! = 
erally exaggerated, the following 
three as the best (or the worst) 
"may here be quoted. 
4 MEDITATIONS OF A GULL. 
See yonder melancholy gentleman, 
phic hoodwinck’d with his hat, 
alone doth sit, 
p Thinke what he thinkes, and tel me 
, if you can, 
? EWhat' great affaires trouble his lit- 
4 tle wit: 
_ He thinkes not of the warre twixt 
P France & Spain, 
_ Whether it be for Europes good 
or ill, 
Nor whether the empire can it 
selfe maintaine 
Against the Turkish powre en- 
croching still, 
Nor what great towne in all the 
By nether lands, 
The States determine to besiege 
this spring, 
Nor how the Scottish pollicie now 
standes, 
Nor what becomes of th’ Irish mu- 
tining: 
But he doth seriouslie bethinke 
him whether 
Of the guld people he be more 
esteemde, 
For his_long cloake, or for his 
great blacke feather, 
By which each gull is now a gal- 
lant deemde. 
Or of a Iourney he deliberates, 
To Paris garden cock-pit, or the 
play, 
Or how to steale a dogge he medi- 
tates, 
Or what he shall vnto his mistris 
say: 
Yet with these thoughts he thinks 
himself most fit 
To be of counsell with a King for 
wit. 
—Sir John Davies, Epigram 47 (be- 
fore 1599), in Isham Reprints (ed. 
Charles Edmonds, 1870). 
Epigram 20. 
To Candidus. 
Friend Candidus, thou often doost 
SITTING ON THE STAGE 
139 
wise satirized in the example from Dekker, which is a part of the 
advice to such pretended gallants how to make themselves, if pos- 
demaund, 
What humours men by gulling vn- 
derstand: 
Our English Martiall hath full 
pleasantly, 
[7. e., Sir John Davies in Epigram 
47, supra] 
In his close nips described a gull 
to thee. 
Tle follow him, and set downe my 
conceit 
What a Gull is: oh word of much 
receit ! 
He is a gull, whose indiscretion 
Cracks his purse strings to be in 
fashion; 
He is a gull, who is long in taking 
roote 
In barraine soyle, where can be but 
small fruite: 
He is a gull, who runnes himselfe 
in debt, 
For twelve dayes wonder, hoping 
so to get; 
He is a gull, whose conscience is a 
block, 
Not to take interest, but wastes his 
stock: 
He is a gull, who cannot haue a 
whore, 
But brags how much he _ spends 
upon-her score; 
He is a gull, that for commodite 
Payes tenne times ten, and sells the 
same for three: 
He is a gull, who passing finicall, 
Perseth each word to be rhetoricall : 
And to conclude, who selfe con- 
ceitedly 
Thinkes al men guls, ther’s none 
more gull then he. 
—[Edward Guilpin], Skialetheta. 
Or, A shadowe of Truth, im cer- 
taine Epigrams and Satyres (Lond. 
1598), sign. A3. 
Epigram 1. 
What have we here? a mirror of 
this age, 
Acting a Comicks part vpon the 
stage. 
What Silents this? His nature 
doth vnfold 
253 
—e 
