<P 1>

<T Poems>
<T AND>
<T A Defence of Ryme>

<P 2>

<T TO THE READER>

<P 3>

<T To the Reader>

BEhold once more with serious labor here
Have I refurnisht out this little frame,
Repaird some parts defective here and there,
And passages new added to the same, (were
Some rooms inlargd, made some les the they
Like to the curious builder who this yeare
Puls downe, and alters what he did the last
As if the thing in doing were more deere
Then being done, & nothing likes thats past              10
  For that we euer make the latter day
The scholler of the former, and we find
Something is still amisse that must delay
Our busines, and leave worke for us behinde.
As if there were no saboath of the minde.
And howsoeuer be it well or ill
What I haue done, it is mine owne I may
Do whatsoeuer therewithall I will.
  I may pull downe, raise, and reedisie
It is the building of my life and fee                    20
Of Nature, all th`inheritance that I
Shal leave to those which must come after me
And all the care I have is but to see
These lodgings of m`affections neatly drest
Wherein so many noble friends there be
Whose memories with mine must therin rest
And glad I am that I have liud to see
This edifice renewd, who doo but log
To liue t`amend. For man is a tree
That hath his fruite late ripe, and it is long           30
Before he come t`his taste, there doth belong

<P 4>

So much t`experience, and so infinite
The faces of things are, as hardly we
Discerne which lookes the likest unto right.
  Besides these curious times stuf`d with the
Of copositions in this kind, do drive (store
Me to examine my defects the more,
And oft would make me not my self believe
Did I not know the world wherein I live,
Which neither is so wise, as that would seeme            40
Nor certaine iudgement of those things doth
That it disliks, nor that it doth esteeme. (giue
  I know no work from man yet euer came
But had his marke, and by some error shewd
That it was his, and yet what in the same
Was rare, an worhty, evermore allowd
Safe couoy for the rest; the good thats sow`d
Thogh rarely paies our cost, & who so looks
T`have all thinges in perfection, & in frame
In mens inuentins, neuer must read books.                50
  And howsoever here detraction may
Disvalew this my labour, yet I know
There wilbe foud therin, that which wil pay
The reckning for the errors which I owe
And likewise will sufficiently allow
T`an undistasted iudgement fit delight
And let presumptuous selfe-opinion say
The worst it can, I know I shall have right.
  I know I shalbe read, among the rest
So long as men speake english, and so long               60
As verse and vertue shalbe in request
Or grace to honest industry belong:
And England since I use thy present tongue
Thy forme of speech thou must be my defece
If to new eares, it seemes not well exprest
For though I hold not accent I hold sence.

<P 5>

  And since the measures of our tong we see
Confirmed by no edict of power doth rest
But onely underneath the regencie
Of user and fashion, which may be the best               70
Is not for my poore forces to contest
But as the Peacock, seeing himselfe to weake
Confest the Eagle fairer farre to be
And yet not in his feathers but his beake.
Authoritie of powerfull censure may
Preiudicate the forme wherein we mould
This matter of our spirite, but if it pay (wold
The eare with substance, we have what wee
For that is all which must our credit hold.
The rest (how ever gay, or seeming rich                  80
It be in fashion, wise men will not wey)
The stamp will not allow it, but the touch.
  And would to God that nothing falty were
But only that poore accent in my verse
Or that I could all other recknings cleere
Wherwith my heart stands charg`d, or might
The errors of my iudgmet passed here (revers
Or els where, in my bookes, and unrehearce
What I have vainely said, or have addrest
Vnto neglect mistaken in the rest.                       90
  Which I do hope to live yet to retract
And crave that England never wil take note
That it was mine. Ile disavow mine act,
And wish it may for ever be forgot,
I trust the world will not of me exact
Against my will, that hath all els I wrote,
I will aske nothing therein for my paine
But onely to have in mine owne againe.

<P 9>

<T TO THE RIGHT HO->
<T nourable the Ladie <1Mary>1,>
<T Countesse of Pembroke.>

<1Right honorable, although I rather desired to keep in>1
<1the private passions of my youth, from the multi->1
<1tude, as things utterd to my selfe, and consecrated to>1
<1silence: yet seeing I was betraide by the indiscretion of a>1
<1greedie Printer, and had some of my secrets bewraide to>1
<1the world, uncorrected: doubting the like of the rest, I am>1
<1forced to publish that which I never ment. But this>1               10
<1wrong was not onely doone to mee, but to him whose un->1
<1matchable lines have indured the like misfortune; Ignor->1
<1ance sparing not to commit sacriledge upon so holy>1
<1Reliques. Yet>1 Astrophel, <1flying with the wings of his>1
<1own fame, a higher, pitch then the gross-sighted can dis->1
<1cerne, hath registred his owne name in the Annals of>1
<1eternitie, and cannot be disgraced, howsoever disguised.>1
<1And for my selfe, seeing I am thrust out into the worlde,>1
<1and that my unboldned Muse, is forced to appeare so>1
<1rawly in publique; I desire onely to bee graced by the>1            20
<1countenance of your protection: whome the fortune of our>1
<1time hath made the happie and iudiciall Patronesse of>1
<1the Muses, (a glory hereditary to your house) to preserve>1
<1them from those hidious Beasties, Oblivion, and Bar->1
<1barisme. Whereby you doe not onely possesse the honour>1
<1of the present, but also do bind posterity to an ever grate->1
<1full memorie of your vertues, wherein you must survive>1
<1your selfe. And if my lines heereafter better laboured,>1
<1shall purchase grace in the world, they must remaine the>1
<1monuments of your honourable favour, and recorde the>1              30
<1zealous duetie of mee, who am vowed to your honour in>1
<1all observancy for ever,>1
                        Samuel Danyell.

<P 11>
<T TO DELIA.>
<S I>

  Unto the boundles Ocena of thy beautie
Runs this poore river, charg`d with streames of zeale:
Returning thee the tribute of my dutie,
Which heere my love, my youth, my playnts reueal.
  Heere I unclaspe the booke of my charg`d soule,
Where I have cast th`accounts of all my care:
Heere have I summ`d my sighes, heere I enroule
Howe they were spent for thee; Looke what they are.
  Looke on the deere expences of my youth,
And see how iust I reckon with thyne eyes:
Examine well thy beautie with my trueth,
And crosse my cares ere greater summes arise. (slightly;
    Reade it sweet maide, though it be doone but
    Who can shewe all his love, doth love but lightly.

<S II>

  Goe wailing verse, the infants of my love,
<1Minerua>1-like, brought foorth without a Mother:
Present the image of the cares I prove,
Witnes your Fathers griefe exceedes all other.
  Sigh out a story of her cruell deedes,
With interrupted accents of dispayre:
A Momument that whosoever reedes,
May iustly praise, and blame my loveles Faire.
  Say her disdaine hath dryed up my blood,
And starved you, in succours still denying:
Presse to her eyes, importune me some good;
Waken her sleeping pittie with your crying.   (her;
    Knock at that hard hart, beg till you have moou`d
    And tell th`unkind, how deerely I have lou`d her.

<P 12>
<S III>

  If so it hap this of-spring of my care,
These fatall Antheames, sad and mornefull Songes:
Come to their view, who like afflicted are;
Let them yet sigh their owne, and mone my wrongs.
  But untouch`d harts, with unaffected eye,
Approach not to behold so great distresse:
Cleer-sighted you, soone note what is awry,
Whilst blinded ones mine errours never gesse.
  You blinded soules whom youth and errours lead,
You outcast Eglets, dazled with your sunne:
Ah you, and none but you my sorrowes read,
You best can iudge the wrongs that she hath dunne.
    That she hath doone, the motive of my paine;
    Who whilst I love, doth kill me with disdaine.

<S IIII>

  These plaintive cverse, the Posts of my desire,
Which haste for succour to her slowe regarde:
Beare not report of any slender fire,
Frigngin a griefe to winne a fames rewarde.
  Nor are my passions limnd for outward hewe,
For that no collours can depynt my sorrowes:
<1Delia>1 her selfe, and all the world may viewe
Best in my face, how cares hath til`d deepe forrowes.
  No Bayes I seeke to deck my mourning brow,
O cleer-eyde Rector of the holie Hill:
My humble accents craue the Olyue bow,
Of her milde pittie and relenting will.
    These lines I use, t`unburthen mine owne hart;
    My love affects no fame, nor steeme of art.

<P 13>
<S V>

  Whilst youth and error led my wandring minde,
And set my thoughts in heedeles waies to range:
All unawares a Goddesse chaste I finde,
<1Diana>1-like, to worke my suddaine change.
  For her no sooner had my view bewrayd,
But with disdaine to see me in that place:
With fairest hand, the sweet unkindest maide,
Castes water-cold disdaine upon my face.
  Which turn`d my sport into a Harts dispaire,
Which still is chac`d, whilst I have any breath,
By mine owne thoughts set on me by my faire,
My thoughts like houndes, pursue me to my death.
    Those that I fostred of mine owne accord,
    Are made by her to murther thus their Lord.

<S VI>

  Faire is my love, and cruell as sh`is faire;
Her brow shades frownes, although her eyes are sunny;
Her Smiles arelightning, though her pride dispaire;
And her sidaines are gall; her favours hunny.
  A modest maide, deckt with a blush of honour,
Whose feete doe treade greene pahtes of youth and love,
The wonder of all eyes that looke uppon her:
Sacred on earth, design`d a Saint above.
  Chastitie and Beautie, which were deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow:
And had she pittie to conioine with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now.
    O had she not beene faire, and thus unkinde,
    My Muse had splept, and none had knowne my
                                       (minde.

<P 14>
<S VII>

  O had she not beene faire and thus unkinde,
Then had no finger pointed at my lightnes:
The world had never knowne what I doe finde,
And Clowdes obscure had shaded still her brightnes.
  Then had no Censors eye these lines suruaide,
Nor grauer browes have iudg`d my Muse so vaine;
No sunne my blush and errour had bewraide,
Nor yet the workd had heard of such disdaine.
  Then had I walkt with bold erected face,
No down-cast looke had signigied my mis:
But my degraded hopes, with such disgrace
Did force my grone out griefes, and utter this.
    For being full, should not I then have spoken:
    My sence oppres`d, had fail`d; and hart had broken.

<S VIII>

  Thou poore hart sacrifiz`d unto the fairest,
Hast sent the incens of thy sighes to heaven:
And still against her frownes fresh vowes repayrest,
And made thy passions with her beautie even.
  And you mine eyes the agents of my hart,
Told the dumbe message of my hidden griefe:
And oft with carefull turnes, with silent art,
Did treate the cruell Fayre to yeelde reliefe.
  And you my verse, the Advocates of love,
Have followed hard the processe of my case:
And urg`d that title which dooth plainely prove,
My faith should win, if iustice might have place.
    Yet though I see, that nought we doe can move her,
    Tis not disdaine must make me leave to love her.

<P 15>
<S IX>

  If this be love, to drawe a weary breath,
Painte on flowdes, till the shore, crye to th`ayre:
With downward lookes, still reading on the earth;
The sad memorials of my loves despaire.
  If this be love, to warre against my soule,
Lye downe to waile, rise up to sigh and grieve me:
The never-resting stone of care to roule,
Still to complaine my greifes, and none releiue me.
  If this be love, to cloath me with darke thoughts,
Haunting untroden pathes to waile apart;
My pleasures horror, Musique tragicke notes,
Teares in my eyes, and sorrowe at my hart.
    If this be love, to live a living death:
    O then love I, and drawe this weary breath.

<S X>

  O then I love, and drawe this weary breath,
For her the cruell faire, within whose brow
I written finde the sentence of my death,
In unkinde letters; wrought she cares not how.
  O thou that rul`st the confines of the night,
Laughter-loving Goddesse, worldly pleasures Queene,
Intenerat that hart that sets so light,
The truest love that ever yet was seene.
  And cause her leave to triumph in this wise,
Uppon the prostrate spoyle of that poore harte:
That serues a trophey to her conquering eyes,
And must their glorie to the world imparte.    (me;
    Once let her know, sh`hath done enough to prove
    And let her pitie if she cannot love me.

<P 16>
<S XI>

  Teares, vowes, and prayers win the hardest hart:
Teares, vowes, and prayers have I spent in vaine;
Teares, cannot soften flint, nor vowes conuart,
Prayers prevaile not with a quaint disdaine.
  I lose my teares, where I have lost my love,
I vowe my faith, where faith is not regarded;
I pray in vaine, a merciles to move:
So rare a faith ought better be rewarded.
  Yet though I cannot win her will with teares,
Though my soules Idoll scorneth all my vowes;
Though all my prayers be to so deafe eares:
No favour though the cruell faire allowes.
    Yet will I weepe, vowe, pray to cruell Shee;
    Flint, Frost, Disdaine, weares, melts, and yeelds
                                             (we see.

<S XII>

  My spotles love hoovers with white wings,
About the temple of the proudest frame:
Where blaze those lights fayrest of earthly things,
Which cleere our clouded world with brightest flame.
  M`ambitious thoughts confined in her face,
Affect no honour, but what she can give mee:
My hopes doe rest in limits of her grace,
I weygh no commfort unlesse she releeve mee.
  For she that can my hart imparadize,
Holdes in her fairest hand what deerest is:
My fortunes wheele, the circle of her eyes,
Whose rowling grace deigne once a turne of blis.
    All my lives sweete consists in her alone,
    So much I love the most unloving one.

<P 17>
<S XIII>

  Behold what happe <1Pigmaleon>1 had to frame,
And carve his proper griefe upon a stone:
My heavie fortune is much like the same,
I worke on Flint, and that`s the cause I mone.
  For haples loe even with mine owne desires,
I figuredr on the table of my harte,
The fayrest forme, the worldes eye admires,
And so did perish by my proper arte.
  And still I toile, to chavnge the marble brest
Of her, whose sweetest grace I doe adore:
Yet cannot finde her breathe unto my rest,
Hard is her hart and woe is me therefore.
    O happie he that ioy`d his stone and arte,
    Unhappy I to love a stony harte.

<S XIIII>

  Those amber locks, are those same nets my deere,
Wherewith my libertie thou didst surprize:
Love was the flame, that fired me so neere,
The darte transpearsing, were those Christall eyes.
  Strong is the net, and servent is the flame;
Deepe is the wounde, my sighes do well report;
Yet doe I love, adore, and praise the same,
That holdes, that burnes, that wounds me in this sort.
  And list not seeke to breake, to quench, to heale,
The bonde, the flame, the wound that festreth so;
By knife, by lyquour, or by salue to deale:
So much I please to perish in my wo.
    Yet least long travailes be above my strenth,
    Good {Delia} lose, quench, heale me now at lenght.

<P 18>
<S XV>

  If that a loyall hart and faith unfained,
If a sweete languish with a chast desire:
If hunger-starven thoughts so long retayned,
Fed but with smoake, and cherisht but with fire.
  And if a brow with cares caracters painted,
Bewraies my love, with broken words halfe spoken,
To her that sits in my thoughts Temple sainted,
And layes to view my Vultur-gnawne hart open.
  If I have doone due homage to her eyes,
And had my sighes styll tending on her name:
If on her love my life and honour lyes;
And she th`unkindest maide still scornes the same.
    Let this suffice, the world yet may see;
    The fault is hers, though mine the hurt must bee.

<S XVI>

  Happie in sleepe, waking content to languish,
Imbracing cloudes by night, in day time morne:
All things I loath save her and mine owne anguish
Pleas`d in my hurt, inur`d to live forlorne.
  Nought doe I crave, but love, death, or my Lady,
Hoarce with crying mercy, mercy yet my merit;
So many vowes and prayers ever made I,
That now at length t`yeelde, meere pittie were it.
  But still the {Hydra} of my cares renuing,
Revives new sorrowes of her fresh disdayning;
Still must I goe the Summer windes pursuing:
Finding no ende nor Period of my payning.
    Waile all my life, my griefes do touch so neerely,
    And thus I live, because I love her deerely.

<P 19>
<S XVII>

  Since the first looke that led me to this error,
To this thoughts-maze, to my confusion tending;
Still have I liv`d in griefe, in hope, in terror,
The circle of my sorrowes never ending.
  Yet cannot leave her love that holdes me hatefull.
Her eyes exact it, though her hart disdaines mee:
See what reward he hath that serves th`ungrateful,
So true and loyall I love no favours gaines mee.
  Still must I whet my younge desires abated,
Uppon the Flint of such a hart rebelling;
And all in vaine, her pride is so innated,
She yeeldes no place at all for pitties dwelling.
    Oft have I tolde her that my soule did love her,
    And that with teares, yet all this will not move her.

<S XVIII>

  Restore thy tresses to the golden Ore,
Yeelde {Cithereas} sonne those Arkes of love;
Bequeath the heavens the starres that I adore,
And to th`Orient do thy Pearles remove.
  Yeelde thy hands pride unto th`yuory whight,
T`{Arabian} odors give thy breathing sweete:
Restore thy blush unto {Aurora} bright,
To {Thetis} give the honour of thy feete.
  Let {Venus} have thy graces, her resign`d,
And thy sweete voyce give backe unto the Spheares:
But yet restore thy fearce and cruell minde,
To {Hyrcan} Tygers, and to ruthles Beares.
    Yeelde to the Marble thy hard hart againe;
    So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to paine.

<P 20>
<S XIX>

  If Beautie thus be clouded with a frowne,
That pittie shines no comfort to my blis:
And vapors of disdaine so overgrowne,
That my lives light thus wholy darkned is.
  Why should I more molest the world with cryes?
The ayre with sighes, the earth belowe with teares?
Since I live hatefull to those ruthlesse eyes,
Vexing with untun`d moane, her daintie eares.
  If I have lov`d her deerer then my breath,
My breath that calls the heavens to witnes it:
And still must holde her deere till after death.
And if that all this cannot move a whit;
    Yet let her say that she hath donne me wrong,
    To use me thus and knowe I lov`d so long.

<S XX>

  Come death the Anchor-holde of all my thoughtes,
My last Resort whereto my soule appealeth;
For all too long on earth my fancy dotes,
Whilst my best blood my younge desiers sealeth.
  That hart is now the prospective of horror,
That honored hath the cruelst faire that lyueth:
The cruelst faire, that sees I languish for her,
Yet never mercy to my merit giueth.
  This is her Lawrell and her triumphes prize,
To tread me downe with foote of her disgrace:
Whilst I did builde my fortune in her eyes,
And laide my lives rest on so faire a face;
    That rest I lost, my love, my life and all,
    So high attempts to lowe disgraces fall.

<P 21>
<S XXI>

  These sorrowing sighes, the smoakes of mine annoy;
These teares, which heate of sacred flame distils;
Are these due tributes that my faith dooth pay
Unto the tyrant; whose unkindnes kils.
  I sacrifize my youth, and blooming yeares,
At her proud feete, and she respects not it:
My flowre untimely`s withred with my teares,
And winter woes, for spring of youth unfit.
  She thinkes a looke may recompence my care,
And so with lookes prolongs my long-lookt ease:
As short that blisse, so is the comfort rare,
Yet must that blisse my hungry thoughts appease.
    Thus she returnes my hopes so fruitlesse ever,
    Once let her love indeede, or eye me never.

<S XXII>

  False hope prolongs my ever certaine griefe;
Traytrous to me and faithfull to my love:
A thousand times it promis`d me reliefe,
Yet never any true effect I prove.
  Oft when I finde in her no trueth at all,
I banish her, and blame her trechery:
Yet soone againe I must her backe recall,
As one that dyes without her company.
  Thus often as I chase my hope from mee,
Straight way she hastes her unto {Delias} eyes:
Fed with some pleasing looke there shall she bee,
And so sent backe and thus my fortune lyes.
    Lookes feede my Hope, Hope fosters me in vaine;
    Hopes are unsure, when certaine is my paine.

<P 22>
<S XXIII>

  Looke in my griefes, and blame me not to morne,
From care to care that leades a life so bad;
Th`Orphan of fortune, borne to be her scorne,
Whose clouded brow dooth make my daies so sad.
  Long are their nights whose cares doe never sleepe
Loathsome their daies, whome no sunne ever ioyde:
Her fairest eyes doe penetrate so deepe,
That thus I live booth day and night annoyde.
  But since the sweetest roote doth yeeld thus much,
Her praise from my complaint I may not part:
I love th`effect for that the cause is such,
Ile praise her face, and blame her flintie hart.
    Whilst that wee make the world admire at vs,
    Her for disdaine, and me for loving thus.

<S XXIIII>

  Oft and in vaine my rebel thoughts have ventred,
To stop the passage of my vanquisht hart:
And shut those waies my friendly foe first entred,
Hoping thereby to free my better part.
  And whilst I garde these windowes of this forte,
Where my harts theese to vexe me made her choice:
And thether all my forces doe transporte,
And other passage opens at her voice.
  Her voyce betraies me to her hand and eye:
My freedomes tyrants conquering all by arte:
But ah, what glorie can she get thereby,
With three such powers to plague one silly harte.
    Yet my soules soveraigne, since I must resigne;
    Reigne in my thoughts, my love and life are thine.

<P 23>
<S XXV>

  Raigne in my thoughts faire hand, sweete eye, rare
Possesse me whole, my harts triumuirat:      (voyce,
Yet heavie hart to make so hard a choise,
Of such as spoile thy poore afflicted state,
  For whilst they strive which shall be Lord of all,
All my poore life by them is troden downe:
They all erect their Trophies on my fall,
And yeelde me nought that gives them their renowne.
  When backe I looke, I sigh my freedome past,
And waile the state wherein I present stande:
And see my fortune ever like to last,
Finding me rain`d with such a heavie hande;
    What can I doo but yeeld, and yeeld I doo,
    And serve all three, and yet they spoile me too.

<S XXVI>

  Whilst by her eyes pursu`d, my poore hart flew it,
Into the sacred bosome of my deerest:
She there in that sweete sanctuary slew it,
Where it presum`d his safetie to be neerest.
  My priviledge of faith could not protect it,
That was with blood and three yeeres witnes signed:
In all which time she never could suspect it,
For well she sawe my love, and how I pined.
  And yet no comfort would her brow reveale mee,
No lightning looke, which falling hopes erecteth:
What bootes to lawes of succour to appeale mee?
Ladies and tyrants, never lawes respecteth.
    Then there I dye, where hop`d I to have liven;
    And by that hand, which better might have given.

<P 24>
<S XXVII>

  The starre of my mishappe impos`d this payning,
To spend the Aprill of my yeers in wayling,
That never found my fortune but in wayning,
With still fresh cares my present woes assayling.
  Yet her I blame not, though she might have blest
But my desires wings so high aspiring:       (mee,
Now melted with the sunne that hath possest mee,
Downe doe I fall from off my high desiring;
  And in my fall doe cry for mercy speedy,
No pittying eye lookes backe uppon my mourning:
No helpe I finde when now most favour neede I,
Th`Ocean of my teares must drowne me burning,
    And this my death shall christen her anew,
    And give the cruell Faire her tytle dew.

<S XXVIII>

  Raysing my hopes on hills of high desire,
Thinking to skale the heaven of her hart:
My slender meanes presum`d too high a part;
Her thunder of disdaine forst me retire;
  And threw mee downe to paine in all this fire,
Where loe I languish in so heavie smart,
Because th`attempt was farre above my arte:
Her pride brook`d not poore soules shold come so nye
  Yet I protest my high aspyring will,         (her.
Was not to dispossesse her of her right:
Her soveraignty should have remayned still,
I onely sought the blisse to have her sight.
    Her sight contented thus to see me spill,
    Fram`d my desires fit for her eyes to kill.

<P 25>
<S XXIX>

  O why dooth {Delia} credite so her glasse,
Gazing her beautie deign`d her by the skyes:
And dooth not rather looke on him (alas)
Whose state best shewes the force of murthering eyes.
  The broken toppes of loftie trees declare,
The fury of a mercy-wanting storme:
And of what force your wounding graces are,
Uppon my selfe you best may finde the forme.
  Then leave your glasse, and gaze your selfe on mee,
That Mirrour shewes what powre is in your face:
To viewe your forme too much, may daunger bee,
{Narcissus} chaung`d t`a flowre in such a case.
    And you are chaung`d, but not t`a Hiacint;
    I feare your eye hath turn`d your hart to flint.

