pretty emblems, of this excremental matter. As that in Alciat, to show that base fellows oft-times swim in the stream of good fortune, as well as the worthiest. Nos quoque poma nat amus. Or as the old proverb, 
Pom●, signifies horsedong as well as apple●.  as well as emblem, that doth admonish men not to contend with base and ignominious persons. 
Hoc scio pro certo, quod si cum sterc●re cert●  
Vinco ceu vincor, semper ego maculor.  
I know if I contend with dirty foes,  
I must be foiled, whether I win or lose.  Which Emblem had almost hindered me the writing of this present discourse, save that a good friend of mine told me, that this is a fancy and not a fight, and that if it should grow to a fight; he assured me I had found so excellent a ward against his chief dart, which is his strong breath, that I were like to quit my hands in the fray, as well as any man. But to proceed in these rare Emblems; who hath not read or heard, of the Picture made in Germany, at the first rising of Luther? where to show as it were by an Emblem, with what dross, and draff, the Pope and his partners fed the people; they caused him to be portrayed in his Pontificalibus riding on a great sow, and holding before her taster, a dirty pudding: which dirty devise, Sleidan the Historian very justly and gravely, both reports and reproves; yet it served a turn for the time, and made great sport to the people. But when this May-game was done, an hundred thousand of them came home by weeping cross; so as the poor sow was not only sold by the ears, but sold by a drum, or slain by the sword. Yet the Flaunders cow, had more wit than the German sow: for she was made after an other sort, viz. the Mirror of Princes feeding her, the Terror of Princes spurring her, the Prince of Orange milking her, or after some such fashion, for I may fail in the particulars; but the conclusion was, that Monsieur d' alanson (who indeed with most noble endeavour, though not with so happy success, attempted them) would have pulled her back by the tail, and she filled his fingers. And thus much for Emblems. Now for poesy (though Emblems also are a kind of poesy) I rather doubt, that the often usage of such words, will make the Poets be condemned; then that the Poet's authorities, will make the words be allowed: but if their example can give any countenance to them, they shall want none. It is certain, that of all poems, the Epigram is the wittiest, & of all that writes Epigrams, martial is counted the pleasantest. He in his 38. ep. of his first book, hath a distichon, that is very pliable to my purpose; of one that was so stately, that her close stool was of gold, but her drinking cup of glass. 
Ventris onus puro, 
1. 38.  nec te pudet excipis auro:  
Sed b●bis in vitro, charius ergo cacas.  And in the same book, to the gentlewoman that had a pleasure, to have her dog lick her lips, as many do now a days.  
Os, & labra, 
1. 74.  tibi lingit Mane●a Catellus:  
Non miror merdas, si libet esse can●.  
Thy dog still licks thy lips, but 'tis no hurt:  
I manuel not, to see a dog eat dirt.  
Further in his third book, he mocks one of his fellow Poets, that drove away all good company with his verses, every man thought it such a penance to hear them.  
Na● tantos rogo quis ferat labores, 
3. 44.   
Et stanti legis, & legis sedenti,  
Currenti legis, & legis cacanti,  
In Thermas fugio sonas ad aurem, etc.  
Alas my head with thy long readings aches,  
Standing or sitting, thou readst every where,  
If I would walk, if I would go t' Ajax,  
If to the Bath, thou still art in mine ear.  
Whereby the way, you may note that the French courtesy I spoke of before, came from the Romans'; sith in Marshal's time, they shunned not one the others company, at Monsieur Ajax. But now it may be some man will say, that these wanton and ribald phrases, were pleasing to those times of licentiousness, and paganism that knew not Christ; but now they are abhorred and detested, & quite out of request. I would to God with all my heart, he lied not that so said; and that indeed Religion could root out as it should do, all such wanton and vain toys (if they be all wanton and vain) yet I am sure, that even in this age, & in this realm, men of worth, and wit, have used the words and phrases, in as homely sort as Martial, some in light, some in serious matter. Among Sir Thomas Moor's Epigrams, that fly over all Europe for their wit & conceit, the very last (to make a sweet conclusion) is this, 
Sectile ne tetros porrum tibi spiret odores;  
Protinus ● porro fac mihi cepe vores,  
Den●o foet●rem si vis depellere cepe:  
Hoc facile efficient allia mansa tibi;  
Spiritus at si post etiam gravis, allia res● at;  
Aut nihil, aut tantum, tollere ●●erda potest.   
Which for their sakes that love garlic, I have taken some pains with, though it went against my stomach once or twice.  
If leeks you leek, but do their smell disleeke,  
Eat onions, and you shall not smell the leek:  
If you of onions would the sent expel,  
Eat garlic, that shall drown the onions smell,  
But against garlikes savour, at one word,  
I know but one receipt, what's that? go look.  
Now fie, will you name it, and read it to Ladies, thus you make them blame me that meant no less. But to come again to pleasant Sir Thomas, he hath another Epigram, that though this was but a sour one, I durst as live be his half at this as at that, and it is about a medicine for the colic. 
Te crepitus perdit ni●●ium, si ventre ret entus,  
Te pr●pere emissus servat item crepitus:  
Si crepitus servare potest, & perdere nunquid,  
Terrificis crepitus, regibus aequa potest.  Thus ilfavoredly in English, 
Non'est bonum luderecum sanctu.  for I will tell you true, my Muse was afraid to translate this Epigram: 
It is good to play with your fellows.  & she brought me out three or four sayings against it, both in Latin and English: 
An ●escis lon●as regibus esse manus.  and two or three shrewd examples, both of this last Poet, who died not of the colic, 
He was beheaded.  and of one Collingborne, that was hanged for a distichon of a Cat, a rat, & a dog. Yet I opposed Murus aheneus esto nil conscire sibi, and so with much a do, she came out with it. 
To break a little wind,  
Sometime ones life doth save.  
For want of vent behind,  
Some folk their ruin have:  
A power it hath therefore,  
Of life, and death express:  
A king can cause no more,  
A crack doth do no less.  And when she had made it in this sorry fashion, she bade me wish my friends, that no man should follow Sir Th. Moor's humour, to write such Epigrans as he wrote, except he had the spirit, 
Two Apothegms of Sir Thomas More.  to speak two such Apothegms as he spoke, of which the last seems to fall fit into our text. The first was, when the King sent to him to know if he had changed his mind; he answered, yea: the King sent strait a counsellor to him, to take his subscription to the fix Articles. Oh said he, I have not changed my mind in that matter, but only in this; I thought to have sent for a Barber, to have been shaven ere I had died, but now if it please the King, he shall cut off head; and beard, and all together. But the other was milder, and prettier; for after this, one coming to him as of good will, to tell him he must prepare him to die, for he could not live: he called for his urinal, and having made water in it, he cast it, & viewed it (as Physicians do) a pretty while; at last he swore soberly, that he saw nothing in that man's water, but that he might live, if it pleased the King; a pre●i● saying, both to note his own innocency, and move the Prince to mercy: and it is like, if this tale had been as friendly told the King, as the other perhaps was unfriendly enforced against him, sure the King had pardoned him. But alas what cared he, (to say truth) what need he care, that cared not for death? But to step back to my teshe (though every place I step to, yields me sweeter discourse) what think you by Haywood, that scaped hanging with his mirth, the King being graciously and (as I think) truly persuaded, that a man that wrote so pleasant and harmless verses, could not have any harmful conceit against his proceed, and so by the honest motion of a Gentleman of his chamber, saved him from the jerk of the six stringd whip. This Haywood for his Proverbs & Epigrams, is not yet put down by any of our country, though one doth indeed come near him, that graces him the more, in saying he puts him down. But both of them have made sport with as homely words as ours be▪ 
M. Davies.  one of a Gentlewoman's glove, save that without his consent it is no good manners to publish it but old Haywood's saith: 
Except wind stand, as never wind sto●d,  
It is an ill wound blows no man good.   
And another not unpleasant, one that I cannot omit. 
By word without writing one let out a farm,  
The lessee most lewdly the rent did retain,  
Whereby the lesser wanting writing had harm:  
Wherefore he vowed, while life did remain,  
Without writing never to let thing again▪  
Husband quoth the wife, that oath again revart,  
Else without writing you cannot let a crack  
God thank the sweet wife, quoth he, from my heart:  
And so on the lips did her lovingly smack.  Such a thing it was, but not having the book here, and my memory being no better than I would have it, I have stumbled on it as well as I can. But now to strike this matter dead with a sound authority indeed, and in so serious a matter as under heaven is no weightier, to such a person, as in the world is no worthier, from such a scholar, as in Oxford was no learneder, mark what a verse here is, an Eucharistical and paraenetical verse. He saith: 
It Italici Augaei stabulum foedumque cloacam,  
Ate purgars Romanaque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tolli.   
If he had said Stercora, I could guess well enough what it had meant, but that the Greek hath in some ears a better emphasis. Thus writes their great Campiano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that confounds all the Puritano Papist as. 
M. Raynolds much more seemly useth the metaphor, li. 1 c. 8. p. 290.  And yet to say truly, I make no great boast of his authority to my text. If I had alleged him in Divinity, I would have stood ●ustily to it, 
Iesuitae ●imum in ipsius capt●● re●orquere.  and said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but for verses in praise of his Mistress, there be twenty of us may set him to school: for be it spoken without disgrace or dispraise to his Poetry, such a metaphor had been fit for a plain Dame, abhorring all Princely pomp, and not refusing to wear russet coats, then for the magnificent Majesty of a Maiden Monarch. Believe me, I would fain have made him speak good rhyme in English, but (as I am a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) I beat my brains about it, the space that one may go with the tide from London bridge, down where the Priest fell in upon the maid, and from thence almost to Wapping, and yet I could not couch it into a cleanly distichon. But yet because I know Mistress Philostilpnos will have a great mind to know what it means, I will tell her by some handsome circumlocution. His meaning is, that a Lady of Ladies, did for zeal to the Lord of Lords, take the like pains to purge some Popish abuses, as the great giantly Hercules did for Augeus. Now what manner of work that was, in the process of this discourse one way or other, you shall see me bring it in, though yet I know not where will be the fittest place for it: here yet you see by the way I have told the man's meaning reasonable mannerly, yet still me think I can say of his metaphor, 
That still (me think) he used a phrase as pliant,  
That said, his Mistress was for wit a giant.   
But I pray you let me go back again to merry martial: for I should have one more of his, if I have not lost it, Ad Phoebum. Oh here I have it. 
