Fools and jesters: with a reprint of Robert Armin's Nest of ninnies, 1608 / With an introduction and notes [by J.P. Collier].

  • Robert Armin
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fools and jesters: with a reprint of Robert Armin's Nest of ninnies, 1608 / With an introduction and notes [by J.P. Collier]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    such was his, who thus busied, was tooke napping by the weale publike, who smiles upon him with a wapper eye, a iealous countenance, and bids him all haile ! Mistresse (sayes Sotto) X will not say welcome, because you come ill to him that would bee alone 5 but, since you are come, looke for such entertainement as my folly fits you with, that is, sharp sauce with bitter dyet; no swetnes at al, for that were to mingle your pils with sugar: no, X am all one, winter in the head, and frost in the foot; no summer in me but my smiles, and that as soone gone as smiles. The bauble I play with is mens es¬ tates, which I so tumble from hand to hand, that, weary with it, I see (glutting]y and grieuedly, yet mingled with smiles too) in my glasse prospectiue what shall become of it. The World, curling her locks with her fingers, and anone scratch- ing her braine with her itching pin, as one little regarding, answeres. What then? Marry, sayes Hodge, ile show thee. See, World, in wdiose bosome euer hath abundance beene poured, what thy imps of impiety bee ; for as they (X) all for the most part, as these which I will present to thee in my glasse prospectiue : mark them well, and see what thou breed- est in thy wantonnesse, sixe children like thee, not the father that begat them-—Where were they nursed ? in folly : fed with the flottin milke of nicetie and wantonnesse, curdled in thy wombe of water and bloud, vnseasoned, because thy mother bearing temper was euer vntrue, farre from the rellish of right breede ; and it is hard that the taste of one apple should dis¬ taste the whole lumpe of this defused chaios. But marke me and my glasse : see into some (and in them thy selfe) whom I haue discride, or describde, these sixe parts of folly in thee ; thou shalt see them as cleare as day, how mistic thy clouds be, and what rancknesse raines from them. The World, queasie stomackt, as one fed with the earth’s nectar and delicates, with the remembrance of her own appe¬ tite, squinies at this, and lookes as one scorning ; yet beholding what will follow, at length espies a tall blacke man, jearing