<S XXX>

  I once may see when yeeres shall wrecke my wronge,
When golden haires shall chaunge to silver wyer:
And those bright rayes, that kindle all this fyer
Shall faile in force, their working not so stronge.
  Then beautie, now the burthen of my song,
Whose glorious blaze the world dooth so admire;
Must yeelde up all to tyrant Times desire:
Then fade those flowres which deckt her pride so long.
  When if she grieve to gaze her in her glas,
Which then presents her winter-withered hew;
Goe you my verse, goe tell her what she was;
For what she was she best shall finde in you.
    Your firie heate lets not her glorie passe,
    But Phenix-like shall make her live anew.

<P 26>
<S XXXI>

  Looke {Delia} how wee steeme the half-blowne Rose,
The image of thy blush and Summers honor:
Whilst in her tender greene she doth inclose
That pure sweete beautie, Time bestowes uppon her.
  No sooner spreades her glorie in the ayre,
But straight her ful-blowne pride is in declyning;
She then is scorn`d that late adorn`d the fayre:
So clowdes thy beautie, after fayrest shining.
  No Aprill can revive thy withred flowers,
Whose blooming grace adornes thy glories now:
Swift speedy Time, feathred with flying howers,
Dissolves the beautie of the fairest brow.
    O let not then such riches waste in vaine;
    But love whilst that thou maist be lov`d againe.

<S XXXII>

  But love whilst that thou maist be lov`d againe,
Now whilst thy May hath fill`d thy lappe with flowers;
Now whilst thy beautie beares without a staine;
Now vse thy Summer smiles ere winter lowres.
  And whilst thou spread`st unto the rysing sunne,
The fairest flowre that ever sawe the light:
Now ioye thy time before thy sweete be dunne,
And {Delia}, thinke thy morning must have night.
  And that thy brightnes sets at length to west:
When thou wilt close up that which now thou showest:
And thinke the same becomes thy fading best,
Which then shall hide it most, and cover lowest.
    Men doe not weigh the stalke for that it was,
    When once they finde her flowre, her glory passe.

<P 27>
<S XXXIII>

  When men shall finde thy flowre, thy glory passe,
And thou with carefull brow sitting alone:
Received hast this message from thy glasse,
That tells thee trueth, and saies that all is gone.
  Fresh shalt thou see in mee the woundes thou madest,
Though spent thy flame, in mee the heate remayning:
I that have lov`d thee thus before thou fadest,
My faith shall waxe, when thou art in thy wayning.
  The world shall finde this miracle in mee,
That fire can burne, when all the matter`s spent:
Then what my faith hath beene thy selfe shalt see,
And that thou wast unkinde thou maiest repent.
    Thou maist repent, that thou hast scorn`d my
                                        (teares,
    When Winter snowes uppon thy golden heares.

<S XXXIII>

   When Winter snowes upon thy golden heares,
And frost of age hath nipt thy flowers neere:
When darke shall seeme thy day that never cleares,
And all lyes withred that was held so deere.
  Then take this picture which I heere present thee,
Limned with a Pensill not all unworthy:
Heere see the giftes that God and nature lent thee;
Heere read thy selfe, and what I suffred for thee.
  This may remaine thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterite may cherish:
These collours with thy fading are not spent;
These may remaine, when thou and I shall perish.
    If they remaine, then thou shalt live thereby;
    They will remaine, and so thou canst not dye.

<P 28>
<S XXXV>

  Thou canst not dye whilst any zeale abounde
In feeling harts, that can conceive these lines:
Though thou a {Laura} hast no {Petrarch} founde,
In base attire, yet cleerely Beautie shines.
  And I, though borne in a colder clime,
Doe feele mine inward heate as great, I knowe it:
He never had more faith, although more rime,
I love as well, though he could better shew it.
  But I may ad one feather to thy fame,
To helpe her flight throughout the fairest Ile:
And if my penne could more enlarge thy name,
Then shouldst thou live in an immortall stile.
    But though that {Laura} better limned bee,
    Suffice, thou shalt be lov`d as well as shee.

<S XXXVI>

  O be not griev`d that these my papers should,
Bewray unto the world howe faire thou art:
Or that my wits have shew`d the best they could,
The chastest flame that ever warmed hart.
  Thinke not sweete {Delia}, this shall be thy shame,
My Muse should sound thy praise with mournefull
How many live, the glory of whose name, (warble:
Shall rest in yce, when thine is grav`d in Marble.
  Thou maist in after ages live esteem`d,
Unburied in these lines reserv`d in purenes;
These shall intombe those eyes, that have redeem`d
Mee from the vulgar, thee from all obscurenes.
    Although my carefull accents never mou`d thee;
    Yet count it no disgrace that I have lou`d thee.

<P 29>
<S XXXVII>

  {Delia} these eyes that so admireth thine,
Have seene those walles the which ambition reared,
To checke the world, how they intombed have lyen
Within themselves; and on them ploughes have eared.
  Yet for all that no barbarous hand attaynde,
The spoyle of fame deserv`d by vertuous men:
Whose glorious actions luckely had gainde,
Th`eternall Annals of a happie pen.
  Why then though {Delia} fade let that not move her,
Though time do spoyle her of the fairest vaile
That ever yet mortallitie did cover;
Which shall instarre the needle and the trayle.
    That grace, that vertue, all that serv`d t`in-
    Dooth her unto eternitie assommon.       (woman;

<S XXXVIII>

  Faire and louely maide, looke from the shore,
See thy {Leander} striving in these waves:
Poore soule fore-spent, whose force can doe no more,
Now send foorth hopes, for now calme pittie saues.
  And waste him to thee with those lovely eyes,
A happy conuoy to a holy lande:
Now shew thy powre, and where thy vertue lyes,
To save thine owne, stretch out the fayrest hand.
  Stretch out the fairest hand a pledge of peace,
That hand that dartes so right, and never misses:
Ile not revenge olde wrongs, my wrath shall cease;
For that which gave me woundes, Ile give it kisses.
    Once let the Ocean of my cares finde shore,
    That thou be pleas`d, and I may sigh no more.

<P 30>
<S XXXIX>
  Reade in my face, a volume of despayres,
The wayling Iliades of my tragicke wo;
Drawne with my bloud, and printed with my cares,
Wrought by her hand, that I have honoured so.
  Who whilst I burne, she singes at my soules wrack,
Looking a loft from Turret of her pride:
There my soules tyrant ioyes her, in the sack
Of her owne seate, whereof I made her guide.
  There doe these smoakes that from affliction ryse,
Serue as an incense to a cruell Dame:
A Sacrifize thrice gratefull to her eyes,
Because their powre serve to exact the same.
    Thus ruines she, to satisfie her will;
    The Temple, where her name was honored still.

<S XL>

  My {Cynthia} hath the waters of mine eyes,
The ready handmaides on her grace attending:
That never fall to ebbe, nor ever dryes,
For to their flowe she never graunts an ending.
  Th`Ocean never did attende more duely,
Uppon his Soveraignes course, the nights pale Queene:
Nor paide the impost of his waves more truely,
Then mine to her in truth have ever beene.
  Yet nought the rocke of that hard hart can move,
Where beate these teares with zeale, and fury driueth:
And yet I rather languish in her love
Then I would ioy the fayrest she that liveth.
    I doubt to finde such pleasure in my gayning,
    As now I taste in compas of complayning.

<P 31>
<S XLI>

  How long shall I in mine affliction morne,
A burthen to my selfe, distress`d in minde:
When shall my interdicted hopes returne,
From out despayre wherein they live confin`d.
  When shall her troubled browe charg`d with
                                        (disdaine,
Reveale the treasure which her smyles impart:
When shall my faith the happinesse attaine,
To breake the yce that hath congeald her hart.
  Unto her selfe, her selfe my love dooth sommon,
If love in her hath any powre to move:
And let her tell me as she is a woman,
Whether my faith hath not deserv`d her love.
    I knowe she cannot but must needes confesse it,
    Yet deignes not with one simple signe t`expresse it.

<S XLII>

  Beautie, sweet love, is like the morning dewe,
Whose short refresh upon the tender greene,
Cheeres for a time but tyll the Sunne doth shew,
And straight tis gone as it had never beene.
  Soone doth it fade that makes the fairest florish,
Short is the glory of the blushing Rose,
The hew which thou so carefully doost nourish,
Yet which at length thou must be forc`d to lose.
  When thou surcharg`d with burthen of thy yeeres,
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth:
When tyme hath made a pasport for thy feares,
Dated in age the Kalends of our death.
    But ah no more, thys hath beene often tolde,
    And women grieve to thinke they must be old.

<P 32>
<S XLIII>

  I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would reede,
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smyle:
Flowers have a tyme before they come to seede,
And she is young and now must sport the while.
  Ah sport sweet Mayde in season of these yeeres,
And learne to gather flowers before they wither:
And where the sweetest blossoms first appeares,
Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither.
  Lighten forth smyles to cleere the clowded ayre,
And calme the tempest which my sighes doe rayse:
Pittie and smyles doe best become the fayre,
Pittie adn smyles shall yeeld thee lasting prayse.
    I hope to say when all my griefes are gone,
    Happy the hart that sigh`d for such a one.

<S XLIIII>

  Drawne with th`attractive vertue of her eyes,
My toucht hart turnes it to that happie cost:
My ioyfull North, where all my fortune lyes,
The levell of my hopes desired most.
  There where my {Delia} fayrer then the sunne,
Deckt with her youth whereon the world smyleth:
Ioyes in that honour which her beautie wonne,
Th`eternall volume which her fame compyleth.
  Florish faire {Albion}, glory of the North,
{Neptunes} darling helde betweene his armes:
Devided from the world as better worth,
Kept for himselfe, defended from all harmes.
    Still let disarmed peace decke her and thee;
    And Muse-foe {Mars}, abroade farre fostred bee.

<P 33>
<S XLV>

  Care-charmer sleepe, sonne of the Sable night,
Brother to death, in silent darknes borne:
Relieve my languish, and restore the light,
With darke forgetting of my cares returne.
  And let the day be time enough to morne,
The shipwrack of my ill-adventred youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wayle theyr scorne,
Without the torment of the nights untruth.
  Cease dreames, th`ymagery of our day desires,
To modell foorth the passions of the morrow:
Never let rysing Sunne approve you lyers,
To adde more griefe to aggrauat my sorrow.
    Still let me sleepe, imbracing clowdes in vaine;
    And never wake, to feele the dayes disdayne.

<S XLVI>

  Let others sing of Knights and Palladines,
In aged accents, and untimely words:
Paint shadowes in imaginary lines,
Which well the reach of their high wits records;
  But I must sing of thee and those faire eyes,
Autentique shall my verse in time to come,
When yet th`unborne shall say, loe where she lyes,
Whose beautie made him speake that els was dombe.
  These are the Arkes the Tropheis I erect,
That fortifie thy name against old age,
And these thy sacred vertues must protect,
Against the Darke and times consuming rage.
    Though th`error of my youth they sahll discover,
    Suffice they shew I liv`d and was thy lover.

<P 34>
<S XLVII>

  Like as the Lute that ioyes or els dislikes,
As is his arte that playes upon the same:
So sounds my Muse according as she strikes,
On my hart strings high tun`d unto her fame.
  Her touch doth cause the warble of the sound,
Which heere I yeeld in lamentable wise,
A wailing deskant on the sweetest ground,
Whose due reports give honor to her eyes.
  Els harsh my style, untunable my Muse,
Hoarce sounds the voyce that prayseth not her name:
If any pleasing realish heere I use,
Then iudge the world her beautie gives the same.
    O happie ground that makes the musique such,
    And blessed hand that gives so sweete a tuch.

<S XLVIII>

  None other fame myne unambitious Muse,
Affected ever but t`eternize thee:
All other honours doe my hopes refuse,
Which meaner priz`d and momentarie bee.
  For God forbid I should my papers blot,
With mercynary lines, with seruile pen:
Praising vertues in them that have them not,
Basely attending on the hopes of men.
  No no my verse respects nor Thames nor Theaters,
Nor seekes it to be knowne unto the Great:
But {Avon} rich in fame, though poore in waters,
Shall have my song, where {Delia} hath her seate.
    {Avon} shall be my Thames, and she my Song;
    Ile sound her name the Ryver all along.

<P 35>
<S XLIX>

  Unhappy pen and ill accepted papers,
That intimate in vaine my chaste desiers,
My chaste desiers, the ever burning tapers,
Inkindled by her eyes celestiall fiers.
  Celestiall fiers and unrespecting powers,
That deigne not view the glory of your might,
In humble lines the worke of carefull howers,
The sacrifice I offer to her sight.
  But sith she scornes her owne, this rests for me,
Ile mone my selfe, and hide the wrong I have:
And so content me that her frownes should be
To my` infant stile the cradle, and the grave.
    What though my selfe no honor get thereby,
    Each byrd sings t`herselfe, and so will I.

<S L>

  Loe heere the impost of a faith unfaining,
That love hath paide, and her disdaine extorted:
Beholde the message of my lust complayning,
That shewes the world how much my griefe imported.
  These tributary plaintes fraught with desire,
I sende those eyes the cabinets of love;
The Paradice whereto my hopes aspire,
From out this hell, which mine afflictions prove.
  Wherein I thus doe live cast downe from myrth,
Pensive alone, none but despayre about mee;
My joyes abortive, perisht at their byrth,
My cares long liv`de, and will not dye without mee.
    This is my state, and {Delias} hart is such;
    I say no more, I feare I saide too much.

                 {FINIS}.

<P 36>
<T An Ode>

Nowe each creature ioyes the other,
  Passing happy daies and howers:
One byrd reports unto another,
  In the fall of silver showers,
Whilst the earth our common mother,
  Hath her bosome deckt with flowers.

Whilst the greatest torch of heaven,
  With bright rayes warmes {Floras} lappe:
Making nights and dayes both even,
  Cheering plants with fresher sappe:                     10
My field of flowers quite be-reaven,
  Wants refresh of better happe.

Eccho daughter of the ayre,
  Babbling gheste of Rocks and Hills,
Knowes the name of my fearce Fayre,
  And soundes the accents of my ills:
Each thing pitties my dispaire,
  Whilst that she her Lover kills.

Whilst that she O cruell Maide,
  Doth me, and my true love dispise:                      20
My lives florish is decayde
  That depended on her eyes:
But her will must be obaide,
  And well he`ends for love who dies.

            {FINIS}

<P 39>
<T THE COMPLAINT OF>
<T {ROSAMOND}.>

OVT from the horror of infernall deepes,
My poore afflicted ghost comes heere to plaine it:
Attended with my shame that never sleepes,
The spot wherewith my kinde, and youth did staine it:
My body found a grave where to containe it,
    A sheete could hide my face, but not my sin,
    For Fame finds never tombe t`inclose it in.

And which is worse, my soule is nowe denied,
Her transport to the sweet Elisean rest,
The joyful blisse for ghosts repurified,                  10
The ever springing Gardens of the blest,
{Caron} denies me wastage with the rest.
    And sayes my soule can never passe that River,
    Till Lovers sighes on earth shall it deliver.

So shall I never passe; for how should I
Procure this sacrifice amongst the living?
Time hath long since worne out the memorie,
Both of my life, and lives uniust depriving:
Sorrow for me is dead for aye reviving.
    {Rosamond} hath little left her but her name,         20
    And that disgrac`d, for time hath wrong`d the
                                           (same.
No Muse suggests the pittie of my case,
Each penne dooth overpasse my just complaint,
Whilst others are preferd, though farre more base:
{Shores} wife is grac`d, and passes for a Saint;
Her Legend justifies her foule attaint;
    Her well-told tale did such compassion finde,
    That she is pass`d, and I am left behinde.

<P 40>

Which seene with griefe, my myserable ghost,
(Whilome inuested in so faire a vaile,                    30
Which whilst it liv`d, was honoured of the most,
And being dead, gives matter to bewaile)
Comes to sollicit thee, since others faile,
    To take this taske, and in thy wofull Song
    To forme my case, and register my wrong.

Although I knowe thy just lamenting Muse,
Toylde in th`affliction of thine owne distresse,
In others cares hath little time to use,
And therefore maist esteeme of mine the lesse:
Yet as thy hopes attend happie redresse,                  40
    Thy joyes depending on a womans grace,
    So move thy minde a wofull womans case.

{Delia} may happe to deygne to read our story,
And offer up her sigh among the rest,
Whose merit would suffice for both our glorie,
Whereby thou might`st be grac`d, and I be blest,
That indulgence would profit me the best;
    Such powre she hath by whom thy youth is lead,
    To joy the living and to blesse the dead.

So I through beautie made the wofull`s wight,             50
By beautie might have comfort after death:
That dying fayrest, by the fayrest might
Finde life above on earth, and rest beneath:
She that can blesse us with one happy breath,
    Give comfort to thy Muse to doe her best.
    That thereby thou maist joy, and I might rest.

Thus saide: forthwith mou`d with a tender care
And pittie, which my selfe could never finde:
What she desir`d, my Muse deygn`d to declare,

<P 41>

And therefore will`d her boldly tell her minde:           60
And I more willing tooke this charge assignd,
    Because her griefes were worthy to be knowne,
    And telling hers, might hap forget mine owne.

Then write quoth shee the ruine of my youth,
Report the downe-fall of my slippery state:
Of all my life reveale the simple truth,
To teach to others, what I learnt too late:
Exemplifie my frailtie, tell howe Fate
    Keepes in eternall darke our fortunes hidden,
    And ere they come, to know them tis forbidden.        70

For whilst the sunn-shine of my fortune lasted,
I ioy`d the happiest warmth, the sweetest heat
That ever yet imperious beautie tasted,
I had what glory ever flesh could get:
But this faire morning had a shamefull set;
    Disgrace darkt honor, sinne did clowde my brow,
    As note the sequel, and Ile tell thee how.

The blood I staind was good and of the best,
My birth had honor, and my beautie fame:
Nature and Fortune ioyn`d to make me blest,               80
Had I had grace t`have knowne to use the same:
My education shew`d from whence I came,
    And all concur`d to make me happy furst,
    That so great hap might make me more accurst.

Happie liv`d I whilst Parents eye did guide,
The indiscretion of my feeble wayes:
And Country home kept me from being eyde,
Where best unknowne I spent my sweetest dayes;
Till that my frindes mine honour sought to rayse,
    To higher place, which greater credite yeeldes,       90
    Deeming such beauty was unfit for feeldes.

<P 42>

From Country then to Court I was preferr`d,
From calme to stormes, from shore into the deepes:
There where I perish`d, where my youth first err`d:
There where I lost the Flowre which honour keepes;
There where the worser thrives, the better weepes;
    Ah me poore wench, on this unhappy shelfe
    I grounded me, and cast away my selfe.

For thither com`d, when yeeres had arm`d my youth
With rarest proofe of beautie ever seene:                100
When my reviving eye had learnt the truth,
That it had powre to make the winter greene,
And flowre affections whereas none had beene:
    Soone could I teach my browe to tyrannize,
    And make the world do homage to mine eyes.

For age I saw, though yeeres with cold conceit,
Congeald theyr thoughts against a warme desire:
Yet sigh their want, and looke at such a baite,
I saw how youth was waxe before the fire:
I saw by stealth, I fram`d my looke a lire,              110
    Yet well perceiv`d how Fortune made me then,
    The envy of my sexe, and wonder unto men.

Looke how a Comet at the first appearing,
Drawes all mens eyes with wonder to behold it:
Or as the saddest tale at suddaine hearing,
Makes silent listning unto him that told it:
So did my speech when rubies did unfold it;
    So did the blasing of my blush appeere,
    T`amaze the world, that holds such sights so deere.

Ah beauty Syren, fayre enchaunting good,                 120
Sweet silent rethorique of perswading eyes:
Dombe eloquence, whose powre doth move the blood,

<P 43>

More then the words, or wisedome of the wise:
Still harmonie, whose diapason lyes
    Within a brow, the key which passions move,
    To rauish sence, and play a world in love.

What might I then not doe whose powre was such?
What cannot women doe that know theyr powre?
What women knowes it not I feare too much,
How blisse or bale lyes in theyr laugh or lowre?         130
Whilst they enjoy their happy blooming flowre,
    Whilst nature decks her with her proper fayre
    Which cheeres the worlde, joyes each sight,
                                  (sweetens th`ayre.

Such one was I, my beautie was mine owne,
No borrowed blush which banck-rot beauties seeke:
The new-found shame, a sinne to us unknowne,
Th`adulterate beauty of a falsed cheeke:
Vild staine to honor and to women eeke,
    Seeing that time our fading must detect,
    Thus with defect to cover our defect.                140

Impiety of times, chastities abator,
Falshod, wherein thy selfe, thy selfe deniest:
Treason, to counterfiet the seale of nature,
The stampe of heaven, impressed by the hiest.
Disgrace unto the world, to whom thou lyest,
    Idol unto thy selfe, shame to the wise,
    And all that honors thee idolatrise.

Farre was that sinne from us whose age was pure,
When simple beautie was accounted best,
The time when women had no other lure                    150
But modestie, pure cheekes, a vertuous brest:

<P 44>

This was the pompe wherewith my youth was blest;
    These were the weapons which mine honour wunne
    In all the conflicts that mine eyes begunne.

Which were not small, I wrought on no meane object;
A Crowne was at my feete, Scepters obaide mee:
Whom Fortune made my King, Love made my Subject,
Who did commaund the Land, most humbly praid mee:
{Henry} the second, that so highly weigh`d mee,          159
    Founde well by proofe the priviledge of Beautie,
    That it hath powre to counter-maund all duetie.

For after all his victories in {Fraunce},
Tryumphing in the honour of his deedes:
Unmatch`d by sword, was vanquisht by a glaunce,
And hotter warres within his bosome breedes:
Warres whom whole Legions of desires feedes,
    Against all which my chastity opposes,
    The fielde of honour, vertue never loses.

No armour might bee founde that coulde defend,
Transpearcing rayes of Christall-pointed eyes:           170
No Stratagem, no reason could amend,
No not his age; yet olde men should be wise:
But shewes decieve, outward appearance lyes;
    Let none for seeming so, thinke Saints of others,
    For all are men, and all have suckt their Mothers.

Who would have thought, a Monarch would have ever
Obayed his handmaide, of so meane a state;
Vultur ambition feeding on his lyuer,
Age having worne his pleasures out of date:
But happe comes never or it comes too late,              180
    For such a daintie which his youth found not,
    Unto his feeble age did chaunce allot.

<P 45>

Ah Fortune never absolutely good,
For that some crosse still counterchecks our luck:
As heere beholde th`incompatible blood,
Of age and youth was that whereon we stuck:
Whose loathing, we from natures brests do suck,
    As opposit to what our blood requires;
    For equall age doth equall like desires.

But mightie men in highest honor sitting,                190
Nought but applause and pleasure can behold:
Sooth`d in their liking, carelesse what is fitting,
May not be suffred once to thinke the`are old:
Not trusting what they see, but what is told.
    Miserable fortune to forget so farre,
    The state of flesh, and what our frailties are.

Yet must I needes excuse so great defect,
For drinking of the {Lethe} of myne eyes:
H`is forc`d forget himselfe, and all respect
Of maiestie whereon his state relyes:                    200
And now of loves, and pleasures must devise.
    For thus reviv`d againe, he serves and su`th,
    And seekes all meanes to undermine my youth.

Which never by assault he could recover,
So well incamp`d in strength of chaste desires:
My cleane-arm`d thoughts repell`d an unchast lover,
The Crowne that could commaund what it requires,
I lesser priz`d then chastities attires,
    Th`unstained vaile, which innocents adornes,
    Th`ungathred Rose, defended with the thornes.        210

And safe mine honor stoode till that in truth,
One of my Sexe, of place, and nature bad:
Was set in ambush to intrap my youth,

<P 46>

One in the habit of like frailtie clad,
One who the liv`ry of like weakenes had.
    A seeming Matrone, yet a sinfull monster,
    As by her words the chaster sort may conster.

Shee set upon me with the smoothest speech,
That Court and age could cunningly devise:
The one autentique made her fit to teach,                220
The other learnt her how to subtelise:
Both were enough to circumuent the wise.
    A document that well may teach the sage,
    That there`s no trust in youth, nor hope in age.

Daughter (saith she) behold thy happy chaunce,
That hast the lot cast downe into thy lap,
Whereby thou maist thy honor great aduaunce,
Whilst thou (unhappy) wilt not see thy hap:
Such fond respect thy youth doth so inwrap,              229
    T`oppose thy selfe against thine owne good fortune,
    That points thee out, and seemes thee to
                                            (importuen.

