Nor shalt thou find him a curmudgin,[1]
If thou dispatch it without grudging:
If not, resolve, before we go,
That you and I must pull a crow.[2]500
Ye 'ad best, quoth Ralpho, as the ancients[3]
Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance,
And look before you, ere you leap;
For as you sow y' are like to reap:
And were y' as good as George-a-green,[4]505
I should make bold to turn agen;
Nor am I doubtful of the issue
In a just quarrel, as mine is so.
Is 't fitting for a man of honour
To whip the saints, like Bishop Bonner?[5]510
A knight t' usurp the beadle's office,
For which y' are like to raise brave trophies?
But I advise you, not for fear,
But for your own sake, to forbear;
And for the churches, which may chance515
From hence, to spring a variance,
And raise among themselves new scruples,
Whom common danger hardly couples,
Remember how in arms and politics,
We still have worsted all your holy tricks;[6]520
- ↑ A niggardly churl. The derivation from couer mechant, obtained by Dr Johnson from an "unknown correspondent," and Ash's mistake in assuming this signature to be a translation of the French words, is one of the best etymological jokes extant.
- ↑ See Handbook of Proverbs, p. 155.
- ↑ Ralpho, like Sancho, deals largely in proverbs;—these are found and explained in Handbook of Proverbs, pp. 113, 323.
- ↑ This is no other than the Pinder of Wakefield, who fought and beat Robin Hood, Scarlet, and Little John, all three together. See Robin Hood's Garland. The Pinder was no outlaw, as Nash supposes, but an officer to enforce the law, being the keeper of the parish pound.
- ↑ Bishop of London in the reign of Queen Mary, who is said to have whipped the Protestants, imprisoned on account of their faith, with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise. Hume's History of Mary, p. 378; Fox, Acts and Monuments, ed. 1576), p. 1937.
- ↑ The Independents, by their dexterity in intrigue and getting the army on their side, outwitted and overpowered the Presbyterians, who intended simply to instal themselves in the place of the Church of England. These lines record, for the most part, plain and well-known historical facts. See Burnet and others.
