Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/233

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THE GULS HORN-BOOKE:

OR

Fashions to please all sorts of Guls.

Proœmium.

I sing (like the cuckooe in June) to bee laught at: if therefore I make a scuruy noise, and that my tunes sound vnmusically (the Ditty being altogether lame in respect of the bad feete, and vnhansome in regard of the worme-eaten fashion) you that haue authority vnder the broad seale of mouldy custom, to be called the gentle Audience, set your goodly great hands to my pardon: or else, because I scorne to be vpbraided that I professe to instruct others in an Art, whereof I my selfe am ignorant, Doe your worst: chuse whether you will let my notes haue you by the eares, or no: hisse or giue plaudities, I care not a nut-shell which of either: you can neither shake our Comick Theater with your stinking breath of hisses, nor raise it with the thunder-claps of your hands: vp it goes, in dispetto del fato. Ye motley is bought, and a