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THOME CORIATO DE ODCOMBE.

THE following panegyric on the hero of Odcombe, Thomas Coryate, a pedantic coxcomb, with just brains enough to be ridiculous, to whom the world is much more indebted for becoming "the whetstone of the wits" than for any doings of his own, and the particulars of whose life and peregrinations may be found in every collection of biography, is printed in the Odcombian Banquet, 1611, 4to. sign. I. 3.

The Latin lines have been omitted in the former impressions of Bishop Corbet's poems.

SPECTATISSIMO, PUNCTISQUE OMNIBUS DIGNISSIMO,

THOME CORIATO DE ODCOMBE,

PEREGRINANTI,

PEDESTRIS ORDINIS, EQUESTRISQUE FAMÆ.

QUOD mare transieris, quod rura urbesque pedester, Jamque colat reduces patria læta pedes: Quodque idem numero tibi calceus hæret, et illo Cum corio redeas, quo Coriatus abis :

Fatum omenque tui miramur nominis, ex quo

Calcibus et soleis fluxit aluta tuis,

Nam quicunque eadem vestigia tentat, opinor Excoriatus erit, ni Coriatus eat.

IN LIBRUM SUUM.

De te pollicitus librum es, sed in te

Est magnus tuus hic liber libellus.

TO THOMAS CORYATE.

I Do not wonder, Coryate, that thou hast
Over the Alpes, through France and Savoy past,
Parch'd on thy skin, and founder'd in thy feete,
Faint, thirstie, lowsy, and didst live to see't.
Though these are Roman sufferings, and do shew
What creatures back thou hadst could carry so,
All I admire is thy returne, and how

Thy slender pasterns could thee beare, when now
Thy observations with thy braine ingendered,
Have stuft thy massy and voluminous head
With mountaines, abbies, churches, synagogues,
Preputial offals, and Dutch dialogues:

A burthen far more grievous then the weight Of wine or sleep; more vexing than the freight Of fruit and oysters, which lade many a pate, And send folks crying home from Billingsgate.

No more shall man with mortar on his head

Set forwards towards Rome: No! thou art bred
A terror to all footmen, and all porters,

And all laymen that will turne Jews exhorters,
To flie their conquered trade. Proud England then
Embrace this luggage3, which the Man of men
Hath landed here, and change thy well-a-day!
Into some homespun welcome roundelay.
Send of this stuffe thy territories thorough
To Ireland, Wales, and Scottish Eddenborough.
There let this booke be read and understood,
Where is no theame nor writer halfe so good.

3" Coryate's Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travels in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands." 4to. 1611. Re-printed in 3 vols. 8vo. 1776.

A CERTAIN POEM,

As it was presented in Latine by Divines and others before His Majesty in Cambridge, by way of Enterlude, styled Liber novus de Adventu Regis ad Cantabrigiam. Faithfully done into English, with some liberal Additions. Made rather to be sunge than read, to the Tune of Bonny Nell.

(The Notes are from a MS. copy in the Editor's possession.)

Ir is not yet a fortnight since
Lutetia entertain'd our prince,
And vented hath a studied toy
As long as was the siege of Troy:
And spent herself for full five days
In speeches, exercise, and plays.

• Quia valde lutosa est Cantabrigia.
5 Ludus per spatium 6 horarum infra.

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