COU won not verses, madam, you won me,
When you would play so nobly, and so free,
A book to a few lines! but it was fit
You won them too, your odds did merit it.
So have you gained a Servant and a Muse:
The first of which I fear you will refuse,
And you may justly; being a tardy, cold,
Unprofitable chattel, fat and old,
Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach
His friends, but to break chairs, or crack a coach.
His weight is twenty stone within two pound;
And that's made up, as doth the purse abound.1
Marry, the Muse is one can tread the air,
And stroke the water, nimble, chaste and fair;
Sleep in a virgin's bosom without fear,
Run all the rounds in a soft lady's ear,
Widow or wife, without the jealousy
Of either suitor, or a servant by.
Such, if her manners like you, I do send :
And can for other graces her commend,
To make you merry on the dressing-stool
A mornings, and at afternoons to fool
Away ill company, and help in rhyme.
Your Joan to pass her melancholy time.
By this, although you fancy not the man,
Accept his muse; and tell, I know you can,
How many verses, madam, are your due!
I can lose none in tendering these to you.
1 And that's made up, &c.] Is this too a hint ?—If so, it must have sorely puzzled the lady, unless she had previously seen the Epistle to master Squib.
I gain in having leave to keep my day,
And should grow rich, had I much more to pay,
TO MASTER JOHN BURGES.
ATHER John Burges,
Necessity urges
My woeful cry
To Sir Robert Pie :2
And that he will venture
To send my debenture.
Tell him his Ben
Knew the time, when
He loved the Muses;
Though now he refuses,
To take apprehension
Of a year's pension,
And more is behind :
Put him in mind
Christmas is near;
And neither good cheer,
Mirth, fooling, nor wit,
Nor any least fit
Of gambol or sport
Will come at the court;
If there be no money,
No plover or coney
To sir Robert Pie.] Sir Robert Pie was appointed to the Exchequer about 1618, upon the resignation of sir John Bingley, who was implicated in a charge of peculation with the lord treasurer, the earl of Suffolk. Sir Robert was a retainer of Buckingham's, to whose interest he owed his promotion. He was the ancestor of the late laureat, under whose hands the family estate vanished. Mr. Pye had probably raised his woeful cry to the treasurer of the day as loudly as Jonson, for he was equally clamorous and necessitous. Such are the mutations of time!
Will come to the table,
Or wine to enable
The muse, or the poet,
The parish will know it.
Nor any quick warming-pan help him to bed;
If the 'Chequer be empty, so will be his head.
HOU, friend, wilt hear all censures; unto thee
All mouths are open, and all stomachs free:
Be thou my book's intelligencer, note
What each man says of it, and of what coat
His judgment is; if he be wise, and praise,
Thank him; if other, he can give no bays.
If his wit reach no higher, but to spring
Thy wife a fit of laughter; a cramp-ring
Will be reward enough; to wear like those,
That hang their richest jewels in their nose:
Like a rung bear or swine; grunting out wit
As if that part lay for a 3 most fit!
If they go on, and that thou lov'st a-life
Their perfumed judgments, let them kiss thy wife.
3 A word has been dropt in the folio, and I cannot re-instate it.
ON HENRY LORD LA-WARE.*
F, Passenger, thou canst but read,
Stay, drop a tear for him that's dead :
Henry, the brave young lord La-ware,
Minerva's and the Muses' care!
What could their care do 'gainst the spite
Of a disease, that lov'd no light
Of honour, nor no air of good;
But crept like darkness through his blood,
Offended with the dazzling flame
Of virtue, got above his name?
No noble furniture of parts,
No love of action and high arts ;
No aim at glory, or in war,
Ambition to become a star,
Could stop the malice of this ill,
That spread his body o'er to kill :
And only his great soul envièd,
Because it durst have noblier died.
The son of Thomas, lord De-la-ware, the first settler of the colony of Virginia, of which he was appointed captain-general by James I. in 1609. Henry succeeded him as fourth lord De-laware, in 1618, and died in 1628, the date of this Epitaph, at the early age of 25. He was a young man of great promise.
TO THE LORD-KEEPER.
HAT you have seen the pride, beheld the sport,
And all the games of fortune, play'd at Court,
View'd there the market, read the wretched
At which there are would sell the prince and state :
That scarce you hear a public voice alive,
But whisper'd counsels, and those only thrive;
Yet are got off thence, with clear mind and hands
To lift to heaven, who is't not understands
Your happiness, and doth not speak you blest,
To see you set apart thus from the rest,
T'obtain of God what all the land should ask?
A nation's sin got pardon'd! 'twere a task
Fit for a bishop's knees! O bow them oft,
My lord, till felt grief make our stone hearts soft,
And we do weep to water for our sin.—
He, that in such a flood as we are in,
Of riot and consumption, knows the way,
To teach the people how to fast and pray,
And do their penance to avert the rod,
He is the Man, and favourite, of God.
5 This is not inscribed to any one in the folio; but was evidently addressed to the lord-keeper Williams, bishop of Lincoln. It was probably written in 1625, when the chancellorship was transferred from him to sir Thomas Coventry.
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