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:
But they that know the style

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,
For all the world must grant,

If Oxford be thy mother,

Then Cambridge is thy aunt.

Then goes he to the town,
And puts it all in starch,

For other rhyme he could not find
To fit the seventh of March:

But leave it, scholler, leave it,
For I must vail the bonnet,
And cast the caps at Cambridge
For making song and sonnet.

Nam primò Cantabrigiam
Convitiis execravit,

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,
Et rythmum sic effecit.
Sed parce, precor, parcito,

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,
For 't is a dangerous thing
To steal from corporations
The presents of a king.

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.