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This Elderton was a famous comedian in those days, and a facetious companion, who having a great readiness at rhiming, composed many catches on Love and Wine, which were then in great vogue among the giddy and volatile part of the town; but he was not more celebrated for drollery than drinking, so that he obtained the name of the bacchanalian buffoon, the red-nosed ballad-maker, &c. and at last by the excessive indulgence of his favourite vice, he fell a martyr to it 1592, and Mr.
'In the first Rank of these did Zimri stand: A Man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome. Stiff in Opinions, always in the wrong; Was ev'ry thing by Starts, and nothing long; But, in the Course of one revolving Moon, Was Chemist, Fidler, Statesman, and Buffoon: Then all for Women, Painting, Rhiming, Drinking: Besides ten thousand Freaks that dy'd in thinking.
Commend a good divine, he cries postilling; a philologer, pedantry; a poet, rhiming; a school-man, dull wrangling; a sharp conceit, boyishness; an honest man, plausibility. He comes to publick things not to learn, but to catch, and if there be but one solecism, that is all he carries away.
Tell me, said he, my Bellemante, Will you be kind to your Charmante? I blush'd, and veil'd my wishing Eyes, And answer'd only with my Sighs. Cou'd I a better way my Love impart? And without speaking, tell him all my Heart. Char. Bell. 'Tis yours for ought I know. Char. Away, my Name was put here for a blind. What Rhiming Fop have you been clubbing Wit withal? Bell. Ah! mon Dieu! Charmante jealous?
He is said to have been originally a jesuit, and to have had connexions in consequence thereof, with such persons of distinction in London as were of the Roman Catholic persuasion, Langbaine says, his acquaintance with the nobility was more than with the mules, and he had a greater propensity to rhiming, than genius to poetry.
If God has not blessed you with the talent of rhiming, make use of my poor stock and welcome; let your verses run upon my feet, and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines against me, and in utter despair of my own satire, make me satirize myself. The whole poem is a severe invective against the earl of Shaftsbury; who was uncle to that earl who wrote the Characteristics.
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