Pray thee take care, that tak’st my book in hand,

To read it well: that is,  to understand.

It will be looked for, book, when some but see

Thy title,  ‘Epigrams’, and  named of me,

Thou shouldst be bold, licentious, full of  gall,

Wormwood, and sulphur; sharp, and toothed withal;

Become a  petulant thing, hurl ink and wit 5

As madmen stones, not caring whom they hit.

 Deceive their malice who could wish it so.

And by thy wiser temper let men know

Thou art not covetous of least self-fame

Made from the hazard of  another’s shame, 10

Much less with lewd,  profane, and beastly phrase,

To catch  the world’s  loose laughter or vain gaze.

 He that  departs with his own honesty

For vulgar praise doth it too dearly buy.

Thou that mak’st gain thy end, and wisely well

Call’st a book good or bad as it doth sell,

Use mine so too: I give thee leave. But crave

For the luck’s sake it thus much favour have:

To lie upon thy stall till it be sought; 5

Not offered as it  made suit to be bought;

Nor have my title-leaf  on posts or walls,

 Or in cleft sticks, advancèd to make calls

For  termers, or some clerk-like serving man,

 Who scarce can spell th’hard names; whose knight less can. 10

If, without these vile arts it will not sell,

Send it to  Bucklersbury: there ’twill, well.

How, best of kings, dost thou a sceptre bear!

How, best of poets, dost thou laurel wear!

But  two things rare the Fates had in their store,

And gave thee both, to show they could no more.

For such a poet,  while thy days were green, 5

Thou wert, as chief of them are said t’have been.

And such a prince thou art, we daily see,

 As chief of those still promise they will be.

Whom should my muse then fly to, but the best

Of kings for grace, of poets for my  test? 10

 When was there contract  better driven by Fate?

 Or  celebrated with more  truth of state?

The world  the temple  was,  the priest  a king,

The  spousèd pair two  realms,    the sea the ring.

If all you boast of your great art be true,

 Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

Where lately harboured many a famous whore,

A  purging bill, now fixed upon the door,

Tells you it is a  hot-house: so it ma’

And still be a whore-house.    They’re synonyma.

 Ridway robbed Duncote of three hundred pound;

Ridway was ta’en, arraigned, condemned to die;

 But for this money was a courtier found,

 Begged Ridway’s pardon: Duncote now doth cry,

Robbed both of money and the law’s relief, 5

The courtier is become the greater thief.

May none whose scattered names honour my book

For strict degrees of rank or title look;

’Tis ’gainst the manners of an epigram:

And I, a poet here,  no herald am.

Thou call’st me  ‘poet’ as a term of shame,

 But I have my revenge made in thy name.

 At court I met it, in clothes  brave enough

To be a courtier, and looks grave enough

To seem  a statesman.  As I near it came

It  made  me a great face; I asked  the name.

‘A  Lord’, it cried, ‘    Buried in flesh and blood, 5

And  such from whom let no man hope least good,

For I will do none; and as little ill,

For I will dare none.’  Good lord, walk dead still.

Shift, here in town not meanest among  squires

That haunt  Pict-Hatch, Marsh-Lambeth and Whitefriars,

Keeps himself with  half a man, and defrays

The charge of that state with this charm:  ‘God pays’.

By that one spell he lives, eats, drinks, arrays 5

Himself: his whole  revenue is ‘God pays’.

The  quarter-day is come; the hostess says

She must have money: he returns ‘God pays’.

The tailor brings a suit home, and he it  ’ssays,

Looks o’er the bill, likes it, and says ‘God pays’. 10

He steals to  ordinaries; there he plays

At dice his borrowed money: which God pays.

Then takes up fresh  commodity for days;

Signs to new  bond; forfeits, and cries ‘God pays’.

That lost, he keeps his chamber, reads  Essays, 15

Takes  physic, tears the  papers; still God pays.

 Or else by water goes, and so to plays,

Calls for his  stool, adorns the stage: God pays.

To every cause he meets, this voice he brays:

His only answer is to all ‘God pays’.20

Not his poor  cockatrice but he betrays

Thus; and for his lechery  scores ‘God pays’.

But see! th’old bawd hath served him  in his trim,

Lent him a  pocky whore. She hath paid him.

 When men a dangerous disease did ’scape

Of old, they gave a cock to Aesculape;

Let me give two: that doubly am got free

 From my disease’s danger, and from thee.

Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe

All that I am in arts, all that I  know

(How nothing’s that?) to whom my country owes

The great  renown and name wherewith she goes:

 Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, 5

More high, more holy, that she more would crave.

 What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in  things!

What sight in searching the most antique springs!

What weight, and what authority in thy speech!

Man scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach. 10

 Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,

Which conquers all, be once  o’ercome by thee.

Many  of thine  this better could than I,

But  for their powers accept my  piety.

 All men are worms; but this no man. In silk

’Twas brought to court first wrapped, and white as milk,

Where, afterwards, it grew a  butterfly,

Which was a  caterpillar.  So ’twill die.

Hardy, thy brain is valiant, ’tis confessed;

Thou more, that with it every day dar’st jest

Thyself into fresh brawls: when  called upon,

Scarce thy week’s swearing  brings thee  off of one.

So in short time th’art in arrearage grown 5

Some hundred quarrels, yet dost thou fight none;

Nor need’st thou; for those few, by oath released,

Make good what thou dar’st do in all the rest.

Keep thyself there, and think thy valour right:

 He that dares damn himself, dares more than fight. 10

May others fear, fly, and traduce thy name,

As guilty men do  magistrates; glad I,

That wish my poems a  legitimate fame,

 Charge them, for crown, to thy sole censure    hie.

And but a sprig of bays given by thee 5

Shall outlive garlands stol’n from the  chaste tree.

To thee my way in epigrams seems new,

When both it is the old way and the true.

Thou say’st that cannot be, for thou hast seen

 Davies and Weever, and the best have been,

And mine come nothing like. I hope so. Yet, 5

As theirs did with thee, mine might credit get,

If thou’ldst but use thy faith as thou didst then

When thou wert wont t’  admire not censure men.

Prithee believe still and not judge so fast:

Thy faith is all the knowledge that thou hast. 10

That  Cod can get no widow,  yet a knight,

I  scent the cause: he woos with an  ill sprite.

Th’expense in odours is a most vain sin,

Except thou couldst, Sir Cod, wear them within.

Lord, how is Gamester changed! His hair  close-cut!

His neck fenced round with ruff! His eyes half-shut!

His clothes  two fashions  off and poor! His sword

 Forbid his side! And nothing but  the  Word

Quick in his lips! Who hath this wonder wrought? 5

 The late ta’en bastinado. So I thought:

What several ways men to their calling have!

The body’s  stripes, I see, the soul may save.

Here lies, to each her parents’ ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth:

 Yet, all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s due,

It makes the  father, less, to rue.

At six  months’ end she parted hence 5

 With safety of her innocence;

 Whose soul heaven’s Queen (whose name she bears)

In comfort of  her mother’s tears,

Hath placed amongst her virgin train:

 Where, while that severed doth remain, 10

This grave  partakes the fleshly birth.

 Which cover lightly, gentle earth.

Donne, the delight of  Phoebus and each muse,

 Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;

Whose every work of thy most  early wit

Came forth  example, and remains so yet:

 Longer a-knowing than most  wits do live, 5

And which no affection praise enough can give!

 To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,

Which might with half mankind  maintain a strife.

All which I meant to praise, and yet I would,

But  leave because I cannot as I should! 10

There’s reason good that you  good laws should make:

Men’s manners  ne’er were viler  for your sake.

While Beast instructs his fair and innocent wife

In the past pleasures of his sensual life,

Telling the motions of each  petticoat,

And how his  Ganymede moved, and how his  goat,

 And now her (hourly) her own cuckquean makes 5

In varied shapes, which for his lust she takes:

What doth he else but say ‘Leave to be chaste,

Just wife, and,  to change me, make  woman’s haste.’

Than his chaste wife, though Beast now  know no more,

   He adulters still: his thoughts lie with a whore.

In place of  scutcheons that should deck thy hearse,

Take better ornaments: my  tears and verse.

If any sword could save from Fate’s, Roe’s could;

If any muse outlive their spite, his can;

If any  friend’s tears could  restore, his would; 5

 If any pious life e’er lifted man

To heaven, his hath. Oh happy state! Wherein

We, sad for him, may glory and not sin.

 Don  Surly, to aspire the glorious name

Of a great man, and to be thought the same,

Makes serious use of all  great trade he knows.

