The Courtier’s Health; Or, the Merry Boys of the Times

(A.D. 1672.)—From the Roxburgh Ballads, Vol. ii.
To the tune of “Come, Boys, fill us a Bumper.”

Come, boys, fill us a bumper,
   Wee’l make the nation roar,
She’s grown sick of a Rumper,
   That sticks on the old score.
Pox on phanaticks, rout ’um,
   They thirst for our blood;
Wee’l taxes raise without ’um,
   And drink for the nation’s good.
Fill the pottles and the gallons,
   And bring the hogshead in,
Wee’l begin with a tallen,
   A brimmer to the King.

Round, around, fill a fresh one,
   Let no man bawk his wine,
Wee’l drink to the next in succession,
   And keep it in the right line.
Bring us ten thousand glasses,
   The more we drink we’re dry;
We mind not the beautiful lasses,
   Whose conquest lyes all in the eye.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

We boys are truly loyal,
   For Charles wee’l venture all,
We know his blood is royal,
   His name shall never fall.
But those that seek his ruine
   May chance to dye before him,
While we that sacks are woeing
   For ever will adore him.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

I hate those strange dissenters
   That strives to hawk a glass,
He that at all adventures
   Will see what comes to pass:
And let the Popish nation
   Disturb us if they can,
They ne’er shall breed distraction
   In a true-hearted man.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

Let the fanatics grumble
   To see things cross their grain,
Wee’l make them now more humble
   Or ease them of their pain:
They shall drink sack amain too,
   Or they shall be choak’t;
Wee’l tell ’um ’tis in vain too
   For us to be provok’t.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

He that denyes the brimmer
   Shall banish’d be in this isle,
And we will look more grimmer
   Till he begins to smile:
Wee’l drown him in Canary,
   And make him all our own,
And when his heart is merry
   Hee’l drink to Charles on’s throne.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

Quakers and Anabaptists,
   Wee’l sink them in a glass;
He deals most plain and flattest
   That sayes he loves a lass:
Then tumble down Canary,
   And let our brains go round,
For he that won’t be merry
   He can’t at heart be sound.
      Fill the pottles, etc.

Printed for P. Brooksly, at the Golden Ball in West Smithfield, 1672.