Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ... A QUIP FOR AN UPSTART COURTIER. &c. T was just at that time, when the cuckold's chorister1 began to bewray April-Gentlemen,2 with his never changed notes, that I, (damped with a melancholy rhumour, ) went into the fields to cheer up my wits with the fresh air; where solitary seeking to solace myself, I fell in a dream, and in that drowsy slumber I wandered into a vale, all tapestried with sweet and choice flowers; there 1the Cuckold's Chorister.--The cuckoo, a cuckold being called so from the cuckoo. The note of that bird was supposed to prognosticate that destiny, which strengthens the probability of the above derivation. Thus Shakespeare: The cuckoo, then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo !--O word of fear, Unpleasing sound to the married ear. And Drayton: No nation names the cuckoo but in scorn, And no man hears him but he fears the horn. Works, 8vo, p. 1316. "april-gentlemen.--Married men. The wedding day is sometimes called April day. grew many simples, whose virtues taught men to be subtle, and to think nature, by her weeds, warned men to be wary, and, by their secret properties, to check wanton and sensual imperfections. Amongst the rest, there was the yellow daffodil, a flower fit for jealous dotterels,1 who, through the beauty of their honest wives, grow suspicious, and so prove themselves, in the end, cuckold heretics; there budded out the checkered pansy or parti-coloured heartsease, an herb seldom seen, either of such men as are wedded to shrews, or of such women that have hasty husbands; yet there it grew, and, as I stepped to gather it, it slipped from me like Tantalus's fruit, that fails their master. At last, wondering at this secret quality, I learned that none can wear it, be...