Doost thou not see how that thy King thy {Iove},
Lightens foorth glory on thy darke estate:
And showres downe golde and treasure from above,
Whilst thou doost shutte thy lappe against thy fate:
Fye fondling fye, thou wilt repent too late
    The error of thy youth; that canst not see
    What is the fortune that dooth followe thee.

Thou must not thinke thy flowre can alwayes florish,
And that thy beautie will be still admired:              240
But that those rayes which all these flames doe nourish,
Canceld with Time, will have their date expyred,
And men will scorne what now is so desired:

<P 47>

    Our frailtyes doome is written in the flowers,
    Which florish now and fade ere many howers.

Reade in my face the ruines of my youth,
The wracke of yeeres upon my aged brow:
I have beene faire, I must confesse the trueth,
And stoode uppon as nice respects as thow;
I lost my time, and I repent it now;                     250
    But were I to beginne my youth againe,
    I would redeeme the time I spent in vayne.

But thou hast yeeres and priviledge to use them,
Thy priviledge doth beare beauties great seale:
Besides, the law of nature doth excuse them,
To whom thy youth may have a just appeale:
Esteeme not fame more then thou doost thy weale,
    Fame, wherof the world seemes to make such
    Is but an Eccho, and an idle voyce.   (choyce:

Then why should thys respect of honor bound us,          260
In th`imaginary lists of reputation?
Titles which cold severitie hath found us,
Breath of the vulgar, foe to recreation:
Melancholies opinion, customs relation;   (fayre,
    Pleasures plague, beauties scourge, hell to the
    To leave the sweete for Castles in the ayre.

Pleasure is felt, opinion but conceau`d,
Honor, a thing without us, not our owne:
Whereof we see how many are bereau`d,
Which should have rep`d the glory they had sowne,        270
And many have it, yet unworhty knowne.
    So breathes his blasts this many-headed beast,
    Whereof the wisest have esteemed least.

<P 48>

The subtile Citty-women better learned,
Esteeme them chast ynough that best seeme so:
Who though they sport, it shall not be discerned,
Their face bewraies not wht their bodies doe:
Tis warie walking that doth safliest goe.
    With shew of vertue, as the cunning knowes,
    Babes are beguild with sweetes, and men with
                                       (showes.          280

Then use thy tallent, youth shall be thy warrant,
And let not honor from thy sports detract:
Thou must not fondly thinke thy selfe transparent,
That those who see thy face can judge the fact;
Let her have shame that cannot closely act.
    And seeme the chast, which is the cheesest arte,
    For what we seeme each sees, none knowes our
                                           (harte.

The mightie who can with such sinnes dispence,
In steed of shame doe honors great bestow:
A worthie author doth redeeme th`offence,                290
And makes the scarelet sinne as white as snow.
The Majestie that doth descend so low,
    Is not defilde, but pure remaines therein:
    And being sacred, sanctifies the sin.

What, doost thou stand on thys, that he is olde,
Thy beauty hath the more to worke uppon:
Thy pleasures want shal be supply`d with gold,
Cold age dotes most when the heate of youth is gone:
Enticing words prevaile with such a one,                 299
    Alluring shewes most deepe impression strikes,
    For age is prone to credite what it likes.

Heere interupt she leaves me in a doubt,
When loe began the combat in my blood:

<P 49>

Seeing my youth inuirond round about,
The ground uncertaine where my reasons stood;
Small my defence to make my party good,
    Against such powers which were so surely layde,
    To overthrow a poore unskilful mayde.

Treason was in my bones my selfe conspyring,
To sell my selfe to lust, my soule to sinne:             310
Pure-blushing shame was even in retiring,
Leaving the sacred hold it glory`d in.
Honor lay prostrate for my flesh to win,
    When cleaner thoughts my weakenes can upbray
    Against my selfe, and shame did force me say.

Ah {Rosamond}, what doth thy flesh prepare,
Destruction to thy dayes, death to thy fame:
Wilt thou betray that honor held with care,
T`intombe with blacke reproch a spotted name,
Leaving thy blush the collours of thy shame.             320
    Opening thy feete to sinne, thy soule to lust,
    Gracelesse to lay thy glorie in the dust.

Nay first let th`earth gape wide to swallow thee,
And shut thee up in bosome with her dead:
Ere Serpent tempt thee taste forbidden tree,
Or feele the warmth of an unlawfull bed:
Suffring thy selfe by lust to be misled;
    So to disgrace thy selfe and grieve thine heires,
    That {Cliffords} race should scorne thee one of
                                              (theyrs.

Never wish longer to injoy the ayre,                     330
Then that thou breath`st the breath of chastite:
Longer then thou preserv`st thy soule as faire
As is thy face, free from impuritie:
Thy face that makes th`admired in every eye:

<P 50>

    Where natures care such rarities inroule,
    Which us`d amisse, may serve to damne thy soule.

But what? he is my King and may constraine me,
Whether I yeelde or not I live defamed:
The world will thinke authority did gaine me,
I shal be iudg`d hys love, and so be shamed:             340
We see the fayre condemn`d, that never gamed.
    And if I yeeld, tis honorable shame,
    If not, I live disgrac`d, yet thought the same.

What way is left thee then unhappy mayde,
Whereby thy spotlesse foote may wander out
Thys dreadfull danger, which thou seest is layd,
Wherein thy shame doth compasse thee about?
Thy simple yeeres cannot resolve this doubt.
    Thy youth can never guide thy foote so even,
    But in despight some scandall will be given.         350

Thus stood I ballanc`d equallie precize,
Till my fraile flesh did weigh me downe to sinne:
Till world and pleasure made me partialize,
And glittering pompe my vanitie did winne;
When to excuse my fault my lusts beginne,
    And impious thoughts alledg`d this wanton clause,
    That though I sinn`d, my sinne had honest cause.

So well the golden balles cast downe before me,
Could entertaine my course, hinder my way:
Whereat my rechlesse youth stooping to store me,         360
Lost me the gole, the glory, and the day.
Pleasure had set my wel-skoold thoughts to play,
    And bade me use the vertue of mine eyes,
    For sweetly it fits the fayre to wantonise.

Thus wrought to sinne, soone was I traind from Court,
To a solitarie Grange there to attend
The time the King should thether make resort,
Where he loves long-desired work should end.
Thether he daily messages doth send,
    With costly jewels orators of love:                  370
    Which (ah too well men know) doe women move.

The day before the night of my defeature,
He greets me with a Casket richly wrought:
So rare, that arte did seeme to stive with nature,
T`expresse the cunning work-mans curious thought;
The mistery whereof I prying sought.
    And found engraven on the lidde above,
    {Amymone} how she with {Neptune} strove.

{Anymone} old {Danaus} fayrest daughter,
As she was fetching water all alone                      380
At {Lerna}: whereas {Neptune} came and caught her,
From whom she striv`d and strugled to be gone,
Beating the ayre with cryes and pittious mone.
    But all in vaine, with him sh`is forc`d to goe:
    Tis shame that men should use poore maydens so.

There might I see described how she lay,
At those proude feete, not satisfied with prayer:
Wailing her heavie hap, cursing the day,
In act so pittious to expresse dispaire:                 389
And by how much more greev`d, so much more fayre;
    Her teares upon her cheekes poore carefull gerle,
    Did seeme against the sunne cristall and perle.

Whose pure cleere streames, which loe so faire
Wrought hotter flames, O myracle of love, (appeares,
That kindles fire in water, heate in teares,

And makes neglected beautie mightier prove:
Teaching afflicted eyes affects to move;
    To shew that nothing ill becomes the fayre,
    But crueltie, that yeeldes unto no prayer.

This having viewd and therewith something moved,
Figured I found within the other squares:                401
Transformed {Io, Ioves} deerely loved,
In her affliction how she strangely fares,
Strangelie distress`d (O beautie borne to cares)
    Turn`d to a Heiffer, kept with jealous eyes,
    Alwaies in danger of her hatefull spyes.

These presidents presented to my view,
Wherein the presage of my fall was showne:
Might have fore-warn`d me well what would ensue,
And others harmes have made me shunne mine owne;
But fate is not prevented though fore-knowne.            411
    For that must hap decreed by heavenly powers,
    Who worke our fall, yet make the fault still ours.

Witnes the world, wherein is nothing rifer,
Then miseries unkend before they come:
Who can the characters of chaunce discipher,
Written in clowdes of our concealed dome?
Which though perhaps have beene reveald to some,
    Yet that so doubtfull as successe did prove them,
    That men must know they have the heavens
                                 (above the~.            420

I sawe the sinne wherein my foote was entring,
I sawe how that dishonour did attend it,
I sawe the shame whereon my flesh was ventring,
Yet had I not the powre for to defende it;

<P 53>

So weake is sence when error hath condemn`d it:
    We see what`s good, and thereto we consent us;
    But yet we choose the worst, and soone repent us.

And now I come to tell the worst of ilnes,
Now drawes the date of mine affliction neere:
Now when the darke had wrapt up all in stilnes,          430
And dreadfull blacke, had dispossess`d the cleere:
Com`d was the night, mother of sleepe and feare,
    Who with her sable mantle friendly covers,
    The sweet-stolne sports, of joyfull meeting Lovers.

When loe I joyde my Lover not my Love,
And felt the hand of lust most undesired:
Enforc`d th`unprooved bitter sweete to prove,
Which yeeldes no mutuall pleasure when tis hired.
Love`s not constrain`d, nor yet of due required,
    Judge they who are unfortunately wed,                440
    What tis to come unto a loathed bed.

But soone his age receiv`d his short contenting,
And sleepe seald up his languishing desires:
When he turnes to his rest, I to repenting,
Into my selfe my waking thought retires:
My nakednes had prov`d my sences liers.
    Now opned were mine eyes to looke therein,
    For first we taste the fruite, then see our sin.

Now did I find my selfe unparadis`d,
From those pure fieldes of my so cleane beginning:       450
Now I perceiv`d how ill I was aduis`d,
My flesh gan loathe the new-felt touch of sinning:
Shame leaves us by degrees, not at first winning.
    For nature checks a new offence with lothing:
    But use of sinne doth make it seeme as nothing.

<P 54>

And use of sinne did worke in me a boldnes,
And love in him, incorporates such zeale:
That jealosie increas`d with ages coldnes,
Fearing to loose the joy of all his weale.
Or doubting time his stealth might els reveale,          460
    H`is driven to devise some subtile way,
    How he might safeliest keepe so rich a pray.

A stately Pallace he foorthwith did buylde,
Whose intricate innumerable wayes,
With such confused errors so beguil`d
Th`unguided entrers with uncertaine strayes,
And doubtfull turnings kept them in delayes,
    With bootlesse labor leading them about,
    Able to finde no way, nor in, nor out.

Within the closed bosome of which frame,                 470
That serv`d a Center to that goodly round:
Were lodgings, with a garden to the same,
With sweetest flowers that ev`r adorn`d the ground.
And all the pleasures that delight hath found,
    To entertaine the sence of wanton eyes,
    Fuell of love, from whence lusts flames arise.

Heere I inclos`d from all the world a sunder,
The Minotaure of shame kept for disgrace:
The monster of fortune, and the worlds wonder,
Liv`d cloystred in so desolate a case:                   480
None but the King might come into the place.
    With certaine maides that did attend my neede,
    And he himselfe came guided by a threed.

O Jealousie, daughter of envy` and love
Most wayward issue of a gentle Syer;
Fostred with feares, thy Fathers joyes t`improve,

<P 55>

Myrth-marring Monster, borne a subtile lyer;
Hatefull unto thy selfe, flying thine owne desier:
    Feeding upon suspect that dooth renue thee,
    Happie were Lovers if they never knewe thee.         490

Thou hast a thousand gates thou enterest by,
Conducting trembling passions to our hart:
Hundred eyed {Argos}, ever waking Spye,
Pale hagge, infernall fury, pleasures smart,
Enuious Observer, prying in every part;
    Suspicious, fearefull, gazing still about thee,
    O would to God that love could be without thee.

Thou didst deprive (through false suggesting feare)
Him of content, and me of libertie:
The onely good that women holde so deare,                500
And turnst my freedome to captiuitie,
First made a Prisoner, ere an enemy:
    Enjoynd the raunsome of my bodies shame,
    Which though I paide could not redeeme the same.

What greater torment ever could have beene,
Then to inforce the fayre to live retired?
For what is Beautie if it be not seene,
Or what is`t to be seene unlesse admired?
And though admyred, unlesse in love desired?
    Never were cheekes of Roses, locks of Amber,         510
    Ordayn`d to live imprisond in a Chamber.

Nature created Beautie for the view,
Like as the fire for heate, the Sunne for light:
The Faire doe holde this priviledge as due,
By auncient Charter, to live most in sight,
And she that is debarr`d it, hath not right.
    In vaine our friends in this use their dehorting,
    For Beautie will be where is most resorting.

<P 56>

Witnes the fayrest streetes that Thames doth visit,
The wondrous concourse of the glittering Faire:          520
For what rare women deckt with Beautie is it,
That thither covets not to make repaire.
The solitary Country may not stay her,
    Heere is the center of all beauties best,
    Excepting {Delia}, left to adorne the West.

Heere doth the curious with judiciall eyes,
Contemplate beauty gloriously attired:
And heerein all our cheefest glory lyes,
To live where we are prais`d and most desired.
O how we joy to see our selves admired,                  530
    Whilst niggardly our favours we discover,
    We love to be belov`d, yet scorne the Lover.

Yet would to God my foote had never moved
From Countrey safety, from the fields of rest:
To know the danger to be highly loved,
And lyue in pompe to brave among the best,
Happy for me, better had I beene blest;
    If I unluckely had never strayde:
    But liv`d at home a happy Country mayde.

Whose unaffected innocencie thinks                       540
No guilefull fraude, as doth the Courtly liver:
She`s deckt with trueth, the River where she drinks
Doth serve her for her glasse, her counsell giver:
She loves sincerely, and is loved ever.
    Her dayes are peace, and so she ends her breath,
    True life that knowes not what`s to die till death.

So should I never have beene registred,
In the blacke booke of the unfortunate:
Nor had my name enrold with Maydes misled,

<P 57>

Which bought theyr pleasures at so hie a rate.           550
Nor had I taught through my unhappy fate,
    This lesson which my selfe learnt with expence,
    How most it hurts that most delights the sence.

Shame followes sinne, disgrace is duly given,
Impietie will out, never so closely doone:
No walles can hide us from the eyes of heaven,
For shame must end what wickednesse begun:
Forth breakes reproch when we least thinke thereon.
    And thys is ever propper unto Courts:
    That nothing can be doone but Fame reports.          560

Fame doth explore what lyes most secrete hidden,
Entring the closet of the Pallace dweller:
Abroade revealing what is most forbidden,
Of trueth and falshood both an equall teller:
Tis not a guarde can serve for to expell her,
    The sword of justice cannot cutte her wings,
    Nor stop her mouth from utt`ring secrete things.

And this our stealth she could not long conceale,
From her whom such a forfeit most concerned:
The wronged Queene, who could so closely deale:          570
That she the whole of all our practise learned,
And watcht a time when least it was discerned,
    In absence of the King, to wreake her wrong,
    With such revenge as she desired long.

The Laberinth she entred by that threed
That serv`d a conduct to my absent Lord:
Left there by chaunce, reserv`d for such a deede,
Where she surpriz`d me whom she so abhord.
Enrag`d with madnes, scarce she speakes a word,
    But flyes with eger fury to my face,
    Offring me most unwomanly disgrace.

<P 58>

Looke how a Tygresse that hath lost her whelpe,
Runs fearcely raging through the woods astray:
And seeing her selfe depriv`d of hope or helpe,
Furiously assaults what`s in her way,
To satisfie her wrath, not for a pray:
    So fell she on me in outragious wise,
    As could Disdaine and Jealousie devise.

And after all her vile reproches used,
She forc`d me take the poyson she had brought:           590
To end the lyfe that had her so abused,
And free her feares, and ease her jealous thought.
No crueltie her wrath would leave unwrought,
    No spightfull act that to revenge is common:
    For no beast fearer then a jealous woman.

Those handes that beauties ministers had bin,
Must now gyue death, that me adorn`d of late:
That mouth that newly gave consent to sin,
Must now receive destruction in there-at.
That body which my lusts did violate,                    600
    Must sacrifice it selfe t`appease the wrong,
    So short is pleasure, glory lasts not long.

The poyson soone disperc`d through all my vaines,
Had dispossess`d my living sences quite:
When naught respecting death, the last of paines,
Plac`d his pale collours, th`ensigne of his might,
Upon hys new-got spoyle before his right;
    Thence chac`d my soule, setting my day ere noone,
    When I least thought my joyes could end so soone.

And as conuaid t`untimely funerals,                      610
My scarce colde corse not suffred longer stay:
Behold the King (by chance) returning, falls

<P 59>

T`incounter with the same upon the way,
As he repaird to see his deerest joy.
    Not thinking such a meeting could have beene,
    To see his love, and seeing beene unseene.

Judge those whom chaunce deprives of sweetest
What tis to lose a thing we hold so deare:  (treasure,
The best delight, wherein our soule takes pleasure,
The sweet of life, that penetrates so neare.             620
What passions feeles that hart, inforc`d to beare
    The deepe impression of so strange a sight?
    Tongue, pen, nor art, can never shew aright.

Amaz`d he standes, nor voyce nor body steares,
Words had no passage, teares no issue found:
For sorrow shut up words, wrath kept in teares,
Confus`d affects each other doe confounde:
Oppress`d with griefe his passions had no bounde:
    Striving to tell his woes, wordes would not come;
    For light cares speake, when mightie griefes are
                                       (dombe.           630

At length extremitie breakes out a way,   (attended,
Through which th`imprisoned voice with teares
Wayles out a sound that sorrowes doe bewray:
With armes a crosse and eyes to heaven bended,
Vauporing out sighes that to the skyes ascended.
    Sighes, the poore ease calamitie affords,
    Which serve for speech when sorrow wanteth
                                          (words.

O heavens (quoth he) why doe myne eyes behold,
The hatefull rayes of this unhappy sonne?
Why have I light to see my sinnes controld,              640

<P 60>

With blood of mine owne shame thus vildly donne?
How can my sight endure to looke thereon?
    Why doth not blacke eternall darknes hide,
    That from myne eyes my hart cannot abide?

What saw my life, wherein my soule might joy?
What had my dayes, whom troubles still afflicted?
But onely this, to counterpoize annoy,
This joy, this hope, which death hath interdicted:
This sweete, whose losse hath all distresse inflicted.
    This that did season all my sowre of life,           650
    Vext still at home with broyles, abroade in strife.

Vext styll at home with broyles, abrode in strife,
Dissention in my blood, iarres in my bed:
Distrust at boord, suspecting still my life,
Spending the night in horror, dayes in dred;
Such life hath tyrants, and thys lyfe I led.
    These myseries goe mask`d in glittering showes,
    Which wisemen see, the vulgar little knowes.

Thus as these passions doe him over-whelme,
He drawes him neere my bodie to behold it:               660
And as the Vine maried unto the Elme
With strict imbraces, so doth he infold it;
And as he in hys carefull armes doth hold it,
    Viewing the face that even death commends,
    On sencelesse lips, millions of kysses spends.

Pittifull mouth (quoth he) that living gavest
The sweetest comfort that my soule could wish:
O be it lawfull now, that dead thou havest,
Thys sorrowing farewell of a dying kisse.
And you fayre eyes, containers of my blisse,             670
    Motives of love, borne to be matched never:
    Entomb`d in your sweet circles sleepe for ever.

<P 61>

Ah how me thinks I see death dallying seekes,
To entertaine it selfe in loves sweet place:
Decayed Roses of discoloured cheekes,
Doe yet retaine deere notes of former grace:
And ougly death sits faire within her face;
    Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red,
    That death it selfe, doubts whether she be dead.

Wonder of beautie, oh receive these plaints,             680
The obsequies, the last that I shall make thee:
For loe my soule that now already faints,
(That lov`d thee lyuing, dead will not forsake thee,)
Hastens her speedy course to over-take thee.
    Ile meete my death, and free my selfe thereby,
    For ah what can he doe that cannot die?

Yet ere I die, thus much my soule doth vow,
Revenge shall sweeten death with ease of minde:
And I will cause posterity shall know,
How faire thou wert above all women kind.                690
And after ages monuments shall find,
    Shewing thy beauties title not thy name,
    Rose of the world that sweetned so the same.

This said, though more desirous yet to say,
(For sorrow is unwilling to give over)
He doth represse what griefe would els bewray,
Least that too much his passions might discover:
And yet respect scarce bridles such a Lover.
    So farre transported that he knowes not whether,
    For love and Maiestie dwell ill together.            700

Then were my funerals not long deferred,
But doone with all the rites pompe coule devise:
At {Godstow}, where my body was interred,
And richly tomb`d in honorable wise.

<P 62>

Where yet as now scarce any note descries
    Unto these times, the memory of me,
    Marble and Brasse so little lasting be.

For those walles which the credulous devout,
And apt-beleeving ignorant did found:
With willing zeale that never call`d in doubt,           710
That time theyr works should ever so confound,
Lye like confused heapes as under-ground.
    And what their ignorane esteem`d so holy,
    The wiser ages doe account as folly.

And were it not thy favourable lynes,
Reedified the wracke of my decayes:
And that thy accents willingly assignes,
Some farther date, and give me longer daies,
Fewe in this age had knowne my beauties praise.          719
    But thus renewd, my fame redeemes some time,
    Till other ages shall neglect thy rime.

Then when confusion in her course shall bring,
Sad desolation on the times to come:
When myrth-lesse Thames shall have no Swan to sing,
All Musique silent, and the Muses dombe.
And yet even then it must be known to some,
    That once they florisht, though not cherisht so,
    And Thames had Swannes as well as ever Po.

But heere an end, I may no longer stay thee,
I must returne t`attend at {Stigian} flood:              730
Yet ere I goe, thys one word more I pray thee,
Tell {Delia} now her sigh may doe me good,
And will her note the frailtie of our blood.
    And if I passe unto those happy banks,
    Then she must have her praise, thy pen her thanks.

<P 63>

So vanisht shee, and left me to returne,
To prosecute the tenor of my woes:
Eternall matter for my Muse to mourne,
But ah the worlde hath heard too much of those,
My youth such errors must no more disclose.              740
    Ile hide the rest, and greeve for what hath beene,
    Who made me knowne, must make me live
                                     (unseene.
                {FINIS}

<P 67>
<T To the right worthie and judicious>
<T {favourer of vertue, maister}>
<T Fulke Grevill.>

{I Do not here upon this hum`rous Stage,}
{Bring my transformed verse apparailed}
{With others passions, or with others rage;}
{With loves, with wounds, with factions furnished:}
  {But here present thee, onelie modelled}
{In this poore frame, the forme of mine owne heart:}
{Here to revive my selfe my Muse is lead}                 10
{With motions of her owne, t`act her owne part}
  {Striving to make, her now contemned arte}
{As faire t`her selfe as possible she can;}
{Least seeming of no force, of no desart}
{She might repent the course that she began,}
  {And, with these times of dissolution, fall}
  {From goodnes, vertue, glorie, fame, and all.}

<P 69>

<T {MUSOPHILUS}.>
<T CONTAINING A>
<T generall defence of all>
<T {learning}.>

<T PHILOCOMUS.>

 FOnd man {Musophilus}, that thus dost spend
 In an ungainefull arte thy deerest daies,
 Trying thy wits and toiling to no end,
 But to attaine that idle smoake of praise;
 Now when this busie world cannot attend                  10
 Th`untimely musicke of neglected layes.
 Other delights then these, other desires
 This wiser profit-seeking age requires.

<T{Musophilus}.>
 Friend {Philocosmus}, I confesse indeed,
 I love this sacred arte thou sett`st so light,
 And though it never stand my life in steed,
 It is inough, it gives my selfe delight,
 The whiles my unafflicted minde doth feed
 Oh no unholy thoughts for benefit.                       20
Be it that my unseasonable song
 Come out of time, that fault is in the time,
 And I must not do vertue so much wrong
 As love her ought the worse for others crime;
 And yet I find some blessed spirits among,
 That cherish me, and like and grace my rime.
A gaine that I do more in soule esteeme
 Then al the gain of dust, the world doth crave;

<P 70>

 And if I may attaine but to redeeme
 My name from dissolution and the grave,                  30
 I shall have done enough, and better deeme
 T`have liv`d to be, then to have dyde to have.
Short-breath`d mortalitie would yet extend
 That span of life so far forth as it may,
 And rob her fate, seeke to beguile her end
 Of some few lingring daies of after staie,
 That all this little All, might not descend
 Into the darke a universall pray.
 And give our labors yet this poore delight,
 That whe~ our daies do end they are not done;            40
 And though we die we shall not perish quite,
 But live two lives where other have but one.

