Notes. This riddling verse is probably a libel on Sir Richard Weston, Chancellor of the Exchequer since November 1621, who was appointed Lord Treasurer in July 1628. The riddle suggests that the target was a financial servant of the Crown—thus the references to “budgett”, “dispurser”, “every purser”, and “Packhorse to the state”—and perhaps uses “Westerne” as a pun on Weston.

A thinge gott by candle light

Noe gentleman & yett a knight

Vertue and vice mixt both together

Noe starke knave nor honest neither

Great Georges budgett the kinges disburser

A Westerne plague to every purser

Packhorse to the state, a needlesse evill

The landmans plague the seamans devill

Resolve me this & all in one

And then my riddle is undone

Source. Rosenbach MS 239/27, p. 47

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