Ballad on a New Opera. 1658

Now Heaven preserve our realm, And him that sits at th' helm. I will tell you of a new story Of Sir William and his apes, With full many merry japes, Much after the rate of John Dorie.

This sight is to be seen Near the street that's call'd the Queen, And the people have call'd it the Opera. But the devil take my wife, If all the days in my life I did ever see such a foppery.

Where first one begins With a trip and a cringe, And a face set in starch to accost 'em, I, and with a speech to boot, That had neither head nor foot, Might have serv'd for a Charterhouse rostrum.

Oh, he look'd so like a Jew, Would have made a man spew, When he told them here was this, here was that; Just like him that shews the tombs, For when the sum total comes, 'Tis two hours of I know not what.

Neither must I here forget The music, how it was set, Dise two ayers and a half and a Jove : All the rest was such a gig, Like the squeaking of a pig, Or cats when they 're making their love.

The next thing was the scene, And that as it was lain, But no man knows where in Peru, With a story for the nonce Of raw head and bloody bones, But the devil a word that was true.

There might you have seen an ape With his fellow for to gape, Now dancing and turning o'er and o'er. What cannot poets do? They can find out in Peru Things no man ever saw before.

Then presently the Spaniard Struts with his winyard, Now heaven of thy mercy how grim! Who'd have thought that Christian men Would have eat up children, Had he not seen them do it limb by limb?

Oh greater cruelty yet, Like a pig upon a spit, Here lies one, there another boil'd to a jelly; Just so the people stare At an ox in the fair, Roasted whole, with a pudding in 's belly.

I durst have laid my head That the king there had been dead, When I saw how they basted and carv'd him; Had he not come up again Upon the stage, there to complain How scurvily the rogues had serv'd him.

A little further in Hung a third by the chin, And a fourth cut out all in quarters; Oh, that Fox had now been living, They had been sure of Heaven, Or at the least been some of his Martyrs.

But, which was strange again, The Indians that they had slain Came dancing all in a troop; But, oh, give me the last, For, as often as he pass'd, He still tumbled like a dog in a hoop.

And now, my Signior Strugge, In good faith you may go jogge, For Sir William will have something to brag on; Oh, the English boys are come With their fife and their drum, And still the Knight must conquer the Dragon.

And so now my story is done, And I'll end as I begun, With a word, and I care not who know it; Heaven keep us, great and small, And bless us some and all, From every such pitiful Poet!