                 {Philocosmus.}

Sillie desires of selfe-abusing man,
 Striving to gaine th`inheritance of ayre
 That having done the uttermost he can
 Leaves yet perhaps but beggerie to his heir;
 Al that great purchase to the breath he wan,
 Feeds not his race, or makes his house more faire.
And what art thou the better thus to leave                50
 A multitude of words to small effect,
 Which other times may scorn and so deceive
 Thy promis`d name of what thou dost expect.
 Besides some viperous Creticke may bereave
 Th`opinion of thy worth for some defect,
And get more reputation of his wit
 By but controlling of some word or sence,
 Then thou shalt honor for contriving it,
 With all thy travell, care and diligence;
 Being learning now enough to contradict                  60
 And censure others with bold insolence.

<P 71>

Besides so many so confusedlie sing,
 Whose divers discords have the musick mar`d,
 And in contempt that mysterie doth bring,
 That he must sing alowd that will be heard;
 And the receiv`d opinion of the thing,
 For some unhallowed strings that vildly iar`d,
Hath so unseason`d now the eares of men,
 That who doth touch the tenor of that vaine
 Is held but vaine, and his unreck`ned pen                70
 The title but of levitie doth gaine.
 A poore light gaine to recompence their toile,
 That thought to get eternitie the while.
And therefore leave the left & out-worne course
 Of unregarded wayes, and labour how
 To fit the times with what is most in force,
 Be new with mens affections that are now;
 Strive not to run an idle counter-course
 Out from the sent of humours, men allow.
For not discreetly to compose our parts                   80
 Unto the frame of men (which we must be)
 Is to put off our selves, and makes our artes
 Rebles to Nature and societie,
 Whereby we come to burie our desarts,
 In th`obscure grave of singularitie.

                 {Musophilus.}

Do not profane the worke of doing well,
 Seduced man, that canst not looke so hie
 From out that mist of earth as thou canst tell
 The wayes of right, which vertue doth descrie,           90
 That over-lookes the base, contemptible,
 And low-laid follies of mortalitie:
Nor meate out truth and right-deserving prayse,
 By that wrong measure of confusion
 The vulgar foote: that never takes his wayes

<P 72>

 By reason, but by imitation;
 Rowling on with the rest, and never way`s
 The course which he should go, but what is gone.
Well were it with mankind, if what the most
 Did like were best, but ignorance will live             100
 By others square, as by example lost;
 And man to man must th`hand of errour give
 That none can fall alone at their owne cost,
 And all because me~ iudge not, but beleeve. (bou~ds,
For what poore bounds have they whom but th`earth
 What is their end whereto their care attaines,
 When the thing got relieves not, but co~founds,
 Having but travaile to succeed their paines?
 What joy hath he of living that propounds
 Affliction but his end, and griefe his gaines?          110
Gath`ring, incroching, wrestling, joining to,
 Destroying, building, decking, furnishing,
 Repairing, altring, and so much a do
 To his soules toile, and bodies travailing:
 And all this doth he little knowing who
 Fortune ordaines to have th`inheriting.
And his faire house rais`d hie in envies eie,
 Whose pillars rear`d perhaps on blood & wrong
 The spoyles and pillage of iniquitie,
 Who can assure it to continue long?                     120
 If rage spar`d not the walls of pietie,
 Shal the profanest piles of sinne keepe strong?
How manie proude aspiring pallaces
 Have we known made the pray of wrath and pride,
 Levell`d with th`earth, left to forgetfulnes,
 Whilest titlers their pretended rights decide,
 Or civill tumults, or an orderles
 Order pretending change of some strong side?
Then where is that proude title of thy name,
 Written in yce of melting vanitie?                      130

<P 73>

 Where is thine heire left to possesse the same?
 Perhaps not so well as in beggerie.
 Some thing may rise to be beyond the shame
 Of vile and unregarded povertie.
Which, I confesse, although I often strive
 To cloth in the best habit of my skill,
 In all the fairest colours I can give;
 Yet for all that me thinks she lookes but ill,
 I cannot brooke that face, which dead-alive
 Shewes a quicke bodie, but a buried will.               140
Yet oft we see the barres of this restraint
 Holds goodnes in, which loose wealth would let flie,
 And fruitlesse riches barrayner then want,
 Brings forth small worth from idle libertie:
 Which when disorders shal againe make scant,
 It must refetch her state from povertie.
But yet in all this interchange of all,
 Virtue we see, with her faire grace, stands fast;
 For what hy races hath there come to fall,
 With low disgrace, quite vanished and past,             150
 Since {Chaucer} liv`d who yet lives and yet shall,
 Though (which I grieve to say) but in his last.
Yet what a time hath he wrested from time,
 And won upon the mighty waste of daies,
 Unto th`immortall honor of our clime,
 That by his meanes came first adorn`d with Baies,
 Unto the sacred Relicks of whose rime
 We yet are bound in zeale to offer praise?
And could our lines begotten in this age
 Obtaine but such a blessed hand of yeeres,              160
 And scape the fury of that threatning rage,
 Which in confused clowdes gastly appeares,
 Who would not straine his travailes to ingage,
 Whe~ such true glory should succeed his cares?
But whereas he came planted in the spring,

<P 74>

 And had the Sun, before him, of respect;
 We set in th`Autumne, in the withering,
 And sullen season of a cold defect,
 Must taste those soure distastes the times do bring,
 Upon the fulnesse of a cloid neglect,                   170
Although the stronger constitutions shall
 Weare out th`infection of distempred daies,
 And come with glory to out-live this fall,
 Recouring of another spring of praise,
 Cleer`d from th`oppressing humors, wherewithall
 The idle multitude surchange their laies.
When as perhaps the words thou scornest now
 May live, the speaking picture of the mind,
 The extract of the soule that laboured how
 To leave the image of her selfe behind,                 180
 Wherein posteritie that love to know
 The just proportion of our spirits may find.
For these lines are the vaines, the Arteries,
 And undecaying life-strings of those harts
 That still shall pant, and still shall exercise
 The motion spirit and nature both imparts,
 And shall, with those alive so sympathize
 As nourisht with their powers injoy their parts.
O blessed letters that combine in one
 All ages past, and make one live with all,              190
 By you we do confer with who are gone,
 And the dead living unto councell call:
 By you th`unborne shall have communion
 Of what we feele, and what doth us befall.
Soule of the world, knowledge, without thee,
 What hath the earth that truly glorious is?
 Why should our pride make such a stir to be,
 To be forgot? what good is like to this,
 To do worthy the writing, and to write
 Worthy the reading, and the worlds delight?             200

<P 75>

And let th`unnaturall and waiward race
 Borne of one wombe with us, but to our shame,
 That never read t`observe but to disgrace,
 Raise all the tempest of their powre to blame;
 That puffe of follie never can deface,
 The worke a happy {Genuis} tooke to frame.
Yet why should civill learning seeke to wound
 And mangle her own members with despight?
 Prodigious wits that study to confound
 The life of wit, to seeme to know aright,               210
 As if themselves had fortunately found
 Some stand fro~ of the earth beyond our sight,
 Whence overlooking all as from above,
 Their grace is not to worke, but to reprove.
But how came they plac`d in so high degree
 Above the reach and compasse of the rest?
 Who hath admitted them onely to be
 Free-denizons of skill, to judge the best?
 From whom the world as yet could never see
 The warrant of their wit soundly exprest.               220
T`acquaint our times with that perfection
 Of high conceipt, which only they possess,
 That we might have things exquisitely done
 Measur`d with all their strict observances:
 Such would (I know) skorne a translation,
 Or bring but others labors to the presse;
 Yet oft these monster-breeding mountains wil
 Bring forth small Mice of great expected skill.
Presumption ever fullest of defects,
 Failes in the doing to performe her part;               230
 And I have known proud words and poore effects,
 Of such indeed as do condemne this Arte:
 But let them rest, it ever hath beene knowne,
 They others vertues skorn, that doubt their owne:
And for the divers disagreeing cordes,

<P 76>

 Of interiangling ignorance that fill
 The dainty eares, & leave no roome for words,
 The worthier mindes neglect, or pardon will;
 Knowing the best he hath, he frankly foords
 And skornes to be a niggard of his skill.               240
And that the rather since this short-liv`d race,
 Being fatallie the sonnes but of one day,
 That now with all their powre ply it apace,
 To hold out with the greatest might they may
 Against confussion that hath all in chace,
 To make of all a universall pray.
For now great {Nature} hath laid down at last
 That mighty birth, wherewith so long she went
 And overwent the times of ages past,
 Here to lie in, upon our soft content,                  250
 Where fruitfull she, hath multiplied so fast,
 That all she hath on these times, seem`d have spent.
All that which might have many ages grac`d,
 Is borne in one, to make one cloid with all;
 Where plenty hath imprest a deepe distast,
 Of best and worst, and all in generall:
 That goodnes seems, goodnes to have defac`t,
 And virtue hath to virtue given the fall.
For emulation, that proud nurse of wit,
 Skorning to stay below or come behind,                  260
 Labors upon that narrow top to sit
 Of sole perfection in the highest kind;
 Enuie and wonder looking after it,
 Thrust likewise on the selfe same blisse to find:
And so long striving till they can no more,
 Do stuffe the place or others hopes shut out,
 Who doubting to overtake those gone before
 Give up their care, and cast no more about;
 And so in skorne leave al as fore-possest,
 And will be none where they may not be best.            270

<P 77>

Even like some empty Creek that long hath lain,
 Left or neglected of the River by,          (vaine,
 Whose searching sides pleas`d with a wandring
 Finding some little way that close did lie,
 Steale in at first, then other streames againe
 Second the first, then more then all supplie,
Till all the mighty maine hath borne at last
 The glory of his chiefest powre that way,
 Plying this new-found pleasant roome so fast
 Till all be full, and all be at a staie;                280
 And then about, and backe againe doth cast,
 Leaving that full to fall another way:
So feares this humorous world, that evermore
 Rapt with the Current of a present course,
 Runs into that which laie contemnd before;
 Then glutted leaves the same, and fals t`a worse:
 Now zeale holds all, no life but to adore;
 Then cold in spirit, and faith is of no force.
 Straight all that holie was unhallowed lies,
 The scattered carcasses of ruind vowes:                 290
 Then truth is false, and now hath blindnes eies,
 Then zeale trusts al, now scarcely what it knows:
 That evermore to foolish or to wise,
 It fatall is to be seduc`d with showes.
Sacred {Religion}, mother of forme and feare,
 How gorgeously somtimes dost thou sit deckt?
 What pompous vestures do we make thee weare?
 What stately piles we prodigall erect?
 How sweet perfum`d thou art, how shining cleare?
 How solemnly observ`d, with what respect?               300
Another time all plaine, and quite threed bare,
 Thou must have all within and nought without,
 Sit poorely without light, disrob`d, no care
 Of outward grace, to amuze the poore devout,
 Powrelesse unfollowed, scarcely men can spare

<P 78>

 Thee neccessary rites to set thee out.
Either truth, goodnes, vertue are not still
 The selfe same which they are, and alwaies one,
 But alter to the project of our will,
 Or we our actions make them waite upon,                 310
 Putting them in the livery of our skill,
 And cast them off againe when we have done.
You mighty Lords, that with respected grace
 Do at the sterne of faire example stand,
 And all the body of this populace
 Guide with the onely turning of your hand,
 Keepe a right course, bear up from al disgrace,
 Observe the point of glory to our land:
Hold up disgraced knowledge from the ground,
 Keepe vertue in request, give worth her due,            320
 Let not neglect with barbarous means co~found
 So faire a good to bring in night anew.
 Be not, o^ be not accessary found
 Unto her death that must give life to you.
Where wil you have vertuous names safe laid,
 In gorgeous tombes, in sacred Cels secure?
 Do you not see those prostrate heapes betraid
 Your fathers bones, and could not keepe them sure?
 And will you trust deceitfull stones faire laid:
 And thinke they will be to your honor truer?            330
No, no, unsparing time will proudly send
 A warrant unto wrath that with one frown
 Wil al these mock`ries of vaine glory rend,
 And make them as before, ungrac`d, unknown,
 Poore idle honors that can ill defend
 Your memories, that cannot keepe their own.
And whereto serve that wondrous {trophei} now,
 That on the goodly plaine neare {Wilton} stands?
 That huge domb heap, that cannot tel us how,
 Nor what, nor whence it is, nor with whose hands,       340

<P 79>

 Nor for whose glory, it was set to shew
 How much our pride mockes that of other lands?
Whereon when as the gazing passenger
 Hath greedy lookt with admiration,
 And faine would know his birth, and what he were,
 How there erected, and how long agone:
 Enquires and askes his fellow travailer
 What he hath heard and his opinion:
And he knowes nothing. Then he turnes againe
 And looks and sighs, and then admires afresh,           350
 And in himselfe with sorrow doth complaine
 The misery of darke forgetfulnesse;
 Angrie with time that nothing should remain,
 Our greatest wonders-wonder to expresse.
Then ignorance with fabulous discourse
 Robbing faire arte and cunning of their right,
 Tels how those stones were by the divels force
 From Affricke brought to Ireland in a night,
 And thence to Britannie by Magicke course,
 From giants hand redeem`d my {Merlins} sleight.         360
And then neare {Ambri} plac`d in memorie
 Of all those noble Britons murthred there
 By {Hengist} and his Saxon trecherie,
 Comming to parle in peace at unaware.
 With this old Legend then credulitie
 Holdes her content, and closes up her care:
But is antiquitie so great a liar,
 Or, do her yonger sonnes her age abuse,
 Seeing after commers still so apt t`admire
 The grave authoritie that she doth use,                 370
 That reverence and respect dares not require
 Proofe of her deeds, or once her words refuse?
Yet wrong they did us to presume so far
 Upon our easie credit and delight:
 For once found false they straight became to mar

<P 80>

 Our faith, and their owne reputation quite:
 That now her truths hardly beleeved are,
 And though sh`auouch ye right, she scarce hath right.
And as for thee, thou huge and mightie frame
 That stands corrupted so with times despight,           380
 And giv`st false evidence against their fame
 That set thee there to testifie their right:
 And art become a traitor to their name
 That trusted thee with all the best they might;
Thou shalt stand still belide and slandered,
 The onely gazing stocke of ignorance,
 And by thy guile the wise admonished
 Shal never more desire such heapes t`aduance,
 Nor trust their living glorie with the dead             389
 That cannot speak, but leave their fame to chance;
Considering in how small a roome do lie
 And yet lie safe, as fresh as if alive
 All those great worthies of antiquitie,
 Which long foreliv`d thee, & shal long survive,
 Who stronger tombs found for eternitie,
 Then could the powres of al the earth co~trive.
Where they remaine these trifles to obraid
 Out of the reach of spoile, and way of rage,
 Though time with all his power of yeares hath laid
 Long batterie, back`d with underminig age,              400
 Yet they make head onely with their own aide
 And war, with his all conquering forces, wage.
Pleading the heavens prescription to be free
And t`have a grant t`indure as long as he.

                  {Philocosmus.}

Beholde how every man drawne with delight
 Of what he doth, flatters him in his way;
 Striving to make his course seeme onely right

<P 81>

 Doth his owne rest, and his owne thoughts betray;
 Imagination bringing bravely dight                      410
 Her pleasing images in best aray,
With flattering glasses that must shew him faire
 And others foule; his skill and his wit best,
 Others seduc`d, deceiv`d and wrong in their;
 His knowledge right, all ignorant the rest,
 Not seeing how these minions in the aire
 Present a face of things falsely exprest,
 And that ye glimmering of these errors showne,
 Are but a light to let him see his owne.
Alas poore Fame, in what a narrow roome                  420
 As an incaged Parrot, art thou pent
 Here amongst us; where eue~ as good be domb
 As speake, and to be heard with no attent?
 How can you promise of the time to come
 When as the present are so negligent?
Is this the walke of all your wide renowne,
 This little point, this scarce discerned Ile,
 Thrust from ye world, with who~ our speech unknown
 Made never any traffike of our stile.
 And is this all where all this care is showne,          430
 T`inchant your fame to last so long a while?
 And for that happier tongues have woon so much,
 Think you to make your barbarous language such?
Poore narrow limits for so mightie paines,
 That cannot promise any forraine vent:
 And yet if here to all your wondrous vaines
 Were generally knowne, it might content:
 But lo how many reads not, or disdaines
 The labors of the chiefe and excellent.
How many thousands never heard the name                  440
 Of {Sydney}, or of {Spencer}, or their bookes?
 And yet brave fellowes, and presume of fame
 And seem to beare downe all the world with lookes:

<P 82>

 What then shall they expect of meaner frame,
 On whose indevours few or none scarse looks?
Do you not see these {Pamphlets, Libels, Rymes,}
 These strange confused tumults of the minde,
 Are gronwe to be the sicknes of these times,
 The great disease inflicted on mankind?
 Your vertues, by your follies, made your crimes,        450
 Have issue with your indiscretion join`d.
Schooles, arts, professions, all in so great store,
 Passe the proportion of the present state,
 Where being as great a number as before,
 And fewer roomes them to accommodate;
 It cannot be but they must throng the more,
 And kicke, and thrust, and shoulder with debate.
For when the greater wittes cannot attaine
 Th`expected good, which they account their right,
 And yet perceive others to reape that gaine             460
 Of far inferiour vertues in their sight;
 They present with the sharpe of {Enuie} straine
 To wound them with reproches and despight:
 And for these cannot have as well as they,    (way.
 They scorne their faith should daigne to looke that
Hence discontented Sects, and Schismes arise,
 Hence interwounding controversies spring,
 That feed the simple, and offend the wise,
 Who know the consequence of cavilling:
 Disgrace that these to others do devise,                470
 Contempt and scorne on all in th`end doth bring
 Like scolding wives reckning each others fault
 Make standers by imagin both are naught.
For when to these rare dainties time admits,
 All commers, all Complexions, all that will,
 Where none should be let in, but choisest wits,
 Whose milde discretion could comport with skill,
 For when the place their humor neither fits,

<P 83>

 Nor they the place: who can expect but ill?
For being unapt for what they tooke in hand,             480
 And for ought else whereto they shalb`addrest
 They even become th`incombrance of the land
 As out of ranke disordring all the rest:
 This grace of theirs to seeme to understand,
 Marres all their grace to do, without their rest.
Men find that action is another thing
 Then what they in discoursing papers reade,
 The worlds affaires require in managing
 More arts then those wherin you Clearks proceed,
 Whilst timorous knowledge stands considering,           490
 Audacious ignorance hath done the deed.
 For who knowes most, the more he knows to doubt,
 The least discourse is commonly most stout.
This sweet inchaunting knowledge turnes you cleene
 Out from the fields of naturall delight,
 And makes you hide unwilling to be seene
 In th`open concourse of a publike sight:
 This skill wherewith you have so cunning beene,
 Unsinewes all your powres, unmans you quite.
Publike societie and commerce of men                     500
 Require another grace, another port:
 This eloquence, these rymes, these phrases then
 Begot in shades, do serve us in no sort,
 Th`unmateriall swellings of your pen
 Touch not the spirit that action doth import:
A manly stile fitted to manlie eares
 Best grees with wit, not that which goes so gay,
 And commonly the gaudie liv`rie weares
 Of nice corruptions which the times do sway,
 And waites on th`humor of his pulse that beares         510
 His passions set to such a pleasing kay;
 Such dainties serve onely for stomacks weake,
 For men do fowlest when they finest speake.

<P 84>

Yet do I not dislike that in some wise
 Be sung the great heroycall deserts
 Of brave renowned spirits, whose exercise
 Of worthy deedes may call up others hearts,
 And serve a modell for posterities
 To fashion them fit for like glorious parts:
 But so that all our spirits may tend hereto             520
 To make it not our grace, to say, but do.

              {Musophilus.}

Much thou hast said, and willingly I heare,
 As one that am not so possest with love
 Of what I do, but that I rather beare
 An eare to learne, then a toong to disprove:
 I know men must as caried in their spheare
 According to their proper motions move.
 And that course likes them best which they are on,
 Yet truth hath certaine bounds, but falshood none.
I do confesse our limits are but small                   531
 Compar`d with all the whole vaste earth beside,
 All which againe rated to that great All,
 Is likewise as a point scarcelie discride;
 So that in these respects we may this call
 A point but of a point where we abide.
But if we shall descend from that high stand
 Of over-looking Contemplation,
 And cast our thoughts but to, and not beyond
 This spatious circuit which we tread upon,              540
 We then may estimate our mightie land
 A world within a world standing alone.
Where if our fame confind cannot get out,
 What, shall we then imagine it is pen`d
 That hath so great a world to walke about,
 Whose bou~ds with her reports have doth one end:

<P 85>

 Why shall we not rather esteeme her stout
 That farther then her owne scorne to extend?
Where being so large a roome both to do well
 And eke to heare th`applause of things well done,       550
 That farther if men shall our vertues tell
 We have more mouthes, but not more merit won,
 It doth not greater make that which is laudable,
 The flame is bigger blowne, the fire all one.
And for the few that onely lend their eare,
 That few is all the world, which with a few
 Doth ever live, and move, and worke and stirre,
 This is the heart doth feele, and onely know
 The rest of all, that onely bodies beare
 Rowle up and downe, and fill but up the row.            560
And serve as others members not their own,
 The instruments of those that do direct.
 Then what disgrace is this not to be known
 To those know not to give themselves resptect?
 And thogh they swel with pomp of folly blown,
 They live ungrac`d, and die but in neglect.
And for my part if onely one allow
 The care my labouring spirits take in this,
 He is to me a Theater large ynow,
 And his applause only sufficient is:                    570
 All my respect is bent but to his brow,
 That is my all, and all I am is his.
And if some worthy spirits be pleased to,
 It shall more comfort breed, but not more will;
 But what if none; it cannot yet undo
 The love I beare unto this holy skill:
 This is the thing that I was borne to do,
 This is my Scene, this part must I fulfill.
Let those that know not breath esteeme of wind,
 And set t`a vulgar ayre their servile song,             580
 Rating their goodnesse by the praise they find,

<P 86>

 Making their worth on others fits belong,
 As vertue were the hyreling of the mind,
 And could not live if fame had ne`r a tongue.
Virtue. Hath that all-knowing powre that holdes within
 The goodly prospective of all this frame,
 (Where whatsoever is, or what hath bin,
 Reflects a certaine image of the same)
 No inward pleasures to delight her in,
 But she must gad to seeke an almes of fame?             590
Must she like to a wanton Curtezan
 Open her breasts for shew, to win her praise,
 And blaze her faire bright beauty unto man,
 As if she were enamourd of his waies?
 And knew not weakenes nor could rightly skan
 To what defets his humorous breath obaies.
She that can tell how proud ambition
 Is but a begger, and hath nought at all
 But what is given of meere devotion;     (thrall?
 For which how much it sweats, how much it`s             600
 What toile it takes, and yet when all is done,
 The endes in expectation never fall.
Shall she joine hands with such a servile mate,
 And prostrate her faire body to commit
 Folly with earth, and to defile that state
 Of cleerenes, for so grosse a benefit?
 Having reward dwelling within her gate,
 And glory of her own to furnish it.
 Her selfe a recompence sufficient
 Unto her selfe, to give her owne content.               610
Ist not inough that she hath raisd so hie
 Those that be hers, that they may sit and see
 The earth below them, and this All to lie
 Under their view: taking the true degree
 Of the just height of swolne mortalitie
 Right as it is, not as it seemes to be,

<P 87>

And undeceived with the {paralax}
 Of a mistaking eie of passion, know
 By these mask`d outsides what the inward lacks
 Meas`ring man by himselfe not by his show,              620
 Wondring not at their rich and golden backs
 That have poore minds, and little else to shew.
Nor taking that for them, which well they see
 Is not to them, but rather is their lode:
 The lies of fortune, wherewithall men be
 Deemed within, when they be all abroad:    (& knee,
 Whose ground, whose grasse, whose earth have cap
 Which they suppose, is on themselves bestow`d.
And thinke like {Isis} Asse, all honors are
 Given unto them alone, the which are done               630
 Unto the painted Idoll which they beare,
 That only makes them to be gazed on:
 For take away their pack and shew them bare,
 And see what beast this honor rides upon.
Hath knowledge lent to hers the privy kay,
 To let them in unto the hiest stage
 Of causes, secrets, Councels; to survay
 The wits of men, their heats, their colds, their rage,
 That build, destroy, praise, hate, say and gainesay;
 Beleeve, and unbeleeve, all in one age.                 640
And shall we trust goodnesse as it proceedes
 From that unconstant mouth; which with one breath
 Will make it bad againe, unlesse if feedes
 The present humor that it favoreth?
 Shall we esteeme and reckon how it heedes
 Our works, that his own vowes unhalloweth?
Then whereto serves it to have been inlarg`d
 With this free manumission of the mind,
 If for all that we still continue charg`d
 With those discovered errors, which we find?            650
 As if our knowledge only were discharg`d,