Vtere lactucis & mollibus utere maluis, 
3. 68   
Nam faciem durum Phoebe cacantis, habes.  He advises him to take somewhat to make him soluble, for his face looked as if he were ask, who should be M. Mayor the next year. But I think this jest was borrowed of Vespasianus fool, or else the fool borrowed it of him: but the jest is worthy to be received into this discourse. This fool had jested somewhat at all the board, save Vespasian himself; and belike he thought, it was ill playing with edge tools, and Emperors; but Vespasian commanded him, and promised him frank pardon, to break a good jest upon him. Well Sir (than said the fool) I will but tarry till you have done your business; whereby he quipped the emperors ill feature of face, that even when he was merriest, looked as if he had been wring hard on a close stool. But let us seek some better authorities than Epigrams and jesters: sure I am I shall find in history, which is called nuncia vetustatis, vita memoriae, the reporter of antiquities, the life of memory, many phrases, expressing the same action, and not thinking their style any whit abased thereby. He that writes the first book of Samuel tells, that David did cut off the lap of Saules coat, 
1. Sam. 24. Spelunca quam i●gressus est Saul, ut purgaret ventrem.  & leaves not to tell, what Saul was then doing. The writer of Bassianus life tells, how he was not only privily murdered, but murdered at the privy. Heliogabulus body was thrown into a jakes, 
S●etonius.  as writ●th Suetonius. Lastly the best, and best written part of all our Chronicles, in all men's opinions, is that of Richard the third, written as I have heard by Morton▪ but as most suppose, by that worthy, and uncorrupt Magistrate, Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, where it is written, how the king was devising with Teril, how to have his nephews privily murdered, and it is added, he was then sitting on a draft (a fit carpet for such a counsel.) But to leave these tragical matters, and come to comical, look into your sports of hawking and hunting, of which noble recreations, the noble Sir Philip Sidney was wont to say, that next hunting, he liked hawking worst, but the falconers and hunter's would be even with him, and say, that these bookish fellows, such as he, could judge of no sports, but within the verge of the fair fields of Helicon, Pindus, and Pernasus. Now I would ask you Sir, lest you should think I never read Sir Tristram. Do you not sometime (beside the fine phrase, or rather Metaphor, of inewing a woodcock) talk, both of putting a heron to the mount, & then of his s●cing? ●ell of springing a pheasant and a partridge, and find them out by their dropping? Do you not further, to judge of your haulkes health; look on her casting? if it be black at one end, and the rest yellow, you fear she hath the phillanders, if it be all black, you shall see and smell, she is not sound. Lastly, you have a special regard to observe, if she make a clean mute. Moreover for hunting, when you have harboured a stag, or lodged a buck, doth not the keeper, before he comes to rouse him from his lodging, (not without some ceremony) show you his femishing, that thereby you may judge if he be a seasonable dear? And soon after, follows the melodious cry of the hounds, which the good Lady could not hear, because the dogs kept such a barking. And when all this is done, and you are rehearsing at dinner what great sport you have had: in the midst of your sweet meats, in comes Melampus, or Ringwood, that sang the base that morning, and in the return home, lighted upon some powdered vermin, and lays a chase under the table, that makes all as sweet as any suger-carrion; & all this you willingly bear with, because it is your pastime. Thus you must needs confess, it is more than manifest, that without reproof of ribaldry, or scurrility, writings both holy, and profane, Emblems, Epigrams, Histories, and ordinary and familiar communication; admits the use of the words, with all their appurtenances; in citing examples whereof, I have been the more copious, because of this captious time, so ready to backbite every man's work, and I would forewarn men not to bite here, lest they bite an unsavoury morsel. But here me think it were good to make a pause, & (as it were at a long dinner) to take away the first course; which commonly is of the coarsest meat, as powdered biele and mustard, or rather (to compare it fit) fresh beef and garlic; for that hath three properties, more suiting to this discourse: viz. to make a man wink, drink, and stink. Now for your second course, I could wish I had some larks, and quails, but you must have such as the market I come from will afford, always remembered, that our retiring place, or place of rend vous (as is expedient when men have filled their bellies) must be Monsieur Ajax, for I must still keep me to my tesh: wherefore as I say, here I will make the first stop, and if you mislike not the fare thus far, I will make the second course make you some amends.   

THE SECOND SECTION, proving the matter not to be contemptible.  
IT hath been in the former part hereof sufficiently proved, that there is no obscenity, or barbarism in words concerning our necessaries: but now for the place, where these necessaries are to be done, perhaps some will object, that it was never of that importance, but that it was left to each man's own care to provide, for that which concerned his own peculiar necessity. It is not so, for I can bring very authentical proofs out of ancient records, and histories; that the greatest magistrates that ever were, have employed their wits, their care, and their cost, about these places; as also have made diverse good laws, proclamations, and decrees about the same: & all thereto belonging; as by this that ensues shall more plainly appear. In the handling whereof. I will use a contrary method to the former: for I will begin now with profane stories, and end with divine. First therefore most certain it is, that mischiefs make us seek remedies, diseases make us find medicines, & evil manners make good laws. And as in all other things, so by all likelihood in this we now treat of, when companies of men began first to increase, and make of families towns, and of towns cities, they quickly found not only offence, but infection, to grow out of great concourse of people, if special care were not had to avoid it. And because they could not remove houses, as they do tents, from place to place, they were driven to find the best means that their wits did then serve them, to cover, rather than to avoid these annoyances: either by digging pits in the earth, or placing the common houses over rivers: but as Tully saith of Metaphors, that they were like our apparel: first devised to hide nakedness, then applied for comeliness, and lastly abused for pride: so I may say of these homely places, that first they were provided for b●●e necessity, for indeed till Romulus' time I find little mention of them; then they came to be matters of some more cost, as shall appear in examples following; and I think I might also lay pride to their charge: for I have seen them in cases of fugerd satin, and velvet (which is flat against the statute of apparel) but for sweetness or cleanliness, 
33. Henry 8. For it is no reason M. Ajax should have a better gown than his Mistress.  I never knew yet any of them guilty of it; but that if they had but waited on a Lady in her chamber a day, or a night, they would have made a man (at his next entrance into the chamber) have said, so, good speedy. Now, as scholars do daily seek out new phrases, & metaphors; and Tailors do oft invent new farthingales, and breeches: so I see no reason, but Magistrates may as well now as heretofore, devise new orders for cleanliness, and wholesomeness. But now to the stories, I alleged before, as it were at the second hand, out of Lactantius; how Titus' Tacius that was king with Romulus, erected the Statue of the Goddess Cloacina, in a great Privy, made for that purpose. I find after this in the story of Livy, how Tarqvinius Pryscus, a man of excellent good spirit, but husband to awife of a more excellent spirit; a man that won a kingdom with making a learned oration, and lost it with hearing a rude one; a king, that was first crowned by an Eagle, counseled by an Augur, and killed by a traitor; whose reign & his ruin, were both most strangely foretold. This worthy Prince is reported by that excellent historian, to have made two provisions for his city, one for war, the other for peace, both very commendable: for war a stone wall about the town, to defend them from outward invasions; and for peace, a goodly jakes within the town, with a vault to convey all the filth into Tiber, to preserve them from inward infection.  
Not long after him reigned Tarqvinius, surnamed the Proud, a tyrant I confess, and an usurper, and husband to a dragon rather than a woman: but himself surely, a man valiant in war, provident in peace, and in that young world, a notable politician: of whom Livy takes this special note, that coming to the crown without law, and fearing others might follow his example, to do that to him, he had done to another's he was the first that appointed a a guard for his person, the first that drew public matters to private hear, the first that made private wars, private peace, private confederacies; the first that lessened the number of the Senators; the first, that when any of them died, kept their rooms void, with many excellent Machiavillen lessons; which, who so would be better instructed of, let him read but his accusing of Turnus, his stratagem against the Gabians, etc. But the matter I would praise him for, is none of all these, but only, because he built a stately temple, and a costly jakes, the words be, Cloacámque maximam receptaculum omnium purgamentorum urbis, a mighty great vault to receive all the filth of the city. Of which two works, joining them both together, Livy saith thus, Quibus duobus operibus, vix nova haec magnificentia quicquam adequavit. Which two great works, the new magnificence of this our age, can hardly match. Now though Brutus, after in a popular & seditious oration, to incite the multitude to rebellion, debased this worthy work of his, saying he wasted the treasure of the realm, and tired & toiled out the people, in exhauriendis cloacis, in emptying of jaxes (for that was his word) yet it appears by the history, that if his son had not deflowered the chaste Lucrece (the mirror of her sex) Brutus with his feigned folly, true value, and great eloquence, could never have displaced him. For even with all his faults you see, that Brutus his own sons would have had him again; who laying their heads together, with many young gallants, that thought themselves much wiser than their fathers; concluded among themselves, that a king was better than a Consul, a Court better than a Senate; that to live only by laws, was too strict and rigorous a life, and better for pesantly then princely dispositions: that Kings could favour, as well as frown, reward, as well as revenge, pardon, as well as punish, whereas the law was merciless, mute, and immutable, finally, they concluded it was ill living for them, where nothing but innocency could protect a man. Lo Brutus, how eloquently thy sons can plead against their father; but thou hast a jury of sure freeholders, that gave a verdict against them, and thyself waste both judge and sheriff, and hastenedst execution.  
O brave minded Brutus! I will not call thee primus Romanorum, because one was shent for calling one of thy posterity, ultimus Romanorum, but this I must truly say, they were two Brutish parts both of him, and you; one to kill his sons for treason, the other to kill his father in treason; 
Caesar called Brutus son, and said to him when he stabbed at him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and yet you would both make us believe you had reason, and why so? forsooth because Victrix causa placet superis, sed victa Catoni. That is to say in English, You had great fortune, and your cousin had great friends, yet neither died in bed, but both in battle, only his death was his enemy's advancement, and thy death was thy enemy's destruction. But to omit these trifles, and to return to my tesh; whereas thou railest against so great a Prince, for making of so sumptuous a jakes, this I cannot endure at thy hands: & if thou hadst played me such a saucy part here in my country, first of mine own authority, 
It seems the writer hereof would fain be thought a justice of peace.  I would have granted the good behaviour against you: secondly, Tarqvinius himself might have Scandalum magnatum against you: & thirdly, a bill should have been framed against you in the Star chamber, upon the statute of unlawful assemblies: & than you would have wished you had kept your eloquence to yourself, and not when a man hath done but two good works in all his life, you to stand railing at one of them. For suppose that Tarquin had given me but a fee, thus would I plead for him. Master Brutus you have made us believe all this while, you were but a fool; but I see now, if one had begged you, he should have found you a Bygamus. And whereas you seem to disgrace my honourable client, for making of A JAX, I dare undertake to prove it, that your own laws, your religions, your customs, yea your conscience, is against you, and shows, it is but a mere calumniation. For to omit Dame Cloacina, so lately deified, did not the noble Hercules, whom you Brutus honour as a God, far ancienter than Quirinus, and Romulus, among those many labours that eternised his memory, make clean Augeus' dunghills. 
Quis non Euristea durum  
Aut illaudati nescit Busiridis arras.  If the work have a baseness, Tarqvinius but with his purse, Hercules with his person effected it, leaving a pattern to posterity both of labour and wit, for by turning a stream of water on the mickesons, he scoured away that in a week, that an hundred could scant have done in a year. Then would I end with some exclamation, and say, O tempora, o mores! Oh times, oh manners! If a man be not popular, you will strait say, he is proud; if he keep good hospitality, you will say he doth but fill many jaxes; if he build goodly faults for sewers, you will say, he spends his treasure in exhauriendis cloacis Or rather I would say, O Hercules come and bend thy bow against Brutus, that shoots arrows through thy sides to slay Tarqvinius. 
Martial. 505 Ca●p●r●●●usidi 〈◊〉 fertur meacarmina qui●● N●scio si sciero ve ti●i causidice.  But now let me leave playing the lawyer, and lawyerlike be friends immediately with him whom even now I talked against so earnestly, I mean with Brutus; because indeed saving in this one case, I never mean to be of counsel with Tarquin: for such proud clients will speak us passing fair while we serve their turns, & after pick a quarrel against us when we sue for a reward. Now therefore to go forward with the story.  
