All the vvorkes of Iohn Taylor the water-poet Beeing sixty and three in number. Collected into one volume by the author: vvith sundry new additions corrected, reuised, and newly imprinted, 1630.

The praise of the Gooses Quill.

ANd thus for shooters hauing shew'd my skill, I'le now say somewhat for the Gooses Quill. Great Mars his Traine of Military men I leaue, and turne the Shaft into a Pen: The Gooses feather acteth sundry parts, And is an Instrument both of Armes and Arts. Many diuine and heauenly mysteries, And many memorable Histories Had with blind Ignorance beene ouer-growne, And (were't not for the Pen) had ne'r bin knowne. The Muses might in Parnass hill haue staid, Their fames had ne'r bin through the world displaid But that the Gooses Quill with full consent, Was found to be the fittest Instrument To be their Nuntius, and to disperse Their glory through the spacious Vniuerse. Grammar (that of all Science is the ground) Without it in forgetfulnesse were drownd, And Rethorick (the sweet rule of eloquence) Through the Goose Quill distils it's Quintess•••••• Logick with definitions (I am sure) Were nothing, or else very much obscure: Astronomie would lye, or lye forgot And scarce remembred, or regarded not; Arithmetick would erre exceedingly, Forgetting to deuide and multiply: Geometry would lose the Altitude, The craslic Longitude and Latitude: And Musick in poore case would be o're-throwne, But that the Goose Quill pricks the Lessons downe Thus all the liberall Sciences are still In generall beholding to the Quill. Embassages to farre remoted Princes. Bonds, Obligations, Bills, and Euidences, Letters twixt foe and foe, or friend and friend, To gratulate, instruct, or reprehend, Assurances, where faith and troth is scant, To make the faithlesse to keepe couenant; The Potent weapon of the reuerend Law, That can giue life or death, saue, hang, or draw, That with a Royall, or a noble dash, Can from the Kings Exchequer fetch the Cash. To most shop-keepers it a reckoning makes, What's got or lost, what he layes out, or takes: Without the Goose a Scriuener were a foole, Her Quill is all his onely working toole: And sure a Goose is of a wondrous nature, Contrary to each other liuing creature, Things that in water, earth, or ayre haue growth, And feede and liue, bite onely with the mouth: But the Goose with sophisticated skill, Doth bite most dangerously with her quill, Yet is she free from prodigality, And most of all bites partiality: She oft with biting makes a Knight a detter, * 1.1And rankle to a Begger, little better. She oft hath bit a Gallant from his land With quick conueyance, and by slight of hand: Sometimes his biting is as durable, As is a Gangren most incureable, And many that into her fangs doe fall, Doe take the Counters for their Hospitall; A Forger, or a Villaine that forsweares, Or a False-witnesse, she bites off their eares: On me her pow'r she many times hath showne, And made me pay more debts then were mine o•••••• Thus doth her Quill bite more then doe her chaps, To teach fooles to beware of after-claps.

They say in Latine that a Gooses name •••• ANSER, which made in Anagram, SNARE, in English, which doth plaine declare, That she to fooles and knaues will be a snare.* 1.2, ••deede she oft hath beene a snare to mee, ••y selfe was in the fault, alas not shee.

Notes

• * 1.1

  A shrewd biting beast.
• * 1.2

  Hereupon began the Prouerbes, of good Goose bite not.