Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE GREAT EATER OF GRAYS-INN, by CHARLES COTTON



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ON THE GREAT EATER OF GRAYS-INN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh! For a lasting wind! That I may rail
Last Line: For writing this, pray god, thou eat not me.
Subject(s): Food & Eating; Law & Lawyers; Marriott, John (d. 1653); Attorneys


OH! for a lasting wind! that I may rail
At this vile Cormorant, this Harpey-male:
That can, with such an hungry haste, devour
A year's provision in one short liv'd hour.
Prodigious calf of Pharaoh's lean-rib'd kine,
That swallowest beef, at every bit a chine!
Yet art thyself so meagre, men may see
Approaching famine in thy phys'nomy.

The World may yet rejoice, thou wer't not one
That shar'd Jove's mercy with Deucalion;
Had he thy grinders trusted in that boat,
Where the whole world's epitome did float,
Clean, and unclean had died, th' Earth found a want
Of her irrational inhabitant:
'Tis doubted, there thy fury had not ceast,
But of the human part too made a feast;

How fruitless then had been Heaven's charity?
No man on earth had liv'd, nor beast, but thee.
Had'st thou been one to feed upon the fare
Stor'd by old Priam for the Grecian war;
He, and his sons had soon been made a prey,
Troy's ten years siege had lasted but one day;
Or thou might'st have preserv'd them, and at once
Chop'd up Achilles, and his Myrmidons.

Had'st thou been Bael, sure thou had'st sav'd the lives
O' th' cheating priests, their children, and their wives,
But at this rate, 'twould be a heavy tax
For Hercules himself to cleanse thy jakes.
Oh! that kind Heav'n to give to thee would please
An Estridge-maw for then we should have peace.
Swords then, or shining engines would be none,
No guns, to thunder out destruction:
No rugged shackles would be extant then,
Nor tedious grates, that limit free-born men.
But thy gut-pregnant womb thy paws do fill
With spoils of Nature's good, and not her ill.

'Twas th' Inns of Courts improvidence to own
Thy wolfish carcase for a son o' th' gown;
The danger of thy jaws, they ne'er foresaw;
For, faith! I think thou hast devour'd the Law.

No wonder th' art complain'd of by the rout,
When very curs begin to smell thee out.
The reasons Southwark rings with howlings are,
Because thou rob'st the bulldogs of their share.

Beastly Consumer! not content to eat
The wholesome quarters destin'd for men's meat,
But excrement and all: nor wilt thou bate
One entrail, to inform us of thy Fate:
Which will, I hope, be such an ugly Death,
As hungry beggars, can in cursings breath.

But I have done, my Muse can scold no more,
She to the Bearward's sentence turns thee o'er,
And, since so great 's thy stomach's tyranny,
For writing this, pray God, thou eat not me.





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