He speaks to men with a  rhinocerote’s nose,

Which he thinks great, and so reads verses too: 5

And that is done as he saw great men do.

H’ has  tympanies of business in his face

And can forget men’s names with a great grace.

He will both argue and discourse in oaths,

Both which are great. And laugh at ill-made clothes 10

(That’s greater yet) to cry his own up  neat.

He doth at meals alone his pheasant eat,

Which is main greatness. And at his  still board

He drinks to no man: that’s, too, like a lord.

He keeps another’s wife, which is a  spice 15

Of solemn greatness. And he dares, at dice,

Blaspheme God greatly. Or some poor  hind beat

That breathes in his dog’s way: and this is great.

Nay more, for greatness’ sake he will be one

May hear my Epigrams, but like of none. 20

Surly, use other arts; these only can

Style thee a most great fool, but no great man.

Tilter, the most  may  ’dmire thee, though not I;

And thou, right guiltless, mayst plead to it ‘Why?’

For thy late sharp device. I say ’tis fit

All brains at times of triumph should run wit.

 For then our water conduits do run wine; 5

‘But that’s put in’, thou’lt say. Why, so is thine.

Guilty, be wise; and though thou know’st the crimes

Be thine I tax, yet do not  own my rhymes:

’Twere madness in thee to betray thy fame

And person to the world,  ere I thy name.

Bank feels no lameness of his knotty  gout;

His moneys    travel for him in and out:

And though the soundest legs go every day,

He toils to be at  hell as soon as they.

What  two brave perils of the private sword

Could not effect, not all the furies do

That  self-divided Belgia did afford;

 What not the envy of the seas reached to,

The cold of Moscow, and fat Irish air, 5

 His often change of clime (though not of mind)

What could not work; at home in his  repair

Was his blest fate, but our hard lot to find.

Which shows wherever death doth please t’appear,

Seas,  serenes, swords, shot, sickness, all are there. 10

 I’ll not offend thee with a vain tear more,

Glad-mentioned Roe: thou art but  gone before,

Whither the world must follow. And I, now,

Breathe to expect my when and  make my how.

Which if most gracious heaven grant like thine, 5

Who wets my grave  can be no friend of mine.

He that fears death, or mourns it in the  just,

Shows of the resurrection little trust.

Who would not be thy subject, James, t’obey

A prince that rules    by example more than sway?

Whose manners draw more than thy powers constrain;

And in this short time of thy  happiest reign

Hast purged  thy realms, as we have now no cause 5

 Left us of fear, but first our crimes, then laws.

Like aids ’gainst treasons who hath found before?

 And than in them, how could we know God more?

First thou  preservèd wert, our king to be,

 And since, the whole land was preserved for thee. 10

 Martial, thou  gav’st far nobler epigrams

To thy  Domitian than I can my James;

But  in my royal subject I pass thee:

Thou  flattered’st thine,  mine cannot flattered be.

No cause nor client fat will Chev’rel  leese,

But as they come, on both sides he takes fees,

And pleaseth both. For while he  melts his grease

For this,  that wins for whom he holds his peace.

Guilty, because I bade you  late be wise,

And to conceal your ulcers did advise,

You laugh when you are  touched, and long before

Any man else you clap your hands and roar,

And cry ‘Good! Good!’ This quite perverts my sense, 5

And lies so far from wit, ’tis impudence.

Believe it, Guilty, if you lose your shame

I’ll lose my modesty, and  tell your name.

For all night sins with others’ wives, unknown,

Colt now doth daily penance in his own.

M arble, weep, for thou dost cover

A dead beauty underneath thee,

R ich as nature could bequeath thee:

G rant then, no rude hand remove her.

A ll the gazers on the skies 5

R ead not in fair heaven’s story

 E xpresser truth, or truer glory

T han they might in her bright eyes.

R are as wonder was her wit,

A nd like nectar ever flowing; 10

T ill time, strong by her bestowing,

C onquered hath both life and it;

L ife, whose grief was out of fashion

I n these times. Few so have rued

F ate in a brother. To conclude, 15

F or wit,  feature, and true passion,

E arth, thou hast not such another.

Gypsy, new bawd, is turned physician,

And gets more gold than all the  College can:

Such her  quaint practice is, so it allures,

 For what she gave, a whore, a bawd she cures.

Who says that Giles and Joan at discord be?

Th’ observing neighbours no such mood can see.

Indeed, poor Giles repents he married ever;

But that his Joan doth too. And Giles would never,

By his free will, be in Joan’s company. 5

No more would Joan he should. Giles riseth early,

And having got him out of doors is glad.

The like is Joan. But, turning home, is sad.

And so is Joan. Oft-times, when Giles doth find

Harsh sights at home, Giles wisheth he were blind. 10

All this doth Joan. Or that his   long-yarned life

Were quite out-spun. The like wish hath his wife.

The children that he keeps Giles swears are none

Of his begetting. And so swears his Joan.

In all affections she concurreth still. 15

If now with man and wife  to will and nill

The self-same things a note of concord be,

I know no couple better can agree!

What need hast thou of me, or of my muse,

Whose actions so themselves do celebrate?

 Which, should thy country’s love to speak refuse,

Her foes enough would fame thee in their hate.

  ’Tofore, great men were glad of poets; now, 5

I, not the worst, am covetous  of thee.

Yet dare not to my thought  least hope allow

Of adding to thy  fame; thine may to me,

When in my   book men read but  Cecil’s name,

And what I write thereof find far and free 10

 From servile flattery (common poets’ shame)

As thou stand’st clear of the necessity.

Chuff, lately rich in name, in  chattels, goods,

And  rich in issue to inherit all,

Ere  blacks were bought for his own funeral

 Saw all his race approach the blacker floods.

 He meant they thither should  make swift repair 5

When he made him executor, might be heir.

Farewell, thou child of my  right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much  hope of thee, loved boy.

Seven years  thou wert  lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the  just day.

Oh, could I   lose all father now! For why 5

Will man lament the state he should envy?

To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s  rage,

And, if no other misery, yet age?

 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie

 Ben. Jonson his best piece of poetry. 10

For  whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,

  As what he loves may never like too much.

Is this the Sir, who, some  waste wife to win,

A  knighthood bought to go a-wooing in?

’Tis Luckless, he that took up one on  band

To pay at’s day of marriage. By my hand

The  knight-wright’s cheated then: he’ll never pay. 5

Yes, now he wears his knighthood every day.

Sir Luckless, troth, for luck’s sake  pass by one:

He that woos every widow will get none.

His  bought arms Mong’ not liked; for his first day

Of bearing them in field, he   threw ’em away,

And hath no honour lost, our  duellists  say.

Playwright me reads, and still my verses damns:

He says I want the  tongue of epigrams;

I have no  salt. No bawdry he doth mean.

For witty, in his language, is obscene.

 Playwright, I loathe to have thy manners known 5

In my chaste book: profess them in thine own.

 Leave, Cod, tobacco-like, burnt gums to take,

Or fumy  clysters, thy moist lungs to bake:

 Arsenic would thee fit for society make.

That we thy loss might know, and thou our love,

Great  heaven did well to give  ill fame free wing,

Which, though it did but panic terror prove,

And far beneath  least pause of such a king,

Yet give thy jealous subjects leave to  doubt, 5

Who this thy ’scape from rumour  gratulate

No less than if from peril; and, devout,

Do beg thy care unto thy  after-state.

For we, that have our eyes still in our ears,

Look not upon thy dangers, but our fears. 10

 Courtling, I rather thou shouldst utterly

Dispraise my work than praise it  frostily:

When I am read thou feign’st a weak applause

As if thou wert my friend,  but lacked’st a cause.

 This but thy judgement fools:  the other way 5

Would both thy folly and thy spite betray.

Long gathering Old-End, I did fear thee wise

When, having  pilled a book which no man buys,

Thou wert content  the author’s name to lose;

But when,  in place, thou didst the patron’s choose,

It was as if thou printed hadst an oath, 5

To give the world  assurance thou wert both,

And that, as Puritans at baptism do,

Thou art the  father and the witness too.

For, but thyself,  where out of motley’s he

Could save  that line to dedicate to thee? 10

Chev’rel cries out my verses libels are,

And threatens the  Star Chamber and the  Bar.

What are thy  petulant  pleadings, Chev’rel, then,

That quit’st the cause so oft, and rail’st at men?

How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,

That unto me dost such  religion use!

How I do fear myself, that am not worth

The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!

At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st, 5

And giving largely to me, more thou tak’st.

What fate is mine that so itself bereaves?

