BAILIFF OF HEXHAM

Who? the Priest, Give ear my son, I have a lesson yet in store for thee: Thou must (my son) make show of holiness, And blind the world with thy hypocrisy And sometime give a penny to the poor, But let it be in the Church or market place, That men may praise thy liberality. Speak against usury, yet forsake no pawns, So thou mayest gain three shillings in the pound: Warn thou the world from sin and v le excess, And now and then speak against drunkenness, So by this means thou shall be termed wise, And with thy pureness blind the peoples eyes. But now (my sons) discourse to me in brief, How you have lived, and how you mean to die. Full well and wisely have you said my sons, And I commend you for your forward minds: That in your lives bewray whose sons you are: Here have I hene a Bayliefe three score years, And used exaction on the dwellers by, For if a man were brought before my face, For cozenage, theft, or living on his wit, For counterfeiting any hand or seal, The matter herd, the witness brought to me, I took a bribe, and set the prisoners free: So by such dealings I have God the wealth, Which I would have disbursed among you all, With this proviso, that you all shall live, And led such lives as I have set you down, Carve to your selves, and care not what they say, That bid you fear the fearful Judgement day. Live to your selves while you have time to live, Get what you can, but see you nothing give: But hark my sons, me thinks I hear a noise, And ghastly visions makes me timorous, Ah see my sons, where death, pall Death appears, To summon me before a fearful Judge: Me thiuks revenge stands with and iron whip, And cries repent, or I will punish thee: My heart is hardened, I cannot repent. Ah hark, me thinks the Judge does give my doom, And I am damn worser to ever burning fire: Soul, be thou safe, and body fly to hell. MY sons you see how age decays my state, And that my life like snow before the sun: Begins to dissolve into that snbstance now, From whose enclosure grew my sire of life, The earth I mean, sweet mother of us all, Whom death authorised by heavens high power, Shall bring at last, from whence at first I came, Yet ere I yield my self to death, my sons, Give ear, and hear what rules I set you down, And first to thee my son, that livest by wit, I know thou hast so many honest sleights, To shift and cousin smoothly on thy wit, To cog and lie, and brave it with the best, That it but labour lost to counsel thee, And therefore to the next, Walter, that seems in show a husband man: My son, when that thy master trusts thee most, And thinks thou dealest as truly as himself, Be thou the first to work deceit to him: So by that means thou mayest enrich thy self, And live at pleasure when thy maister's dead: And when to market thou art sent with will, Put sand amongst it, and 'twill make it weigh, The weight twice double that it did before, The overplus is thine into thy purse. But now my son, that keeps the Court, Be thou a means to set the Peers at strife, And currifauour for the commons love. If any but in conference name the King. Inform his Majesty they vie him. And if the king but move or speak to thee, Kneel on both knees, and say, God save your Majesty. If any man be favoured by the King, Speak thou him fair, although in heart thou envy him. But who is next? I have sir as you commanded me.