<P 88>

 Yet we our selves staid in a seruile kind.
That virtue must be out of countenance,
 If this grosse spirit, or that weake shallow brain,
 Or this nice wit, or that distemperance,
 Neglect, distast, uncomprehend, disdaine;
 When such sicke eies, can never cast a glance
 But through the colours of their proer staine.
Though I must needs confesse the small respect,
 That these great-seeming best of men do give,           660
 (Whose brow begets th`inferior sorts neglect,)
 Might move the weake irresolute to grieve:
 But stronger, see how justly this defect
 Hath overtooke the times wherein we live:
That learning needs must run the common fate
 Of all things else, thrust on by her own weight,
 Comporting not her selfe in her estate
 Under this burthen of a selfe conceipt:
 Our own dissentious hands opening the gate
 Unto Contempt, that on our quarrels waite,              670
Discovered have our inward government,
 And let in hard opinion to disgrace
 The generall, for some weake impotent
 That beare out their disease with a stolne face,
 Who (sillie soules) the more wit they have spent,
 The lesse they shew`d not bettring their bad case.
And see how soone this rowling world can take
 Advantage for her dissolution,
 Faine to get loose from this withholing stake
 Of civill science and discretion:                       680
 How glad it would run wilde, that it might make
 One formelesse forme of one confusion?
Like tyrant {Ottomans} blindfolded state,
 Which must know nothing more but to obay:
 For this, seekes greedy ignorance t`abate
 Our number, order, living, forme and sway;

<P 89>

 For this, it practises to dissipate
 Th`unsheltred troupes, till all be made awaie.
For since our fathers sinnes puld first to ground
 The pale of their dissevered dignitie,                  690
 And overthrew that holy reverent bound
 That parted learning and the laiety,
 And laid all flat in common to confound
 The honor and respect of pietie:
It did so much invile the estimate
 Of th`opened and invulgard mysteries,
 Which now reduc`d unto the basest rate,
 Must waite upon the {Norman} subtleties,
 Who (being mounted up into their state)
 Do best with wrangling rudenesse sympathize.            700
And yet though now set quite behind the traine
 Of vulgar sway (and light of powre wai`d light)
 Yet would this giddy innovation faine
 Downe with it lower to abase it quite:
 And those poore remnants that do yet remain
 The spoiled marks of their devided right:
They wholy would deface, to leave no face
 Of reverent distinction and degree,
 As if they waigh`d no difference in this case           709
 Betwixt {Religions} age and infancie;      (grace
 Where th`one must creepe, the other stand with
 Least turn`d to a child it overturned bee.
Though to pull backe th`on-running state of things,
 (Gathering corruption as it gathers daies)
 Unto the forme of their first orderings,
 Is the best meanes that dissolution staies,
 And to go forward backward, right, men brings,
 T`observe the line fro~ whence they tooke their waies.
Yet being once gone wide, and the right way
 Not levell to the times condition:                      720
 To alter course may bring men more astray;

<P 90>

 And leaving what was knowne to light on none,
 Since every change the reverence doth decay
 Of that which alway should continue one.
For this is that close kept {Palladium},
 Which once remov`d brings ruine evermore:
 This stird makes men fore-setled to become
 Curious to know what was believ`d before:
 Whilst faith disputes that used to be dombe,
 And more men strive to talke then to adore.             730
For never head-strong reformation will
 Rest till to th`extreame opposite it run,
 And over-run the mean distrusted still
 As being too neere of kin, to that men shun:
 For good and bad, and all must be one ill,
 When once there is another truth begun.
So hard it is an even hand to beare,
 In tempering with such maladies as these,
 Least that our forward passions launce too near,
 And make the cure prove worse then the disease:
 For with the worst we will not spare the best,          741
 Because it growes with that which doth displease:
And faults are easier lookt in, then redrest;
 Men running with such eager violence
 At the first view of errors fresh in quest,
 As they to rid an inconuenience,
 Sticke not to raise a mischiefe in the steed,
 Which after mocks their weake improvidence:
And therefore o^ make not your own sides bleed
 To pricke at others, you that would amend               750
 By pulling down; and thinke you can proceed
 By going backe unto the farther end,
 Let stand that little Covert left behind,
 Whereon your succours and respects depend.
And bring not down the prizes of the mind,
 With under-rating of your selves so base:

<P 91>

 You that the mighties doores do crooching find,
 To sell your selves to buy a little grace,
 Or waite whole months to out-bid Simonie,
 For that which being got is not your place:             760
For if it were, what needed you to buy
 What was your due, your thrusting shews your shift,
 And little worth that seekes injuriously
 A worthier from his lawfull roome to lift?
 We cannot say that you were then preferr`d,
 But that your mony was, or some worse gift.
O scattring gath`rers that without regard
 Of times to come, will to be made, undo:
 As if you were the last of men, prepar`d
 To burie in your graves all other to.                   770
 Dare you prophane that holie portion
 Which never sacreligious hands durst do?
Did forme-establishing devotion,
 To maintaine a respective reverence
 Extend her bountifull provision
 With such a charitable providence,
 For your deforming handes to dissipate
 And make Gods due your impious expence?
No marvaile then though th`overpestred state
 Want roome for goodnes, if our litte hold               780
 Be lessned unto such a narrow rate
 That reverence cannot sit, fit as it should;
 And yet what need we thus for roomes complaine,
 That shall not want void roome if this course hold:
And more then will be fill`d, for who will straine
 To get an emptie title to betray
 His hopes and travaile for an honour vaine
 And gaine a port without support or stay?
 What need hath envie to maligne their state
 That will themselves so kind, give it away?             790
This makes indeed our number passe the rate

<P 92>

 Of our provisions; which if dealt aright
 Would yeeld sufficient roome t`accommodate
 More then we have in places requisite.
 The ill disposing onely doth us set.
 In disaray, and out of order quite.
Whiles other gifts then of the mind shall get
 Under our colours that which is our dues,
 And to our travailes neither benefite,
 Nor grace, nor honor, nor respect accrewes:             800
 This sicknes of the states soule, Learning, then
 The bodies great distemprature insues.
For if that learnings roomes to learned men
 Were as their heritage distributed,
 All this disordred thrust would cease, for when
 The fit were call`d, th`unworthy frustrated
 These would b`asham`d to seek, those to b`unsought
 And stay`ng their turn were sure they should be
Then would our drooping {Academies} brought  (sped.
 Againe in heart, regaine that reverend hand             810
 Of lost opinion, and no more be thought
 Th`unnecessarie furnish of the land,
 Nor disincourag`d with their small esteeme,
 Confus`d, irresolute, and wavering stand.
Caring not to become profound, but seeme
 Contented with a superficiall skill
 Which for a sleight reward inough they deem,
 When th`one succeedes as well as th`other will,
 Seeing shorter wayes lead sooner to their end,
 And others longer travailes thrive so ill.
Then would they onely labour to extend
 Their now unsearching spirits beyond these bounds
 Of others powres, wherein they must be pend
 As if there were besides no other grounds:
 And set their bold {Plus ultra} far without
 The pillers of those {Axioms} age propounds.

<P 93>

Discov`ring dayly more, and more about
 In that immense and boundlesse Ocean
 Of Natures riches, never yet found out
 Nor fore-clos`d, with the wit of any man;               830
 So far beyond the ordinarie course
 That other unindustrious ages ran,
That these more curious times they might devorce
 From the opinion they are linckt unto
 Of our disable and unactive force,
 To shew true knowledge can both speak and do:
 Arm`d for the sharpe, which in these dayes they finde,
 With all provisions that belong thereto.
That their experience may not come behind
 The times conceipt, but leading in their place          840
 May make men see the weapons of the mind (grace,
 Are states best strengths, and kingdoms chiefest
 And rooms of charge, charg`d ful with worth & praise
 Makes maiestie appeare with her full face,
Shining with all her beames, with all her raies,
 Unscanted of her parts, unshadowed
 In any darkned point: which still bewrayes
 The waine of powre, when powr`s unfurnished
 And hath not all those entire complements
 Wherewith the state should for her state be sped.       850
And though the fortune of some age consents
 Unto a thousand errors grossely wrought,
 Which flourisht over with their faire events
 Have past for current, and good courses thought;
 The least whereof in other times againe
 Most dangerous inconueniences have brought,
Whilst to the times, not to mens wits pertaine
 The good successes of ill manag`d deeds,
 Though th`ignorant deceiv`d with colours vaine
 Misse of the causes whence this lucke proceeds.         860
 Forreine defects giving home-faults the way,

<P 94>

 Make even that weakenes somtimes well succeeds.
I grant that some unlettered practique may
 (Leaving beyond the {Alpes} faith and respect,
 To God and man) with impious cunning sway
 The courses fore-begun with like effect,
 And without stop maintaine the turning on
 And have his errors deemd without defect:
But when some powrefull opposition
 Shall, with a sound incountring shocke, disjoint        870
 The fore-contrived frame, and thereupon
 Th`experience of the present disappoint,
 And other stirring spirits, and other hearts
 Built-huge, for action, meeting in a point;
Shall drive the world to sommon all their artes
 And all too little for so reall might,
 When no advantages of weaker parts
 Shal beare out shallow councels from the light;
 And this sence-opening action (which doth hate
 Unmanly craft) shall looke to have her right.           880
Who then holds up the glorie of the state
 (Which lettered armes, & armed letters won)
 Who shall be fittest to negotiate
 Contemn`d {Justinian}, or else {Littleton?}
 When it shall not be held wisedome to be
 Privately made, and publiquely undon:
 But sound deseignes that judgment shal decree
 Out of a true discern, of the cleare wayes
 That lie direct, with safe-going equitie
 Imbroyling not their owne & others dayes.               890
Extending forth their providence beyond
 The circuit of their owne particular;
 That even the ignorant may understand
 How that deceipt is but a caviller,
 And true unto it selfe can never stand,
 But stil must with her owne conclusions war.

<P 95>

Can truth and honestie, wherein consists
 The right repose on earth, the surest ground
 Of trust, come weaker arm`d into the lists,
 The fraud or vice, that doth it selfe confound?         900
 Or shall presumption that doth what it lists,
 Not what it ought, carry her courses sound?
Then what safe place out of confusion
 Hath plain proceeding honestie to dwell?
 What sute of grace, hath vertue to put on
 If vice shall weare as good, and do as well?
 If wrong, if craft, if indiscretion,
 Act as faire parts with ends as laudable?
Which all this mightie volume of events
 The worlds, the universall mappe of deedes              910
 Strongly controwles, and proves from all discents,
 That the directest courses best succeedes
 When craft, wrapt still in many comberments
 With all her cunning thrives not, though it speedes.
For should not grave and learn`d experience
 That lookes with th`eyes of all the world beside,
 And with all ages holdes intelligence,
 Go safer then deceipt without a guide?
 Which in the by-paths of her diffidence                 919
 Crossing the wayes of Right, still runs more wide:
Who will not grant? and therefore this observe,
 No state standes sure but on the grounds of Right,
 Of vertue, knowledge, judgement to preserve,
 And all the powres of learnings requisite;
 Though other shifts a present turne may serve,
 Yet in the triall they will wey too light.
And do not thou contemne this swelling tide
 And streame of words that now doth rise so hie
 Above the usuall banks, and spreads so wide
 Over the borders of antiquitie:                         930
 Which I confesse comes ever amplifide

<P 96>

 With th`abounding humours that do multiplie
And is with that same hand of happines
 Inlarg`d as vices are out of their bands;
 Yet so, as if let out but to redresse
 And calme, and sway th`affections it co~mands:
 Which as it stirres, it doth againe represse
 And brings in, th`outgone malice that withstands.
Powre above powres, O heavenly {Eloquence},              939
 That with the strong reine of commanding words,
 Dost manage, guide, and master th`eminence
 Of mens affections, more then all their swords:
 Shall we not offer to thy excellence
 The richest treasure that our wit affoords?
Thou that canst do much more with one poore pen
 Then all the powres of princes can effect:
 And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men
 Better then force or rigour can direct:
 Should we this ornament of glorie then
 As th`unmateriall fruits of shades, neglect?            950
Or should we carelesse come behind the rest
 In powre of wordes, that go before in worth,
 When as our accents equall to the best
 Is able greater wonders to bring forth:
 When all that ever hotter spirits exprest
 Comes bettered by the patience of the North?
And who in time knowes whither we may vent
 The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
 This game of our best glorie shal be sent,
 T`inrich unknowing Nations with our stores?             960
 What worlds in th`yet unformed Occident
 May come refin`d with th`accents that are ours?
Or who can tell for what great worke in hand
 The greatnes of our stile is now ordain`d?
 What powres it shall bring in, what spirits co~mand,
 What thoughts let out, what humors keep restrain`d

<P 97>

 What mischiefe it may powrefully withstand,
 And what faire ends may thereby be attain`d.
And as for Poesie (mother of this force)  (might,
 That breeds, brings forth, and nourishes this           970
 Teaching it in a loose, yet measured course,
 With comely motions how to go upright:
 And fostring it with bountifull discourse
 Adorns it thus in fashions of delight,
What should I say? since it is well approv`d
 The speech of heaven, with who~ they have co~merce
 That only seeme out of themselves remov`d,
 And do with more then humane skils converse:
 Those nu~bers wherewith heaven & earth are mov`d,
 Shew, weakenes speaks in prose, but powre in            980
Wherein thou likewise seemest to allow     (verse.
 That th`acts of worthy men shuld be preserv`d;
 As in the holiest tombes we can bestow
 Upon their glory that have well deserv`d,
 Wherein thou dost no other virtue show
 Then what most barbrous countries have observ`d:
 When all the happiest nations hitherto
 Did with no lesser glory speake then do.
Now to what else thy malice shall object,
 For schooles, and Arts, and their necessitie:           990
 When from my Lord, whose judgement must direct
 And forme, and fashion my abilitie
 I shall have got more strength: thou shalt expect
 Out of my better leasure, my reply.
And if herein the curious sort shall deeme
 My will was caried far beyond my force,
 And that it is a thing doth ill beseeme
 The function of a {Poem}, to discourse:
 Thy learned judgement which I most esteeme
 (Worthy {Fulke Grevil}) must defend this course.       1000
By whose mild grace, and gentle hand at first

<P 98>

 My Infant Muse was brought in open sight
 From out the darkenesse wherein it was nurst,
 And made to be partaker of the light;
 Which peraduenture never else had durst
 T`appeare in place, but had beene smothered quite.
And now herein incourag`d by thy praise,
  Is made so bold and ventrous to attempt
  Beyond example, and to trie those waies,
  That malice from our forces thinkes exempt:           1010
  To see if we our wronged lines could raise
  Above the reach of lightnesse and contempt.

                FINIS

<P 99>

{Epistles}


<P 101>
<T TO>
<T SIR THO: EGERTON KNIGHT,>
<T LORD KEEPER OF THE GREAT>
<T SEALE OF ENGLAND.>
 
WEll hath the powreful hand of Maiestie,
Thy worthines, and {Englands} happe beside,
Set thee in th`aidfulst roome of dignitie,
As th`{Isthmus}, these two Oceans to divide
Of {Rigor} and confus'd {Uncertaintie},
To keepe out th'entercourse of wrong and pride,           10
By th'extreame current of licencious might.

Now when we see the most combining band,
The strongest fastning of societie
{Law}, whereon all this frame of men doth stand,
Remaine concussed with uncertaintie,
And seeme to foster rather than withstand
Contention, and embrace obscuritie,
Onely t'afflict, and not to fashion us,
Making her cure farre worse than the disease.             20

As if she had made couenant with Wrong,
To part the prey made on our weakenesses,
And suffred Falshood to be arm'd as strong
Unto the combate as is Righteousnes,
Or suted her, as if she did belong
Unto our passions, and did even professe
Contention, as her only mystery,
Which she restraines not, but doth multiply.

Was she the same sh'is now in ages past,
Or was she lesse when she was used lesse?                 30

<P 102>

And growes as malice growes, and so comes cast
Iust to the forme of our unquietnesse?
Or made more slow, the more that strife runnes fast,
Staying t'undo us ere she will redresse?
That th'ill shee checks seemes suffred to be ill,
When it yeelds greater gaine than goodnesse will.

Must there be still some discord mixt among
The Harmonie of men, whose moode accords
Best with Contention, tun'd t'a note of wrong,
That when war failes, peace must make war with            40
And b'arm'd unto destruction even as strong, (words,
As were in ages past our civill swordes;
Making as deepe, although unbleeding wounds,
That when as furie failes, wisedome confounds.

If it be wisedome, and not cunning, this
Which so imbroyles the state of truth with brawles,
And wrappes it up in strange confusednesse
As if it liv'd immur'd within the walls,
Of hideous termes fram'd out of barbarousnesse
And forraine Customes, the memorials                      50
Of our subjection, and could never be
Deliv'red but by wrangling subtiltie.

Whereas it dwells free in the open plaine,
Uncurious, Gentile, easie of accesse:
Certaine unto it selfe, of equall vaine,
One face, one colour, one assurednesse;
It's Falshood that is intricate, and vaine,
And needes these laborinths of subtilnesse.
For where the cunningst cou'rings most appeare
It argues still that all is not sincere.                  60

Which thy cleere ey'd experience well discries,
Great {Keeper} of the state of Equitie,

<P 103>

Refuge of mercie, upon whom relies
The succour of oppressed miserie:
Altar of safegarde, whereto affliction flies
From th'eger pursuite of severitie:
Haven of Peace, that labourst to withdraw
Iustice, from out the tempests of the Law.

And set her in a calme and even way,
Plaine and directly leading to redresse,                  70
Barring these counter-courses of delay
These wasting dilatorie processes:
Ranging into their right, and proper ray,
Errors, demurs, essoines, and trauerses,
The heads of {Hydra} springing out of death
That gives this monster, Malice, still new breath.

That what was made for the utilitie
And good of man, might not be turn'd t'his hurt
To make him worser by his remedie,                        79
And cast him downe, with what should him support:
Nor that the State of Law might loose thereby
The due respect, and rev'rence of her porte,
And seeme a trap to catch our ignorance
And to intangle our intemperance.

Since her interpretations and our deedes,
Unto a like infinitie arise,
As be'ng a Science, that by nature breeds
Contention, strife and ambiguities:
For altercation controversie feeds,
And in her agitation mulitples:                           90
The field of {Cauell} lying all like wide,
Yealds like advantage unto eyther side.

{Ferdinand} Which made the grave Castillian King devise
{king of}   A prohibition, that no Advocate
{Castile.}

<P 104>

Should be conuaid to th'Indian Colonies,
Lest their new setting, shaken with debate,
Might take but slender roote, and so not rise
To any perfect growth of firme estate,
For having not this skill, how to contend,
Th'unnourisht strife would quickely make an end.         100

{The king of} So likewise did th'Hungarian, when he saw
{Hungarie.}   These great Italian Bartolists, who were
Call'd in, of purpose to explane the Law,
T'imbroyle it more, and make it much lesse cleere,
Caus'd them from out his Kingdome to withdraw
With this infestious skill some other-where:
{Difficultatem}   Whose learning rather let men farther out,
{facit doctrina.} And opened wider passages of doubt.

Seeing even Iniustice may be regulare;
And no proportion can there be betwixt                   110
Our actions which in endlesse motion are
And th'Ordinances which are alwayes fixt.
Tenne thousand Lawes more, cannot reach so farre,
But Malice goes beyond, or lives immixt
So close with goodnesse, as it ever will
Corrupt, disguise or counterfeite it still.

And therefore did those glorious Monarchs, (who
Devide with God the Stile of Maiestie
For being good, and had a care to do
The world right, and succour honestie)                   120
Ordaine this sanctuarie whereunto
Th'opprest might flie, this seate of Equitie
Whereon thy vertues sit with faire renowne,
The greatest grace and glory of the Gowne.

Which {Equitie} being the soule of Law
The life of Iustice, and the Spirite of right,

<P 105>

Dwell's not in written Lines, or lives in awe
Of Bookes; deafe powres that have nor eares, nor sight:
But out of well-weigh'd circumstance doth draw
The essence of a iudgement requisite:                    130
And is that Lesbian square, that building fit,
Plies to the worke, not forc'th the worke to it.

Maintaining still an equall paralell
Just with th'occasions of humanitie,
Making her judgements ever liable
To the respect of peace and amitie:
When surly {Law}, sterne, and unaffable,
Cares onely but it selfe to satisfie:
And often, innocencie skarse defends,
As that which on no circumstance depends.                140

But {Equitie} that beares an even raine
Upon the present courses, holds in awe,
By giving hand a little, and doth gaine
By'a gentle relaxation of the Law;
And yet inviolable doth maintaine
The end whereto all constitutions draw;
Which is the well-fare of societie
Consisting of an upright pollicie.

Which first being by Necessitie compos'd,
{Necessitas} Is by Necessitie maintain'd in best estate, 150
{est lex}    Where, whenas Iustice shal be ill dispos'd
{temporum.}  It sickens the whole body of the State:
For if there be a passage once disclos'd
That Wrong may enter at the selfe-same gate
Which serves for Right, cladde in a coate of Law,
What violent distempers may it draw?

And therefore dost thou stand to keepe the way,
And stoppe the course that malice seekes to runne

<P 106>

And by thy provident {Iniunctions} stay
This never ending Altercation;                           160
Sending contention home, to th'end men may
There make their peace, whereas their strife begun:
And free these pestred streets they vainely weare
Whom both the State, and theirs, do need elsewhere.

Lest th'humor which doth thus predominate
Convert unto it selfe all that it takes;
And that the law grow larger then debate,
And come t'exceede th'affaires it undertakes:
As if the onely Science of the State
That tooke up all our wits for gaine it makes;           170  
Not for the good that thereby may be wrought
Which is not good if it be dearely bought.

What shall we thinke when as ill causes shall
Inrich men more, and shall be more desir'd
Then good, as farre more beneficiall?
Who then defends the good? who will be hir'd
{A remedie for} To intertaine a right, whose gaine is small?
{defending ill} Unlesse the Advocate that hath conspir'd
{causes.}       To pleade a wrong, be likewise made to runne
His Clients chaunce, and with him be undunne.            180

So did the wisest nations ever strive
To binde the hands of Iustice up so hard,
That lest she falling to proove Lucrative
Might basely reach them out to take reward:
Ordaining her provisions fit to live
Out of the publike as a publike Guard
That all preserves, and all doth entertaine,
Whose end is onely glory, and not gaine.

That ev'n the Scepter which might all command,
Seeing her s'unpartiall, equall, regulare,               190

<P 107>

Was pleas'd to put it selfe into her hand;
Whereby they both grew more admired farre.
And this is that great blessings of this land,
That both the Prince and people use one Barre,
The Prince, whose cause, (as not to be withstood)
Is never badde but where himselfe is good.

This is that Ballance which committed is
To thy most even and religious hand,
Great Minister of Iustice, who by this
Shalt have thy name, still gratious in this land:        200 
This is that seale of pow're which doth impresse
Thy Acts of right, which shall for ever stand:
This is that traine of State, that pompously
Attends upon thy rev'rent dignitie.

All glory else besides, ends with our breath,
And mens respects scarse brings us to our grave:
But this of doing good, must out-live Death,
And have a right out of the right it gave:
Though th'act but few, th'example profiteth
Thousands, that shall thereby a blessing have.           210
The worlds respect growes not but on desarts,
Powre may have knees, but Iustice hath our harts.