What art is thine,  that so thy friend deceives?

 When even there, where most thou praisest me,

For writing better, I must envy thee. 10

Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief,

Whose works are e’en the  frippery of wit,

From  brokage is become so bold a thief,

As we, the robbed,  leave rage and pity it.

At first he made low  shifts, would pick and  glean, 5

Buy the  reversion of old plays; now grown

 To a little wealth and credit in the scene,

He takes up all, makes each man’s wit his own.

And, told of  this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes

The sluggish, gaping auditor devours; 10

He marks not whose ’twas first: and after-times

May judge it to be his, as well as ours.

Fool, as if  half-eyes will not know a fleece

From locks of wool, or  shreds from the whole  piece?

If, as their ends, their fruits were so the same,

  Bawdry and usury were one kind of game.

Idiot, last night I prayed thee but forbear

To read my verses; now I must  to hear.

For, off’ring with thy smiles my wit to grace,

Thy ignorance  still laughs in the wrong place.

And so my sharpness thou no less disjoints 5

Than thou didst  late my sense,   losing my points.

So have I seen at Christmas sports  one lost,

And,  hoodwinked, for a man embrace a post.

Spies, you are  lights in state, but of base stuff,

Who, when  you’ve burnt yourselves down to the snuff,

Stink, and are thrown away. End fair enough.

Lo, what my country should have done (have raised

An  obelisk or column to thy name,

Or, if she would but modestly have praised

Thy  fact, in brass or marble writ the same)

I, that am glad of thy great  chance, here do! 5

And, proud my work shall outlast common deeds,

Durst think it great, and worthy wonder, too;

But thine, for which I do’t, so much exceeds!

My  country’s parents I have many known,

But saver of my country thee alone. 10

Thy  praise or dispraise is to me alike:

One doth not  stroke me, nor the other strike.

Fine Madam Would-Be,  wherefore should you fear,

That love to make so well, a child to bear?

The world reputes you barren; but I know

Your ’pothecary and his  drug says no.

Is it the pain affrights? That’s soon forgot. 5

Or your complexion’s loss? You have a  pot

That can restore that. Will it hurt your feature?

To make amends  you’re thought a wholesome creature.

What should the cause be? Oh, you live at court,

And there’s both loss of time and loss of sport 10

In a great belly. Write, then, on thy womb

‘Of the not  born, yet buried, here’s the tomb.’

Who can consider thy right courses run,

With what thy  virtue on the  times hath won,

And not thy fortune; who can clearly see

The judgement of the king so shine in thee;

 And that thou seek’st reward of thy each act, 5

Not from the public voice, but private fact;

Who can behold all envy so  declined

By constant suff’ring of thy  equal mind

And can to these be silent, Salisbury,

Without his, thine, and all time’s injury? 10

Cursed be  his muse  that could lie dumb or hid

To  so true worth,  though  thou thyself forbid.

Not glad, like those that have new hopes or suits,

With thy new place, bring I these early fruits

Of love, and what the  golden age did hold

A  treasure: art, contemned in th’age of gold.

Nor glad as those that  old dependants be, 5

To see thy  father’s rites new laid on thee.

Nor glad for fashion. Nor to show a  fit

Of flattery to thy titles. Nor of wit.

But I am glad to see that time survive,

Where merit is not sepulchred alive; 10

 Where good men’s virtues them to honours bring,

And not to dangers; when so wise a king

Contends t’have  worth enjoy, from his regard

As her own conscience, still the same reward.

These (noblest Cecil) laboured in my thought, 15

Wherein what wonder, see, thy name hath wrought:

That whilst I meant but thine to gratulate

 I’ve sung the greater fortunes of our state.

Away, and leave me, thou thing most abhorred,

That hast betrayed me to a  worthless lord,

Made me commit  most fierce idolatry

To a great image through thy  luxury.

Be thy next master’s more unlucky muse, 5

And, as  th’hast mine, his hours and youth abuse.

Get him the time’s long grudge, the court’s ill-will,

And, reconciled, keep him suspected still.

Make him lose all his friends; and, which is worse,

Almost all ways to any better course. 10

With me thou leav’st an happier muse than thee,

And which thou brought’st me, welcome poverty.

She shall instruct my  after-thoughts to write

Things manly, and not smelling parasite.

But I repent me: stay. Whoe’er is raised 15

For worth he has not, he is  taxed, not praised.

That neither fame nor love might wanting be

To greatness, Cary, I sing that and thee.

Whose house, if it no other honour had,

In only thee might be both great and glad;

Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time, 5

Durst valour make, almost, but not a crime.

Which deed I know not whether were more high,

Or thou more happy, it to justify

Against thy fortune: when no foe, that day,

Could conquer thee, but chance, who did betray. 10

Love thy great loss, which a renown hath won,

To live when  Broick not stands, nor Ruhr doth run.

Love honours, which of best example be

When they cost dearest, and are done most free:

Though every fortitude deserves applause, 15

 It may be much or little in the cause.

He’s valiant’st that dares fight, and not for pay;

 That virtuous is, when the reward’s away.

 Since men have left to do praiseworthy things,

Most think all praises flatteries. But truth brings

That sound and that authority with her name,

As to be raised by her is only fame.

 Stand high, then, Howard, high in eyes of men, 5

High in thy blood, thy place, but highest then

 When, in men’s wishes, so thy virtues wrought

As all thy honours were  by them first sought,

And thou designed to be the same thou art,

Before thou wert it, in each good man’s heart. 10

Which, by no less confirmed than thy king’s choice,

Proves that is God’s, which was the  people’s voice.

Playwright, convict of public wrongs to men,

Takes private beatings, and begins again.

Two kinds of valour he doth show at once:

Active in’s brain, and passive in his bones.

Cob, thou nor soldier, thief, nor fencer art,

Yet by thy  weapon liv’st! Th’hast one good part.

 When Nature bids us leave to live, ’tis late

Then to begin, my Roe: he makes a state

In life, that can employ it, and takes hold

On the true causes, ere they grow too old.

 Delay is bad, doubt worse,  depending worst; 5

 Each best day of our life escapes us first.

Then, since we (more than many) these truths know,

Though life be short, let us not make it so.

To pluck down mine, Poll sets up new wits still;

Still, ’tis his luck to praise me ’gainst his will.

I grieve not, Courtling, thou art started up

 A chamber-critic, and dost dine and sup

At Madam’s table, where thou mak’st all wit

Go high or low, as thou wilt value it.

’Tis not thy judgement breeds the prejudice: 5

Thy person only, Courtling, is the vice.

What is’t,  Fine Grand, makes thee my friendship fly,

Or take an epigram so fearfully,

As ’twere a challenge or a borrower’s letter?

The world must know your greatness  is my debtor.

 In primis, Grand, you owe me for a jest 5

I lent you, on mere acquaintance, at a feast.

Item, a tale or two some fortnight after,

That yet maintains you and your house in laughter.

Item, the  Babylonian song you sing;

Item, a fair Greek  poesy for a ring, 10

With which a learnèd Madam you belie.

Item, a charm surrounding fearfully

Your  partie per pale picture, one half drawn

In solemn  cypress, the other  cobweb lawn.

Item, a  gulling imprese for you at tilt. 15

Item, your mistress’ anagram i’your hilt.

Item, your own, sewed in your mistress’ smock.

Item, an epitaph on my lord’s cock

In most vile verses, and cost me more pain

Than had I made ’em good, to fit your  vein. 20

Forty things more, dear Grand, which you know true,

For which, or  pay me  quickly, or I’ll pay you.

Whilst thy weighed judgements, Egerton, I hear,

And know thee then a judge  not of one year;

Whilst I behold thee live with purest hands;

That no  affection in thy voice commands;

That still thou’rt  present to the better cause; 5

And no less wise than skilful in the laws;

Whilst thou  art certain to thy words, once gone,

As is thy conscience, which is always one:

 The Virgin, long since fled from earth I see

T’our times returned, hath made her heaven in thee. 10

I cannot think there’s that antipathy

 ’Twixt puritans and players as some cry;

Though Lip at Paul’s  ran from his text away

T’inveigh ’gainst plays, what did he then but play?

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,

I thought to form unto my zealous muse

What kind of creature I could most desire,

To honour, serve, and love, as poets use.

I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, 5

Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;

I meant the  day-star should not brighter rise,

Nor lend like  influence from his  lucent seat.

I meant she should be courteous,  facile, sweet,

 Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride. 10

I meant each softest virtue there should meet,

Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learnèd and a manly soul

I purposed her, that should, with even powers,

The  rock, the spindle, and the shears control 15

Of destiny, and spin her own free hours.

