The Ballad of the Caps
The Wit hath long beholding been
Unto the Cap to keep it in;
But now the wits fly out amain,
In prayse to quit the Cap again;
The Cap that keeps the highest part
Obtains the place by due desert:
For any Cap, &c. [what ere it bee,
Is still the signe of some degree.]
The Monmouth Cap, the Saylors thrumbe,
And that wherein the Tradesmen come,
The Physick Cap, the Cap Divine,
And that which Crownes the Muses nine,
The Cap that fooles do Countenance,
The goodly Cap of Maintenance.
For any Cap, &c.
The sickly Cap both plain and wrought,
The Fudling cap, how ever bought,
The worsted, Furr’d, the Velvet, Sattin,
For which so many pates learn Latin;
The Cruel cap, the Fustian Pate,
The Perewig, a Cap of late:
For any Cap, &c.
The Souldiers that the Monmoth wear,
On Castles tops their Ensigns rear;
The Sea-man with his Thrumb doth stand
On higher parts then all the Land;
The Tradesmans Cap aloft is born,
By vantage of a stately horn.
For any Cap, &c.
The Physick Cap to dust can bring
Without controul the greatest King:
The Lawyers Cap hath Heavenly might
To make a crooked action straight;
And if you’l line him in the fist,
The Cause hee’l warrant as he list.
For any Cap, &c.
Both East and West, and North and South,
Where ere the Gospel hath a mouth
The Cap Divine doth thither look:
Tis Square like Scholars and their Books:
The rest are Round, but this is Square
To shew their Wits more stable are:
For any Cap, &c.
The Jester he a Cap doth wear,
Which makes him Fellow for a Peer,
And ’tis no slender piece of Wit
To act the Fool, where great Men sit,
But O, the Cap of London Town!
I wis, ’tis like a goodly Crown.
For any Cap, &c.
The sickly Cap[,] though wrought with silk,
Is like repentance, white as milk;
When Caps drop off at health apace,
The Cap doth then your head uncase,
The sick mans Cap (if wrought can tell)
Though he be sick, his cap is well.
For any Cap, &c.
The fudling Cap by Bacchus Might,
Turns night to day, and day to night;
We know it makes proud heads to bend,
The Lowly feet for to Ascend:
It makes men richer then before,
By seeing doubly all their score.
For any Cap, &c.
The furr’d and quilted Cap of age
Can make a mouldy proverb sage,
The Satin and the Velvet hive
Into a Bishoprick may thrive,
The Triple Cap may raise some hope,
If fortune serve, to be a Pope;
For any Cap, &c.
The Perewig, O, this declares
The rise of flesh, though fall of haires,
And none but Grandsiers can proceed
So far in sin, till they this need,
Before the King who covered are,
And only to themselves stand bare.
For any Cap, what ere it bee,
Is still the signe of some degree.
[Next follow A Ballad of the Nose (see Merry Drollery, Compleat, p. 143), and A Song of the Hot-headed Zealot: to the tune of “Tom a Bedlam” (Dr. Richard Corbet’s, Ibid, p. 234).]
[p. 37.]