38 INTRODUCTORY 



architectures that condecorate and adorne it, and 

 then perponder of the red herringes priority and 

 preualence, who is the onely vnexhaustible mine 

 that hath raisd and begot all this, and minutely 

 to riper maturity fosters and cherisheth it." 



" But let none of these scumme of the subvrbs be 

 too vineger tarte with mee ; for if they bee He take 

 mine oath vppon a redde herring and eate it, to 

 prooue that their fathers, their grandfathers, and 

 their great grandfathers, or any other of their kinne, 

 were scullions dish wash, and durty draff e and swil, 

 set against a redde herring. The puissant red 

 herring, the golden Hesperides red herring, the 

 Meonian red herring, the red herring of Red Herrings 

 Hal, euery pregnant peculiar of whose resplendent 

 laude and honour to delineate and adumbrate to 

 the ample life were a woorke that would drinke drie 

 fourescore and eighteene Castalian fountaines of 

 eloquence, consume another Athens of fecunditie, 

 and abate the haughiest poeticall fury twixt this 

 and the burning zone and the tropike of Cancer. 

 My conceit is cast into a sweating sicknesse, with 

 ascending these few steps of his renowne ; into what 

 a hote broyling Saint Laurence feuer would it relapse 

 then, should I spend the whole bagge of my winde 

 in climbing vp to the lofty mountaine creast of his 

 trophees ? But no more winde will I spend on it 

 but this : Saint Denis for Fraunce, Saint lames for 

 Spaine, Saint Patrike for Ireland, Saint George for 

 England, and the red herring for Yarmouth." 



Again :— 



*' There is plain witchcraft in his skin which is a 

 secret that all tapsters will curse me for blabbing : 

 for do but rub a cann or quart pot round about the 

 mouth with it, let the cunningest lick-spiggot swelt 

 his heart out, the beer shall never foam or froth in 