Such when I meant to feign, and wished to see,

 My muse bade ‘Bedford’ write, and that was she.

Be safe, nor fear thyself so good a fame

That any way my book should speak thy name:

For, if thou shame ranked with my friends to go,

 I’m more ashamed to have thee thought my foe.

Hornet, thou hast thy wife dressed for the  stall,

To draw thee custom; but herself gets all.

 That poets are far rarer births than kings

Your noblest father proved; like whom, before

 Or then or since, about our muses’ springs,

Came not that soul  exhausted so their store.

Hence was it that the Destinies decreed 5

(Save that most masculine issue of his brain)

No male unto him, who could so  exceed

Nature, they thought, in all that he would feign.

At which she,  happily displeased, made you:

On whom, if he were living now, to look, 10

He should those rare and absolute  numbers view

As he would burn, or better far, his book.

The  ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds,

Through which our merit leads us to our  meeds.

How  wilful-blind is he then that would stray,

And hath it in his powers to make his way!

This world death’s  region is, the other, life’s: 5

And here it should be one of our first strifes

So to  front death as men might judge us past it.

 For good men but see death; the wicked taste it.

Forbear to tempt me, Prowl; I will not show

A line unto thee till the world it know,

Or that  I’ve  by two good sufficient men

To be the  wealthy witness of my pen:

For all thou hear’st thou swear’st thyself didst do. 5

Thy wit lives by it, Prowl, and belly too.

Which, if thou leave not soon (though I am loath)

I must  a libel make, and cozen  both.

Surly’s old whore in her new silks doth swim:

 He cast, yet keeps her well! No; she keeps him.

To  put out the word ‘ whore’ thou dost me woo,

 Throughout my book. Troth, put out ‘woman’ too.

Madam, I told you late how I repented:

I asked a lord a  buck and he denied me,

And, ere I could ask you, I was  prevented:

For your most noble offer had supplied me.

Straight went I home; and there most like a poet 5

I fancied to myself what wine, what wit

 I would have spent; how every muse should know it,

And  Phoebus’ self should  be at eating it.

O madam, if your  grant did thus  transfer me,

Make it your gift. See whither that will bear me. 10

Goodere,  I’m glad and grateful to report

Myself a witness of thy few days’ sport:

Where I both learned why wise men hawking follow,

And why that bird was  sacred to Apollo.

She doth instruct men by her gallant flight 5

That they to knowledge so should   tower upright,

And never  stoop but to strike ignorance;

 Which if they miss, they yet should re-advance

To former height, and there in circle tarry

Till they be sure to make the fool their quarry. 10

 Now, in whose pleasures I have this discerned,

What would his serious actions me have learned?

When I would know thee, Goodere, my thought looks

Upon thy well-made choice of  friends and books;

Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends

In making thy friends books, and thy books friends:

Now I must give thy life and deed the voice 5

Attending such a study, such a choice.

Where, though’t be love that to thy praise doth move,

It was  a knowledge that begat that love.

Touched with the sin of false play in his  punk,

Hazard a month forswore his, and grew drunk

Each night, to drown his cares. But when the gain

Of what   she’d  wrought came in and waked his brain,

Upon th’account hers grew the  quicker trade. 5

Since when he’s sober again, and all  play’s made.

Would you believe, when you this monsieur see,

That his whole body should speak French, not he?

That so much scarf of France, and hat, and feather,

And shoe, and tie, and garter should come hither

And land on one whose face durst never be 5

Toward the sea further than  half-way tree?

That he, untravelled, should be French so much,

As Frenchmen in his company should seem Dutch?

Or had his father, when he did him  get,

The  French disease, with which he labours yet? 10

Or hung some  monsieur’s picture on the wall,

By which his dam conceived him, clothes and all?

Or is it some French statue? No: ’t doth move,

And stoop, and cringe. Oh then it needs must prove

The new French tailor’s  motion, monthly made, 15

Daily to turn in  Paul’s and help the trade.

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age,

Feared not to boast the glories of her stage,

As skilful  Roscius and grave Aesop, men

Yet crowned with honours, as with riches then;

Who had no less a trumpet of their name 5

Than  Cicero,  whose every breath was fame:

How can so great example die in me,

That, Alleyn, I should pause to publish thee?

Who  both their graces in thyself hast more

Out-stripped than they did all that went before; 10

And present worth in all dost so contract

As others  speak, but only thou dost act.

Wear this renown. ’Tis just that who did give

So many poets life, by  one should live.

When Mill first came to court, the  unprofiting fool,

Unworthy such a mistress, such a school,

Was  dull, and long, ere she would  go to man:

At last ease, appetite, and example  wan

The  nicer thing to taste her lady’s page; 5

And, finding good security in his age,

Went on; and  proving him still, day by day,

Discerned no difference of his years or  play.

Not though that hair grew brown which once was amber,

And he, grown youth, was called   to’s lady’s chamber. 10

Still Mill  continued. Nay, his face growing worse,

And he  removed to gent’man of the horse,

Mill was the same. Since, both his body and face

Blown up, and he ( too unwieldy for that place)

Hath got the  steward’s chair; he will not tarry 15

Longer a day, but with his Mill will marry.

And it is hoped that she, like  Milo,  wull,

 First bearing him a calf, bear him a bull.

Which of thy names I take, not only bears

A Roman sound, but Roman virtue wears,

 Illustrous  Vere, or Horace; fit to be

Sung by a Horace or a muse as  free;

Which thou art to thyself, whose fame was won 5

In th’eye of Europe, where thy deeds were done,

When on thy trumpet  she did sound a  blast,

Whose  relish to eternity  shall last.

I  leave thy acts, which should I  prosecute

Throughout might flatt’ry seem; and to be mute 10

 To any one  were envy, which would live

Against my grave, and Time could not forgive.

I speak thy other graces, not less shown,

Nor less in practice, but less marked, less known:

 Humanity and piety, which are 15

As noble in great chiefs as they are  rare:

And best become the valiant man to wear,

 Who more should seek men’s reverence than fear.

Ere  ‘Cherries ripe!’ and ‘Strawberries!’ be gone,

Unto the cries of London I’ll add one:

‘Ripe  statesmen, ripe!’ They grow in every street.

 At six-and-twenty, ripe. You shall ’em meet

And have ’em yield no savour but of state. 5

Ripe are their ruffs, their cuffs, their beards, their gait,

And grave as ripe,  like mellow as their faces.

They know  the states of Christendom, not the places,

Yet have they seen the maps, and bought ’em too,

And understand ’em as most  chapmen do. 10

The counsels,  projects, practices they know,

And what each prince doth for intelligence owe

And unto whom. They are the  almanacs

For  twelve years yet to come, what each state lacks.

They carry in their pockets  Tacitus 15

And the  Gazetti, or  Gallo-Belgicus,

 And talk reserved,  locked up, and full of fear;

Nay, ask you how the day goes in your ear;

 Keep a Star Chamber sentence close twelve days,

And whisper what a proclamation says. 20

They meet in sixes, and at every mart

Are sure to   con the catalogue by heart;

Or every day someone at  Rimee’s looks,

Or Bill’s, and there he buys the names of books.

They all get  Porta for the sundry ways 25

To write in cipher, and the several keys

To   ope the character.  They’ve found the  sleight

With  juice of lemons, onions, piss, to  write,

To break up seals and  close ’em. And they know

If  the States  make peace, how it will go 30

With England. All forbidden books they get.

And of  the Powder Plot they will talk yet.

At naming the  French king their heads they shake,

And at the Pope and Spain  slight faces make.

Or  ’gainst the bishops, for the brethren rail, 35

Much like those brethren, thinking to prevail

With ignorance on us, as  they have done

On them: and therefore do not only shun

Others more modest, but  contemn us too,

That know not so much  state (wrong) as they do. 40

How like a column, Radcliffe, left alone

For the great mark of virtue ( those being gone

Who did, alike with thee, thy house up-bear),

Stand’st thou, to show the times what you all were?

 Two bravely in the battle fell, and died, 5

Upbraiding rebels’ arms and barbarous pride:

And two, that would have fall’n as great as they,

The  Belgic fever ravishèd away.

Thou, that art all their valour, all their spirit,

And thine own goodness to increase thy merit, 10

Than whose I do not know a  whiter soul,

Nor could I, had I seen all Nature’s  roll,

Thou yet remain’st unhurt in peace or war,

Though not unproved;  which shows thy fortunes are

Willing to expiate the fault in thee 15

Wherewith, against thy blood,  they offenders be.