<P 108>

<T TO>
<T The Lord Henry Howard,>
<T ONE OF HIS MAIESTIES>
<T PRIVIE COUNCEL.>

Praise, if it be not choice, and laide aright,
Can yeeld no lustre where it is bestowde,
Nor any way can grace the givers Arte,
(Tho'it be a pleasing colour to delight,)
For that no ground whereon it can be shew'd 
Will beare it well, but Vertue and Desart.                10
  And though I might commend your learning, wit,
And happy uttrance, and commend them right,
As that which decks you much, and gives you grace,
Yet your cleere iudgement best deserveth it,
Which in your course hath caried you upright,
And made you to discerne the truest face,
  And best complexion of the things that breed
The reputation and the love of men.
And held you in the tract of honestie
Which ever in the end we see succeed,                     20
Though oft it may have interrupted bin,
Both by the times and mens iniquitie.
  For sure those actions which do fairely runne
In the right line of Honor, still are those
That get most cleane, and safest to their end,
And passe the best without confusion,
Either in those that act or else dispose,
Having the scope made cleere whereto they tend.
  When this by-path of cunning doth s'imbroile
And intricate the passage of affaires,                    30
As that they seldome fairely can get out;

<P 109>

But cost, with lesse successe, more care and toile
Whilst doubt and the distrusted cause impaires 
Their courage, who would else appeare more stout.
  For though some hearts are builded so, that they
Have divers dores, whereby they may let out
Their wills abroad without disturbancie,
Int'any course, and into ev'ry way
Of humour, that affection turnes about,
Yet have the best but one t'have passage by.              40 
  And that so surely warded with the Guarde
Of Conscience and respect, as nothing must
Have course that way, but with the certaine passe
Of a perswasive right, which be'ng compard
With their conceipt, must thereto answere just,
And so with due examination passe.
  Which kind of men, rais'd of a better frame
Are meere religious, constant and upright,
And bring the ablest hands for any'effect,
And best beare up the reputation, fame                    50
And good opinion that the Action's right,
When th'undertakers are without suspect.
  But when the bodie of an enterprise
Shall goe one way, the face another way,
As if it did but mocke a weaker trust,
The motion being monstrous cannot rise
To any good, but falls downe to bewray
That all pretences serve for things uniust.
  Espcially where th'action will allow
Apparancie, or that it hath a course                      60
Concentrike with the Universall frame
Of men combind, whom it concerneth how
These motions turne and intertaine their force,
Having their being resting on the same.
  And be it, that the vulgare are but grosse
Yet are they capable of truth, and see,

<P 110>

And sometimes gesse the right, and doe conceive
The Nature of that text, that needes a glosse,
And wholy never can deluded be,
All may a few, few cannot all deceive.                    70
  And these strange disproportions in the traine
And course of things, do evermore proceede
From th'ill-set disposition of their minds,
Who in their actions cannot but retaine
Th'incumbred formes which do within them breede,
And which they cannot shew but in their kindes.
  Whereas the wayes and councells of the Light,
So sort with valour and with manlinesse,
As that they carry things assuredly
Undazeling of their owne or others sight:                 80
There be'ng a blessing that doth give successe
To worthinesse, and unto constancie.
  And though sometimes th'event may fall amisse,
Yet shall it still have honour for th'attempt,
When Craft begins with feare, and endes with shame,
And in the whole designe perplexed is.
Vertue, though luckelesse; yet shal skape contempt,
And though it hath not hap, it shall have same.

<P 111>

<T TO>
<T THE LADY MARGARET>
<T COVNTESSE OF CUMBERLAND.>

HE that of such a height hath built his minde,
And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong
As neither Feare nor Hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powres, nor al the winde
Of Vanitie or Malice, pierce to wrong
His setled peace, or to disturbe the same,
What a faire seate hath he from whence hee may            10
The boundlesse wastes, and weilds of man survay.

And with how free an eye doth he looke downe,
Upon these lower Regions of turmoyle,
Where all these stormes of passions mainely beate
On flesh and blood, where honor, power, renowne
Are onely gay afflictions, golden toyle,
Where Greatnesse stands upon as feeble feete
As Frailtie doth, and only great doth seeme
To little mindes, who do it so esteeme.

He lookes upon the mightiest Monarchs warres              20 
But onely as on stately robberies,
Where evermore the fortune that prevailes
Must be the right, the ill-succeeding marres
The fairest and the best-fac't enterprize:
Great Pyrat {Pompey} lesser Pyrates quailes,
{Iustice}, he sees, as if seduced, still
Conspires with powre, whose cause must not be ill.

He sees the face of {Right} t'appeare as manyfold
As are the passions of uncertaine man,

<P 112>

Who puts it in all coulours, all attires                  30
To serve his ends, and make his courses hold:
He sees that let Deceit worke what it can,
Plot and contrive base wayes to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mockes this smoake of wit.

Nor is he moov'd with all the thunder crackes
Of Tyrants threats, or with the surly brow
Of power, that prowdly sits on others crimes, (checks:
Chardg'd with more crying sinnes, then those he
The stormes of sad confusion that may grow                40
Up in the present, for the cumming times,
Appall not him, that hath no side at all
But of himselfe, and knowes the worst can fall.

Although his hart so neere allied to earth,
Cannot but pittie the perplexed State
Of troubles, and distrest mortalitie,
That thus make way unto the ougly birth
Of their owne sorrowes, and doe still beget
Affliction upon imbecilitie:
Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,            50
He lookes thereon, not strange, but as foredun.

And whilst distraught Ambition compasses
And is incompast, whil'st as craft deceives
And is deceiv'd, whil'st man doth ransack man
And builds on bloud, and rises by distresse,
And th'inheritance of desolation leaves
To great expecting hopes, he lookes thereon
As from the shore of peace with unwet eye
And beares no venture in impietie.

Thus, Madame, fares the man that hath prepar'd            60
A rest for his desires, and sees all things

<P 113>

Beneath him, and hath learn't this booke of man,
Full of the notes of frailtie, and compar'd
The best of glory with her sufferings,
By whom I see you labour all you can
To plant your heart, and set your thought as neere
His glorious mansion, as your powres can beare.

Which, Madame, are so soundly fashioned,
By that cleere iudgement that hath caried you
Beyond the feeble limits of your kinde,                   70
As they can stand against the strongest head
Passion can make, invr'd to any hew
The world can cast, that cannot cast that minde
Out of her forme of goodnesse, that doth see
Both what the best and worst of earth can bee.

Which makes, that whatsoever here befalles,
You in the region of your selfe remaine,
Where no vaine breath of th'impudent molests,
That hath secur'd within the brasen walls
Of a cleere conscience, that without all staine           80
Rises in peace, in innocencie rests:
Whilst all what malice from without procures,
Shews her owne ougly heart, but hurts not yours.

And whereas none rejoyce more in revenge
Then women use to doe, yet you well know,
That wrong is better checkt, by being contemn'd,
Then being pursu'd, leaving to him t'avenge
To whom it appertaines, wherein you show
How worthily your Clearenesse hath condemn'd
Base malediction, living in the darke,                    90
That at the raies of goodnesse still ddoth barke.

Knowing the heart of man is set to be
The centre of his world, about the which

<P 114>

These revolutions of disturbances
Still roule, where all th'aspects of miserie
Predominate, whose strong effects are such
As he must beare, being powrelesse to redresse,
And that unlesse above himselfe he can
Erect himselfe, how poore a thing is man?

And how turmoyld they are that levell lie                100
With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence,
That never are at peace with their desires,
But worke beyond their yeares, and even deny
Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispence
With Death: that when ability expires,
Desire lives still, so much delight they have
To carry toile and travaile to the grave.

Whose ends you see, and what can be the best
They reach unto, when they have cast the summe
And recknings, of their glory, and you know              110
This floting life hath but this Port of rest,
{A heart prepar'd that feares no ill to come:}
And that mans greatnesse rests but in his show;
The best of all whose dayes consumed are,
Eyther in warre, or peace conceiving warre.

This Concord (Madame) of a wel-tun'd minde
Hath beene so set by that all-working hand
Of heaven, that though the world hath done his worst,
To put it out, by discords most unkinde,
Yet doth it still in perfect union stand                 120
With God and Man, nor ever will be forc't
From that most sweete accord, but still agree
Equall in Fortunes inequalitie.

And this note (Madame) of your Worhtines
Remaines recorded in so many Hearts

<P 115>

As time nor malice cannot wrong your right
In th'inheritance of Fame you must possesse,
You that have built you by your great desarts,
Out of small meanes, a farre more exquisite
And glorious dwelling for your honoured name             130
Then all the gold of leaden mindes can frame.

                                   {S. D.}

<P 116>

<T TO>
<T THE LADY LUCIE, COUN->
<T TESSE OF BEDFORD.>

THough virtue be the same when low she stands
In th'humble shadowes of obscuritie
  As when she either sweats in martiall bands,
Or sits in Court, clad with authoritie:
  Yet Madame, doth the strictnesse of her roome
  Greatly detract from her abilitie:
For as inwalld within a living tombe                      10
  Her handes and armes of action, labour not;
  Her thoughts as if abortive from the wombe,
  Come never borne, though happily begot.
But where she hath mounted in open sight
  An eminent, and spacious dwelling got.
  Where shee may stirre at will, and use her might,
There is she more her selfe, and more her owne:
  There in the faire attyre of honour dight,
  She sits at ease and makes her glory knowne,            19
Applause attends her hands, her deedes have grace,
  Her worth new-borne is straight as if ful growne,
  With such a goodly and respected face
Doth vertue looke, that's set to looke from hie,
  And such a faire advantage by her place
  Hath state and greatnesse to doe worthily.
And therefore well did your high fortunes meete
  With her, that gracing you, comes grac't thereby,
  And well was let into a house so sweete
So good, so faire; so faire, so good a guest,
  Who now remaines as blessed in her seate,               30
  As you are with her residencie blesst.

<P 117>

And this faire course of knowledge whereunto
  Your studies, learned Lady, are addrest,
  Is th'onely certaine way that you can goe
Unto true glory, to true happines:
  All passages on earth besides, are so
  Incumbred with such vaine disturbances,
As still we loose our rest, in seeking it,
  Being but deluded with apparances.
  And no key had you else that was so fit                 40
T'unlocke that prison of your Sex, as this,
  To let you out of weakenesse, and admit
  Your powers into the freedome of that blisse
That sets you there where you may oversee
  This rowling world, and view it as it is,
  And apprehend how th'outsides do agree
With th'inward being of the things, we deeme
  And hold in our ill-cast accounts, to be
  Of highest value, and of best esteeme.
Since all the good we have rests in the mind,             50
  By whose proportions onely we redeeme
  Our thoughts from out confusion, and do finde
The measure of our selves, and of our powres.
  And that all happinesse remaines confind
  Within the Kingdome of this breast of ours.
Without whose bounds, all that we looke on, lies
  In others Iurisdictions, others powres,
  Out of the circuit of our liberties.
All glory, honor, fame, applause, renowne,
  Are not belonging to our royalties,                     60
  But t'others wills, wherein th'are onely growne.
And that unlesse we finde us all within,
  We never can without us be our owne:
  Nor call it right our life, that we live in:
But a possession held for others use,
  That seeme to have most int'rest therein.

<P 118>

  Which we do so dissever, parte, traduce,
Let out to custome fashion and to shew
  As we enjoy but onely the abuse,
  And have no other Deed at all to shew.                  70
How oft are we constrained to appeare
  With other countenance then that we owe,
  And be our selves farre off, when we are neere?
How oft are we forc't on a clowdie hart,
  To set a shining face, and make it cleere.
  Seeming content to put our selves apart,
To beare a part of others weaknesses:
  As if we onely were compos'd by Arte,
  Not Nature, and did all our deedes addresse
T'opinion, not t'a conscience what is right:              80
  As fram'd b'example, not advisednesse
  Into those formes that intertaine our sight. (minde,
And though Bookes, Madame, cannot make this
  Which we must bring apt to be set aright,
  Yet do they rectifie it in that kinde,
And touch it so, as that it turnes that way
  Where iudgement lies: And though we cannot finde
  The certaine place of truth, yet doe they stay,
And intertaine us neere about the same.
  And give the Soule the best delights that may           90
  Encheere it most, and most our spirits inflame
To thoughts of glory, and to worthy ends.
  And therefore in a course that best became
  The cleerenesse of your heart, and best commends
Your worthy powres, you runne the rightest way
  That is on Earth, that can true glory give,
  By which when all consumes, your fame shal live.

<P 119>

<T TO>
<T THE LADY ANNE>
<T CLIFFORD>

Unto the tender youth of those faire eyes
The light of iudgement can arise but new,
And yong the world appeares t'a yong conceit,
Whilst thorow th'unacquainted faculties
The late invested soule doth rawly view
Those Obiects which on that discretion waite.
  Yet you that such a faire advantage have,               10 
Both by your birth, and happy powres t'out-go,
And be before your yeares, can fairely guesse
What hew of life holdes surest without staine,
Having your well-wrought hart full furnisht so
With all the images of worthinesse,
  As there is left no roome at all t'inuest
Figures of other forme but Sanctitie:
Whilst yet those cleane-created thoughts, within
The Garden of your innocencies rest,
Where are no notions of deformitie                        20
Nor any dore at all to let them in.      (forth
  With so great care doth shee, that hath brought
That comely body, labour to adorne
That better parte, the mansion of your minde,
With all the richest furniture of worth,
To make y'as hightly good as highly borne,
And set your vertues equall to your kinde.
  She tells you how that honour onely is
A goodly garment put on faire desarts,
Wherin the smallest staine is greatest seene,             30
And that it cannot grace unworthinesse;

<P 120>

But more apparant shewes defective partes,
How gay soever they are deckt therein.
  She tells you too, how that it bounded is,
And kept inclosed with so many eyes,
As that it cannot stray and breake abroade
Into the private wayes of carelessnesse,
Not ever may descend to vulgarize,
Or be below the sphere of her abode.
  But like to those supernall bodies set                  40
Within their Orbs, must keep the certaine course
Of order, destin'd to their proper place;
Which only doth their note of glory get.
Th'irregulare apparances inforce
A short respect, and perish without grace.
  Being Meteors seeming hie, but yet low plac't,
  Blazing but while their dying matters last,
  Nor can we take the iust height of the minde,
But by that order which her course doth shew:
And which such splendor to her actions gives,             50
And thereby men her eminencie finde,
And thereby only do attaine to know
The Region, and the {Orbe} wherein she lives.
  For low in th'aire of grosse uncertaintie,
  Confusion onely rowles, Order sits hie.
And therefore since the dearest thing on earth,
This honour, Madame, hath his stately frame
From th'heav'nly order, which begets respect,
And that your nature, vertue, happy birth,
Have therein highly interplac'd your name,                60
You may not runne the least course of neglect.
  For where, not to observe, is to prophane
Your dignitie, how carefull must you be
To be your selfe, and though you may to all
Shine faire aspects, yet must the vertuous gaine
The best effects of your benignitie:

<P 121>

Nor must your common graces cause to fall
The price of your esteeme t'a lower rate,
Then doth befit the pitch of your estate.
  Nor may you build on your sufficiency,                  70
For in our strongest partes we are but weake,
Nor yet may over-much distrust the same,
Lest that you come to checke it so thereby,
As silence may become worse than to speake;
{Though silence women never ill became.}
  And none, we see, were ever overthrowne
  By others flattery more than by their owne.
  For though we live amongst the tongues of praise
And troopes of soothing people, that collaud
All that we do, yet 'tis within our harts                 80
Th'ambushment lies, that evermore betraies
Our iudgements, when our selves be come t'applaud
Our owne abilitie, and our owne parts.
  So that we must not onely fence this forte
Of ours, against all others fraud, but most
Against our owne, whose danger is the most,
Because we lie the neerest to doe hurt,
And soon'st deceive our selves, and soon'st are lost
By our best powres that do us most transport.
  Such are your holy bounds, who must conuay              90
(If God so please) the honourable bloud
Of {Clifford}, and of {Russell}, led aright
To many worthy stemmes whose off-spring may
Looke backe with comfort, to have had that good
To spring from such a branch that grew's upright;
  Since nothing cheeres the heart of greatnesse more
  Then th'Ancestors faire glory gone before.

<P 122>

<T TO>
<T HENRY WRIOTHESLY ERLE>
<T OF SOUTHHAMPTON.>
<T {Non fert vllum ictum illaesa faelicitas.}>

HE who hath never warr'd with misery,
Nor ever tugg'd with Fortune and Distresse,
Hath had n'occasion nor no field to trie
The strength and forces of his worthinesse:
Those partes of iudgement which felictie
Keepes as conceal'd, affliction must expresse;            10
And only men shew their abilities,
And what they are, in their extremities.

The world had never taken so full note
Of what thou arte, hadst thou not beene undone,
And onely thy affliction hath begot
More fame then thy best fortunes could have done:
For ever by adversitie are wrought
The greatest workes of admiration,
And all the faire examples of renowne,
Out of distresse and misery are growne.                   20

{Mutius} the fire, the torturs {Regulus},
Did make the miracles of Faith and Zeale:
Exile renown'd, and grac'd {Rutilius}:
Imprisonment, and Poyson did reveale
The worth of {Socrates: Fabricius}
Povertie did grace that Common-weale
More then all {Syllaes} riches got with strife,
And {Catoes} death did vie with {Caesars} life.

<P 123>

Not to b'unhappy is unhappinesse;
And miserie not t'have knowne misery:                     30
For the best way unto discretion is
The way that leads us by adversitie:
And men are better shew'd what is amisse,
By th'expert finger of Calamitie,
Then they can be with all that Fortune brings,
Who never shewes them the true face of things.

How could we know that thou could'st have indur'd
With a reposed cheere, wrong and disgrace,
And with a heart and countenance assur'd
Have lookt sterne Death, and Horror in the face?          40
How should we know thy soule had bin secur'd
In honest councels, and in wayes unbase?
Hads thou not stood to shew us what thou wert,
By thy affliction, that descride thy heart.

It is not but the Tempest that doth shew
The Sea-mans cunning: but the field that tries
The Certaines courage: and we come to know
Best what men are, in their worst ieoperdies:
For lo, how many have we seene to grow
To hie renowne from lowest miseries,                      50
Out of the hands of death, and many a one
T'have bin undone, had they not bin undone.

He that indures for what his conscience knowes
Not to be ill, doth from a patience hie
Looke, onely on the cause whereto he owes
Those sufferings, not no his miserie:
The more h'indures, the more his glory growes,
Which never growes from imbecilitie:
Onely the best compos'd, and worthiest harts,
God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts.        60

                                       S: D.

<P 126>

<T {A Defence of Ryme}>

<P 127>

<T To all the Worthie Lo->
<T uers and learned Professors of Ryme,>
<T within his Maisesties Dominions,>
<T S.D.>

WOrthie Gentlemen, about a yeare since, upon
the great reproach given to the Professors of
Rime, and the use therof, I wrote a private lette, as
a defence of mine owne undertakings in that kinde, to
a learned Gentleman a great friend of mine, then in
Court. Which I did, rather to confirm my selfe in         10
mine owne courses, and to hold him from being wonne
from us, then with any desire to publish the same to
the world.
  But now, seeing the times to promise a more re-
garde to the present condition of our writings, in re-
spect of our Soveraignes happy inclination this way;
whereby wee are rather to expect an incoragement to
go on with what we do, then that any innouation
should checke us, with a shew of what it would do in
an other kinde, and yet doe nothing but deprave: I        20
have now given a greater body to the same Argu-
ment. And here present it to your view, under the
patronage of a Noble Earle, who in bloud and nature
is interessed to take our parte in this cause, with
others, who cannot, I know, but holde deare the
monuments that have beene left unto the world in
this manner of composition. And who I trust will
take in good parte this my defence, if not as it is my
particular, yet in respect of the cause I undertake,
which I heere invoke you all to protect.                  30

                                         {Sa}: D.

<T TO>
<T WILLIAM HERBERT EARLE>
<T OF PEMBROOKE.>

THe Generall Custome, and use of Ryme in this
kingdome, Noble Lord, having beene so long (as
if from a Graunt of Nature) held unquestionable;
made me to imagine that it lay altogither out of the
way of contradiction, and was become so natural, as
we should never have had a thought to cast it off into
reproch, or be made to thinke that it ill-became our      10
language. But now I see, when there is opposition
made to all things in the world by wordes, wee must
nowe at length likewise fall to contend for words
themselves; and make a question, whether they be
right or not. For we are tolde how that our measures
goe wrong, all Ryming is grosse, vulgare, barbarous,
which if it be so, we have lost much labour to no pur-
pose: and for mine owne particular, I cannot but
blame the fortune of the times and mine owne Genius
that cast me vpon so wrong a course, drawne with          20
the current of custome, and an vnexamined example.
Hauing beene first incourag'd or fram'd thereunto by
your most Worthy and Honourable Mother, receiu-
ing the first notion for the formall ordering of those
compositions at {Wilton}, which I must euer acknow-
ledge to haue beene my best Schoole, and thereof al-
wayes am to hold a feeling and gratefull Memory.
Afterward, drawne farther on by the well-liking and
approbation of my worthy Lord, the fosterer of mee
and my {Muse}, I aduentured to bestow all my whole        30

<P 129>

    powers therein, perceiuing it agreed so well, both with
    the complexion of the times, and mine owne constitu-
    tion, as I found not wherein I might better imploy
    me.  But yet now, vpon the great discouery of these
    new measures, threatning to ouerthrow the whole
    state of Ryme in this kingdom, I must either stand
    out to defend, or else be forced to forsake my selfe,
    and giue ouer all.  And though irresolution and a 
40  ture, and that the least checke of reprehension, if it
    sauour of reason, will as easily shake my resolution
    as any mans liuing: yet in this case I know not how I 
    am growne more resolued, and beatme off from the
    station of my profession, which by the law of nature
    I am set to defend.
       And the rather for that this detractor (whose com-
    mendable Rymes albeit now himselfe an enemy to 
50  ryme, haue giuen heretofore to the world the best
    notice of his worth) is a man of faire parts, and good
    reputation, and therefore the reproach forcibly cast
    from such a hand may throw downe more at once
    then the labores of many shall in long time build vp
    opinion, and the worlds inconstancy, which knowes
    not well what it would haue, and:
        {Discit enim citius, meminitque libentius illud}
        {Quod quis deridet quam quod probat & veneratur}.
60      And he who is thus, become our vnkinde aduer-
    sarie, must pardon vs if we be as iealous of our fame
    and reputation, as hee is desirous of credite by his
    new-old arte, and must consider that we cannot, in a 
    thing that concernes vs so neere, but haue a feeling of
    the wrong done, wherein euery Rymer in this vniuer-

<P 130> 

    sall Iland as well as my selfe, stands interressed.  So
    that if his charitie had equally drawne with his learn-
    ing hee would haue forborne to procure the enuie of
    so powerfull number vpon him, from whom he can-
    not but expect the returne of a like measure of blame,     70
    and onely haue made way to his owne grace, by the
    proofe of his abilitie, without the disparaging of vs,
    who would haue bin glad to haue stood quietly by
    him, & perhaps commended his aduenture, seeing
    that euermore of one science and other may be borne,
    & that these Salies made out of the quarter of our set
    knowledges, are the gallant proffers onely of attemp-
    tiue spirits, and commendable though they worke no
    other effect than make a Brauado: and I know it
    were {Indeens, & morosum nimis, alienae industriae},       80
    {modum ponere}. We could well haue allowed of his
    numbers had he not disgraced our Ryme; Which both
    Custome and Nature doth most powerfully defend.
    Custome that is before all Law, Nature that is aboue
    all Arte.  Euery language hath her proper number or
    measure fitted to vse and delight, which, Custome in-
    tertaining by the allowance of the Eare, doth inden-
    ize, and make naturall. All verse is butb a frame of
    wordes confinde within certaine measure; differing
    from the ordinarie speach, and introduced, the better      90
    to expresse mens conceipts, both for delight and
    memorie. Which frame of wordes consisting of {Rith-}
    {mus} and {Metrum}, Number or Measure, are disposed
    into diuers fashions, according to the humour of the
    Composer and the set of the time; And these {Rhythmi}
    as {Aristotle} saith are familiar amongst all Nations,
    and {e\ naturali & sponte fusa compositione:}  And they
    fall as naturally already in our language as euer Art
    can make them; being such as the Eare of it selfe doth
    marshall in their proper roomes, and they of them-         100

