Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!

And from her arched brows such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow

Before rude hands have touch'd it? Have you mark'd but the fall o' the snow Before the soil hath smutch'd it ? Have you felt the wool of beaver?

Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white! O so soft!

she!

O so sweet is Ben Jonson.-About 1630.

246.-A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.

Hear me, O God!

A broken heart
Is my best part:
Use still Thy rod,

That I may prove
Therein Thy love.

If Thou hadst not

Been stern to me,
But left me free,
I had forgot
Myself and thee.
For, sin's so sweet,
As minds ill bent
Rarely repent,
Until they meet
Their punishment.
Who more can crave

Than Thou hast done,
That gav'st a Son
To free a slave ?

First made of nought
With all since bought.

Sin, Death, and Hell,
His glorious name
Quite overcame;
Yet I rebel,

And slight the same.

But I'll come in,
Before my loss
Me farther toss ;
As sure to win

Under His Cross.

Ben Jonson.-About 1630.

247.-ADVICE TO A RECKLESS YOUTH.

What would I have you do? I'll tell you, kinsman ;

Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive,

That would I have you do; and not to spend
Your coin on every bauble that you fancy,
Or every foolish brain that humours you.
I would not have you to invade each place,
Nor thrust yourself on all societies,
Till men's affections, or your own desert,
Should worthily invite you to your rank.
He that is so respectless in his courses,
Oft sells his reputation at cheap market.
Nor would I you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery, lest, while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it,
And you be left like an unsavoury snuff,
Whose property is only to offend.

I'd ha' you sober, and contain yourself;
Not that your sail be bigger than your boat;
But moderate your expenses now (at first)
As you may keep the same proportion still.
Nor stand so much on your gentility,
Which is an airy, and mere borrow'd thing,
From dead men's dust, and bones; and nono

248.-THE REQUIREMENTS OF A
TUTOR.

A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher chapelain :
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young master lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do, on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never chango his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young master beat,
But he must ask his mother to define,
How many jerks he would his breech should
line.

All these observed, he could contented be,
To give five marks and winter livery.

Bishop Hall, 1000.

249.-PORTRAIT OF A POOR GALLANT. Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, Vaunting himself upon his rising toes; And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side; And picks his glutted teeth since late noontide?

'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined today?

In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey.
Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,
Keeps he for every straggling cavalier;
An open house, haunted with great resort;
Long service mixt with musical disport.
Many fair younker with a feather'd crest,
Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,

To fare so freely with so little cost,
Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host.
Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say
He touch'd no meat of all this live-long day.
For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,
His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness,
But could he have (as I did it mistake)
So little in his purse, so much upon his back?
So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his
belt,

That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt.
Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?
Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by,
All trapped in the new-found bravery.
The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
His grandame could have lent with lesser pain?
Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English
shore,

Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head,

One lock amazon-like dishevelled,

As if he meant to wear a native cord,

If chance his fates should him that bane afford.
All British bare upon the bristled skin,
Close notched is his beard, both lip and chin;
His linen collar labyrinthian set,
Whose thousand double turnings never met:
His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings,
As if he meant to fly with linen wings.
But when I look, and cast mine eyes below,
What monster meets mine eyes in human show?
So slender waist with such an abbot's loin,
Did never sober nature sure conjoin.
Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown
field,

Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield;
Or, if that semblance suit not every deal,
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.
Bishop Hall, 1600.

250.-DISCONTENT OF MEN WITH THEIR CONDITION.

I wot not how the world's degenerate,
That men or know or like not their estate:
Out from the Gades up to th' eastern morn,
Not one but holds his native state forlorn.
When comely striplings wish it were their
chance

For Cænis' distaff to exchange their lance,
And wear curl'd periwigs, and chalk their face,
And still are poring on their pocket-glass.
Tired with pinn'd ruffs and fans, and partlet
strips

And busks and verdingales about their hips; And tread on corked stilts a prisoner's pace, And make their napkin for their spitting-place, And gripe their waist within a narrow span: Fond Cænis, that wouldst wish to be a man!

Whose mannish housewives like their refuse state,

And make a drudge of their uxorious mate,
Who like a cot-queen freezeth at the rock,
Whiles his breech'd dame doth man the foreign
stock.

Is't not a shame to see each homely groom
Sit perched in an idle chariot room,
That were not meet some pannel to bestride,
Surcingled to a galled hackney's hide?
Each muck-worm will be rich with lawless gain,
Although he smother up mows of seven years'
grain,

And hang'd himself when corn grows cheap again;

Although he buy whole harvests in the spring,
And foist in false strikes to the measuring;
Although his shop be muffled from the light,
Like a day dungeon, or Cimmerian night;
Nor full nor fasting can the carle take rest,
While his george-nobles rusten in his chest ;
He sleeps but once, and dreams of burglary,
And wakes, and casts about his frighted eye,
And gropes for thieves in every darker shade;
And if a mouse but stir, he calls for aid.
The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see,
All scarf'd with pied colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate,
And now he 'gins to loath his former state;
Now doth he inly scorn his Kendal-green,
And his patched cockers now despised been;
Nor list he now go whistling to the car,
But sells his team, and fetleth to the war.
O war! to them that never tried thee, sweet!
When his dead mate falls groveling at his feet,
And angry bullets whistlen at his ear,
And his dim eyes see nought but death and
drear.