Lucy, you  brightness of our sphere, who are

Life of the muses’ day, their  morning-star!

If works (not th’authors) their own grace should  look,

Whose poems would not wish to be your book?

 But these, desired by you, the maker’s ends 5

 Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends.

Yet satires, since the most of mankind be

Their  unavoided subject, fewest see;

 For none e’er took that pleasure in sin’s sense

But when they heard it taxed took more offence. 10

 They, then, that living where the matter is bred

Dare for these poems, yet, both ask and read,

And like them too, must needfully, though few,

Be of the best: and ’mongst those, best are you.

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are 15

The muses’  evening-, as their morning-star.

If,  my religion safe, I durst embrace

That stranger doctrine of  Pythagoras,

I should believe the soul of Tacitus

In thee, most weighty Savile, lived to us:

So hast thou  rendered him in all his bounds 5

And all his  numbers, both of sense and sounds.

But when I read that special piece  restored,

Where Nero falls and Galba is adored,

 To thine own proper I ascribe then more,

And  gratulate the breach I grieved before, 10

Which fate, it seems, caused in the history

Only to boast thy merit in  supply.

Oh, wouldst thou add like hand to  all the rest!

 Or, better work, were thy glad country blest

To have her story woven in thy thread! 15

 Minerva’s loom was never richer spred.

For who can master those great parts like thee,

 That liv’st from hope, from fear, from faction free;

That hast thy breast so clear of present crimes

Thou need’st not shrink at voice of after-times, 20

 Whose knowledge claimeth at the helm to stand,

But wisely thrusts not forth a forward hand,

No more than  Sallust in the Roman state!

 As, then, his cause, his glory emulate.

 Although to write be lesser than to do 25

It is the next deed, and a great one too.

We need a man that knows the several graces

Of history, and how to  apt their places;

Where brevity, where splendour, and where  height,

 Where sweetness is required, and where weight. 30

 We need a man can speak of the intents,

The counsels, actions, orders, and events

Of state, and  censure them; we need his pen

Can write the  things, the causes, and the men.

But most we need his  faith ( and all have you) 35

That dares nor write things false, nor hide things true.

Who shall doubt, Donne,  whe’er I a  poet be,

When I dare send my  Epigrams to thee?

That so alone canst judge,  so alone dost make;

And in thy censures evenly dost take

 As free simplicity to disavow 5

As thou hast best authority t’allow.

Read all I send, and if I find but one

Marked by thy hand, and with the  better stone,

My title’s sealed. Those that for claps do write,

Let   puisnes’, porters’, players’ praise delight, 10

And, till they burst, their backs, like asses, load:

A man should seek  great glory, and not broad.

See you  yond motion? Not the old  fa-ding,

Nor  Captain Pod, nor yet the  Eltham thing,

But one more rare, and in the  case so new:

His cloak with  orient velvet quite lined through,

His rosy  ties and garters so o’er-blown, 5

By his each glorious  parcel to be known!

He wont was to encounter me aloud,

Where’er he met me; now he’s dumb or proud.

Know you the cause?  H’as neither land nor lease,

Nor  bawdy stock, that travails for  increase, 10

Nor office in the town, nor place in court,

Nor  ’bout the bears, nor  noise to make lords sport.

He is no favourite’s favourite, no dear trust

 Of any madam’s, hath  need o’ squires and must.

Nor did  the King of Denmark him salute 15

When he was here. Nor hath he got a  suit

Since he was gone, more than the one he wears.

Nor are the queen’s most honoured maids  by th’ears

About his form. What then so swells each limb?

Only his clothes have  over-leavened him. 20

Thou hast begun well, Roe,  which  stand well too,

And I know nothing more thou hast to do.

 He that is  round within himself and straight

Need seek no other strength, no other height;

 Fortune upon him breaks herself, if ill, 5

And what would hurt his virtue makes it still.

That thou at once, then, nobly mayst defend

With thine own course the judgement of  thy friend,

Be always to thy gathered self the same,

And study  conscience more than thou wouldst fame. 10

 Though both be good, the latter yet is worst,

And  ever is ill got without  the first.

That thou hast kept thy love, increased thy will,

Bettered thy trust to letters;  that, thy skill;

 Hast taught thyself worthy thy pen to tread,

And that to write things worthy to be read:

How much of great example wert thou, Roe, 5

 If time to facts, as unto men, would owe?

 But much it now avails what’s done, of whom:

The self-same deeds, as diversely they come

From place or fortune, are made high or low,

 And even the praiser’s judgement suffers so. 10

Well, though thy name less than our great ones’ be,

Thy fact is more: let truth encourage thee.

Playwright, by chance hearing some toys  I’d writ,

Cried to my face they were th’  elixir of wit.

And I must now believe him: for today

Five of my jests, then stol’n,  passed him a play.

Tonight,  grave sir, both my poor house and I

Do equally desire your company;

Not that we think us worthy such a guest,

But that your worth will dignify  our feast,

With those that come,  whose grace may make that  seem 5

Something, which else  could hope for no esteem.

 It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates

The entertainment perfect,  not the  cates.

Yet shall you have, to  rectify your palate,

 An olive, capers, or some better salad, 10

 Ush’ring the mutton; with a short-legged hen,

If we can get her, full of eggs, and then

Lemons and wine for sauce: to these a cony

Is not to be despaired of for our money;

And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there  are clerks, 15

 The sky not falling,  think we may have larks.

 I’ll tell you  of more, and  lie, so you will come:

Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some

May yet be there,  and  godwit, if we can:

 Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe’er,  my man 20

Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,

Livy, or of  some better book to us,

Of which we’ll speak our minds amidst our meat;

   And I’ll profess no verses to repeat.

 To this, if aught appear which I  know not of 25

That  will the pastry, not my paper show of.

Digestive cheese  and fruit there sure will be;

But that which most doth take  my muse and me

 Is a pure cup of rich  Canary wine,

Which is the  Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine:30

 Of which had  Horace or Anacreon tasted,

Their lives,  as do their lines, till now had lasted.

Tobacco, nectar,  or the  Thespian spring

Are all but  Luther’s beer to this I sing.

Of this we will sup free, but moderately,35

And we will have no      Poley  or Parrot  by,

 Nor shall our cups make any guilty men:

But, at our parting, we will be as when

We innocently met. No simple word

That shall be uttered at our mirthful board 40

Shall make us sad next morning, or affright

The  liberty  that we’ll enjoy tonight.

I do but name thee, Pembroke, and I find

It is an epigram on all mankind,

 Against the bad, but of, and to  the good:

Both which are asked to have thee understood.

Nor could the age have missed thee, in this strife 5

Of vice and virtue, wherein all great life,

Almost, is  exercised; and scarce one knows

To which, yet, of the sides himself he owes.

 They follow virtue for reward today,

Tomorrow vice, if she give better pay: 10

And are so good and bad just at a price,

As nothing else  discerns the    virtue or vice.

 But thou, whose noblesse keeps one stature still,

And one true posture, though besieged with ill

Of what ambition, faction, pride can raise, 15

Whose life ev’n they that envy it must praise;

 That art so reverenced, as thy coming in

But in the view doth interrupt their sin:

Thou must  draw more, and they that hope to see

The commonwealth still safe, must  study thee. 20

How well, fair crown of your fair sex, might he

That but the twilight of your sprite did see,

And noted for what flesh such souls were framed,

Know you to be a Sidney, though unnamed?

And, being named, how little doth  that name 5

Need any muse’s praise to give it fame?

Which is, itself, the  imprese of the great,

And glory of them all but to repeat!

Forgive me, then, if  mine but say you are

A Sidney: but in that extend as far 10

As loudest praisers, who perhaps would find

 For every part a character assigned.

My praise is plain, and, wheresoe’er professed,

Becomes none more than you, who need it least.

Were they that named you prophets? Did they see

Even  in the dew of grace what you would be?

Or did our times require it, to behold

A new Susanna, equal to  that old?

Or, because some scarce think that story true, 5

 To make those faithful, did the fates send you?

And to your scene lent no less dignity

Of birth, of match, of form, of chastity?

Or, more than born for the comparison

Of former age, or glory of our  own, 10

Were you advancèd past those times to be

The light and mark unto posterity?

Judge they that can. Here I have raised to show

A picture which the world  for yours must know,

And like it, too, if they look equally. 15

If not, ’tis fit for you some should envy.

 Madam, had all antiquity been lost,

All history sealed up and fables  crossed,

That we had left us, nor by time nor place,

Least mention of a nymph, a muse, a grace,

But even their names were to be made anew, 5

Who could not but create them all from you?