When this valiant Brutus had thus discharged the Kings and Queens out of the pack, and showed himself indeed a sworn and vowed enemy to all the coat cards, there crept in many new forms of government, and every one worse than other, namely, Consuls, Dictator's, Decemuiri, Tribunes, Triumuiri, till at last after oft interchanges, it came to the government of Emperors. In all which times, there were not only laws, and special caveats given to the great officers in time of war and danger, Ne quid respab detrimenticaperet, to look to the safety of the main chance (the common wealth) but also there were officers of good account, as Aediles, Praetores urbis▪ that made inquiries de stillicijis, de aquae ductibus, of reparation of houses, of watercourses, or common sewers, of which I could recite out of the 43. book of the Digest. tit. 23. de cloacis. where you shall find: It was lawful for any man purgare & reficere cloacam: What officers were to licence him that would privatam cloacam facere, quae habeat exitum in publicum: What special care was to be had of Tubus and Fistula. Lastly, that novam cloacam facere is concedit, cui publicar●̄ viarum cura sit. That is, that no man might make a new jakes, but he that had licence of the wardens of high ways. With much more which I would cite, if it were not to avoid prolixity. And from them no doubt was derived our commission of sewers, of which, the best of us all I hope, will take no scorn: which commission, though in our country it is chief intended to keep open the channels of rivers in the deep country, that the water may have free passage. Yet the very name imports, that therein is comprised the subject of my present Discourse, which in populous towns had as much need to be looked to, as the other, infection being fit to be avoided aswell as inundation. But now I hasten to imperial examples: for though I have showed already some authorities for my text, out of the practice of the laws, the provident care of Magistrates, the magnificent cost of kings, the religion (though false) of pagans. Yet until I have added to all these, the majesty of Emperors, and the verity of Scriptures, I suppose some carping mouths will not be stopped.  
The first example I meet with among the Emperors, 
Some of our rude countrymen English this obtorto collo, hanging an arse.  was a matter rather of courtesy than cost: and if any man will say, that I draw this into my Treatise, as it were obtorto collo, I answer, that in my understanding, the tale falleth so fit and proper unto this discourse, as indeed to have brought it into any discourse saving of Ajax, I would say it were unproper and uncivil. The argument holds a min●re ad maius. Now hearken to my tale. Claudius' Emperor of Rome, and husband to that filthy Masselyna, 
Agrippa saith of her, that she lay with 22. several men in 24. hours, at the common stews. & tamdem lassata viris non satiata redijt.  (Vilissima quae fuerunt vel sunt,) she that was worthy, for the commonness of her body (be it spoken with saving the reverence of all women that are or were, save herself) to have been metamorphized into Ajax, rather than poor Hecuba, for barking at him that killed her son, into a bitch. This Claudius I say, though not for cost (as Tarquin) yet for his courtesy was greatly to be commended: for a Gentleman one day being talking with him, and falling suddenly into a grievous fit of the colic, the poor Gentleman would not for good manners sake break wind, which might presently have eased him, & after the disease increased so sore on him that he died. The Emperor informed of his death, was much grieved thereat, specially hearing of the cause, & immediately thereupon made it be solemnly proclaimed, that if any man hereafter should be troubled with the colic, it should not be taken for ill manners to break wind, though it were in the Emperors own company. Now it may be, some man in disgrace of this proclamation, will say, that this Claudius was but a cuckold and a fool. I answer, that for the cuckold, that was none of his fault, & if it were a fault, God forbidden all our faults should be seen on our foreheads▪ And for the fool, the old proverb may serve us, Stultorun plena sunt omnia, the world is full of fools. But take heed how you beg him for a fool, for I have heard of one that was begged in the Court of wards for a fool, & when it came to trial, he proved a wiser man by much, than he that begged him. And though I have small skill in the law, specially in these prerogative cases, (for I must confess I studied Littleton but to the title of discontinuance) yet me think I should find a quirk, to make them that should beg him have a cold suit in the court of wards. For I take it to be a ruled case, that though a man h●ld wholly in Capite, put the case by a whole Knight's service, or half a night's service, yet if he be covert Baron, as Claudius was (for I am sure his wife ware the breeches) & being at his fool age of 31. the Custodia must of course be granted to the wife, although the man be plus dign de sang. And thus much we say, saving to ourselves all advantage of exception to the unsufficiency of the bill, 
Two par●s why Cl●udius was esteemed a fool. Look Sueton.  etc. And without that the said Claudius did fond to cause a man's hand to be cut off upon the motion of a stranger, and without that he had almost marred all the pastime he & his friends should have had at a Naumachia or sea-game, with resaluting the slaves that should have fought, in good Latin. And lastly, without that the said Claudius at his being in England 
Claudius was in England.  (though he was counted one of the best freeholders in Middlesex) could forfeit any land that he held by the right of his sword, either in feesimple, or fee-tail, either by the sock, or the smock, to any other Lady, but the Lady his wife. But alas Claudius, thy friends may say, that I am a bad Lawyer, for all this while I have done little better than confess the action, but I care not seeing thou art dead, Mortui non mordent, and it were fit now to preach for thee, then to plead for thee: well then for thy gentle proclamations sake, lo what in sadness (if I were to make thy funeral Sermon) I would say for thee, that howsoever some writers have wronged thee with the name of a fool, 
He is called fool to his face.  in one of thy judgements I may liken thy wisdom to Solomon, 
But hereby hangs a tale. Claudius' his judgement like that of Solomon.  and in one of thy jests, I can compare thy wit with Diogenes. Ass for example, a woman on a time disclaiming her son, & pretending that for conscience sake she must needs confess a truth, viz. how her own child died, & this was a Supposititius, a substitute in his place, for avoiding of her husband's displeasure, no evidence appearing to the contrary, & the next heir following the matter very hard, by complot with the mother, who remained obstinate in the tale, Claudius then sitting in judgement, seems to believe it, and seeing the man a comely young man, and she no old woman, and oft protesting she maliced him not: he commanded her immediately in his presence to marry him. The malicious mother driven to that unlooked for pinch, openly confessed her unnatural malice, to avoid so unnatural a marriage; and thus much for his justice; now let us here what his jest is. A certain Gentleman that had his fingers made of lime twigs, stole a piece of plate from Claudius one day at a banquet; the conveyance was not so cleanly, but one had spied it, and told the Emperor, & offered to accuse him of it, whereby his goods might have been all confiscate: but this good Prince would neither head him nor hang him, no nor so much as once suffer him to be troubled; only the next time he came, he caused him to be served in an earthen dish. The Gentleman being abashed at it, for the dish gave him his dinner. Claudius was so far from laying his crime in his dish, that he said, be of good cheer man, and fall to thy meat, & when thou hast dined put up that dish too: for I will spare thee that with a better will than the last, for perhaps thou hast a mind to poke up thy dish when thou likest thy meat well. And so farewell good Claudius, & when any of my friends are troubled with the colic. I hope I shall make them remember thee.  
The next Emperor that is fit to bring into this discourse, is Vespasian, though his predecessor Vitellius, who is noted to have been a passing greater eater, would (I think) have taken it in good part, to have been offered a cleanly & easy place for egestion after his good digestion. But to the purpose. Vespasian before he was Emperor had borne some other offices, among the which, one was Aedilis and it is written of him, that he incurred great displeasure with Otho then Emperor, because he had not seen better to the keeping sweet of the streets, and caused the filth of them (according to his office) to be carried to the places appointed for the same. But afterward himself coming to be Emperor (though the City of Rome was before his time sufficiently furnished of jaxes) yet it seemed there wanted other places of near affinity to them (which he found belike when he was Aedile by experience) I mean certain pissing conduits: and therefore he caused diverse to be erected in the most populous and frequented places of the City, and saved all the urine in cisterns, and sold it for a good sum of money to the Dyers. But though I tell you the tale thus plainly, you must imagine the matter was much more formally and sinely handled, and namely, that there was an Edict set out in this sort.  

By the Emperor C. Flavius Vespasianus, pater patriae, semper Augustus, etc.  
FOrasmuch as his Majesty hath been informed by sundry credible men, that great abuse is committed by the irreverent demeanour of diverse persons, ill brought up, who without all due respect of civility & reverence, in most unseemly manner, shed their urine, not only against the walls of his royal palace, but also against the temples of the Gods & Goddesses. Whereby not only ugly and loathsome sights, but filthy and pestiferous savours are daily engendered, his Majesty therefore as well of a fatherly care of his citizens, as of a filial reverence to the Gods, hath to his great charges, & of his princely bounty & magnificence, erected diverse & sundry places of fair polished marble, for this special purpose, requiring, & no less straightly charging all persons, aswell Citizens as strangers, to refrain from all other places, saving these especially appointed, as they tender his favour, etc.   
Thus could I have penned the Edict, if I had been secretary. For it had not been worth a fig, if they had not artificially covered the true intent (which was the profit) and gloriously set forth the goodly and godly pretence (that was least thought on) viz. the health of the people, and clean keeping of the temples. But I doubt, notwithstanding this goodly Edict, it will be objected, that it was condemned for a base part, by a judge whose sentence is above all appeal: I mean that noble Titus, deliciae humani generis, he that thought the day lost in which he had done no man good: to answer which, I would but say as was said to him, when the pissing money was put into the perfumed purse, suavis odor lucri, the smell of gain is sweet. And I dare undertake, this answer will satisfy my Lord Mayor of London, and many of the worshipful of the City, that make sweet gains of stinking wares, 
Oils, oad, tar, etc.  and will laugh and be fat, and say: 
So we get the chinks,  
We will bear with the stinks.  But I must find out a better answer for courtly wits, and therefore I say to them, that according to the discipline & custom of the Romans (in my opinion, under reformation of their better judgements) this was so honourable a part of Vespasian, that he was therefore worthy to have been deified. For if Saturnus were allowed as a God, by the name of Stercutius, as is before alleged, for finding a profitable use of all manner soil, I see a good reason (àpaeribus) that Vespasian should aswell be deified, for finding a means to make money of urine, and accordingly to be named Vrinatius, of Vrina, as the other is, of Stercus, Stercutius. Further Vespasian was famous for two true miracles done by him, greater than all their gods beside ever did. Now if any take exceptions to his face, because the fool told him, he looked as if it went hard with him: trust me it shall go hard with me too, but I will find somewhat to say, for him; and first I will get some of the painting that comes from the river of Orenoque, which will wonderfully mend his complexion. Secondly, I will say this, how bad soever his face was, he had something so good, that a handsome woman gave him a thousand crowns, for putting his seal with his label to her patent, and yet she exhibited the petition (as I take it) in forma paper, for she was stark naked. Once this I am sure Suetonius writes, that when his steward asked him, how he should set down that 1000 crowns on his book, he b●d him write it among his other perquisites, in some such sort. It. for respite of h●●age from a loving tenant to her lovely Lord for a whole knights f●e, recepi— 1000, crown●●.  