<P 131>

    selues will not willingly be put out of their ranke; and
    that in such a verse as best comports with the Nature
    of our language.  And for our Ryme (which is an ex-
    cellencei added to this worke of measure, and a Har-
    monie, farre happier than any proportion Antiquitie
    could euer shew vs) dooth adde more grace, and hath
    more of delight than euer bare numbers, howsoeuer
    they can be forced to runne in our slow language, can
    possibly yeeld.  Which, whether it be deriu'd of
100 {Rhythmus}, or of {Romance} which were songs the {Bards}
    & {Druydes} about Rymes vsed, & therof were caled
    {Remensi}, as some Italians hold; or howsoeuer, it is 
    likewise nimber and harmonie of words, consisting of
    an agreeing sound in the last silables of seuerall
    verses, giuing both to the Eare an Eccho of a delight-
    full report & to the Memorie a deeper impression of
    what is deliuered therin.  For as Greeke and Latine
    verse consists of the number and quantitie of sil-
    lables, so doth the English verse of measure and ac-
120 cent.  And though it doth not strictly obserue long
    and short sillables, yet it most religiously respects the
    accent: and as the short and the make number,
    so the Acute and graue accent yeelde harmonie:  And
    harmonie is likewise number, so that the English
    verse then hath number, measure and harmonie in
    the best proportion of Musike. Which being more
    certain & more resounding, works that effort of mo-
    tion with as happy successe as either the Greek or
    Latin.  And so naturall a melody is it, & so vniuersall
130 as it seems to be generally borne with al the nations
    of the world, as an hereditary eloquence proper to all
    mankind.  The vniuersallitie argues the generall
    power of it: for if the Barbarian vse it, then it shews
    that it swais th'affection of the Barbarian, if ciuil
    nations practise it, it proues that it works vpon the

<P 132>

    harts of ciuil nations: If all, then that it hath a power
    in nature on all.  {Georgieuez de Turcarum moribus},
    hath an example of the Turkish Rymes iust of the
    measure of our verse of eleuen sillables, in feminine
    Rymes: neuer begotten I am perswaded by any exam-    140
    ple in {Europe}, but borne no doubt in {Scythia}, and
    brought ouer {Caucasus} and {Mount Taurus}.  The
    Sclauonian and Arabian tongs acquaint a great part
    of {Asia} and {Affrique} with it, the Moscouite, Polack,
    Hungarian, German, Italian, French, and Spaniard
    vse no other harmonie of words.  The Irish, Briton,
    Scot, Dane, Saxon, English, and all the Inhabiters of
    this Iland, either haue hither brought, or here found
    the same in vse.  And such a force hath it in nature,
    or so made by nature, as the Latine numbers notwith-
    standing their excellencie, seemed not sufficient to
    satitsfie the eare of the world thereunto accustomed,
    without this Harmonicall cadence: which made the
    most learned of all nations labour with exceeding
    trauaile to bring those numbers likewise vnto it:
    which many did with that happinesse, as neither their
    puritie of tongue, nor their materiall contemplations
    are thereby any way disgraced, but rather deserue to
    be reuerenced of all gratefull posteritie, with the due
    regard of their worth.  And for {Schola Salerna}, and   160
    those {Carmina Prouerbialia}, who finds not therein
    more precepts for vse, concerning diet, health, and
    conuersation, then {Cato, Theognes}, or all the Greekes
    and Latines can shew vs in that kinde of teaching:
    and that in so few words, both for delight to the eare,
    and the hold of memorie, as they are to be imbraced
    of all modest readers that studie to know and not to
    depraue.
      Me thinkes it is a strange imperfection, that men
    should thus ouer-runne the estimation of good things    170

<P 133>

    with so violent a censure, as though it must please
    none else, because it like not them.  Whereas {Oportet}
    {arbitratores esse non contradictores eos qui verum iu-}
    {dicaturi sunt,} saith {Arist.} though he could not ob-
    serue it himselfe.  And milde Charitie tells vs:
                                    --{non ego paucis}
           {Offendor maculis quas aut incuria fudit}
           {Aut himana parum cauet natura.}  For all men
    haue their errors, and we must take the best of their
180 powers, and leaue the rest as not appertaining vn-
    to vs.
      {Ill customes are to be left}, I graunt it: but I see not
    howe that can be taken for an ill custome, which na-
    ture hath thus ratified, all nations receiued, time so
    long confirmed, the effects such as it performes those
    offices of motion for which it is imployed; delighting
    the eare, stirring the heart, and satisfying the iudge-
    ment in such sort as I doubt whether euer single num-
    bers will do in our Climate, if they shew no more
190 worke of wonder then yet we see.  And if euer they
    prooue to become any thing, it mist be by the ap-
    probation of many ages that must giue them their
    strength for any operation, or before the world will
    feele where the pulse, life, and enargie lies, which now
    we are sure where to haue in our Rymes, whose
    knowne frame hath those due staies for the minde,
    those incounters of touch as makes the motion cer-
    taine, though the varietie be infinite.  Nor will the
    Generall sorte, for whom we write (the wisef being
200 aboue bookes) taste these laboured measures but as
    an orderly prose when wee haue all done.  For this
    kinde acquaintance and continaull familiaritie euer
    had betwixt our eare and this cadence, is growne to
    so intimate a friendship, as it will nowe hardly euer
    be brought to misse it.  For be the verse neuer so

<P 134>

    good, neuer so full, it seemes not to satisfie nor breede
    that delight as when it is met and combined with a
    like sounding accent.  Which seemes as the iointure
    without which it hangs loose, and cannot subsist, but
    runnes wildely on, like a tedious fancie without a   210
    close: suffer then the world to inioy that which it
    knowes, and what it likes.  Seeing that whatsoeuer
    force of words doth mooue, delight and sway the af-
    fections of men, in what Scythian sorte soeuer it be
    disposed or vttered: that is true number, measure,
    eloquence, and the perfection of speach: which I said,
    hath as many shapes as there be tongues or nations
    in the world, nor can with all the tyrannicall Rules of
    idle Rhetorique be gouerned otherwise then custome,
    and present obseruation will allow.  And being now   220
    the trym, and fashion of the times, to sute a man
    otherwise cannot but giue a touch of singularity, for
    when hee hath all done, hee hath but found other
    clothes to the same body, and peraduenture not so
    fitting as the former.  But could our Aduersary here-
    by set vp the musicke of our times to a higher note of
    iudgement and discretion, or could these new lawes
    of words better our imperfections, it were a happy at-
    tempt; but when hereby we shall but as it were
    change prison, and put off these fetters to receiue  230
    others, what haue we gained, as good still to vse
    rymes and a little reason, as neither ryme nor reason,
    for no doubt as idle wits will write, in that kinde, as
    do now in this, imitation wil after, though it breake
    her necke.  {Scribimus indocti doctique poemata pas-}
    {sim}.  And this multitude of idle writers can be no dis-
    grace to the good, for the same fortune in one pro-
    portion or other is proper in a like season to all States
    in their turne: and the same vnmeasureable conflu-
    ence of Scriblers hapned, when measures were most   240

<P 135>

    in vse among the Romanes, as we finde by this re-
    prehension,
       {Mutauit mentem populus leuis, & calet vno}
       {Scribendi studio, pueri, patre/sque seueri,}
       {Fronde comas vincti coenant, & carmina dictant}.
       So that their plentie seemes to haue bred the same
    waste and contempt as ours doth now, though it had
    not power to disvalew what was worthy of posterities,
    nor keep backe the reputation of excellencies, de-
250 stined to continue for many ages.  For seeing it is 
    matter that satisfies the iudiciall, appeare it in what
    habite it will, all these pretended proportions of
    words, howsoeuer placed, can be but words, and per-
    aduenture serue but to embroyle our vnderstanding,
    whilst seeking to please our eare, we inthrall our iudge-
    ment: to delight an exterior sense, wee smoothe vp a 
    weake confused sense, affecting sound to be vnsound,
    and all to seeme {Seruum pecus}, onely to imitate the
    Greekes and Latines, whose felicitie, in this kind,
260 might be something to themselues, to whome their
    owne {idioma} was naturall, but to vs it can yeeld no
    other commoditie then a sound.  We admire them
    not for their smooth-gliding words, nor their meas-
    ures, but for their inuentions: which treasure, if it
    were to be found in Welch, and Irish, we should hold
    those languages in the same estimation, and they
    may thanke their sword that made their tongues so
    famous and vniuersall as they are.  For to say truth,
    their Verse is many times but a confused deliuerer of 
270 their excellent conceits, whose scattered limbs we are
    faine to looke out and ioyne together, to discerne the
    image of what they represent vnto vs.  And euen the
    Latines, who professe not to be so licentious as the
    Greekes, shew vs many times examples but of strange
    crueltie, in torturing and dismembring of wordes in

<P 136>

    the middest, or disioyning such as naturally should
    be married and march together, by setting them as
    farre asunder, as they can possibly stand: that some-
    times, vnlesse the kind reader, out of his owne good
    nature, wil stay them vp by their measure, they will  280
    fall downe into flatte prose, and sometimes are no
    other indeede in their naturall sound: and then
    againe, when you finde them disobedient to their
    owne Lawes, you must hold it to be {licentia poetica},
    and so dispensable.  The striuing to shew their
    changable measures in the varietie of their Odes, haue
    beene very painefull no doubt vnot them, and forced
    them thus to disturbe the quiet streame of their
    wordes, which by a naturall succession otherwise de-
    sire to follow in their due course.                  290
       But such affliction doth laboursome curiositie still
    lay vpon our best delights (which euer must be made
    strange and variable) as if Art were ordained to af-
    flict Nature, and that we could not goe but in fetters.
    Euery science, euery profession, must be so wrapt vp
    in vnnecessary intrications, as if it were not to fash-
    ion, but to confound the vnderstanding, which makes
    me much to distrust man, and feare that our pre-
    sumption goes beyond our abilitie, and our Curiositie
    is more than our Iudgement: laboring euer to seeme   300
    to be more then we are, or laying greater burthens
    vpon our mindes, then they are well able to beare,
    because we would not appeare like other men.
       And indeed I haue wished there were not that
    multiplicitie of Rymes as is vsed by many in Sonets,
    which yet we see in some so happly to secceed, and
    hath beene so farre from hindering their inuentions,
    as it hath begot conceit beyond expectation, and com-
    parabele to the best inuentions of the world: for sure in
    an eminent spirit whome Nature hath fitted for that  310

<P 137>

    mysterie, Ryme is no impediment to his conceit, but
    rather giues him wings to mount and carries him, not
    out of his course, but as it were beyond his power to a
    farre happier flight. Al excellencies being sold vs at
    the hard proce of labour, it followes, where we bestow
    most thereof, we buy the best sucesse: and Ryme
    being farre more laborious then loose measures (what-
    soeuer is obiected) must needs, meeting with wit and
    industry, breed greater and worthier effects in our
320 language. So that if our labours haue wrought out a 
    manumission from bondage, and that wee goe at
    libertie, notwithstanding these ties, wee are no longer
    the slaues of Rymes, but we make it a most excellent
    instrument to serue vs.  Nor is this certaine limit ob-
    serued in Sonnets, any tyrannicall bounding of the
    forme, neither too long for the shortest proiect, nor
    too short for the longest, being but onely imployed
    for a present passion.  For the body of our imagina-
330 tion, being as an vnformed {Chaos} without fashion,
    without day, if by the diuine power of the spirit it be
    wrought into an Orbe of order and forme, is it not
    more pleasingt to Nature, that desires a certaintie, and
    comports not with that which is infinite, to haue these
    clozes, rather than, not to know where to end, or how
    farre to goe, especially seeing our passions are often
    without measure: and wee finde the best of the latines
    many times, either not concluding, or els otherwise
    in the end then they began.  Besides, is it not most
340 delightfull to see much excellently ordred in a small
    roome, or little, gallantly disposed and made to fill
    vp a space of like capacitie, in such sort, that the one
    would not appeare so beautifull in a larger circuite,
    nor the other do well in a lesse: which often we find to
    be so, according to the powers of nature, in the worke-

<P 138>

    man.  And these limited proportions, and rests of
    Stanzes: consisting of 6.7. or 8. lines are of that hap-
    pines, both for the disposition of the matter, the apt
    planting the sentence where it may best stand to hit,
    the certaine close of delight with the full body of a 350
    iust period well carried, is such, as neither the Greekes
    or Latines euer attained vnto. For their boundlesse
    running on, often so confounds the Reader, that hau-
    ing once lost himselfe, must either giue off vnsatisfied,
    or vncertainely cast backe to retriue the escaped
    sence, and to find way againe into his matter.
       Me thinkes we should not so soone yeeld our con-
    sents captiue to the authoritie of Antiquitie, vnlesse
    we saw more reason: all our vnderstandings are not
    to be built by the square of {Greece} and {Italie}.  We are 360
    the children of nature as well s they, we are not so
    placed out of the way of iudgement, but that the
    same Sunne of Discretion shineth vppon vs, wee haue
    our portion of the same vertues as well as of the same
    vices, {Et Catilinam Quocunque in populo videas},
    {quocunque sub axe}.  Time and the turne of things
    bring about these faculties according to the present
    estimation: and, {Res temporibus non tempora rebus}
    {seruire opportet}.  So that we mist veuer rebell against
    vse: {Wuem penes arbitrium est, & vis & norma lo-} 370
    {quendi}.  It is not the obseruing of {Trochaicques} nor
    their {Iambicques}, that wil make our writings ought
    the wiser: All their Poesie, all their Philosophie is
    nothing, vnlesse we bring the discerning light of con-
    ceipt with vs to apply it to vse.  It is not bookes, but
    onely that great booke of the world, and the all-ouer-
    spreading grace of heauen that makes men truely
    iudiciall.  Nor can it be but a touch of arrogant igno-
    rance, to hold this or that nation Barbarous, these or
    those times grosse, considering how this manifold 380

<P 139>

    creature man, wheresoeuer hee stand in the world,
    hath alwayes some disposition of worth, intertaines
    the order of societie, affects that which is most in vse,
    and is eminient in some one thing or other, that fits
    his humour and the times.  The Grecians held all
    other nations barbarous but themselues, yet {Pirrhus}
    when he saw the will ordered marching of the Ro-
    manes, which made them see their presumptuous er-
    rour, could say it was no barbarous maner of proceed-
390 ing.  The {Gothes, Vandales} and Longobards}, whose
    comming downe like an inundation ouerwhelmed, as
    they say, al the glory of learning in {Europe}, haue yet
    left vs still their lawes and customes, as the originalls
    of most of the prouinciall constitutions of Christen-
    dome; which well considered with their other courses
    of gouernement, may serue to cleere them from this
    imputation of ignorance.  And though the vanqueshed
    neuer yet spake well of the Conquerour: yet euen
    thorow the vnsound couerings of malediction appeare
400 those monuments of trueth, as argue wel their worth
    and proues them not without iudgement, though
    without Greeke and Latine.
       Will not experience confute vs, if wee shoulde say
    the state of {China}, which neuer heard of Anapes-
    tique, Trochies, and Tribracques, were grosse, bar-
    barours, and vnciuile?  And is it not a most apparant
    ignorance, both of the succession of learning in
    {Europe}, and the generall course of things, {to say, that
    all lay pittifully deformed in those lacke-learning times}
410 {from the declining of the Romane Empire, till the light
    of the Latine tongue was reuiued by} Rewcline, Eramus
    {and} Moore.  When for three hundred yeeres before
    them about the comming downe of {Tamburlaine} into
    {Europe, Franciscus Petrarcha} (who then no doubt
    likewise found whom to initate) shewed all the best

<P 140>

    notions of learning, in that degree of excellencie, both
    in Latin, Prose and Verse, and in the vulgare Italian,
    as all the wittes of posteritie haue not yet much ouer-
    matched him in all kindes to this day: his great Vol-
    umes written in Moral Philosophie, shew his infinite 420
    reading, and most happy power of dispoition: his
    twelue AEglogues, his {Affrica} containing nine Bookes
    of the last Punicke warre, with his three Bookes of 
    Epistles in Latine verse, shew all the transformations
    of wit and inuention, that a Spirite naturally borne
    to the inheritance of Poetrie & iudiciall knowledge
    could expresse: All which notwithstanding wrought
    him not that glory & fame with is owne Nation, as
    did his Poems in Italian, which they esteeme aboue
    al whatsoeuer wit could haue inuented in any other 430
    forme then wherein it is: which questionles they wil
    not change with the best measures, Greeks or Latins
    can shew them; howsoeuer our Aduersary imagines.
    Nor could this very same innouation in Verse, begun
    amongst them by {C. Tolomaei}, but die in the attempt,
    and was buried as soome as it came borne, neglected
    as a prodigious &vnnaturall issue amongst them:
    nor could it neuer induce {Tasso} the wonder of {Italy},
    to write that admirable Poem of {Ierusalem}, compar-
    able to the best of the ancients, in any other forme 440
    then the accustomed verse.  And with {Petrarch} liued
    his scholer {Boccacius}, and neere about the same time,
    {Iohannis Rauenensis}, and form these {tanquam ex equo
    Troiano}, semmes to haue issued all those famous
    Italian Writers, {Leonardus Aretinus, Laurentius
    Valla, Poggius, Blondus}, and many others.  Then
    {Emanuel Chrysolaras} a Constantinopolitan gentle-
    man, renowmed for his learning and vertue, being
    imployed by {Iohn Paleologus} Emperour of the East,
    to implore the ayde of christian Princes, for the suc- 450

<P 141>

    couring of perishing {Greece:} and vnderstanding in the
    meane time, how {Baiazeth} was taken prisoner by
    {Tamburlan}, and his country freed from danger, stayed
    still at {Venice}, and there taught the Greeke tongue,
    discontinued before, in these parts the space of seauen
    hundred yeeres.  Him followed {Bessarion, George
    Trapezantius, Theodore Gaza}, & others, transporting
    Philosophie beaten by the Turke our of {Greece} into
    christendome.  Hereupon came that mightie conflu-
460 ence of Learning in these parts, which returning, as
    it were {per postliminium}, and heere meeting then
    with the new inuented stampe of Printing, spread it
    selfe indeed in a more vniuersall sorte then the world
    suer heeretofore had it.  When {Pomponius Laetus,
    AEneas Syluius, Angelus Politianus, Hermolaus
    Barbarus, Iohannes Picus de Mirandula} the miracle
    & Phoenix of the world, adorned {Italie}, and wakened
    vp other Nations likewise with this desire of glory,
    long before it brought foorth, {Rewclen, Erasmus}, and
470 {Moore}, worthy men I confesse, and the last a great
    ornament to this land, and a Rymer.  And yet long
    before all these, and likewise with these, was not our
    Nation behind in her portion of spirite and worth-
    inesse, but concurrent with the best of all this lettered
    worlde: witness venerable {Bede}, that flourished a-
    boue a thousand yeeres since: {Aldelmus Durotelmus}
    that liued in the yeere 739. of whom we finde this
    commendation registred: {Omnium Poetarum sui
    temporis facile\ primus, tantae eloquenctiae, maiestatis &}
480 {eruditionis homo fuit, vt nunquam satis admirari possim
    vnder illi in tam barbara ac rudi ae 
    usque adeo omnibus numeris tersa, elegans & rotunda,
    versus edidit cum antiquitate de palma contendentes.}
    Witnesse {Iosephus Deuonius,} who wrote {de bello
    Troiano}, in so excellent manner, and so neere resem-

<P 142>

    bling Antiquitie, as Printing his Worke beyond the
    Seas, they haue ascribed it to {Cornelius Nepos}, one of
    the Ancients.
        What should I name {Walterus Mape, Gulielmus
    Nigellus, Geruasius Tilburiensis, Bracton, Bacon}, 490
    {Ockem}, and an infinite Catalogue of excellent men,
    most of them liuing about foure hundred yeares since,
    and haue left behinde them monuments of most pro-
    found iudgement and learning in all sciences.  So that
    it is but the clowds gathered about our owne iudge-
    ment that makes vs thinke all other ages wrapt vp in
    mists, and the great distance betwixt vs, that causes
    vs to imagine men so farre off, to be so little in respect
    of our selues.  We must not looke vpon the immense
    course of times past, as men ouer-looke spacious and  500
    wide countries, from off high Mountaines and are
    neuer the neere to iudge of the true Nature of the
    soyle, or the particular syte and face of those terri-
    tories they see.  Nor must we thinke, viewing the sup-
    erficiall figure of a region in a Mappe that wee know
    strait the fashion and place as it is.  Or reading an
    Historie (which is but a Mappe of men, and dooth no
    otherwise acquaint vs with the true Substance of Cir-
    cumstances, than a superficiall Card dooth the Sea-
    man with a Coast neuer seene, which always prooues 510
    other to the eye than the imagination forecast it) that
    presently wee know all the world, and can distinctly
    iudge of times, men and maners, iust as they were.
    When the best measure of man is to be taken by his
    owne foote, bearing euer the neerest proportion to
    himself, and is neuer so farre different and vnequall
    in his powers, that he hath all in perfection at one
    time, and nothing at an other.  The distribution of
    giftes are vniuerall, and all seasons hath them in 
    some sort.  We must not thinke, but that there were 520

<P 143>

    {Scipioes, Caesars, Catoes} and {Pompeies}, borne else-
    where then at {Rome}, the rest of the world hath euer
    had them in the same degree of nature, though not of
    state.  And it is our weakenesse that makes vs mis-
    take, or misconceiue in these deliniations of men the
    true figure of their worth.  And our passion and be-
    liefe is so apt to leade vs beyond truth, that vnlesse
    we try them by the iust compasse of humanitie, and
    as they were men, we shall cast their figures in the
530 ayre when we should make their models vpon Earth.
    It is not the contexture of words, bnut the effects of
    Action that giues glory to the times: we finde they
    had {mercurium in pectore} though not {in lingua}, and
    in all ages, though they were not Ciceronians, they
    knew the Art of men, which onely is, {Ars Artium}, the
    great gift of heauen, and the chiefe grace and glory on
    earth, they had the learning of Gouernement, and
    ordring their State, Eloquence inough to shew their
    iudgements.  And it seemes the best times followed
540 {Lycurgus} councell: {Literas ad vsum saltem discebant
    reliqua omnis disciplina erat, vt pulchre parerent vt
    labores perferrent &c}. Had not vnlearned {Rome} laide
    the better foundation, and built the stronger frame of
    an admirable state, eloquent {Rome} had confounded it
    vtterly, which we saw, ranne the way of all confusion,
    the plaine course of dissolution in her greatest skill:
    and though she had not power to vndoe her selfe, yet
    wrought she sosthat she cast her selfe quite away
    from the glory of a common-wealth, and fell vpon
550 that forme of state she euer most feared and abhorred
    of all other: and then scarse was there seene any
    shadowe of pollicie vnder her first Emperours, but the
    most horrible and grosse confusion that could bee
    conceued, notwithstanding it stil indured, preseruing
    not only a Monarchie, lock vp in her own limits,

<P 144>

    but herewithall held vnder her obedience, so many
    Nations so farre distant, so ill affected, so disorderly
    commanded & vniustly conquerd, as it is not to be at-
    tributed to any other fate but to the first frame of
    that commonwealth, which was so strongly ioynted 560
    and with such infinite combinations interlinckt, as one
    naile or other euer held vp the Maiestie thereof.
    There is but one learning, which {omnes gentes habent
    scriptum in cordibus suis}, one and the selfe-same spirit
    that worketh in all.  We haue but one body of Iustice,
    one body of Wisedome throughout the whole world,
    which is but apparaled according to the fashion of
    euery nation.
        Eloquence and gay wordes are not of the Substance
    of wit, it is but the garnish of a nice time, the Orna- 570
    ments that doe but decke the house of a State, {&
    imitatur publicos mores:} Hunger is as well satified
    with meat serued in pewter as siluer.  Discretion is
    the best measure, the rightest foote in what habit
    soeuer it runne.  {Erasmus, Rewcline} and {More}, brought
    no more wisdome into the world with all their
    new reuiued wordes then we finde was before, it
    bred not a profounder Diuine than Saint {Thomas},
    a greater Lawyer then {Bartolus}, a more accute Logi-
    cian than {Scotus:} nor are the effects of all this great 580
    amasse of eloquence so admirable or of that conse-
    quence, but that {impexa illa antiquitas} can yet com-
    pare with them.  Let vs go no further, but looke vpon
    the wonderfull Architecture of this state of {England},
    and see whether they were deformed times, that could
    giue it such a forme.  Where there is no one the least
    piller of Maiestie, but was set with most profound
    iudgement and borne vp with the iust conueniencie
    of Prince and people.  No Court of Iustice, but laide
    by the Rule and Square of Nature, and the best of the 590

