Goe drawe yow a petition,
And doe yow not abhorr itt,
And gett, with low submission,
A licence to begg for itt
In churches, sans churchwardens checkes,
In Surrey and in Midlesex.
Oh sorrow, pittifull sorrow, and yett all this is true.
John Taylor, the water-poet, has his epigram on the theme:[1]
As gold is better that's in fier try'd,
So is the Bank-side Globe, that late was burn'd;
For where before it had a thatched hide,
Now to a stately theator 'tis turn'd:
Which is an emblem, that great things are won
By those that dare through greatest dangers run.
Ben Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, writes as if he had been an eye-witness:[2]
Well fare the wise men yet, on the Bank side,
My friends the watermen! they could provide
Against thy fury, when to serve their needs,
They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds,
Whom they durst handle in their holiday coats,
And safely trust to dress, not burn their boats.
But O those reeds! thy mere disdain of them
Made thee beget that cruel stratagem,
Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank,
Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank:
Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish,
Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish,
I saw with two poor chambers taken in,
And razed; ere thought could urge this might have been!
See the World's ruins! nothing but the piles
Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles.
The Brethren they straight nosed it out for news,
'Twas verily some relict of the Stews;
And this a sparkle of that fire let loose,
That was raked up in the Winchestrian goose,
Bred on the Bank in time of Popery,
When Venus there maintained the mystery.
But others fell with that conceit by the ears,
And cried it was a threatning to the bears,
And that accursed ground, the Paris-garden:
'Nay,' sighed a sister, 'Venus' nun, Kate Arden,