O happy ploughman! were thy weal well known;

O happy all estates, except his own!
Some drunken rhymer thinks his time well
spent,

If he can live to see his name in print,
Who, when he is once fleshed to the press,
And sees his hansell have such fair success,
Sung to the wheel, and sung unto the pail,
He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sail,
Nor then can rest, but volumes up bodged
rhymes,

To have his name talked of in future times.
The brain-sick youth, that feeds his tickled

ear

With sweet-sauced lies of some false traveller,
Which hath the Spanish Decades read awhile,
Or whetstone leasings of old Mandeville,
Now with discourses breaks his midnight sleep
Of his adventures through the Indian deep,
Of all their massy heaps of golden mine,
Or of the antique tombs of Palestine,
Or of Damascus' magic wall of glass,
Of Solomon his sweating piles of brass,
Of the bird ruc that bears an elephant,
Of mermaids that the southern seas do haunt,
Of headless men, of savage cannibals,
The fashions of their lives and governals;

What monstrous cities there erected be,
Cairo, or the city of the Trinity;

Now are they dunghill cocks that have not

seen

The bordering Alps, or else the neighbour Rhine;

And now he plies the news-full Grasshopper,
Of voyages and ventures to inquire.

His land mortgaged, he sea-beat in the way,
Wishes for home a thousand sighs a day;
And now he deems his home-bred fare as leaf
As his parch'd biscuit, or his barrell'd beef.
'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,
O, let me lead an academic life;

To know much, and to think for nothing, know
Nothing to have, yet think we have enow;
In skill to want, and wanting seek for more;
In weal nor want, nor wish for greater store.
Envy, ye monarchs, with your proud excess,
At our low sail, and our high happiness.

Bishop Hall, 1600.

251-TO HIS SON, VINCENT CORBET.

What I shall leave thee none can tell,
But all shall say I wish thee well:
I wish thee, Vin, before all wealth,
Both bodily and ghostly health;

Nor too much wealth, nor wit come to thec,
So much of either may undo thee.
I wish thee learning not for show,
Enough for to instruct and know;
Not such as gentlemen require
To prate at table or at fire.

I wish thee all thy mother's graces,
Thy father's fortunes and his places.
I wish thee friends, and one at court
Not to build on, but support;
To keep thee not in doing many
Oppressions, but from suffering any.
I wish thee peace in all thy ways,
Nor lazy nor contentious days;
And, when thy soul and body part,
As innocent as now thou art.

Bishop Corbet, 1647.

252.-JOURNEY INTO FRANCE.

I went from England into France,
Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance,
Nor yet to ride nor fence;
Nor did I go like one of those
That do return with half a nose,
They carried from hence.

But I to Paris rode along,
Much like John Dory in the song,
Upon a holy tide;

I on an ambling nag did jet
(I trust he is not paid for yet),
And spurr'd him on each side.

And to St. Denis fast we came,
To see the sights of Notre Dame
(The man that shows them snaffles),
Where who is apt for to believe,
May see our Lady's right-arm sleeve,
And eke her old pantoffles;

Her breast, her milk, her very gown
That she did wear in Bethlehem town,
When in the inn she lay;

Yet all the world knows that's a fable,
For so good clothes ne'er lay in stable,
Upon a lock of hay.

No carpenter could by his trade
Gain so much coin as to have made
A gown of so rich stuff;

Yet they, poor souls, think for their credit,
That they believe old Joseph did it,

'Cause he deserv'd enough.

There is one of the cross's nails,
Which whoso sees his bonnet vails,
And, if he will, may kneel;
Some say 'twas false, 'twas never so,
Yet, feeling it, thus much I know,
It is as true as steel.

There is a lanthorn which the Jews,
When Judas led them forth, did use,
It weighs my weight down right;
But to believe it, you must think
The Jews did put a candle in't,
And then 'twas very light.

There's one saint there hath lost his nose,
Another's head, but not his toes,

His elbow and his thumb;

But when that we had seen the rags,
We went to th' inn and took our nags,
And so away did come.

We came to Paris, on the Seine,
'Tis wondrous fair, 'tis nothing clean,
"Tis Europe's greatest town;
How strong it is I need not tell it,
For all the world may easily smell it,
That walk it up and down.

