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 Welch Traveller;

or,

The Unfortunate Welchman.

HE Welch Traveller; or, the Unfortunate Welchman.

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, 1671,1 12mo, black letter. 12 leaves.

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

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.

⚫ and Restoration; but Humphrey Crouch is, we believe, a new candidate for the honours of Parnassus; he is overlooked by Lowndes; nor is his name attached to the present poem in some of the subsequent impressions. It is not a very rash inference, that John and Humphrey Crouch were related to each other; perhaps they were brothers.

The Welch Traveller is one of a series of satirical pamphlets, in verse and prose, which were directed against the Welch during the seventeenth century. Several of these forgotten lucubrations are preserved among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum; but they are known to few bibliographers, from the fact that they are not to be found, for the most part, in Lowndes and other works of a similar character.

The following narrative, which, as we know from the titlepage, was originally published as a penny history, may possibly represent, to some extent, the personal adventures of the author in the Principality. Crouch, who evidently imagined that he was providing for his readers a feast of humour at the low price of a penny, is nothing but a dull and coarse scribbler; but like many other poetasters, he has painted with tolerable fidelity the manners of the Welsh as they were in the time of Charles II; and as illustrations of this kind are not, as regards the CambroBritons, particularly plentiful, the reader may be disposed to tolerate, for the sake of its allusions and descriptions, the strange mixture of balderdash and ribaldry, of which the tract consists. It is, after all, to be prized as an unique relic.

It may be observed that Crouch has entirely missed the point of the Cambrian hur, perhaps from an ignorance of the true orthography of that grammatical formula.

There is one circumstance which discountenances the notion that the writer here recounts mischances which occurred to himself, and it is that, about the same date, a second publication appeared, entitled, "The distressed Welshman born in Trinity Lane, with a Relation of his unfortunate Travels." It is as likely as not that the latter and the "Welch Traveller" of Crouch may have been one and the same person-some illstarred native of the Principality, doubtless, who had come up to London to seek his fortune, and who circumstantially supplied one or two needy pamphleteers with an opportunity of earning a few shillings at his expense.

The original tract partakes of the typographical imperfections which characterize almost all the printed English literature of the 17th century, and which may of course be found more than usually abundant in a penny chap-book.

There are many satirical effusions against the Welsh to be found in the numerous Drolleries printed during the 17th century. The following tracts may be enumerated in addition :

1. The Welchman's Protestation, concerning the Corruptions of these Times, with her last Will and Testament and her Song. 1641, 4to.

2. The Welchmen's Ivbilee to the Honovr of St. David. In verse. By J. Morgan. London. 1641, 4to.

3. Treason made and enacted by the late half-quarter usurping Convention, with a petition from the Shentleman of Wales to their cood Worships. Are to be sold at the sign of the roasted Rump, n. d. 4to.

4. The Welshman's Warning-piece, as delivered in a sermon in Shropshire, by Shon ap Morgan. 1642, 4to.

5. The Welshman's Prave Resolution in defence of her King. 1642, 4to.

6. The Welchman's Recantation, or his hearty sorrow for taking up of Armes against her Parliament. 1642, 4to.

7. A Perfect Diurnal, or Welch Post, with her creat packet of Letters, for her to carry into her countrey of Whales, touching her pretren proceeding and War in England. With a woodcut on the title-page. 1643, 4to.

8. The Welsh Man's Postures, or True Manner how her doe Exercise her company of Souldiers in her own Country. 1643, 4to. Woodcut on title.

1642, 4to.

9. The Welchman's Petition. Cut on title. 10. The Welchman's Last Petition and Protestation ; whereunto is added the Protestation of Thomas ap Shinkin ap Morgan, &c. 1642, 4to. Reprinted, with many new additions, 1643, 4to.

11. The Welchman's Declaration: declaring her resolution to be revenged on her enemies, for te creat many of her Cousins and Countreymen in Teane Forrest in Glocestershire, where her was most cruelly peaten. Woodcut on title. n. d. [1643]. 4to.

12. The Welch Plunderer, or her sore lamentation hearing of P. Roberts pillaging in Gloucestershire. 1643, 4to. Woodcut on title.