Now for his wit, though I could tell you two excellent tales, how he deceived a groom of his chamber, of his brother, and how he would needs be half with his horse-keeper, for setting on a shoe on a horse that lacked none: yet I omit them both, because many will be too apt to follow the precedent, and I will keep me very strictly to my tesh, and specially because I hasten to a most royal example. I mean of trajan. There is no man (I think) that hath either traveled far countries, or read foreign stories, but hath either heard of the famous exploits and victories that he had, or seen some of the stately and sumptuous monuments that he made. This trajan was Emperor of Rome, and then Emperor when Rome stood at her highest pitch of greatness, a man whose conquests were most glorious, whose buildings were most gorgeous, whose justice was most gracious, he that stayed his whole army, to right the cause of one widow, he that created a Magistrate, and delivering him the sword for justice, said to him, use this for me as long as I govern justly, but against me when I govern otherwise, he in whose time no learned man was seen want, no poor man was seen beg, he that would boast of Nerua his predecessor, of Plotina his wife, of Plutarch his counsellor: finally, this trajan was so well accomplished a Prince in all princely virtues, as no story, no time, no memory, in all points can match him. This most renow●ed Emperor, hearing there was a town in Bithynia, far off from Rome, and in a place where he was like never to be troubled with the evil savour, that was much annoyed for lack of a good conveyance of the common privies, thought himself bound (as a father to all his subjects) to provide a remedy for such an inconvenience, and of his own purse he took order for making a vault of great cost and charge in the city. And for full satisfaction of the reader herein, I will set down the two Epistles, as I find them in the tenth book of the Epistles of Plinius Secundus to trajan Epist. 99  
Argumentum quaerit an. C. Plinius Secundus Traiano Imp. S. Amestrianorum civit as, domine, & eligans & ornata habet, inter praecipua opera pulcherrimam, eandemque longissimam plateam, cuius à latere per spacium omne porrigitur, nomine quidem flumen re vera cloaca fedissima. Quae sicut turpis & immundissima aspectu it a pestilens est odore teterrimo. Quibus ex causis no● minus salubritatis quam decoris interest eam contegi, quod fiet si permiseris curantibus n●bis ne desit pecunia operi tam magno quam necessario. Which is thus in English.  
Caius Plinius to trajan the Emperor greeting: 
The contents is, whether he shall cover the water that runs by the town of Amestris.  The City of the Amestrians (my Lord) being both commodious and beautiful, hath among her principal goodly buildings, a very fair and long street, on the side whereof runneth through the whole length of it, a brook, in name (for it is called so) but indeed a most filthy jakes; which as it is foul and most uncleanly to behold, so is it infectious with the horrible vile savour, wherefore it were expedient, no less for wholesomeness then for handsomeness, to have it vaulted, which shall be done if it please you to allow it, and I will take care that there shall be no want of money for such a work, no less chargeable than necessary. Thus writes Plinius Secundus, a Roman Senator, and as it were a deputy Lieutenant in the Province of Bithynia, to the great trajan, and I do half marvel he durst write so, for had it been in the time of Domitian, Commodus or Nero, either martial should have jested at him with an Epigram, or some secretary that had envied his honest reputation, should have been willed to have answered the letter in some scornful sort, and would have written thus.  
Master Pliny, my Lord God the Emperor, 
Che scrisse taccia ●t piu 〈…〉.  not vouchsafing to answer your letter himself, hath commanded me to write thus much to you, that he marvels you will presume to trouble his divine Majesty with matters of so base regard, that your father being held a wise man, and a learned, might have taught you better manners, that his Majesty hath matters of greater import, concerning the state of Empire, both for war & peace, to employ his treasure in. Thus much I was commanded to write. Now for mine own part, let me say thus much to you, that I heard my Lord God the Emperor say, that if the ill savour annoy you, you may send to your Mistress for a perfumed handkerchief to stop your nose, and that some Physicians say, the smell of a jakes is good against the plague. Some such answer as this, had been like to have come from some of those beastly Emperors, and their filthy followers. But how did trajan answer it? I will set you down his own letter, out of the same book, in the same language.  
Argumentum.  
Permittit confornicari cloacam. Tr. Plinio S.  
Rationis est, mi second Charissime, contegi aquam istam quae per civitatem Amestrtanorum fluit, si detecta salubritati obest, Pecunia ne huic operi desit, curaturum te secundum diligentiam tuam certum habeo.  
Thus in English. It is good reason, my dearest Secundus, that the water be covered that runs by the city of the Amestrians, if the want of covering may breed infection. And for money for the work, I make no question, but you according to your accustomed diligence, will make provision. Short and sweet, yea most sweet indeed, because it was of an unsavoury matter. But I had almost forgot to English the argument, and then folks might laugh indeed at me, and think I were Magister incipiens with ans, & say I could not English these three words, permittit confornicari cloacam; what the good year, what is the same confornicari? trust me there is a word I never read in Homer nor Aristotle, marry indeed they wrote but ill Latin, no nor in Tully, in Livy, in Tacitus, nor in all the Poets: what a strange word is this? Ho sirrah bring hither the Dictionary. Which of them, Cooper? No no, Thomas Coperus omisit plurima verba. Which then, that with the French afore the Latin, or Thomas Thomas? Yea, bring me them two. What hast thou brought the two dictionaries? I meant but the two Thomases. Come old friend Tom, 
A great officer among the boys at Eton, Master of the rods.  Tom, Qui fueras quondam clarae praepositor aulae, you have made rods to jerk me withal ere now, I think I shall give you a jerk, if you do not help me to some English for this word. Look it sirrah there in the dictionary. Con, con. Tush what dost thou look in the French? thou wilt make a sweet piece of looking, to look for confornicar in the French: look in the Latin for fornicor. F, fa, fe, fi, fo, for, for, foramen, forfex, forica, forma, fornicator, (now I think I am near it) fornix, fornicor, 
Eliots' dictionary and Cooper's placed these 2. words, too near together.  aris, are. There, what is that? A vault, to vault or arch any thing with a compass. Well said, carry away the books again, now I have it: then thus it is, He alloweth the vaulting or arching over of the jakes. Marry God's blessing on his heart for his labour, and I love him the better for it. Wherefore (most noble trajan) thou mayst well be called the pattern of all princely qualities, comely, bountiful, martial, merciful, a lover of learning, moderate in private expenses, magnificent in public, most goodly of stature, amiable, not only in thy virtues, but even in thy vices. For to say the worst was ever said of thee, these were all thy faults, ambition, or desiry of glory in wars, love of women, and persecuting of religion. For so they join thee, Nero, Domitianus, Traianus, Antoninus, Pontifices Romanos laniarunt. To which thus I answer without a fee, but with all my heart: that thy ambition was so honourable, and thy warlike humour so well tempered, that thou didst truly witness of thyself, that thou didst never envy any man's honour, for the confidence thou hadst of thine own worth: and all the world can witness, that thou never didst make unjust war, nor refuse any just or indifferent peace. For that same sweet sin of lechery, I would say as the Friar said, a young man and a young woman in a green arbour in a May morning; if God do not forgive it, I would. For as sir Thomas More saith of Edward the fourth● he was subject to a sin, from which, health of body in great prosperity of fortune, without a special grace, hardly refraineth. And to speak uprightly of him, his lusts were not furious, but friendly, able with his goodly person, his sweet behaviour, and his bountiful gifts, to have won Lucretia. Besides, no doubt his 〈◊〉 was the less, in that he ever loved his wife most dearly, and used her most respectively: for I have ever maintained this paradox, it is better to love two too many, than one too few. Lastly, for the persecution of thy time, though I dare not defend it, yet there is a maxim, invincibilis ignorantia recusat, and sure thou didst not know the truth, and thy persecution was very gentle, and half against thy will, as appeareth by the 98. Epistle of the tenth book of Plin. Epistles, where thou dost utterly reject all secret promoeters, and dost pronounce against the strict inquisition, Conquirendi non sunt, etc. Wherefore I doubt not to pronounce, that I hope thy soul is in heaven, both because those thou didst persecute prayed for thee, wishing to thee, as Tertul. saith; Vitam prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, Senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietum. A long life, a happy reign, a safe dwelling, strong armies, a faithful Senate, honest people, and a quiet world. Further, it is written by authors of some credit, that thy soul was delivered out of hell, at the prayer of great S. Gregory, which though I am not bound to believe, 
S. Damas●en S. Brigid writ this of trajan, believe them who list, for though it seem Popish, yet it ministers an argument against some Popish opinions.  yet as in love, I had rather love too many than too few, so in charity, I had rather believe too much then too little. As for that Scripture, ex inferno nulla redemptio, I have heard it oft alleged by great clerks, but I think it is in the Epistle of S. Paul to the Laodiceans, or in Nicodemus Gospel: for I never yet could find it in the Bible. Wherefore this I will frankly say for trajan, that wheresoever I find a Prince or a Peer with so great virtues, and so few vices, I will honour him, love him, extol him, admire him, and pronounce this of him; that the army is happy that hath such a General, the Prince happy that hath such a councillor, the Mistress happy that hath such a servant, and thus I end my profane authorities, & now I come to the divine, wherein I think I shall serve you in the banquet I have promised you as myself have been served many times at our commencement feasts, and such like in Cambridge, that when we have been in the midst of some pleasant argument, suddenly the Bibler hath come, and with a loud and audible voice begun with Incipit libri Deuteronomium, caput vicesimum tercium. And then suddenly we have been all is't tacete, and harkened to the Scripture, for even so must I now after all our pleasant stories, bring in as I promised, some divine authorities, to the which I pray you let us with all due reverence be attentive.  
In the aforesaid 23. 
Authorities of Sripture.  Chapter of Deuteronomie, in the 12. verse, I find this text:  
12 Habebis locum extra castra ad quem egrediaris ad requisita naturae.  
13 Gerens paxillum in balt●o, cumque sederis fodies per circuitum, & egesta humo operies quo relevatus es.  
14 Dominus enim Deus tuus ambulat in medio castrorum, ut eruat te & tradat tibi inimicos tuos, & sint castra tua sancta, & nihil in eyes appareat foeditatis, ne derelinquat te. That is.  
12 Thou shalt have a place without thy tents, to which thou shalt go to do the necessities of nature.  
13 Carrying a spade staff in thy hand, 
Or a trowel.  and when thou wilt ease thee, thou shalt cut a round turf, & thou shalt cover thy excrements therewith, in the place where thou didst ease thyself.  
14 For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy tents to deliver thee, and to give thy enemies into the hands, that thy tents may be holy, and that there appear no filthiness in them, lest he forsake thee.  
But me think some may say upon hearing of this text, What is it possible there should he such a Scripture, that handleth so homely matters? I can hardly believe it; I have always had a bible in my parlour these many years, and oft time when the weather hath been foul, and that I have had no other book to read on, and have wanted company to play at cards or tables with me, I have read in those books of the old Testament, at least half an hour by the clock, & yet I remember not any such matter. Nay further, I have heard a Preacher, that hath kept an exercise a ye are together upon the books of Moses, & hath told us of Genesis, & genealogies, of the ark & the propitiatory, of pollutions, of washings, of leprosies, but I never heard him talk of such a homely matter as this. I answer, It may be so very well. And therefore now I pray you, sith the text is so strange to you, give me leave to put you in mind of two virtuous & honest observations out of this (how homely so ever) yet wholly Scripture. One, to be thankful to our Saviour for his mercies; th'other to be faithful to our Sovereign for her merits. We may thank God that all these servile ceremonies, which S. Paul calleth the works of the Law, as Circumcision, New moons, Sabbaths, washings, cleansings, with touch not, handle not, eat not, etc. are now taken away & quite abolished by the Gospel, which hath now made Omnia munda mundis. And as S. Augustine saith, in steed of ceremonies, cumbersome, infinite, intolerable, unpossible, hath given Sacraments, easy, few, sweet, & gracious, & hath taught us in steed of hearing Fac ho● & vi●es, to say now to him, DaDomine quod jubes. Secondly, whereas it seems you never heard this text preached on, you may bless in your soul, and pray for her majesties so peaceable and prosperous reign, this text being not fit for peace & a pulpit, but only for war and a camp. And therefore though I hope we shall never have cause to hear such a Scripture preached of in England, yet those that serve in other countries, both have & shall hear it thus applied (and that oft not without need) viz. that though now to the clean all things are clean, yet still we must have a special care of cleanliness, and wholesomeness, even for the things here spoken of, and if for such things, how much more for rapes, thefts, murders, blasphemies, things (as God knows) too common in all our camps. Ne Dominus Deus noster, qui ambulat in medio castrorum derelinquat nos. Lest the Lord our God, that walketh in the midst of our tents, should forsake us. And even in the time of the sweetest peace, me thinks I could also say, here at home, that it is an unreverent thing, for Churches ordained for prayer, and churchyards appointed for burial, to be polluted and filled as if they were kennels and dunghills.  