He that but saw you wear the  wheaten hat

Would call you more than  Ceres, if not that:

And, dressed in shepherd’s ’tire, who would not say

You were the bright  Oenone,  Flora, or  May? 10

If dancing, all would cry th’ Idalian queen

Were leading forth  the Graces on the green:

And, armèd to the chase, so bare her bow

 Dian’ alone, so hit and hunted so.

There’s none so dull that for your  style would ask, 15

That saw you put on  Pallas’ plumèd casque;

Or, keeping your due state, that would not cry

There  Juno sat, and yet no peacock by.

So are you Nature’s  index, and restore,

 I’yourself, all treasure lost of th’age before. 20

If men get name for some one virtue, then

What man art thou, that art so many men,

All-virtuous Herbert! On whose every part

Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her art.

Whether thy learning  they would take, or wit, 5

 Or valour, or thy judgement seasoning it,

Thy standing upright to thyself, thy ends

 Like straight, thy piety to God and friends:

Their latter praise would still the greatest be,

And yet, they all together, less than thee. 10

Do what you come for, Captain, with your news,

That’s sit and eat: do not my ears abuse.

I  oft look on false coin, to know’t from true,

Not that I love it more than I will you.

Tell the  gross Dutch those grosser tales of yours, 5

How great you were with their  two emperors,

And yet are with  their princes. Fill them full

Of your  Moravian horse,  Venetian bull.

Tell them what parts  you’ve ta’en, whence run away,

What states you’ve gulled, and which yet keeps  you in pay. 10

Give them your services and embassies

 In Ireland, Holland, Sweden (pompous lies),

In Hungary, and Poland, Turkey too;

What at Leghorn, Rome, Florence, you did do:

And in some year all these together heaped, 15

For which there must more sea and land be leaped,

If but to be believed you have the hap,

Than can a flea  at twice skip i’the map.

Give your young statesmen (that first make you drunk,

And then lie with you closer than a  punk, 20

For news) your  Villeroys and  Silleries,

 Janins, your  Nuncios, and your  Tuileries,

Your  archduke’s agents, and your  Beringhams,

That are your words of credit. Keep your names

Of  Hanau, Scheiterhuysen, Popenheim, 25

Hans-spiegle, Rotenberg, and Boutersheim

For your next meal: this you are sure of. Why

Will you part with them here unthriftily?

Nay, now you puff,  tusk, and draw up your chin,

Twirl the poor chain you run a-feasting in. 30

Come, be not angry: you are Hungry; eat.

Do what you come for, Captain: there’s your meat.

Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view

Such as are miscalled captains, and wrong you

And your high names, I do desire that thence

Be nor put on you, nor you take offence.

I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love 5

Your great profession; which I once did  prove,

And did not shame it with my actions then

No more than I dare now do with my  pen.

He that not trusts me, having vowed thus much,

But’s angry for the captain still, is  such. 10

Who now calls on thee, Neville, is a muse

That serves nor fame nor titles, but doth choose

Where virtue makes them both, and that’s in thee:

Where all is fair, beside thy  pedigree.

Thou art not one  seek’st miseries with hope, 5

Wrestlest with dignities, or feign’st a scope

Of service to the public when the end

Is private gain, which hath long guilt  to friend.

Thou rather striv’st the matter to possess

And elements of honour, than the  dress; 10

To make thy  lent life good against the Fates:

And first to know thine own state,    than the State’s.

To be the same in  root thou art in height,

And that thy soul should give thy flesh her weight.

Go on, and doubt not what posterity, 15

Now I have sung thee thus, shall judge of thee.

Thy deeds unto thy name will prove new wombs,

Whilst others toil for titles to their tombs.

Not Caesar’s deeds, nor all his honours won

 In these west parts; nor, when that war was done,

The name of Pompey for an enemy,

 Cato’s to boot, Rome and her liberty,

All yielding to his fortune; nor, the while, 5

To have engraved these acts with his own  style,

And that so strong and deep  as’t might be thought

 He wrote with the same spirit that he fought,

 Nor that his work lived in the hands of foes

Unargued then, and yet hath fame from those; 10

Not all these, Edmondes, or what else put  to,

Can so speak ‘Caesar’ as thy labours do.

For where his person lived  scarce one just age

And that midst  envy and parts, then fell by  rage:

His deeds too dying,  but in books (whose good 15

How few have read, how fewer understood!)

Thy learnèd hand and true Promethean art

(As by a new creation) part by part,

In every counsel, stratagem, design,

Action, or engine worth a note of thine, 20

 To all future time, not only doth restore

His life, but makes that he can die no more.

 Who, Edmondes, reads thy book, and doth not see

What th’antique soldiers were, the modern be?

Wherein thou show’st how much the latter are

 Beholding to  this master of the war;

And that in action there is nothing new, 5

More than to vary what our elders knew:

Which all but ignorant captains will confess,

 Nor to give Caesar this makes ours the less.

Yet thou, perhaps, shalt meet some tongues will  grutch

That to the world thou shouldst reveal so much, 10

And thence  deprave thee and thy work. To those

Caesar stands up, as from his urn late rose,

By thy great  help, and doth proclaim by me,

They murder him again that envy thee.

With thy small  stock, why art thou vent’ring still

At this so subtle sport, and play’st so ill?

Think’st thou it is mere fortune that can win?

Or thy  rank setting? That thou dar’st put in

Thy all at all; and whatsoe’er I do 5

Art still at that, and think’st to  blow  me up too?

I cannot for the stage a drama lay,

Tragic or comic, but thou writ’st the play.

I leave thee there, and, giving way, intend

An epic poem; thou hast the same end. 10

I modestly quit that, and think to write

 Next morn an ode: thou mak’st a song ere night.

I pass to elegies; thou meet’st me there.

To satires, and thou dost pursue me. Where,

Where, shall I scape thee? In an epigram? 15

Oh, thou criest out, that is thy  proper game.

Troth, if it be, I pity thy ill luck,

That both for wit and sense so oft dost  pluck

And never art encountered, I confess;

Nor scarce dost  colour for it, which is less. 20

 Prithee, yet save thy  rest, give o’er in time:

There’s no vexation that can make thee  prime.

So Phoebus makes me worthy of his bays

As but to speak thee, Overbury, is praise:

So where thou liv’st thou mak’st life understood!

Where what makes others great doth keep thee good!

I think the fate of court thy coming craved 5

That the wit there and manners might be saved.

For since, what ignorance, what pride is fled!

And letters and humanity in the stead!

Repent thee not of thy fair precedent

 Could make such men and such a place repent. 10

 Nor  may any fear to lose of their degree,

 Who in such ambition can but follow thee.

I must believe some miracles still be,

When Sidney’s name I hear, or face I see:

For Cupid, who at first took vain delight

In mere  out-forms, until he lost his sight,

 Hath changed his soul and made his object you: 5

Where, finding so much beauty met with virtue,

He hath not only gained himself his eyes,

But, in your love, made all his  servants wise.

You wonder who this is, and why I  name

Him not aloud that boasts so good a fame,

Naming so many, too! But this is one

Suffers no name but a description:

 Being no vicious person, but the  Vice 5

About the town, and known too  at that price.

A subtle thing that doth affections win

By speaking well o’the  company  it’s in.

Talks loud and bawdy, has a gathered deal

Of news and noise, to   sow out a long meal. 10

Can  come from Tripoli, leap stools, and wink,

Do all that  ’longs to the  anarchy of drink,

 Except the duel. Can sing songs and  catches,

Give everyone his dose of mirth; and watches

Whose name’s unwelcome to the present ear, 15

And him it  lays on, if he be not there.

 Tells of him all the tales itself then makes;

But, if it shall be questioned, undertakes

It will deny all, and forswear it too;

 Not that it fears, but will not have to do 20

With such a one. And therein keeps its word.

’Twill see its sister naked, ere a sword.

At every meal where it doth dine or sup

The  cloth’s no sooner gone, but it gets up,

And, shifting of its faces, doth play more 25

 Parts than th’Italian could do with his door.

Acts  old Iniquity, and, in the fit

Of miming, gets th’opinion of a wit.

Executes men  in picture.  By defect

From friendship, is its own  fame’s architect. 30

An  engineer in slanders of all fashions,

That, seeming praises, are yet accusations.

Described it’s thus. Defined would you it have?

Then: the Town’s Honest Man’s her  arrant’st knave.

Jephson, thou man of men, to whose  loved name

All gentry yet owe part of their best flame!

