The Authour in prayse of his precedent Poem. N Ow Rufus, by old Glebrons fearefull mace Hath not my Muse deseru'd a worthy place? Come come Luxurio, crowne my head with Bayes, Which like a Paphian, wantonly displayes The Salaminian titillations, Which tickle vp our leud Priapians. Is not my pen compleate? are not my lines Right in the swaggering humor of these times? O sing Peana to my learned Muse. Io bis dicite. Wilt thou refuse? Doe not I put my mistres in before? And pitiously her gracious ayde implore? Doe not I flatter, call her wondrous faire? Vertuous, diuine most debonaire? Hath not my Goddesse in the vaunt-gard place, The leading of my lines theyr plumes to grace? And then ensues my stanzaes, like odd bands Of voluntaries, and mercenarians: Which like Soldados of our warlike age, March rich bedight in warlike equipage: Glittering in dawbed lac'd habiliments. Yet puffie as Dutch hose they are within, Faint, and white liuer'd, as our gallants bin; Patch'd like a beggars cloake, and run as sweet As doth a tumbrell in the paued street. And in the end, (the end of loue I wot) Pigmalion hath a iolly boy begot. So Labeo did complaine his loue was stone, Obdurate, flinty, so relentlesse none: Yet Lynceus knowes, that in the end of this, He wrought as strange a metamorphosis. Ends not my Poem then surpassing ill? Come, come, Augustus, crowne my laureat quill.     Now by the whyps of Epigramatists, He not be lasht for my dissembling shifts. And therefore I vse Popelings discipline, Lay ope my faults to Mastigophoros eyne: Censure my selfe, fore others me deride And scoffe at mee, as if I had deni'd Or thought my Poem good, when that I see My lines are froth, my stanzaes saplesse be. Thus hauing rail'd against my selfe a while, Ile snarle at those, which doe the world beguile With masked showes. Ye changing Proteans list, And tremble at a barking Satyrist. [@ Marston, C-C2v]

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