AN ANSWER TO THE FORMER SONG, IN LATIN AND ENGLISH, BY LAKES. (From an Autograph in the Editor's possession.) A BALLAD Jate was made, But God knowes who 'es the Some say the rhyming sculler', penner, And others say 't was Fenner: Doe smell it by the collar, And do maintaine it was the braine Of some yong Oxford scholler. 1 & 2 The former is Taylor, the celebrated water-poet : the latter, William Fenner, a puritanical poet and pamphleteer of that period, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Oxford. He was preferred to the rectory of Rochford, in Essex, by the earl of Warwick. He died about 1640. RESPONSIO, &c. PER LAKES. FACTA est cantilena, Sed nescio quo autore; An fluxerit ex remige, An ex Fenneri ore. Sed qui legerunt, contendunt, Esse hanc tenelli Oxoniensis nescio cujus Prolem cerebelli. Archbishop Laud in his annual account to the king 1636, page 37, mentions one Fenner, a principal ringleader of the Separatists, with their conventicles, at and about Ashford in Kent. And first he rails on Cambridge, And thinkes her to disgrace, By calling her Lutetia, And throws dirt in her face: But leave it, scholler, leave it, If Oxford be thy mother, Then Cambridge is thy aunt. Then goes he to the town, For other rhyme he could not find But leave it, scholler, leave it, Nam primò Cantabrigiam Quod vocitat Lutetiam, Et luto conspurcavit. Sed parce, precor, parcito, Nam istud nihil moror, Quum hujus academiæ Oxonia sit soror. Tunc oppidanos miseros Horrendo cornu petit, De quibus dixit, nescio quid, Bardos Oxonienses In canticis non vicimus Jam Cantabrigienses. And there he doth purloyne, For looking in their plate He nimmes away their coyne: But leave it, scholler, leave it, Next that, my lord vice-chancellor He brings before the prince, And in the face of all the court He makes his horse to wince. But leave it, scholler, leave it, For sure that jest did faile, Unless you clapt a nettle Under his horse's taile. |