So did thy  virtue inform, thy wit sustain

That age, when thou stood’st up the master-brain:

Thou wert the first mad’st merit know her strength, 5

And those that lacked it to suspect at length

’Twas not  entailed on title; that some word

Might be found out as good, and not  ‘My Lord’.

 That nature no such difference had impressed

In men, but every  bravest was the best; 10

 That blood not minds, but minds did blood adorn:

And to live great was better than great born.

These were thy knowing arts: which who doth now

Virtuously practise must at least allow

 Them in, if not from, thee; or must commit 15

A desperate  solecism in truth and wit.

Groin, come of age, his state sold  out of hand

 For’s whore: Groin doth still  occupy his land.

Gut eats all day and lechers all the night,

So all his  meat he  tasteth over, twice:

And, striving so to double his delight,

He makes himself a thoroughfare of vice.

Thus in his belly can he change a  sin: 5

Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.

Not he that flies the court for want of clothes,

 At hunting rails, having no gift in oaths,

Cries out ’gainst  cocking, since he cannot bet,

Shuns  press, for two main causes, pox, and debt,

With me can merit more than  that good man, 5

Whose dice not doing well,  to a pulpit ran.

No,  Shelton, give me thee, canst want all these,

But dost it out of judgement, not  disease;

Dar’st breathe in any air and with safe skill,

Till thou canst find the best, choose the least ill. 10

 That to the vulgar canst thyself apply,

Treading a better path, not contrary,

And, in their errors’ maze, thine own way know:

 Which is to live to conscience, not to show.

 He that but living half his age, dies such, 15

Makes the whole longer, than ’twas given him, much.

Weep with me all  you that read

This little story:

And know, for  whom a tear you shed,

Death’s self is sorry.

 ’Twas a child that so did thrive 5

In grace and feature,

 As Heaven and Nature  seemed to strive

 Which owned the creature.

Years he numbered scarce thirteen

When  Fates turned cruel. 10

Yet   three filled zodiacs  had he been

 The stage’s jewel;

 And did act (what now we moan)

Old men so duly,

 As, sooth, the  Parcae thought him one, 15

He  played so truly.

 So, by error, to his fate

They all consented;

But viewing him since ( alas, too late)

They have repented. 20

 And have sought (to give new birth)

In  baths to steep him;

But, being so much too good for earth,

Heaven vows to keep him.

Rudyerd, as lesser dames to great ones  use,

My  lighter comes to kiss thy learnèd muse,

Whose better studies while she emulates,

 She learns to know long difference of their states.

Yet is the office not to be despised, 5

If only love should make the action prized:

Nor he for friendship to be thought unfit

That strives his manners should  precede his wit.

 If I would wish, for truth and not for show,

The agèd  Saturn’s age and rites to know;

If I would strive to bring back times, and  try

The world’s pure gold, and wise simplicity;

If I would virtue set, as she was young, 5

And hear her speak with one, and her first, tongue;

If holiest friendship, naked to the  touch,

I would restore, and keep it ever such,

I need no other arts, but study thee:

Who prov’st all these  were, and again may be. 10

Writing thyself, or judging others’  writ,

I know not which   thou’st most,  candour or wit;

But both thou’st so, as who affects the state

Of the best writer and judge should emulate.

Wouldst thou hear what man can say

In a little? Reader, stay.

Underneath this stone doth lie

As much beauty as could die;

Which in life did harbour give 5

To more virtue than doth live.

If at all she had a fault,

Leave it buried in this vault.

One name was Elizabeth,

 The other let it sleep with death: 10

 Fitter where it died to tell,

Than that it lived at all. Farewell.

Uvedale, thou  piece of the first times, a man

Made for what nature could, or virtue can,

Both whose dimensions, lost, the world might find

Restorèd in thy body and thy mind!

 Who sees a soul in such a body set 5

Might love the treasure for the cabinet.

But I, no child, no fool, respect the kind,

The full, the flowing graces there enshrined;

Which (would the world not miscall’t flattery)

I could adore  almost t’idolatry. 10

Retired, with purpose your fair worth to praise,

’Mongst Hampton shades and Phoebus’ grove of  bays

I plucked a branch; the jealous god did frown

And bade me lay th’usurpèd laurel down,

Said I wronged him, and (which was more) his love. 5

I answered ‘Daphne now no pain can  prove.’

Phoebus replied: ‘Bold head, it is not she:

Cary my love is; Daphne but my tree.’

Is there a hope that man would thankful be,

If I should fail in gratitude to thee,

To whom I am so bound, loved Aubigny?

No; I do therefore call posterity

Into the debt, and reckon on her head 5

How full of want, how swallowed up, how dead

I and this muse had been, if thou hadst not

Lent timely succours, and new life begot.

So all reward or name that  grows to me

By her attempt shall still be owing thee. 10

And than this same I know no  abler way

To thank thy benefits: which is, to pay.

Roe (and my joy to name)  thou’rt  now to go

 Countries and climes, manners and men to know,

T’extract and choose the best of all these known,

And  those to turn to blood and make thine own:

May winds as soft as breath of kissing friends 5

Attend thee hence; and there may all thy ends,

As the beginnings here, prove purely sweet,

And perfect in a  circle always meet.

So when we, blest with thy return, shall see

Thyself, with thy first thoughts brought home by thee, 10

We each to other may this voice inspire:

‘This is that good  Aeneas, passed through fire,

Through seas, storms, tempests, and embarked for hell,

Came back untouched. This man hath   travelled well.’

That not a pair of friends each other see,

But the first question is, when one saw thee?

That there’s no journey set or thought upon

To   Brentford,  Hackney,  Bow, but thou  mak’st one;

That scarce the town designeth any feast 5

To which thou’rt not a week  bespoke a guest;

That still  thou’rt made the supper’s  flag, the drum,

The very call, to make all others come:

Think’st thou, Mime, this is great? Or that they strive

Whose noise shall keep thy miming most alive, 10

Whilst thou dost raise some player from the grave,

Out-dance the  babion, or out-boast the  brave;

Or ( mounted on a stool) thy face doth hit

On some new gesture that’s imputed wit?

Oh, run not proud of this. Yet take thy due: 15

Thou dost  out-zany  Cokely,  Pod, nay,  Gue,

And thine own  Coryate too. But (wouldst thou see)

Men love thee not for this: they laugh at thee.

To urge, my loved Alfonso, that bold fame

 Of building towns, and making wild beasts tame,

Which music had; or speak her known effects,

 That she removeth cares, sadness ejects,

 Declineth anger,  persuades clemency, 5

Doth sweeten mirth, and heighten piety,

And is  to a body, often, ill-inclined,

No less a sovereign cure than to the mind;

T’allege that greatest men were not ashamed

Of old even by her practice to be famed; 10

To say, indeed, she were the soul of heaven,

That the   eighth sphere, no less than planets seven,

Moved by her order, and the ninth more high,

Including all, were  thence called harmony:

I yet had uttered nothing on thy part, 15

When these were but the praises of the art.

But when I have said ‘The proofs of all these be

 Shed in thy songs’, ’tis true, but short of thee.

When we do give, Alfonso, to the light

A work of ours, we  part with our own right;

For then all mouths will judge, and their own way:

The learn’d have no more privilege than the lay.

 And though we could all men, all censures hear, 5

We ought not give them taste we had an ear.

For if the hum’rous world will talk at large,

They should be fools, for me, at their own charge.

Say this or that man they to thee prefer;

Even those for whom they do this know they err: 10

And would (being asked the truth) ashamèd say

They were not to be named  on the same day.

Then  stand unto thyself, not seek without

For fame, with breath soon kindled, soon blown out.

If to admire were to commend, my praise

Might then both thee, thy work, and merit raise;

But as it is (the child of ignorance

And utter stranger to all air of France)

How can I speak of thy great pains, but err, 5

Since they can only judge that can  confer?

Behold! The reverend shade of Bartas stands

Before my thought, and (in thy right) commands

That to the world I publish, for him, this:

  ‘Bartas doth wish thy English now were his.’ 10

So well in that are his  inventions wrought

As his will now be the translation thought,

Thine  the original, and France shall boast

No more those maiden glories she hath lost.

No more let Greece her bolder fables tell

 Of Hercules or Theseus going to hell,

 Orpheus, Ulysses; or the Latin muse

With tales of  Troy’s just knight, our faiths abuse:

We have a   Shelton and a   Heydon got, 5

Had power to act what they to feign had not.

All that they boast of  Styx, of Acheron,

Cocytus, Phlegeton,  our have proved  in one;

The filth, stench, noise; save only what was there

Subtly distinguished was confusèd here. 10

Their  wherry had no sail, too; ours had  none:

And in it two more horrid knaves than  Charon.

