God dame him! doth he man or Divell feare.

Nor cares he for his credit unto men,

If that the person be a Citizen;

But here he playes the Pope, that doth not1 sticke
To breake all faith with an Hereticke:
He with a Citizen. What! shall I pay
My money to a Roundhead? let him stay;
Ile see the rogue first damd. My W
A gown; my mony is not for a slave.

shall have

Now sweld with debt, our Puffe to France is blowne: England unworthy is of such a one.

A land that borrowes all their wit from France,

Who can't, like them on anticke forme advance.
They only, by the vertue of the shire,
Can make a Country puffe so wise appeare,
That when he 's caist in a new sute of cloathes,
No Councellor carries so high his nose;
But nere before his mothers curds and creame
Could adde to make him thus so wisely seeme.
Ariv'd in France, he doth not long remaine :
Another puffe soone puffes him backe again;
but all be-frenchifide, he vowes the nation
From all the world to excell in fashion.

His Countries vile, they clownes that in it dwell,
But France in cloaths and complement excell.
Shrowded in a strange garbe he walkes the streete,
At last his Creditor doth chance to meet,

Who hardly now can know him by his feature,
And is amaz'd who should be this creature ;

50

60

70

1 Old ed. has no

2 Old ed. has brearke.

Vnto himselfe then1 speakes: is this not him,
Whom that a yeare ago I ware did bring?

Sure, 'tis the same, or whosoere he be,
Ile venture to arest his bravery.

Puffe, then arested, takes his next degree
Within the Counters Vniversity.

A staid man now he is: for he is none

Of those that doth not keep themselves at home,
But here he doth not rest himselfe so long,

But all his cloaths and meanes is spent and gone ;
That like some ancient escuchion he doth seeme
All tattered, in shew of no esteeme,

80

Save that he 's honoured of som, and for

He beares the coate of his brave ancestor :

90

Who was a man perhaps of worth and Spirit,

Whose son doth but his meanes, not mind inherit.
But Puffe not long within the Counter lies
But that with melancholy streight he dyes.
And being ript, within was quickly found
Bills, bonds, and notes of debt, that all lay round
His heart, that all men present did suppose

The weight of these thus soone his eyes did close.
His will he left, but 'las, twas his last will:

Had 't been his first, his wealth he had kept still; 100
That all, as he did now, should hate a w

For they and wine did make him dye thus poore:
Next, that no gallant should not ought suppose,
That Prayers and glory doth consist in cloathes,

1 Old ed. has them.

2 Old ed. has For.

Or for to court a wench with words compil'd;
Such ever fame hath from her court exil'd.

But that they rather should enrich their mind

With armes and arts; 'tis those that fame doth find.
Next in his will he Legacies did give ;

First, all his vices with our blades to live,
And for his French disease he did bequeath
To all those blades that cannot women leave;
Next that the Prentices should have his cloaths,
To make shooclouts for the shooes of those,
Their masters, which before he had abus'd
With name of Roundheads, & their debts refus'd.
As for his soule, I thinke it was forgot

In 's life; for here in 's will we find it not.
He never thought of it, sure, to bequeath;
He ever that did to Gods mercy leave.

110

120

His Epitaph.

Here lyes Iack Puffe, wrapt up in his skin,
For want of a shirt he lyeth thus thin,
Who, like cut grasse, did live but a day :
The sunshine of beauty soone burnt him to hay.
His bladder of life by death being prick't,

The bladder shrinkes up; Puffe out soone then skipt:
The great misse of winde might soone cause his death,
For how can a puffe be ought without breath?

But where he is gone, I hardly can tell,
Vnlesse he doth with Boreas dwell,

That, as in his life, so after his death,

He might keepe a storming still here upon earth.

130

THE

"If any Gentleman do want a Man,

As I doubt not but some do now and than,
I have a Welchman, though but meanly clad,
Will make him merry, be he nere so sad:
If that you read, read it quite ore I pray,
And you'l not think your penny cast away."
[Beneath these lines there is a rude woodcut.]

By Humphrey Crouch. London, Printed for William Whitwood at the sign of the Bell in Duck-lane near Smithfield, 12 leaves.

1671, 12mo, black letter.

It has been frequently reprinted as a chap-book.

In 1860, Mr. Halliwell caused thirty copies to be reprinted from the ed. of 1671. But the present text is formed from an exact collation of the original tract.

John Crouch is a well-known name in connection with the period of the ephemeral poetry of the period of the Protectorate

1 In a bookseller's catalogue for 1860 a copy of the Welch Traveller, 1670, 12mo, was marked at 10s. 6d. But on examination it turned out to be the ed. of 1671, and the very copy which sold at Utterson's sale for £3 18s.