A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.

L9 From a Gipsie in the morneing


Notes. In the only known source of this poem, it is attributed to “B. Johnson”. While it is heavily based on a song in Jonson’s masque, The Gypsies Metamorphosed (Jonson 367-69), the poem translates Jonson’s prayer for the wellbeing of “our sovereign” into a prayer for “great Buckinghame”. The poem’s tone is inscrutable: it may be read as a sincere panegyric on Buckingham, or it may instead be taken as an ironic comment on the increasingly monarchical status assumed by the Duke (who had sponsored Jonson’s masque). The scribe’s appreciation of satire is evident throughout the manuscript in which this piece is found. Notably, a few pages after this poem there is a copy of the more popular appropriation of Jonson’s song, “From such a face whose Excellence”.


From a Gipsie in the morneing                  [m. note: “seeing”]

or a paire of Squirt1 eyes turneing

From the goblyn & the Specter

From a drunckard though with Nectar

From a rampant smocke that ytches

5

To bee puting on the breeches

Wheresoe’re they have a beinge

Blesse great Buckinghame & his seeing


From ymproper serious toyes                  [m. note: “heareing”]

From a Lawyers three part noies

10

From ympertinence lyke a drumme

Beate att dynner in the roome

From a tonge without a Fyle

All of phrases and noe style

From a Fiddle out of tune

15

As a Cuckoe is in June

From the Candlesticks of Loathburie2

or the lewd pure wines3 of banbury4

Both the tymes & yeares out weareing

Blesse great Buckingham his heareing

20

From birdlyme tarre & from all pitch        [m. note: “Feeling”]

From dyrtie doxes & theire ytch

From the bristles of a hogge

From the Ringworme of a dogge

From the Court-shippe of a bryer

25

From St Anthonies old fyre5

From a nedle pin or thorne

From bad even or bad morne

If hee bee druncke & a reelinge

Blesse great Buckingham his feeleing

30

From a lousie tynkers sheete                    [m. note: “Smelling”]

From stinking toes of Carriers Feete

From a lady that doth breath

worse above then underneath

From the dyet & the knowledge

35

of the Studients in beares Colledge6

From Tobacco with the type

of the devills glister pipe7

Or a stinke or stinkes excelling

A Fishmonger and his dwelling

40

Blesse great Buckingham & his smelling


From gapeing oysters & fryed fishe          [m. note: “Tasteing”]

From a Sowes baby in a dish

From any portion of Swine

From bad venison, & worse wine

45

From Ling8 what Cooke soe ere yt boyle

Or what else may keepe man fasteing

Blesse great Buckingham his tasteing


A recapitulacion

Blesse him to from all offences

in his sporte & in his sences

50

From a hare to crosse his waye

From a fall, or fowle day

Blesse him heaven, and grant him longe

To be the burthen of my songe




Source. St. John’s MS S.32, fols. 27v-28v

L9






1   Squirt: probable scribal error; read “squint”. <back>

2   Loathburie: Lothbury; area of London associated with iron foundries. <back>

3   wines: probable scribal error; read “wives”. <back>

4   banbury: town in Oxfordshire known for Puritanism. <back>

5   St Anthonies old fyre: St. Anthony’s Fire is a term for erysipelas, a disease with symptoms including skin inflammation. <back>

6   the Studients...Colledge: i.e. the bears in the bear-garden. <back>

7   glister pipe: a tube for the delivery of an enema (“glister”). <back>

8   Ling: a kind of fish. <back>