And I have thought sometime with myself, that if I were but half so great an officer under our most gracious Empress, who is in deed worthy, and only worthy to be Traian's Mistress, as Plinius Secundus was under that trajan; I would write for the mending of such a loathsome fault in my neighbour town of Bath (where many noble persons are oft annoyed with it) as Pliny did for Amestris. Yet why may I not by Poetica licentia, and by an honest & necessary figure (in this age) called Reprehensio, imagine myself for half an hour to be Secundus, and suppose some other, that perhaps at this hour is not far from Traian's country, to be that worthiest trajan? For though in the English Grammar, the feminine gender is more worthy than the masculine, the which rule I wish long may hold. Yet lest old Priscian should say I broke his head when I never came near him, 
There is a Comedy called Priscianus vapulans, where if one should say ignenhanc, Priscian would cry, his head were broken.  I will keep me in this my pleasant imitation, within such an honest limitation, as shallbe free from all just reprehension, and write, in steed of C. Pl. Secundus Traiano Imp. Salutem.  
Haec tibi Traiano, terraque marique remoto,  
Scribit Misacmos, nulli pietate Secundus.  
The City of Bath (my Lord) being both poor enough and proud enough, hath since her highness being there, wonderfully beautified itself in fine houses for victualling and lodging, but decay as fast in their ancient and honest trades of merchandise and clothing: the fair Church her Highness gave order should be re-edified, stands at a stay, and their common sewer, which before stood in an ill place, stands now in no place, for they have not any at all. Which for a town so plentifully served of water, in a country so well provided of stone, in a place resorted unto so greatly (being at two times of the year, as it were the pilgrimage of health to all saints) me think seemeth an unworthy and dishonourable thing, wherefore if your Lordship would authorize me, or some wiser than me, to take a strict account of the money, by her majesties gracious grant gathered & to be gathered, which in the opinion of many, cannot be less than ten thousand pounds (though not to wrong them, I think they have bestowed upon the point of 10000 pounds abating but one cipher) I would not doubt, of a ●●inate church to make a reverent church, and of an unsavoury town a most sweet town.  
This I do the rather write, because your Lordship, & the rest of her majesties most honourable counsel, thought me once worthy to be Steward of that town, but that the wiser counsel of the town thought it not meet, out of a deeper reach, lest being already their poor neighbour, this increase might have made my estate too great among them. For indeed the ●ee belonging to it, & some other commodities annexed, might have been worth to me de claro vi●● & modis, per ann●m. CCCClxxx. d.  
Moreover I am to certify your Lordship, that the spring taken out of the hot bath into the private, doth not annoy or prejudice the virtue of the hot bath as her Majesty hath been lately informed. And it is not unnecessary, for some honourable persons that come thither, sometimes to have such a private bath. But now I pray you let us hearken to the Scripture, for the Bibler is not yet come to Tu autem.  
I find also in the second & third chapters of Nehemias, which some call the second book of Esdras, where he tells how no body but he and his ass went to survey the city. Et ingressus sum ad portam vallis nocte, & ante fontem draconis, & ad portam stercoris, & consider abam murum jerusalem dissipatum & portas eius consumptas igni. And in the third chapter showing who repaired all the ruins, Et portam vallis aedificavit Hanum & habitatores Zanoe, ipsi aedificaverunt eam, & statuerunt valuas eius, & seras, & vectes, & mill cubitos in muro usque ad portam sterquilinii. Et portam sterquilinii aedificavit Melchias filius Rhechab princeps etc. And the gate of the valley built Hanum and the inhabitants of Zanoe, they built it, and they made the leaves of the gate, and the locks, and the hinges, and a thousand cubits in the wall, even to the dung gate, and Melchias son of Rhecab being Prince of Bethacharan built the dung gate. 
There is a noble and learned Lady, dowager to the Lord john Russell, that will not name love without save reverence.  I would have said, save-reverence the dung gate, but that Nehemias who was a Gentleman well brought up, and a courtier, and had been a sewer and cupbearer to Artaxerxes, writes it as I have recited it.  
But now to the purpose, perhaps you will say, that this makes nothing to the present argument, that the gate is called Doungate, for we have a gate in London called Dougate, that with a little dash with a pen will seem to be the same gate, & yet hath no great affinity with the matter, & on the other side, there is a place hath a glorious title of Queen Hive, and yet it was ordained for my lady Cloacina. I grant it might be so, for so there is a parish by London called Hornsey, which is an ungracious crooked name, and yet I verily persuade me, that the most glorious or gracious street in London hath more horns in it sometime either visible or invisible than all the other parish. But concerning the gate in jeruselagim called Porta Stercoris, I find it was so called because it lay on the East side of the City, toward the brook Cedron, whither all the rain water of the City, and all other conveyances ran, as they do out of the City of London into the Thames: and that being so, and the city so populous, the gate might well be called Porta Stercoris. Now without the city I find mentioned another place ordained for the like purpose, to carry out all such filth as the rain could not wash away, and had no common passage, & that was the valley of Hinnon, which seems by the map to lie Southeast and by South to the Temple, and thither, I say, the Scavenger's carried their loading, 
The Brickils.  as they do at London beyond Golding lane. And therefore in the new Testament it is called gehenna, and taken for hell, and if you have a mind to know how I come by this divinity, trust me if you will, I come by it as true men come by their goods. For so it is, that not long since there dwelled in Bath a schoolmaster, a man whom I favoured much, for his sake that sent him thither. But he had not been there long, but a controversy arose betwixt him & some preachers thereabout, among whom we have too many that study nothing but the controversies, and it came after many disputes on both sides, at last to writing and publishing of Books. And the schoolmaster (though being no Preacher) wrote a book with this title, that Christ descended not into hell: the very sight of which title, being flat contradictory to an article of the Creed, I remember I said of the man as Heywood saith in his proverbs, that hereafter 
He might be of my Pater noster indeed,  
But sure he should never come in my Creed.  And therefore I might repute him as a good humanist, but I should ever doubt him for a good divine. Now as I say, hearing in these disputes and sermons, diverse names of hell thoroughly sifted. As Ades, Tartaros, Infernum, Stagnum arden's, and last of all Gehenna, which last I was most used to, as having an old verse when I was at Eton, of a Peacock. 
Angelus in penna, pede latro, voce gehenna.  
A bird that hath an Angel's plume,  
A thievish pace, a hellish tune.  Consequently, I observed, that our honest & learned Preacher of Bath M. R. M. first proved hell to be a local place (if not circumscriptive, yet at least definitive. Then he showed the etymology of the word gehenna to be derived in Greek of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, the earth or valley of Hinnon, them he told, that this place was as it were the common dunghill or mickson of the whole town, that the jews had used in this valley, to make their children pass through the fire, as a sacrifice to the Devil, according to the Psalm of David, they offered their sons and daughters unto devils. Finally, that our saviour to make a more fearful impression in their hearts, of the pains of hell indeed, which they know not, used the name of this hellish place, which they knew that had in it these hateful hellish properties, smoke, stink, horrible cries, & torment. But lest you should think I speak as a parrot, nothing but what I have heard an other say, let me add somewhat of mine own poor reading, and that shall be this, that this valley of Hinnon was once for the sweet air, fine groves, fair walks, & green and pleasant fields, comparable with any place about jerusalem, but when the abominable Idol of Moloch was erected in it, whose portraiture was like a king having the head of a calf, all of brass, & hollow within: unto which (most inhumanly) they sacrificed human flesh, yea their own children, & to the end that the wicked parents might not feel remorse of the woeful cries of the wretched children, they danced a strange medley about the fire, having music suitable to such mirth, of drums and jews haps (for I think hornepipes and bagpipes were not then found out) I say these abominations being there committed, the good josias, driven to use an extreme medicine to so extreme a malady, first burned and broke all too pieces the horrible Idol, and then in detestation of the abuses there committed, cut down the fine groves, tore up the sweet pastures, defaced the pleasant walks; and to the end that all passengers should fly from it, that were wont to frequent it, he caused all filthy carrion, dead dogs and horses, all the filth of the streets, & whatsoever hateful and ugly things could be imagined, to be carried thither. And this o josias was thy zealous reformation: but alas how little do some that pretend thy name, participate thy nature. They pull down Moloch, but set up Baal Peor & Beelsebub, their lean devotion thinks the hill of the Lord is too fat, their envious eye serves them like Aretinoes' spectacles, to make all seem bigger, than it should be, they learn the Babylonians song in the Psalms. 
Down, down with it at any hand,  
Make all thing plain, let nothing stand.  They care neither for good letters nor good lives, but only out of the spoils to get good livings, our good Lord Bishops must be made poor superintendents, that they might superintend the goodly Lordships of rich Bishoprics, & then we that be simple fellows must believe, that they offer us josias reformation, whereas indeed it savours not of that in any thing but the ill savour: for as josias defaced a fair field, and made it spurcitiarum latrinam, so they would ruinated our cathedral churches, & make them Spelunca latronum, as my good friend Hary-Osto, or mine Host Harry saith of the Pagan Rodomont, after his host had ended his knavish tale. 
He makes the Church (oh horrible abuse)  
Serve him for his profane ungodly use.  Wherefore let them call themselves what they list, but if they learn no better lessons of josias, but to turn sweet fields to stinking dunghills, they shall make no new jaxes in England by my consent, & I hope my devise shall serve to mend many that be now amiss, with an honester & easier reformation, & I doubt not but the Magistrate that hath charge to see ne quid respub. detrimanti capiat, will provide, lest our receipts prove deceits, our auditor's frauditors, and our reformation deformation, and so all run headlong to gehenna, where the sport will be torment, the music clamours, the prospect smoke, and the perfume stink. Which two last, I mean smoke and stink, I have verily persuaded me, are two of those pains of hell, which they call poena sensus: 
Esa. cap. 3. Eterit pro sua●● adore foetor.  which pain S. Augustine affirms may also torment aery or spiritual bodies, as partly appears in the story of Tobias, where a wicked spirit was driven away with the smoke of a broiled liver; and therefore I have endeavoured in my poor buildings to avoid those two inconveniences as much as I may. As for the two other annoyances, that the old proverb joineth to one of these, saying, there are three things that make a man weary of his house, a smoking chimney, a dropping eves, and a brawling woman. I would no less willingly avoid than, but when storms come, I must as my neighbours do, bear that with patience, which I can not reform with choler, and learn of the good Socrates, who when Xantippe had crowned him with a chamber-pot, he bore it off single with his head and shoulders, and said to such as laughed at him for it.  
It never yet was deemed a wonder,  
To see that rain should follow thunder.  
And to the intent you may see, that I am not only groundedly studied in the reformation of Ajax, which I have chosen for the project of this discourse, but that I am also superficially seen in these three other matters of shrewd importance to all good housekeepers, I will not be dangerous of my cunning, but I will venture my pen and my pains, if you will lend but your eyes or your ears, though I perhaps shall have more fists about my ears then mine own for it. First therefore for the house, I will teach you a verse for it, that I think M. Tusser taught me, or else now I may teach it his son. 
To keep your house dry, you must always in summer.  