There many strange things are to see,
The palace and great gallery,
The Place Royal doth excel,

The New Bridge, and the statues there,

At Notre Dame St. Q. Pater,

The steeple bears the bell.

For learning the University,
And for old clothes the Frippery,
The house the queen did build.
St. Innocence, whose earth devours
Dead corps in four and twenty hours,
And there the king was kill'd.

The Bastile and St. Denis street,

The Shafflenist like London Fleet,
The Arsenal no toy;

But if you'll see the prettiest thing,
Go to the court and see the king,

O, 'tis a hopeful boy!

12条

He is, of all his dukes and peers,
Reverenc'd for much wit at 's years,
Nor must you think it much;
For he with little switch doth play,
And make fine dirty pies of clay,
O, never king made such!

A bird that can but kill a fly,
Or prate, doth please his majesty,
'Tis known to every one;

The Duke of Guise gave him a parrot,
And he had twenty cannons for it,
For his new galleón.

O that I e'er might have the hap
To get the bird which in the map

Is call'd the Indian ruck!

I'd give it him, and hope to be
As rich as Guise or Liviné,
Or else I had ill-luck.

Birds round about his chamber stand,
And he them feeds with his own hand,
'Tis his humility;

And if they do want anything,

They need but whistle for their king,
And he comes presently.

But now, then, for these parts he must
Be enstiled Lewis the Just,
Great Henry's lawful heir;
When to his stile to add more words,
They'd better call him King of Birds,
Than of the great Navarre.

He hath besides a pretty quirk,
Taught him by nature, how to work
In iron with much ease!
Sometimes to the forge he goes,
There he knocks, and there he blows,
And makes both locks and keys;

Which puts a doubt in every one,
Whether he be Mars or Vulcan's son,
Some few believe his mother;
But let them all say what they will,
I came resolved, and so think still,
As much th' one as th' other.

The people too dislike the youth,
Alleging reasons, for, in truth,
Mothers should honour'd be;
Yet others say, he loves her rather
As well as ere she loved his father,
And that's notoriously-

His queen, a pretty little wench,

Was born in Spain, speaks little French,
She's ne'er like to be mother;
For her incestuous house could not
Have children which were not begot
By uncle or by brother.

Nor why should Lewis, being so just,
Content himself to take his lust
With his Lucina's mate,

And suffer his little pretty queen,
From all her race that yet hath been,
So to degenerate?

"Twere charity for to be known
To love others' children as his own.
And why? it is no shame,
Unless that he would greater be
Than was his father Henery,
Who, men thought, did the same.
Bishop Corbet, 1647.

253.-FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES.

Farewell rewards and fairies,
Good housewifes now may say,

For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.

And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do;
Yet who of late, for cleanliness,
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,

The fairies' lost command;

They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land;
And all your children sprung from thenco
Are now grown Puritans;
Who live as changelings ever since,

For love of your domains.

At morning and at evening both,
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had;
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late Elizabeth,
And later, James came in,
They never danc'd on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave-Maries,

Their dances were procession:
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,

Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punish'd sure;
It was a just and Christian deed,
To pinch such black and blue :
O how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!

Bishop Corbet, 1617.

254.—S ON G.

Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which, like growing fountains, rise,

To drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks;
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shore of discontent.
Then clear those waterish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain;
Lest the clouds which settle there,
Prolong my winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow for thy sake.
Bishop King.-About 1649.

255. SIC VITA.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past-and man forgot.
Bishop King. About 1649.

256.-LIFE.

What is the existence of man's life
But open war or slumber'd strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements,
And never feels a perfect peace

Till death's cold hand signs his release.
It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood:
And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind.
Which beats the bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep,
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enroll'd.
It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralised in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wand'ring as his fancies are,
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.
It is a dial-which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

I have bowed, I have bended,
And all in hope

One day to be befriended;

I have preach'd, I have printed,
Whate'er I hinted,

To please our English Pope;
I worship'd towards the East
But the sun doth now forsake mo;
I find that I am falling,

The northern winds do shake me.
Would I had been upright,
For bowing now will break me.
Alas! poor, &c.

At great preferment I aim'd,
Witness my silk,

But now my hopes are maim'd.

I looked lately

To live most stately,

*

And have a dairy of bell-rope's milk;
But now, alas!

Myself I must flatter,

Bigamy of steeples is a laughing matter

Each man must have but one,
And curates will grow fatter.

Alas! poor, &c.

Into some country village
Now I must go,

Where neither tithe nor tillage
The greedy patron,

And parched matron,

Swear to the church they owe:
Yet if I can preach,

And pray too on a sudden,
And confute the Pope

At adventure without studying,
Then ten pounds a year,
Besides a Sunday pudding.
Alas! poor, &c.