Arses were heard to croak instead of frogs;

And for one  Cerberus, the whole coast was  dogs.

Furies there wanted not: each  scold was ten. 15

And for the cries of ghosts, women and men

Laden with plague-sores, and their sins, were heard,

Lashed by their consciences, to die afeared.

Then let the former age with this content  her;

She brought the poets forth, but ours th’ adventer. 20

 I sing the brave adventure of two wights,

And pity ’tis I cannot call ’em knights:

One was; and he for brawn and brain right able

To have been stylèd of King Arthur’s table.

The other was a  squire of fair degree, 25

But in the action greater man than he;

Who gave, to take at his return from hell,

His  three for one. Now,  lordings, listen well.

 It was the day,  what time the powerful moon

Makes  the poor Bankside creature wet it’  shoon 30

In it’ own hall; when these (in worthy scorn

Of those that put out moneys on return

From Venice, Paris, or some inland passage

Of six times to and fro without embassage,

Or  him that backward went to Berwick, or which 35

Did dance the  famous morris unto Norwich)

At  Bread Street’s Mermaid, having dined, and merry,

Proposed to go to Holborn in a wherry:

 A harder task than either his to Bristo’,

Or his to Antwerp. Therefore, once more,  list ho! 40

A dock there is, that callèd is  Avernus,

Of some,  Bridewell, and may in time concern us

All, that are readers: but, methinks, ’tis odd

That all this while I have forgot some god

Or goddess to invoke, to stuff my verse; 45

And with both  bombard style and phrase rehearse

The many perils of this port, and how

  Sans help of  Sybil or a golden bough,

Or magic sacrifice they passed along!

 Alcides, be thou succouring to my song. 50

Thou hast seen hell (some say) and know’st all nooks there,

Canst tell me best how every Fury looks there,

And art a god, if fame thee not abuses,

Always at hand to aid the merry muses.

Great  Club-Fist, though thy back and bones be sore 55

Still with thy former labours,  yet, once more,

Act a brave work, call it thy last  adventry:

But hold my torch, while I describe the entry

To this dire passage.  Say thou stop thy nose,

’Tis but light pains: indeed  this dock’s no rose. 60

In the first jaws appeared that ugly monster

 Yclepèd Mud, which, when their oars did once stir,

Belched forth an air as hot as at the  muster

Of all your night tubs, when the carts do cluster,

Who shall discharge first his  merd-urinous load: 65

 Thorough her womb they make their famous road

Between two walls, where, on one side to scar men,

Were seen your ugly centaurs ye call  car-men,

 Gorgonian scolds and  harpies: on the other

Hung stench, diseases, and old filth their mother, 70

With famine, wants, and sorrows many a dozen,

The least of which was to the plague a cousin.

But they unfrighted pass, though many a privy

Spake to ’em louder than  the ox in Livy,

And many a sink poured out her rage  anenst ’em; 75

But still their valour and their virtue fenced ’em,

And on they went, like  Castor brave and Pollux,

Ploughing the  main. When see (the worst of all lucks)

They met the second prodigy would fear a

Man, that had never heard of a  Chimaera. 80

One said it was bold  Briareus or the  beadle

(Who hath the hundred hands when he doth meddle);

The other thought it  Hydra, or the rock

Made of the  trull that cut her father’s lock;

But, coming near, they found it but a  lighter, 85

So huge, it seemed, they could by no means  quite her.

‘Back!’ cried their brace of Charons; they cried ‘No;

No going back; on still, you rogues, and row.’

‘How  hight the place?’ A voice was heard:  ‘Cocytus.’

‘Row close then, slaves.’ ‘Alas, they will beshite us.’ 90

‘No matter, stinkards, row!’ ‘What croaking sound

Is this we hear? Of frogs?’ ‘No; guts  wind-bound

Over your heads: well, row!’ At this a loud

Crack did report itself, as if a cloud

Had burst with storm, and down fell  ab excelsis 95

Poor Mercury, crying out on  Paracelsus,

And all his followers, that had so abused him:

And in so shitten sort so long had used him:

For (where he was the god of eloquence

And subtlety of metals) they dispense 100

His spirits now in pills, and  eke in potions,

Suppositories,  cataplasms, and lotions.

‘But many moons there shall not wane’, quoth he,

‘(In the mean time let ’em imprison me)

But I will speak (and know I shall be heard) 105

Touching this cause, where they will be afeared

To answer me.’ And sure, it was th’intent

 Of the grave fart late let in parliament,

Had it been seconded, and not in fume

Vanished away: as you must all presume 110

Their Mercury did now. By this the  stem

Of the hulk touched, and, as  by Polypheme

The sly Ulysses stole in a sheepskin,

The well-greased wherry now had got between,

And bade her farewell  sough unto the  lurden: 115

Never did bottom more betray her burden:

The meat-boat of  Bears’ College, Paris Garden,

Stunk not so ill, nor, when she kissed,  Kate Arden.

Yet one day in the year for sweet ’tis voiced

And that is when it is the Lord Mayor’s  foist. 120

By this time had they reached the Stygian pool

By which the masters swear when, on the  stool

Of worship, they their nodding chins do hit

Against their breasts. Here several ghosts did flit

About the shore, of farts but late departed, 125

White, black, blue, green, and in more forms out-started

Than all those atomi ridiculous

Whereof old  Democrite and  Hill Nicholas,

One said, the other swore, the world consists.

These be the cause of those thick frequent mists 130

Arising in that place, through which who goes

Must try  th’unusèd valour of a nose:

And that ours did. For yet no  nare was tainted,

 Nor thumb, nor finger to the stop acquainted,

But open and unarmed encountered all; 135

Whether it languishing stuck upon the wall,

Or were precipitated down the jakes,

And, after,  swam abroad in ample flakes,

Or that it lay, heaped like an usurer’s mass,

All was to them the same: they were to pass, 140

And so they did, from Styx to Acheron,

The ever-boiling flood; whose banks upon

Your  Fleet Lane furies and hot cooks do dwell,

That with still-scalding steams make the place  hell.

The sinks ran grease and hair of  measled hogs, 145

The heads,  houghs, entrails, and the hides of dogs:

For, to say truth, what scullion is so nasty

To put the skins and offal in a pasty?

Cats there lay divers had been flayed and roasted,

And, after mouldy grown, again were toasted; 150

 Then, selling not, a dish was ta’en to mince ’em,

But still it seemed the rankness did  convince ’em;

For here they were thrown in  wi’ the melted pewter,

Yet drowned they not. They had  five lives in future.

But ’mongst these  Tiberts, who  d’you think there was? 155

Old  Banks the juggler, our  Pythagoras,

Grave tutor to the learnèd horse; both which,

Being beyond sea burnèd for one witch,

Their spirits transmigrated to a cat;

And now above the pool a face right fat 160

With great grey eyes, are lifted up, and mewed.

 Thrice did it spit, thrice dived. At last it viewed

Our brave   heroës with a milder glare,

And, in a piteous tune, began: ‘How dare

Your dainty nostrils (in so hot a season, 165

When every clerk eats artichokes and  peason,

Laxative lettuce, and such  windy meat)

’Tempt such a passage? When each privy’s seat

Is filled with buttock, and the walls do sweat

Urine and plasters? When the noise doth beat 170

Upon your ears of discords so unsweet,

And outcries of the damnèd in  the Fleet?

Cannot the  plague-bill keep you back? Nor bells

Of loud  Sepulchre’s with their hourly knells,

But you will visit grisly  Pluto’s hall? 175

Behold where Cerberus, reared on the wall

Of  Holborn (  three sergeants’ heads) looks o’er,

And stays but till you come unto the door!

Tempt not his fury; Pluto is away,

And  Madam Caesar, great  Proserpina, 180

Is now from home. You lose your labours quite,

Were you Jove’s sons, or had  Alcides’ might.’

They cried out ‘Puss!’ He told them he was Banks,

That had so often showed ’em merry pranks.

They laughed at his laugh-worthy fate. And passed 185

The triple head without a  sop. At last,

Calling for  Rhadamanthus that dwelt by,

A soap-boiler, and  Aeacus him nigh,

Who kept an ale-house, with my little  Minos,

An ancient  purblind  fletcher with a high nose; 190

They took ’em all to witness of their action:

And so went bravely back, without protraction.

In memory of which most liquid deed

The city since hath raised a  pyramid.

And I could wish for their eternized sakes 195

My muse had ploughed with  his that sung A-JAX.