Give money to the mason, the tiler and plumber.  For the shrewd wife, read the book of taming a shrew, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that now every one can rule a shrew in our country, save he that hath her. But indeed there are but two good rules. One is, let them never have their wills; the other differs but a letter, let them ever have their wills, the first is the wise, but the second is more in request, and therefore I make choice of it.  
But yet ere I come to discover this exact & exquisite form that I have promised, let me add a word or two out of the good and wholesome rules of physic, both for authorizing the homely words so oft used, as for proving that the matter in their faculty is specially regarded; for divers, that are otherwise very dainty and curious, yet for their health's sake, will endure both to hear homely language, to see sluttish sights, to taste dirty drugs, and to show secret sores; according to the Italian proverb, 

All confessore medico & advocato,  
Non deue tener cosa celato.   

From your confessor, lawyer, and physician,  
Hid not your case on no condition.   No man therefore is either so ignorant, or so impudent, as either not to know or not to confess, that the honourable science of physic, embaseth itself ofttimes about the care of this business. For whereto serveth I pray you, fiant clysteria, fiant pillulae, fiant potiones, fiant pessi. But fie on't, it makes me almost sick to talk of them, sure I am the house I treat of, is as it were the centre to which they must all fall first or last, and many times I think first were wholesomer of the two. But to enforce my proofs, though shortly yet sound, I will not bring any peculiar prescripts out of Galen and Hipocrates, lest you should oppose against them Asclepiades or Paracelsus, nor stand long to dilate of the Empirical physic, or the dogmatical and the methodical. Of all which if I should say all I could, I fear me not so much, that physicians would take me for a fool, as that fools will take me for a Physician. I will therefore set down as it were certain authentical rules, out of a general Council of Physicians, & that sent by common consent to a great K. of England, against which if any Doctor should except, he must ipso facto be counted an heretic. This therefore I find of my text in that book that gins Anglorum regi scribit schola tota Salerni. For when he hath been advised to make choice of three Physicians, Haec tria mens laeta, requies, moderata diet. Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Meryman. Then they admonish him of many particulars, for his health, for his food, for his house, etc. Which if they might with good manners writ to a king, than I may without incivility recite to a kinsman. 
Si vis incolumem, si vis te vivere sanum,  
Curas tolle graves irasci crede profanum,  
Parce mero caenato parum nec sit tibi vanum,  
Surgere post epulas somnum fuge meridianum.  
Nec mictum retine, nec comprime fortiter anun. &  
The Salerne school doth by these lines impart  
Health to the British king, and doth advise,  
From cares thy head to free, from wrath thy heart,  
Drink not much wine, sup light, and soon arise,  
After thy meat, twixt meals keep wake thine eyes.  
And when to natures needs provoked thou art,  
Do not forbear the same in any wise:  
So shalt thou live long time with little smart.  Lo what a special lesson for health they teach, to take your opportunity so oft as it is offered of going to those businesses. Then soon after to let you know how wholesome it is to break wind, they tell four diseases that come by forbearing it. 
Quatuor ex vento veniunt inventre retento,  
Spasmus, hydrops colica, vertigo, quatuor ista.  But most especially making for my purpose, both for word and matter. 
Aer sit mundus, habitabilis ac luminosus,  
Infectus neque sit, nec olens foetore cloacae.  Which as a principal lesson, to be learned by builders, I will set down in verse. 
A builder that will follow wise direction,  
Must first foresee before his house he makes,  
That th'air be clear, & free from all infection,  
And not annoyed with stinch of any jakes.  For indeed let your house be never so well apparaled, never so well plastered & painted, if she have a stinking breath I shall never like of my lodging. Lastly, there be two other verses, with which I will end these school authorities. 
Multiplicant mictum, ventrem dant aescula strictum,  
Post pyra dapotum, post pomum vade cacatum.  And thus I take it, I end this part of my discourse, with a well chosen verse to the purpose: yet ere you go, take this with you in prose, that many Physicians do hold, that the plague, the measeals, the hemorhoids, the small pox, & perhaps the great ones too, with the fistula in ano, & many of those inward diseases, are no way sooner gotten, then by the savour of others excrements, upon unwholesome privies. Wherefore I will now draw to the conclusion of this same tedious discourse: for it is high time now to take away the board, and I see you are almost full of our homely fare, and perhaps you have been used to your dainties of Potatoes, of Caviar Eringus, plums of Genowa, all which may well increase your appetite to several evacuations, we will therefore now (according to the physic we learned even now) rise & stretch our legs a little, & anon I will put on my boots, and go a piece of the way with you, and discourse of the rest: in the mean time myself will go perhaps to the house we talk off, though manners would, I offered you the French courtesy, to go with me to the place, where a man might very kindly finish this discourse.   

THE THIRD SECTION, showing the form, and how it may be reform.  
NOw therefore to come where we left last, for I know you would feign have your instructions ere you go home, as soon as I have given my horse some breath up this hill, I will ride along with you, so you will ride a sober pace: for I love not to ride with these goose chase youths, that post still to their journeys end, and when they come thither, they cannot remember what business they have there, but that they had even as much in the place they came from.  
These inconveniences being so great, and the greater because so general, if there be a way with little cost, with much cleanliness, with great facility, & some pleasure to avoid them, were it not rather a sin to conceal it, than a shame to utter it? Wherefore shame to them that shame think, for I will confess frankly to you, both how much I was troubled with the annoyance, & what I have found for the remedy. For when I found not only in mine own poor confused cottage, but even in the goodliest & stateliest palaces of this realm, notwithstanding all our provisions of vaults, of sluices, of grates, of pains of poor folks in sweeping and scouring, yet still this same whoreson saucy stink, though he were commanded on pain of death not to come within the gates, yet would spite of our noses, even when we would gladliest have spared his company, press to the fair ladies chambers. I began to conceive such a malice against all the race of him, that I vowed to be at deadly feud with them, till I had brought some of the chiefest of them to utter confusion. And conferring some principles of Philosophy I had read and some conveyances of architecture I had seen, with some devices of others I had heard, & some practices of mine own I had paid for: I found out at last this way that is after described, 
The principles are these, A●r non penetrate aquam. Natura non ●atitur va●u●●.  and a marvelous easy and cheap way it is, and I dare speak it upon my credit, not without good experience, that though it be neither far fetched, nor dear bought, yet it is good for Ladies, & there be few houses that may not have the benefit of it. For there be few great & well contrived houses, but have vaults and secret passages made under ground, to convey away both the ordure & other noisome things, as also the rain water that falls into the courts, which being cleanly in respect of the eye, yet because they must of force have many vents, they are oft noisome in regard of the smell. Specially in houses of office, that stand high from the ground, the tuns of them drawing up the air as a chimney doth smoke. By which it comes to pass many times (specially if the wind stand at the mouth of the vaults) that what with fish-water coming from the kitchens, blood and garbage of fowl, washing of dishes and the excrements of the other houses joined together, and all these in moist weather stirred a little with some small stream of rain water. For as the proverb is, 
'tis noted as the nature of a sink,  
Ever the more 'tis stirred, the more to stink.  I say these thus meeting together, make such a quintessence of a stink, that if Paracelsus were alive, his art could not devise to extract a stronger. Now because the most unavoidable of all these things that keep such a stinking stir, or such a stink when they be stirred, is urine and ordure, that which we all carry about us (a good speculation to make us remember what we are, & whither we must) therefore as I said before, many have devised remedies for this in times past, some not many years since, and I this last year, of all which I will make choice only of two beside mine own to speak off, because men of good judgement have allowed them for good, but yet (as the ape doth his young ones) I think mine the properest of them all.  
The first and the ancientest, is to make a close vault in the ground, widest in the bottom, & narrower upward, & to floor the same with hot lime & tarris, or some such dry paving as may keep out all water & air also: for if it be so close as no air can come in, it doth as it were smother the savour, like to the snuffs or extinguishers wherewith we put out a candle, and this stands with good reason, that seeing it is his nature to make the worse savour the more he is stirred, and nothing makes him keep a more stinking stir, than a little wind & water, surely there can be little or no annoyance of him in this kind of house, where he shall lie so quietly. But against this is to be objected, that if there be a little cranny in the wall as big as a straw, or if the ground stand upon winter springs or be subject as most places under ground are, to give with moist weather, them at such times it must needs offend.  
Besides in a Prince's house where so many mouths be fed, a close vault will fill quickly; and that objection did my Lord of Leicester make to Sir john Young, at his last being at Bristol, who commended to my Lord that fashion, and showed him his own of a worse fashion, and told him that at a friends house of his at Peter hill in London, there was a very sweet privy of that making.  
Another way, is either upon close or open vaults, so to place the sieges or seats as behind them may rise tons of attorneys, to draw all the ill airs upwards: of which kind I may be bold to say, that our house of Lincoln's Inn, putteth down all that have been made afore it, and is indeed both in reason and experience, a means to avoid much of the annoyance that is wont to come of them, & keepeth the place all about much the sweeter. But yet to speak truly, this is not sat from all infection or annoyance while one is there, as my sense hath told me, for Sensus non fallitur in proprio obiecto. Or perhaps by the strict words of the statute it ought to be so, & that but two parts may be devised away, and a third must remain to the heir, for I dare undertake, go thither when you will, your next heir at the common house, whatsoever charge he is at in the suit, I am sure he may be made a savour, at the least for the ●ertiam partem above all reprises, if the fault be not his own. And further, when the weather is not calm, the wind is so unruly, that it will force the ill airs down the attorneys, and not draw them up, as we see it doth in attorneys where fire is made, force down the smoke, notwithstanding that the very nature of fire helpeth to enforce it upward, whereas these moist vapours are apt (even of their own nature) to spread abroad, and hang like a dew about every thing. Wherefore though I am but a puny of Lincoln's Inn●, & the builder hereof was a bencher, ye● I will under reformation, prefer my devise afore his, either because it is better, or else out of the common fault of young men in this age, that we think our devices wiser than our elders. Yet with this respective modesty, that because my devise as with water, where that cannot be had, or where houses stand on an exceeding flat, there I will leave the work to his oversight, but where any convenient current is, and no want of water, there I would be surveyor, and so to divide the regiment, that if for the dry land service he be general, for the water service I will be Admiral. 
A true praise of Li●colnes Inn.  Yet by the way, I hope all the Inns of court will gratulate the present flourishing estate of our Lincoln's Inn: not so much for furnishing the realm with most honourable, upright and well learned magistrates, great sergeants, grave counsellors, towardly barresters, young gallants of worth & spirit sans number, but also (that I may now deal with mine equals, and not with my ancients) with two such rare engineers, 
M. Plate set forth a book of engines.  me for this one devise, and Master Plate for very many. Or if envy will not suffer them to give us due honour, let us two M. Plate, at least grace one another: and I am the willinger to offer this kindness to you, because I was advised by some to have recommended this devise to your illustrations, which I was very like to have done, save that we are of no great acquaintance, and beside I have a little ambition's humour of mine own to be counted a deviser, though to clear me of pride, you see my first practice is upon so base a subject, as I hope no body will envy me, or seek to take it from me: as the sweet Zerbino said to Marfysa, of the ugly Gabrina. 
You have so sweet a piece to carry by you, 
Ariost. Cant. 20.   
As you are sure that no man will envy you.  And after he had played a word or two with them, he concluded, 
Ben siate accopiati Io iurerei,  
Se come essa e bella tu gagliardo sci.  
