Alexander Brome

On Canary

1.

OF all the rare juices,
That Bacchus or Ceres produces,
There's none that I can, nor dare I
Compare with the princely Canary;
For this is the thing
That a fancy infuses;
This first got a King,
And next the nine Muses
'Twas this made old Poets so sprightly to sing,
And fill all the world with the glory and fame on't,
They Helicon call'd it, and the Thespian-spring,
But this was the drink, though they knew not the name on't.

2.

Our Sider and Perry,
May make a man mad but not merry;
It makes people windmill-pated,
And with crackers sophisticated;
And your hops, yest, and malt,
When they're mingled together,
Makes our fancies to halt,
Or reel any whither:
It stuffs up our brains with froth, and with yest,
That if one would write but a verse for a Bel-man
He must study till Christmas for an eight shilling-jest▪
These liquors won't raise, but drown, and o're∣whelm man.
3.
Our drousie Metheglin
Was only ordain'd to enveigle in;
The Novice that knows not to drink yet,
But is fudled before he can think it;
And your Claret and White,
Have a Gun-powder fury,
They're of the French spright,
But they wont long endure you.
And your holiday Muscadine, Allegant, and Tent,
Have only this property and vertue that's fit in't:
They'l make a man sleep till a preachment be spent,
But we neither can warm our bloud nor our wit in'〈…〉

4.

The Bagrag and Rhenish
You must with ingredients replenish;
'Tis a wine to please Ladies and toyes with,
But not for a man to rejoyce with:
But 'tis Sack makes the sport,
And who gains but that flavour,
Though an Abbess he court,
In his high shooes, he I have her.
'Tis this that advances the drinker and drawer,
Though the father came to Town in his hob-nails and leather,
He turns it to Velvet, and brings up an Heir,
In the Town in his •hain, in the field with his fea∣ther▪