The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

Selected poetry.

Hotspur's Description of a Finical Courtier.
Shakspeare.

BUT in the same he hone
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain Lord, neat, trimly drest,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd,
Shew'd like a stubble-land at harvest home.
He was perfumed like a milliner:
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't away again;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff. And still he smiled and talk'd:
And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; among the rest demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds, being cold,
Out of my grief and my impatience
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what;
He should, or should not; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds--(God save the mark!)
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmacety, for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villainous salt-petre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly: and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.