No doubt you are a fitly matched pair,  
If you as lusty be, as she is fair.  But when they had done breaking off jests one on another, and that it came to breaking of staves, the peerless Prince (for his oaths sake) was feign to take that most hateful hag into his protection. And so I suppose, that some may play in like sort upon me and my writing, and say; 
The writer and the matter well may meet,  
Were he as eloquent as it is sweet.  But if they do, let them take heed, that in one place or other of this pamphlet, they do not pull themselves by the nose, as the proverb is But that you may see M. Plate, I have studied your book with some observation: if you would teach me your secret of making artificial coal, 
Some conjecture, that stolen and cowdoung must effect both these multiplications.  and multiplying barley (though I feareme both the means will smell a little of kin to M. Ajax) I assure you I would take it very kindly: and we two might have a suit together for a monapolie, you of your coal, as you mention in your book, and I of M. reformed Ajax: and if you will trust me to draw the petitions, you shall see I will get some of the precedents of the starch and the vinegar, and make it carry as good a show of reason, and good to the common wealth as theirs doth. As first for yours I would frame these reasons: I would show the excellent commodity of iron-milles (for if you speak against them your suit will be dashed strait.) I would prove how they reduce wild and savage woods, to civil and fruitful pastures. I would allege, they are good for maintenance of navigation, in respect that every ship, what with his cast pieces, anchors, bolts and nails, hath half as many ●un of iron as timber to it. I would say, it is a commodity to the subject, considering they sell it for twelve or fourteen pound the tun, and when it came out of Spain or Holland, it was sold but for eight pound. The like also I would say for glass: and so concluding, that the woods must needs be spent upon these two (as doubtless they will in a short time) than your devise for artificial coal, of how homely stuff soever you make it, will be both regarded and rewarded. And thus perhaps making some great man your half, you may have an imposition of a tenth or a fift of every cauldron of your fuel. And though it should poison all the town with the ill savour (as the brewhouse by White hall doth her Highness own house, & all Cannon row) yet what for necessity, & what for favour, it should be suffered. And never fear that the price of your coal will fall by cherishing of woods, for now Sir Walter Mildmay is dead, you shall have few men will busy themselves about any of these public inconveniences, 
The Author could have said honourable of both, but he takes honesty in this place for the high●● title.  or if his honest successor would attempt it, he should I fear me, have small hope to prevail, in that which so honest a predecessor could not.  
Now for my Monapole, I would ask but this trifling suit, and I would make these goodly pretences. First, because I have proved by good authors, that M. Ajax is lineally descended of the ancient house of Stercutius, and to have lived long under protection of Dea Cloacina, & to have been prayed for by so many holy Saints, I would procure (if the traffic were as open with Rome as it hath been) that as his progenitor Stercutius was allowed for a God, by one of the first Roman Pontifices Maximi, so M. Ajax might be allowed for a Saunt by Pope Sisefinke, Sextus quintuses (I would have said) or one of his successors, 
Boce●●lo writes that S. Ciapiellet● was canonised.  (which if it be so easy a matter, as Boccacio, & other Italian authors writ, will not be very chargeable) and then with some of the money that you gain with the perfumed coal, (if you will lend it me, and I will mortgage my Bull to you when I have it, for payment) I will erect in London and elsewhere, divers shrines to this new Saint, & all the fat offerings shall be distributed to such poor hungry fellows as sue for Monapolies, which being joined to the ashes of your coal, will be perhaps not uncommodious for land, and you and I will beg nothing for our reward, but you as I said afore, 
If I had such a grant, he that were my heres ex ass, would be the richest squire in England.  a fift part of every cauldron, & I but the sixth part of an assize a month, of all that will not be recusants, to do their daily service, at these holy shrines. Now if any do object it is too great a suit (for I think it would be the richest office in England) and say that it would amount to more than Peter pence, & Poll pence to, I would first to stop their mouths quickly, promise them a good share in it, than I would amplify the service, that in this devise I do in some respects to the state of Christianity, in a matter that Saint Peter nor Paul neither never thought of. For it is a common obloquy, that the Turks (who still keep the order of Deuteronomie for their ordure do object to Christians, that they are poisoned with their own dung, which objection cannot be answered (be it spoken with due reverence to the two most excellent apostles) with any sentence in both their Epistles, so fully to satisfy the miscreant wretches, as the plain demonstration & practice of my device must needs answer them. What think you M. Plate, is not here a good plat laid, that you and I may be made by for ever? only I fear one let, and that is this: 
I protest Misac mos and al●●● friends love 〈◊〉 the better 〈◊〉 If you call this flattery, I wolf you would all deserve to be so flattered.  I hear by report there is a worthy Gentleman, sometime of our house, that hath now the keeping of the great seal, & these suits cannot pass but by his privity, & they say (see our ill hap) he hath ever been a great enemy to all these paltry concealments & monapolies, and further they say of him, that to beguile him with goodly shows is very difficult, but to corrupt him with gifts is impossible; well, if it be so, all our fat is in the fire, & let the lean go after. You may make a great fire of your gains, & be never the warmer: and I may throw all mine into Ajax, and be never the poorer. Let us then make a virtue of necessity, & sith we cannot get these monapolies, let us sai● we care not for them, and a vengeance on them that beg them, and so we may have millions say Amen to us, and we shall be thought the honester men, & seeing I have had so ill luck in this, I would no body might ever have any more of them, till I make such another suit. And if M. Plate will follow my advise, he shall impart his rare devices gratis, as I do this, and so we may one day be put into the Chronicles, as good members of our country, more worthily than the great Bear that carried eight dogs on him when Monseur was here. 
A worthy matter to be put into a Chronicle ●nd fit for such worthy historiographers.  But to leave Master Plaits coal, which kindled this fantasy in me, and to turn to my tesh, though I called myself by metaphor an admiral for the water works, yet I assure you, this devise of mine, requires not a sea of water, but a cistern; nor a whole Thames full, but half a tun full, to keep all sweet and savoury: for I will undertake, from the peasants cottage, to the Prince's palace, twice so much quantity of water as is spent in drink in the house, will serve the turn: which if it were at Shaftsburie, where water is dearest of any town I know, that is no great proportion. And the devise is so little cumbersome, as it is rather a pleasure then a pain, a matter so slight, that it will seem at the first incredible, so sure, that you shall find it at all times infallible. For it doth avoid at once all the annoyances that can be imagined, the sight, the savour, the cold: which last, to weak bodies, is oft more hurtful than both the other, where the houses stand over brooks, or vaults daily cleansed with water. And not to hold you in too long suspense, the devise is this; You shall make a false bottom to that privy that you are annoyed with, either of lead or stone, the which bottom shall have a sluice osbrasse to let out all the filth, which if it be close plastered all about it, and renced with water as oft as occasion serves, but specially at noon and at night, will keep your privy as sweet as your parlour, and perhaps sweeter too, if Quail & Quando be not kept out. But my servant Thomas (whose pencil can perform more in this matter then my pen) will set down the form of this by itself in the end hereof, that you may impart it to such friends of yours, as you shall think worthy of it, though you put them not to so great penance as to read this whole discourse.  
And that I may now also end your penance that have taken all this pains to read this, that for your pleasure you would needs persuade me to write; I will not end adruptly here, but as friends that are upon parting in a journey, choose a cleanly place in the high way to take their leaves one of another, and not in the dirt and mire: so I● ere we part, will first for the ennobling of this rare invention, tell you somewhat of the place, of the company, of the means, and of the circumstances, that first put so necessary a conceit in my head. For I remember I have read that Archymedes the excellent engineer, (a man in his time fully as famous in Syracuse, as out M. Plate is here in England,) was said to have disgraced himself by an untemperate or rather untempestive joy that he took of a very worthy and memorable invention of his. The story is thus. Archimedes having long beaten his brains to find some way by art how to discover, what quantity of counterfeit mixture was put into a crown of massy gold, not dissolving the metals, and finding no means in long study, at last washing himself naked in a bathing tub, he observed still that the deeper he sunk the higher the water rose, & forthwith he conceived (which after he performed indeed) that by such a means the true quantity of each metal might be found, and the fraud discovered: with joy whereof he was so ravished, that stark naked as he was, he ran out into the streets crying, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it, I have found it. At which for the time all the people were amazed, and thought him mad, till his invention after proved him, not only sober, but also subtle. What if some pleasant conceited fellow should give out by way of supposition, that possibly the deviser of this rare conveyance, was at the time of devising thereof, sitting on some such place, as the godly father sat on at his devout prayers, or the godless king sat on at his devilish practice? as put the case on the stately stinking privy in the Inner Temple (where many grave apprentices of the law put their long debated cases to homely uses) and that with joy of so excellent invention he ran out with his hose about his heels, and cried, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: so might I be likened to Archimedes, and there be some perhaps would be so very fools to believe it. But lest any idle headed fellow should devise, or any shallow brained people believe such a tale, I do before hand give the word of disgrace to any that shall so say, & will make it good on their persons with all weapons from the pin to the pike, that whether it were by my good guiding, or my good fortune, in the invention hereof, nor in the execution I never received such a disgrace as that of Archimedes. For I assure you the devise was first both thought of & discoursed of, with as broad terms as any belongs to it, in presence of six persons, who were (all save one) enterlocutors in the Dialogue, of which I was so much the meanest, that the other five, for beauty, for birth, for value, for wit, & for wealth, are not in many places of the Realm to be matched. Neither was the place inferior to the persons, being a Castle, that I call, the wonder of the West, so seated without, as England in few places, affords more pleasures: so furnished within, as China nor the West Indies scant allows more plenty. Briefly, at the very coming in, you would think you were come to the Eldorado in Guiana. And by this I hope both the invention & execution hereof may be sufficiently freed from baseness.  
Yet there remains one easy objection against the merit of my good service herein, I mean easy to make, but it will not seem so easy to answer, and that is, that some may say, this may fortune to do well in many places, but yet there is no depth in the invention: for it is nothing but to keep down the air with a stopple, & let out the filth with a screw, which some will mislike, & will not endure to have such a business every time they come to that house. To which I answer, that for depth in the invention, I affect it not (for I would not have it in all above two foot deep.) And though the proverb is, the deeper the sweeter, that is to be intended in some sweeter matters, for the deeper you wade in this, you shall find it the sourer. And if it seem too busy, he that hath so great haste of his business, may take it as he finds it, which cannot be very ill at any time. But the old saying was, Look ere you leap, and the old custom was, that if a man had no light to look, yet he would feel, to seek that he would not find, for fear lest they should find that they did not seek. Further the pains being so little as it is, I should think him a sloven that would not by himself or his man leave it as cleanly as he found it: specially considering that in Deuteronomie you are told, God mislikes sluttishness, and every cat gives us an example (as housewives tell us) to cover all our filthiness, & if you will not disdain to use that which cometh from the Musk Cat, to make yourself, your gloves, and your clothes the more sweet, refuse not to follow the example of the Cat of the house, to make your entries, your stairs, your chambers, and your whole house, the less sour. Indeed for the devise I grant it is as plain as Dunstable high way, & perhaps it will be as common to, b●t neither of them shall be any disgrace to it. For I heard an Italian tell, that in Venice, after they had had the great loss by fire in Maximilians time, when their Arsenal was burnt with gunpowder, they had long consultation, how to keep their store powder from danger of fire, for fear of like mischances; at last a plain fellow (like myself) came and told, that he had devised a way, and prayed to have audience. Then he told them a long tale, but all to this short purpose, that gunpowder was made of iij. simples, viz. saltpetre, brimstone, & coal, that each of these several, would be easily kept from fire, and be quenched if they were kindled, but being compound, it blew up all in a moment, if the least spark did but meet with it; them he showed that the causes could not be so sudden of using powder, but that the simples being ready, it might soon be made; lastly that saltpetre did grow rather than waste with lying, whereas being made into powder, it doth consume, etc. All which though every man there knew before, yet because they had not offered to put it in practice, they gave him a reward for his devise, and followed therein his advise, placing these simples in several houses, which are so dangerous when they are compounded, and since that time they have been more annoyed with water then with fire. Wherefore I assure me the Magnificoes of Venice would allow of the devise, & if I had some idle money, I might hap be so idly disposed, to put out more than I will speak of, upon this return, when one of the sons and daughters of S. 
