Epigram 35: There chanst to meet together in an

There chanst to meet together in an Inne,
Foure men that thought that lying was no sinne,
The an old man was in age well enter'd,
The next a traueller that farre had venter'd,
The third a Poet in prose and verse attir'd,
The fourth a Painter for his art admir'd:
These foure striued each other to excell,
Who should in lying beare away the Bell:
The old man said that when he was a boy,
To lift nine hundred waight was but a toy,
To iump in plaine ground thirty foote at least:
Then was accounted but an idle iest.
The replide that he had seene,
The King of Pigmies and the Fairy Queene:
And bene where triple-headed Cerberus,
Did guard the sulphrus gate of Erebus.
The Poet he had bene at Hellicon,
And rakte from embers of obliuion,
Olde Saturnes downefall, and Ioues royall rysing,
With thousaud fictions of his wits deuising.
And for the Painter scornes to come behinde,
He paints a flying Horse, a golden Hinde.
A Sagitary, and a grim wilde man,
A two-neckt Eagle, and a cole-blacke swan.
Now Reader tell me which of those fower Lyers,
Doth best deserue the whetstone of their hyers.