IN GALLUM. XXIV.
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allus hath been this summer-time in Friesland,And now, return'd, he speaks such warlike words,As, if I could their English understand,I fear me they would cut my throat like swords;He talks of counter-scarfs,[506] and casamates,[507]Of parapets, curtains, and palisadoes;[508]Of flankers, ravelins, gabions he prates,And of false-brays,[509] and sallies, and scaladoes.[510]But, to requite such gulling terms as these,With words to my profession I reply; 10I tell of fourching, vouchers, and counterpleas,Of withernams, essoins, and champarty.So, neither of us understanding either,We part as wise as when we came together. FOOTNOTES: [506] Counter-scarps. [507] Old eds. "Casomates." [508] Old eds. "Of parapets, of curteneys, and pallizadois."--MS. "Ofparapelets, curtens and passadoes."--Cunningham prints "Of curtains,parapets," &c. [509] "A term in fortification, exactly from the French _fausse-braie_,which means, say the dictionaries, a counter-breast-work, or, in fact, amound thrown up to mask some part of the works. 'And made those strange approaches by false-brays,Reduits, half-moons, horn-works, and such close ways.' _B. Jons. Underwoods._"--Nares. [510] Dyce points out that this passage is imitated in Fitzgeoffrey's_Notes from Black-Fryers_, Sig. E. 7, ed. 1620. IN DECIUM.[511] XXV. Audacious painters have Nine Worthies made;But poet Decius, more audacious far,Making his mistress march with men of war,With title of "Tenth Worthy" doth her lade.Methinks that gull did use his terms as fit,Which term'd his love "a giant for her wit." FOOTNOTES: [511] In this epigram, as Dyce showed, Davies is glancing at a sonnet ofDrayton's "To the Celestiall Numbers" in _Idea_. Jonson told Drummondthat "S. J. Davies played in ane Epigrame on Draton's, who in a sonnetconcluded his mistress might been the Ninth [sic] Worthy; and said heused a phrase like Dametas in Arcadia, who said, For wit his Mistressemight be a Gyant."--_Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with Drummond_,p. 15. (ed. Shakesp. Soc.)
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