The Mag. of Venice are called Figlivoli de S. Mar●●▪  Mark had put my devise in execution, specially if that Molto Magnificentissimo were yet alive, that when his wife was sick, and the Physician was to see her water, he knew not how to bid her make water, in words seemly for his high state and her fine ears, that had never heard so fowl a word as that in her life, till his man took on him the matter, and found a phrase, by circumlocution to signify pissing, and never once to name it, in this sort; Chara signora viprego fate quello che fate dinanzi all cacare. But see see, I would feign have bid you farewell, & now we are again in our dirty common place; well I'll go with you yet a quoits cast farther, and then upon the next green we will bid farewell, and turn tail, as they say: wherefore now I will make you only a brief repetition of that I have said. You see first how I have justified the homely words & phrases with authorities above all exception. I have proved the care ever had of the matter with examples above all comparison. Lastly, I have expressed to you a clean form of it above all expectation. Neither do I praise it as Merchants do their wares, to rid their hands of them, for I promise you, how high so ever I praise it, I mean not to part with it: for were I to praise it upon mine oath, as we do household stuff in an inventary, I would praise it in my house, to be worth 100 pounds, in yours 300 pounds, in Wollerton 500 pounds: in Tibals, Burley, and Holmbie 1000 pounds, in Greenwich, Richmond and Hampton Court 10000 And by my good sooth, so I would think myself well paid for it. Not that I am so base minded to think, that wit and art can be rated at any price, but that I would accept it as a gratuity fit for such houses and their owners.  
For I tell you, though I will not take it upon me, that I am in dialecticorum dumetis doctus, or in rhetorum pompa potens, or coeteris scientijs saginatus, as doth our Pedantius of Cambridge, yet I take it, that in this invention I shall show a great practice upon the grammar, and upon this point I will challenge all the grammarians, viz. I say, and I will make it good, that by my rare devise I shall make Stercutius a noun adjective. Now I know you will set your son William to answer me, and he shall say no no, and come upon me with his grammar rule ut sunt divorum Mars Bacchus Apollo, virorum, etc. and hereby conclude, that he is both a substantive, and that a substantial one too, and a Masculine.  
But all this will not serve, for I have learned the grammar too, and therefore Come grammar rules, come now, your power show, as saith the noble Astrophill. First therefore I say, his no no is an affirmative.  For in one speech two negatives affirm. 
Secondly tell me pretty Will, what is a noun substantive? That that may be seen, felt, heard, or understood. Very well, now I will join issue with you on this point, where shall we try it? Not in Cambridge you will say, for I think they will be partial on my side. Well then in Oxford be it, and no better judge then M. Poeta, who was chief Captain of all the nouns in that excellent comedy of Bellum grammatical. 
This Comedy was played at her majesties last being at Oxford.  For without all peradventure, when he shall here that one of his band, and so near about him, is brought to that state, that he is neither to be seen, smelled, heard, nor understood, he will swear gog's nouns he will thrust him out of his selected band of the most substantial substantives, & sort him with the rascal rabblement of the most abject adjectives. But now Sir that I have brought you to so fair a town as Oxford, & so sweet a companion as your son William, I will leave you to him that made you.  
Now (gentle Reader) you have taken much pain, 
The Epilogue or conclusion.  and perhaps some pleasure, in reading our Metamorpo-sis of Ajax: and you supposed by this time to have done with me: but now with your favour I have not done with you. For I found by your countenance, in the reading and hearing hereof, that your conceit oft-times had censured me hardly, and that somewhat diversly, & namely in these three kinds. 
Three reproofs of this pamphlet.  First you thought me fantastical; secondly, you blamed my scurrility; and thirdly, you found me satirical. To which three reproofs, being neither causeless nor unjust, do me but the justice to hear my three answers.  
I must needs acknowledge it fantastical for me, 
Answer to the first objection, of fantasticalness.  whom I suppose you deem (by many circumstances) not to be of the basest, either birth or breeding, to have chosen, or of another man's choice, to have taken so strange a subject. But though I confess thus much, yet I would not have you lay it to my charge, for if you so do, I shall strait retort all the blame, or the greatest part of it, upon yourself: and namely, I would but ask you this question, and even truly between God and your conscience, do but answer it. If I had entitled the book, A Sermon showing a sovereign salve for the sores of the soul. Or, A wholesome haven of health to harbour the heart in. Or, A maruellous medicine for the maladies of the mind. Would you ever have asked after such a book? would these grave and sober titles have won you to the view of three or four tittles? much less three or four score periods. But when you heard, there was one had written of A JAX, strait you had a great mind to see what strange discourse it would prove, you made inquiry who wrote it, where it might be had, when it would come forth. You prayed your friend to buy it, beg it, borrow it, that you might see what good stuff was in it. And why had you such a mind to it? I can tell you; you hoped for some merriments, some toys, some scurrility, or to speak plain English, some knavery. And if you did so, I hope now your expectation is not altogether frustrate. Yet give me leave briefly to show you what pretty pills you have swallowed in your pleasant quadlings, & what wholesome wormwood was enclosed in these raisins of the sun.  
Against malcontents, 
A brief sum of the true intent of the book.  Epicures, Atheists, heretics, and careless and dissolute Christians, & especially against pride and sensuality, the Prologue and the first part are chief intended. The second gives a due praise without flattery, to one that is worthy of it, and a just check without gall to some that deserve it. The third part as it teacheth indeed a reformation of the matter in question, so it toucheth in sport, a reprehension of some practices too much in custom. All which the reader that is honourable, wise, virtuous, and a true lover of his country, must needs take in good part. Now gentle reader, if you will still say this is fantastical, than I will say again, you would not have read it except it had been fantastical, and if you will confess the one, sure I will never deny the other.  
The second fault you object, 
Answer to the second objection of scurrility.  is scurrility, to which I answer, that I confess the objection, but I deny the fault, and if I might know whether he were Papist or Protestant that maketh this objection, I would soon answer them: namely thus; I would cite a principal writer of either side, and I would prove, that either of them hath used more obscenous, fowl, and scurril phrases, 
This cannot be denied.  (not in defence of their matter, but in defacing of their adversary) in one leaf of their books, then is in all this. Yet they profess to write of the highest, the holiest, the weightiest matters that can be imagined, and I write of the basest, the barrenest, and most witless subject that may be described. Quod decuit tantos cur mihi turp● putem? I forbear to show examples of it, lest I should be thought to disgrace men of holy and worthy memory.  
For such as shall find fault that it is too Satirical, 
Answer to the third objection, that it is too satirical or sharp against the faults of the time.  surely I suppose their judgement shall sooner be condemned by the wiser sort, than my writings. For when all the learned writers, godly preachers, and honest livers over all England (yea over all Europe) renew that old complaint. Regnare nequitiam & in deterius res humanas labi. 
Seneca.  When we hear them say daily; that there was never under so gracious ahead so graceless members, after so sincere teaching, so sinful living: in so shining light, such works of darkness. When they cry out upon us, yea cry indeed, for I have seen them speak it with tears, that lust and hatred were never so hot, love and charity were never so cold: that there was never less devotion, never more division: that all impiety hath all impunity: finally, that the places that were wont to be the samples of all virtue and honour, are now become the sinks of all sin and shame. These phrases (I say) being written and recorded, sounded and resounded in so many books and Sermons, in Cambridge, in Oxford, in the Court, in the country, at Paul's cross in Paul's churchyard: may not I as a sorry writer among the rest, in a merry matter, and in a harmless manner, professing purposely, Of vaults, and prîuys, sinks and draughts to write, prove according to my poor strength, to draw the readers by some pretty draft, 
Allusion to the former words.  to sink into a deep and necessary consideration, how to amend some of their privy faults? Believe it (worthy readers, for I writ not to the unworthy) A JAX when he is at his worst, yields not a more offensive savour, to the finest nostrils, than some of the faults I have noted, do to God and the world. Be not offended with me for saying it, more than I am with some of you for seeing it. But this I say, if we would amend our privy faults first, we should afterward much the better reform the open offences, according to the old proverb. Every man mend one, and all would be amended. Trust me, they do wrong me that count me Satirical. Alas I do but (as the phrase is) pull a hair from their beards whose heads perhaps by the old laws and canons should be shorn. If you will say there is salt in it, I will acknowledge it, but if you will suspect there is gall in it, I renounce it. I name not many, and in those I do name, I serve not far from the rule, 
Play with me, 
A fit rule to be kep●, and breeds all misrule when it is broken, specially by honourable persons.  and hurt me not:  
jest with me, and shame me not.   
For some that may seem secretly touched, and be not openly named, if they will say nothing, I will say nothing. But as my good friend M. Davies said of his Epigrams, that they were made like doublets in Birchen lane, for every one whom they will serve: so if any man find in these my lines any raiment that suits him so fit, as if it were made for him, let him wear it and spare not, and for my part I would he could wear it out. But if he will be angry at it, than (as the old saying is) I beshrew his angry heart: and I would warn him thus much (as his poor friend) that the workman that could with a glance only and a light view of his person, make a garment so fit for him, if the same workman come and take a precise measure of him, may make him another garment of the same stuff (for there need go but a pair of shears between them) that in what shear soever he dwelleth, he may be known by such a coat as long as he liveth. Well, to conclude, let both the writer and the reader's endeavour to mend ourselves, and so we shall the easier amend others, and then I shall think my labour well bestowed in writing, and you shall think yours not altogether lost in reading. And with this honest exhortation I would make an end, imitating herein the wisest Lawyers, who when they have before the simplest jurors, long disputed their cases to little purpose, are ever most earnest and eager at the parting, to beat into the juries head some special point or other, for the behoof of their client. For so would I, howsoever you do with the rest of the matter: I would I say, feign beat still into your memory this necessary admonition (which my new taken name admonisheth me of) to cleause, amend, 
●●os.  and wipe away all filthiness. To the which purpose, I could me think allegorise this homely subject that I have so dilated, and make almost as good a Sermon, as the Friar did before the Pope, saying nothing but Matto San Pietro three times, 
That is to say, What a fool was S. Peter?  and so came down from the pulpit again: and being afterward examined, what he meant to make a Sermon of three words, but three times repeated before the triple crowned Prelate, and so many Cardinals. He told them, they might find a good Sermon in Matto San Pietro; as namely, if heaven might be gotten notwithstanding all the pride, pleasures, and pomp of the world, with ●ase, sensuality and Epicurism, than what a fool was S. Peter to live so strict, so poor, so painful 〈◊〉 With which it is possible his auditory was more edified, or at least more terrified, than they would have been at a longer Sermon. But I will neither end with Sermon nor prayer, lest some wags liken me to my L. () players, who when they have ended a bawdy Comedy, as though that were a preparative to devotion, kneel down solemnly, and pray all the company to pray with them for their good Lord and master. Yet I will end with this good counsel, not unsuting to the text I have thus long talked of.  
To keep your houses sweet, cleanse privy vaults,  
To keep your souls as sweet, mend privy faults.  
FINIS.