<p 145>

    best commonwealths that euer were in the world.  So
    strong and substantial, as it hath stood against al the
    storms of factions, both of beliefe & ambition, which
    so powerfully beat vpon it, and all the tempestuous
    alterations of himorous times whatsoeuer.  Being
    continually in all ages furnisht with spirites fitte to
    maintaine the maiestie of her owne greatnes, and to
    match in an equall concurrencie all other kingdomes
    round about her with whome it had to incounter.  But
600 this innouation, like a Viper, must euer make way
    into the worlds opinion, thorow the bowelles of her
    owne breeding, & is always borne with reproch in
    her mouth; the disgracing others is the best grace it
    can put on, to winne reputation of wit, and yet is it
    neuer so wise as it would seeme, nor doth the world
    euer so much by it, as it imagineth: which being
    so often deceiued, and seeing it neuer performes so
    much as it promises, me thinkes men should neuer
    giue more credite vnto it.  For, let vs change neuer so
610 often, wee can not change man, our imperfections
    must still runne on with vs.  And therefore the wiser
    Nations haue taught menne alwayes to vse, {Moribus
    legibusque presentibus etiamsi deteriores sint}.  The
    Lacedemonians, when a Musitian, thincking to
    winne him-selfe credite by his new inuention, and be
    before his fellowes, had added one string more to his
    Crowde, brake his fiddle, and banished him the Cittie,
    holding the Innouator, though in the least things,
    dangerous to a publike societie.  It is but a fantastike
620 giddimesse to forsake the way of other men, especially
    where it lies tollerable: {Vbi nunc est respublica, ibi
    simus potius quam dum illam veterem sequimur, simus
    in nulla}.  But shal we not tend to perfection?  Yes,
    and that euer best by going on in the course we are in,
    where we haue aduantage, being so farre onward, of

<PP 146>

    him that is but now setting forth.  For we shall neuer
    proceede, if wee be euer beginning, nor arriue at any
    certayne Porte, sayling with all windes that blow:
    {Non conualescit planta quae saepius transfertur,} and
    therefore let vs hold on in the course wee haue vnder- 630
    taken, and not still be wandring.  Perfection is not the
    portion of man, and if it were, why may wee not as
    well get to it this way as an othe? and suspect these
    great vndertakers, lest they haue conspired with enuy
    to betray ou7r proceedings, and put vs by the honor of
    our attempts, with casting vs backe vpon an other
    course, of purpose to ouerthrow the whole action of
    glory when we lay the fairest for it, and were so neere
    our hopes?  I thanke God that I am none of these
    great Schollers, if thus their hie knowledges doe but 460
    giue them more eyes to looke out into vncertaintie
    and confusion, accounting my selfe, rather beholding
    to my ignorance, that hath set me in so lowe an vnder-
    roome of conceipt with other men, and hath giuen
    me as much distrust, as it hath done hope, daring not
    aduenture to goe alone, but plodding on the plaine
    tract I finde beaten by Custome and the Time, con-
    tenting me with what I see in vse.  And surely mee
    thinkes these great wittes should rather seeke to 
    adorne, than to disgrace the present, bring something 650
    to it, without taking from it what it hath.  But it is
    euer the misfortune of Learning, to be wounded by
    her owne hand.  {Stimulos dat emula virtus}, and when
    there is not abilitie to match what is, malice wil finde
    out ingines, either to disgrace or ruine it, with a per-
    uerse incounter of some new impression: and which
    is the greatest misery, it must euer proceed from
    the powers of the best reputation, as if the greatest
    spirites were ordained to indanger the worlde, as the
    grosse are to dishonour it, and that we were to expect 660

<P 147>

    {ab optimis periculum, a\ pessimis dedecus publicum}.
    Emulation the strongest pulse that beates in high
    mindes, is oftentimes a winde, but of the worst effect:
    For whilst the Soule comes disappoynted of the obiect
    it wrought on, it presently forges an other, and euen
    cozins it selfe, and crosses all the world, rather than
    it wil stay to be vnder hir desires, falling out with all
    it hath, to flatter and make faire that which it would
    haue.  So that it is the ill successe of our longings that
670 with {Xerxes} makes vs to whippe the Sea, and send a 
    cartel of defiance to mount {Athos:} and the fault laide
    vpon others weakenesse, is but a presumptuous opin-
    ion of our owne strength, who must not seeme to be
    maistered. But had our Aduersary taught vs by his
    owne proceedings, this way of perfection, and therein
    fram'd vs a Poeme of that excellencie as should haue
    put downe all, and beene the maister-peece of these
    times, we should all haue admired him.  But to de-
    praue the present forme of writing, and to bring
680 vs nothing but a few loose and vncharitable Epi-
    grammes, and yet would make vs belieue those num-
    bers were come to raise the glory of our language,
    giueth vs cause to suspect the performance, and to
    examine whether this new Arte, {constat sibi}, or, {aliquid
    sit dictum quod non sit dictum prius}.
       First we must heere imitate the Greekes and Lat-
    ines, and yet we are heere shewed to disobey them,
    euen in their owne numbers and quantities: taught to
    produce what they make short, and make short what
690 they produce: made beleeue to be shewd measures in
    that forme we haue not seene, and no such matter:
    tolde that heere is the perfect Art of versifying, which
    in conclusion is yet confessed to be vnperfect, as if our
    Aduersary to be opposite to vs, were become vnfaith-
    full of himselfe, and seeking to leade vs out of the way

<P 148>

    of reputation, hath aduentured to intricate and con-
    found him in his owne courses, running vpon most vn-
    euen groundes, with imperfect rules, weake proofes,
    and vnlowfull lawes.  Whereunto the world, I am
    perswaded, is not so vnreasonable as to subscribe, 700
    considering the vniust authoritie of the Law-giuer.
    For who hath constiuted him to be the {Radaman-
    thus} thus to torture sillable, and adiudge them their
    perpetuall doome, setting his {Theta} or marke of con-
    demnation vppon them to indure the appoynted
    sentence of his crueltie, as hee shall dispose.  As
    though there were that disobedience in our wordes,
    as they would not be ruled or stand in order without
    so many intricate Lawes, which would argue a great
    peruersenesse amongst them, according to that, {in} 710
    {pessima republica plurimae leges:} or, that they were so
    farre gone frome the quiet freedome of nature, that
    they must thus be brought backe againe by force.
    And now in what case were this poore state of words,
    if in like sorte another tyrant the next yeere should
    arise and abrogate these lawes and ordaine others
    cleane contrary according to his humor, and say that
    they were onely right, the others vniust, what dis-
    turbance were there here, to whome should we obey?
    Were it not farre better to holde vs fast to our old cus- 720
    tome, than to stand thus distracted with vncertaine
    Lawes, wherein right shal haue as many faces as it
    pleases Passion to make it, that wheresoeuer mens
    affections stand, it shall still looke that way.  What
    trifles doth our vnconstant curiositie cal vp to con-
    tend for, what colours are there laid vpon indifferent
    things to make them seeme other then they are, as if
    it were but only to intertaine contestation amongst
    men; who standing according to the prospectiue of
    their owne humour, seeme to see the selfe same things 730

<P 149>

    to appeare otherwise to them, than either they doe to
    other, or are indeede in themselues, being but all one
    in nature.  For what a doe haue we heere, what
    strange precepts of Arte about the framing of an
    Iambique verse in our language, which when all is
    done, reaches not by a foote, but falleth out to be the
    plaine ancient verse consisting of tenne sillables or
    fiue feete, which hath euer beene vsed amongest vs
    time out of minde.  And for all this cunning and coun-
740 terfeit name can or will be any other in nature then
    it hath beene euer heretofore: and this new {Dimeter}
    is but the halfe of this verse diuided in two, and no
    other then the {Caesura} or breathing place in the mid-
    dest thereof, and therefore it had bene as good to haue
    put two lones in one, but only to make them seeme
    diuerse.  Nay it had beene much better for the true
    English reading and pronouncing thereof, without
    violating the accent, which now oru Aduersarie hath
    heerein most vnkindely doone: for, being, as wee are
750 to sound it, according to our English March, we must
    make a rest, and raise the last sillable, which falles
    out very vnnaturall in {Desolate, Funerall, Elizabeth,
    Prodigall}, and in all the rest sauing the Monosillables.
    Then followes the English {Trochaicke}, which is saide
    to bee a simple verse, and so indeede it is, being with-
    out Ryme; hauing here no other grace then that in
    sound it runnes like the knowne measure of our former
    ancient Verse, ending (as we terme it according to the
    French) in a feminine foote, sauing that it is shorter
760 by one sillable at the beginning, which is not much
    missed, by reason it falles full at the last.  Next comes
    the {Elegiacke,} being the fourth kinde, and that like-
    wise is no other then our old accustomed measure of
    fiue feete, if there be any difference, it must be made
    in the reading, and therein wee must stand bound to

<P 150>

    stay where often we would not, and sometimes either
    breake the accent, or the due course of the word.  And
    now for the other foure kinds of numbers, which are 
    to be employed for {Odes}, they are either of the same
    measure, or such as haue euer beene familiarly vsed 770
    amongst vs.  So that of all these eight seuerall kindes
    of new promised numbers you see what he haue.
    Onely what was our owne before, and the same but
    apparelled in forraine Titles, which had they come in
    their kinde and naturall attire of Ryme, wee should
    neuer haue suspected that they had affected to be
    other, or sought to degenerate into strange manners,
    which now we see was the cause why they were turnd
    out of their proper habite, and brought in as Aliens,
    onely to induce men to admire them as farre-com- 780
    mers.  But see the power of Nature, it is not all the
    artificiall couerings of wit that can hide their natiue
    and originall condition which breakes out thorow the
    strongest bandes of affection, and will be it selfe,
    doe Singularitie what it can.  And as for those imag-
    ined quantities of sillables, which haue bin euer held
    free and indifferent in our language, who can inforce
    vs to take knowlege of them, being {in nullius verba
    iurati}, & owing fealty to no forraine inuention; es-
    pecilly in such a case where there is no necessitie in 790
    Nature, or that it imports either the matter of forme,
    whether it be so, or otherwise.  But euery Versifier
    that wel obserues his worke, findes in our language,
    without all these vnnecessary precepts, what num-
    ber best fitte the Nature of her Idiome, and the
    proper places destined to such accents, as she will not
    let in, to any other roomes then into those for which
    they were borne.  As for example, you cannot make
    this fall into the right sound of a Verse,
        {None thinkes reward rendred worthly his worth:} 800
    vnlesse you thus misplace the accent vppon {Rendre\d}
    and {Worthi\e}, contrary to the nature of these wordes:
    which sheweth that two feminine numbers (or Tro-
    chies, if so you wil call them) will not succeede in the
    third and fourth place of the Verse.  And so likewise
    in this case,
        {Though Death doth consume, yet Virtue preserues},
    it wil not be a Verse, though it hath the iust sillables,
    without the same number in the second, and the al-
810 tering of the fourth place, in this sorte:
        {Though Death doth ruine, Virtue yet preserues}.
        Againe, who knowes not that we cannot kindely an-
    swere a feminine with a masculine Ryme, or
    (if you will so terme it) a {Trochei} with a {Sponde},
    as {Weakenes} with {Confesse, Nature} and {Indure}, onely
    for that thereby wee shall wrong the accent, the chiefe
    Lord and graue Gouernour of Numbers.  Also you
    cannot in a Verse of foure feete, place a {Trochei} in the
    first, without the like offence, as,
820               {Yearely out of his watry Cell:}
    for so you shall sound it {Yearelie\} which is vnnaturall.
    And other such like obseruations vsually occurre,
    which Nature and a iudiciall eare, of themselues teach
    vs readily to auoyle.
        But now for whom hath our Aduersary taken all
    this paines?  For the Learned, or for the Ignorant, or
    for himselfe, to shew his owne skill?  If for the Learned,
    it was to no purpose, for euerie Grammarain in
    this land hath learned his {Prosodia}, and alreadie
830 knowes all this Arte of Numbers: if for the Ignorant,
    it was vaine: For if they become Versifiers, wee are
    like to haue leane Numbers, instede of fat Ryme: and
    if {Tully} would haue his Orator skilld in all the know-
    ledges appertaining to God and man, what should
    they haue, who would be a degree aboue Orators?

<P 152>

    Why then it was to shew his owne skill, and what him-
    selfe had obserued: so he might well haue done, with-
    out doing wrong to the honor of the dead, wrong to
    the fame of the liuing, and wrong to {England}, in seek-
    ing to lay reproach vppon her natiue ornaments, and 840
    to turne the faire streame and full course of her ac-
    cents, into the shallow current of a loose vncertaintie,
    cleane out of the way of her knowne delight.  And I 
    had thought it could neuer haue proceeded from the 
    pen of a Scholler (who sees no profession free from the
    impure mouth of the scorner) to say the reproach of
    others idle tongues is the curse of Nature vpon vs,
    when it is rather her curse vpon him, that knowes not
    how to vse his tongue.  What, doth he think himselfe
    is now gotten so farre out of the way of contempt, 850
    that his numbers are gone beyond the reach of oblo-
    quie, and that how friuolous, or idle soeuer they shall
    runne, they shall be protected from disgrace, as
    though that light rymes and light numbers did not
    weigh all alike in the graue opinion of the wise.  And
    that it is not Ryme, but our ydle Arguments that
    hath brought downe to so base a recking, the price
    and estimation of writing in this kinde.  When the
    few good things of this age, by comming together in
    one throng and presse with the many bad, are dis- 860
    cerned from them, but ouer-looked with them, and
    all taken to be alike.  But when after-times shall
    make a quest of inquiries, to examine the best of this
    Age, peraduenture there will be found in the now con-
    temned recordes of Rymes, matter not vnfitting the
    grauest Diuine, and seuerest Lawyer in this king-
    dome.  But these things must haue the date of Anti-
    quitie, to make them reuered and authentical: For
    euer in the collation of Writers, men rather weigh
    their age then their merite, {& legunt priscos cum re-} 870

<P 153>

    {uerentia, quando coetaneos non possunt sine inuidia}.
    And let no writer in Ryme be any way discouraged in
    his endeuour by this braue allarum, but rather ani-
    mated to bring vp all the best of their powers, and
    charge with all the strength of nature and industrie
    vpon contempt, that the shew of their reall forces
    may turne backe insolencie into her owne holde.  For,
    be sure that innouation neuer workes any ouerthrow,
    but vpon the aduantage of a carelesse idlenesse.  And
880 let this make vs looke the better to our feete, the bet-
    ter to our matter, better to our maners.  Let the Ad-
    uersary that thought to hurt vs, bring more profit and
    honor, by being against vs, then if he had stoode still
    on our side.  For that (next to the awe of heauen) the
    best reine, the strongst hand to make men keepe their
    way, is that which their enemy beares vpon them: and
    let this be the benefite wee make by being oppugned,
    and the meanes to redeeme backe the good opinion,
    vanitie and idlenesse haue sufferedto be wonne from
890 vs; which, nothing but substance and matter can ef-
    fect.  For
        {Scribendi recte\ sapere est & principium & fons}.
        When we heare Musicke, we must be in our eare,
    in the vtter-roome of sense, but when we intertaine
    iudgement, we retire into the cabinet and innermost
    withdrawing chamber of the soule:  And it is but as
    Musicke for the eare,
        {Verba sequi fidibus modulanda Latinis},
    but it is a worke of power for the soule,
900     {Numero/sque modo/sque ediscere vitae}.
        The most iudiciall and worthy spirites of this Land
    are not so delicate, or will owe so much to their eare,
    as to rest vpponthe out-side of wordes, and be inter-
    tained with sound: seeing that both Number, Meas-
    ure, and Ryme, is but as the ground or seate, where-

<P 154>

    upon is raised the work that commends it, and which
    may be easily at the first found out by any shallow
    conceipt: as wee see some fantasticke to beginne a
    fashion, which afterwards grauity it selfe is faine to
    put on, because it will not be out of the weare of other 910
    men, and {Recti apud nos locum tenet error vbi publicus
    factus est}.  And power and strength that can plant it
    selfe any where, hauing built within this compasse,
    and reard it of so high a respect, wee now imbrace it
    as the fittest dwelling for our inuention, and haue
    thereon bestowed all the substance of our vnderstand-
    ing to furnish it as it is: and therefore heere I stand
    foorth, onelie to make good the place we haue thus
    taken vp, and to defend the secred monuments erect-
    ed therein, which containe the honour of the dead, 920
    the fame of the liuing, the glory of peace, and the best
    power of our speach, and wherin so many honorable
    spirits haue sacrified to Memorie their dearest pas-
    sions, shewing by what diuine influence they haue
    beene moued, and vnder what starres they liued.
       But yet now notwithstanding all this which I haue
    heere deliuered in the defence of Ryme, I am not so
    farre in loue with mine owne mysterie, or will seeme
    so froward, as to bee against the reformation, and the
    better setling these measures of ours.  Wherein there 930
    be many things, I could wish were more certaine and
    better ordered, though my selfe dare not take vpon
    me to be a teacher therein, hauing so much neede to
    learne of others.  And I must confesse, that to mine
    owne eare, those continued Poemes, are very tyresome,
    and vnpleasing, by reason that still, me thinks, they
    runne on with a sound of one nature, and a kinde of
    certaintie which stuffs the delight rather then inter-
    taines it.  But yet notwithstanding, I must not out of 940

<P 155>

    mine owne daintinesse, condemme this kinde of writ-
    ing, which peraduenture to another may seeme most
    delightfull, and many worthy compositions we see to
    haue passed with commendation in that kinde.  Be-
    sides, me thinkes sometimes, to beguile the eare, with
    a running out, and passing ouer the Ryme, as no
    bound to stay vs in the line where the violence of the
    matter will breake thorow, is rather gracefull then
    otherwise.  Wherein I finde my {Homer-Lucan}, as if he
950 gloried to seeme to haue no bounds, albeit hee were
    confined within his measures, to be in my conceipt
    most happy.  For so thereby, they who care not for
    Verse or Ryme, may passe it ouer without taking
    notice thereof, and please themselues with a well-
    measured Prose.  And I must confesse my Aduersary
    hath wrought this much vpon me, that I thinke a 
    Tragedie would indeede best comporte with a blank
    Verse, and dispence wth Ryme, sauing in the {Chorus}
    or where a sentence shall require a couplet.  And to 
960 auoyde this ouer-glutting the eare with that alwayes
    certaine, and ful incounter of Ryme, I haue assaid in
    some of my Epistle to alter the vsuall place fo meet-
    ing, and to sette it further off by one Verse, to trie
    how I could disuse my owne eare and to ease it of this
    continuall burthen, which indeede seemes to sur-
    charge it a little too much, but as yet I cannot come
    to please my selfe therein: this  alternate or crosse
    Ryme holding still the best place in my affection.
        Besides, to me this charge of number in a Poem of 
970 one nature sits not so wel, as to mixe vncertainly,
    feminine Rymes with masculine, which, euer since I
    was warned of that deformitie by my kinde friend and
    countriman Maister {Hugh Samford}, I haue alwayes
    so auoyed it, as there are not aboue two couplettes
    in that kinde in all my Poems of the Ciuill warres: and

<P 156>

    I would willingly if I coulde, haue altered it in all the
    rest, holding feminine Rymes to be fittest for Ditties,
    and either to be set certaine, or else by themselues.
    But in these things, I say, I dare not take vpon mee
    to teach that they ought to be so, in respect my selfe  980
    holdes them to be so, or that I thinke it right; for in-
    deede there is no right in these things that are con-
    tinually in a wandring motion, carried with the vio-
    lence of our vncertaine likings, being but onely the
    time that giues them their power.  For if this right, or
    truth, should be no other thing then that wee make it,
    we shall shape it into to thousand figures, seeing this
    excellent painter Man, can so well lay the colours
    which himselfe grindes in his owne affections, as that
    hee will make them serue for any shadow, and any 990
    counterfeit.  But the greatest hinderer to our pro-
    ceedings, and the reformation of our errours, is this
    Self-loue, whereunto we Versifiers are euer noted to
    be especially subiect; a disease of all other, the most
    dangerous, and incurable, being once seated in the
    spirits, for which there is no cure, but onely by a
    spirituall remedy.  {Multos puto, ad sapientiam potu-
    isse peruenire, nisi putassent se peruenisse:} and this
    opinion of our sufficiencie makes so great a cracke in
    our iudgement, as it wil hardly euer holde any thing 1000
    of worth, {Coecus amor sui}, and though it would seeme
    to see all without it, yet certainely it discernes but lit-
    tle within.  For there is not the simplest writer that
    will euer tell himselfe, he doth ill, but as if he were the
    parasite onely to sooth his owne doings, perswades
    him that his lines can not but please others, which so
    much delight himselfe:
        {Suffenus est quisque sibi}.  --{neque idem vnquam.
         AEque est beatus, ac poema cum scribit,
         Tam gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur}.          1010

<P 157>

    And the more to shew that he is so, we shall see him
    euermore in all places, and to all persons repeating
    his owne compositions: and,
        {Quem vero arripuit, tenet occidi/tque legendo}.
       Next to this deformitie stands our affection,
    wherein we alwayes bewray our selues to be both vn-
    kinde, and vnnaturall to our owne natiue language,
    in disguising or forging strange or vnvuall wordes, as
    if it were to make our verse seeme an other kind of 
1020 speach out of the ccourse of our vsuall practise, dis-
    placing our wordes, or investing new, onely vpon a 
    singularitie: when our owne accustomed phrase, set
    in the due place, would expresse vs more familiarly
    and to better delight, than all this idle affectation of
    antiquitie, or noueltie can euer doe.  And I can not
    but wonder at the strange presumption of some men
    that dare so audaciously aduenture to introduce any
    whatsoeuer forraine wordes, be they neuer so strange;
    and of themselues as it were, without a Parliament,
1030 without any consent, or allowance, establish them as
    Free-denizens in our language.  But this is but a Char-
    acter of that perpetuall reuolution which wee see to
    be in all things that neuer remaine the same, and we
    must heerin be content to submit our selues to the
    law of time, which in few yeeres wil make al that, for
    which we now contend, {Nothing}.

                      FINIS

            <T Vlisses {and the} Syren>

    {Syren}.  Come worthy Greeke, {Vlisses} come
    Possesse these shores with me:
    The windes and Seas are troublesome,
    And heere we may be free.
        Here mayu we sit, and view their toile
    That trauaile in the deepe,
    And ioy the day in mirth the while,
    And spend the night in sleepe.

        {Vlis}.  Faire Nimph, if fame, or honor were     10
    To be attaynd with ease
    Then would I come, and rest me there,
    And leaue such toyles as these.
        But here it dwels, and here must I 
    With danger seeke it forth,
    To spend the time luxuriously
    Becomes not men of worth.

        {Syr. Vlisses}, O be not deceiu'd
    With that vnreall name:
    This honour is a thing conceiu'd,                    20
    And rests on others fame.
        Begotten onely to molest
    Our peace, and to beguile
    (The best thing of our life) our rest,
    And giue vs vp to toile.

        {Vlis}.  Delicious Nimph, suppose there were
    Nor honour, nor report,

<P 161>

    Yet manlines would scorne to weare
    The time in idle sport.
        For toyle doth giue a better touch,              30
    To make vs feele our ioy;
    And ease findes tediousnesse as much
    As labour yeelds annoy.

        {Syr.}  Then pleasure likewise seemes the shore,
    Whereto tends all your toyle,
    Which you forgo to make it more,
    And perish oft the while.
        Who may disporte them diuersly,
    Finde neuer tedious day,
    And ease may haue varietie,                         40
    As well as action may.

        {Vlis}.  But natures of the noblest frame
    These toyles, and dangers please,
    And they take comfort in the same,
    As much as you in ease.
        And with the thought of actions past
    Are recreated still;
    When pleasure leaues a touch at last,
    To shew that it was ill.

        {Sy.}  That doth opinion onely cause,           50
    That's out of custome bred,
    Which makes vs many other lawes
    Then euer Nature did.
        No widdowes waile for our delights,
    Our sportes are without bloud,
    The world we see by warlike wights
    Receiues more hurt then good.

        {Vlis.}  But yet the state of things require
    These motions of vnrest,

<P 162>

    And these great Spirits of high desire,            60
    Seeme borne to turne them best.
        To purge the mischiefes that increase,
    And all good order mar:
    For oft we see a wicked peace
    To be well chang'd for war.

        {Sy}. Well, well {Vlisses} then I see,
    I shall not haue thee heere,
    And therefore I will come to thee,
    And take my fortunes there.
        I must be wonne that cannot win,               70
    Yet lost were not wonne:
    For beauty hath created bin,
    T'vndoo, or be vndonne.

               {FINIS}