Petrarch's SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS, PARAPHRASTICALLY TRANSLATED: With other Philosophical POEMS, and a HYMN to Christ upon the Crosse.  
Written by GEORGE CHAPMAN.  Arri. Epict. 

Progressus sum in medium, & pacem  
Omnibus hominibus proclamo.   

At mihi quod vivo detraxerit invida turba,  
Post obitum duplici foenore reddet honos.   
LONDON, Imprinted for MATTHEW SELMAN, dwelling in Fleetstreet near Chancery lane. 1612.   

TO THE RIGHT WORTHILY HONOURED, grave, and ingenuous Favourer of all virtue, Sir Edw. Phillip's Knight, Master of the Rolls, etc.  
SIR, though the name of a Poem bears too light and vain a Character in his forehead, either to answer my most affectionate desire to do you honour, or deserve your acceptance; yet since the subject & matter is grave and sacred enough, (how rudely soever I have endeavoured to give it grace and elocution,) I presumed to prefer to your emptiest leisure of reading, this poor Dedication. In the substance and soul of whose human and divine object, the most wise and religious that ever writ to these purposes, I have (for so much as this little contains) imitated, and celebrated. Good life, and the true feeling of our human birth and Being, being the end of it all: and (as I doubt not your judicial and noble apprehension will confess) the chief end of whatsoever else, in all authority and principality. Notwithstanding (either for the slenderness of the volume, or harshness of the matter) I have not dared to submit it (as the rest of my weak labours) to my most gracious and sacred Patron, the Prince; reserving my thrice humble duty to his Highness, for some much greater labours, to which it hath pleased him to command me. And thus most truly thankful for all your right free and honourable favours, I humbly and ever rest  
The most unfeigned and constant observer of you and yours, Geo. Chapman.   

Petrarch's SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS.  

PSALM I. Heu mihi Misero.  

1.  
O Me wretch, I have enraged  
My Redeemer; and engaged  
My life, on deaths slow foot presuming:  
I have broke his blessed laws,  
Turning with accursed cause,  
Saving love to wrath consuming.   

2.  
Truth's strait way, my will forsook,  
And to wretched by-ways took,  
Brode, rough, steep, and full of danger.  
Every way, I labour found,  
Anguish, and delight unsound,  
To my journeys end a stranger.   

3.  
Rocks past fowls wings, took my fligh●●,  
All my days spent; all my nights;  
Toils and straits though still repelling.  
One or other beast I met,  
Shunning that for which I sweat;  
Wild beasts dens were yet my dwelling.   

4.  
Pleasure, that all pain suborns  
Making beds of ease, on thorns,  
Made me found with ruin sleeping.  
Rest, in Torments arms I sought,  
All good talked, but all ill thought,  
Laughed, at what deserved my weeping.   

5.  
What is now then left to do?  
What course can I turn me to?  
Danger, such v●icap't toils pitching.  
All my youths fair gloss is gone,  
Like a shipwreck each way blown,  
Yet his pleasures still bewitching.   

6.  
I delay my Haven to make;  
Nor yet safeties true way take;  
On her left hand ever erring:  
I a little see my course,  
Which in me, the war makes worse,  
Th'use of that small sight deferring.   

7.  
Oft I have attempted flight,  
Th'old yoke casting, but his weight  
Thou Nature to my bones impliest.  
O that once my neck were eased,  
Strait it were; were thy power pleased,  
O, of all things high, thou highest.   

8.  
O could I my sin so hate,  
I might love thee yet, though late;  
But my hope of that is starved;  
Since mine own hands make my chains:  
Just, most just, I grant my pains;  
Labour wrings me most deserved.   

9  
Mad wretch, how dear have I bought  
Fetters with mine own hands wrought?  
Freely in death's ambush falling.  
I made; and the foe disposed  
Nets that never will be loosed.  
More I strive, the more enthralling:   

10.  
I looked by, and went secure  
In paths slippery, and impure;  
In myself, my sin still flattering.  
I thought youth's flower still would thrive,  
Followed as his storm did drive,  
With it, all his hemlocks watering:   

11.  
Said; what think I of th'extremes  
E'er the Mean hath spent his beams?  
Each Age hath his proper ob●ect.  
God sees this, and laughs to see.  
Pardon soon is go● My knee  
When I will repent, is subject.   

12.  
Custom then his slave doth claim,  
Lays on hands, that touch and maim;  
Never coured, repented never:  
Flight is then, as vain, as late;  
Faith too weak, to cast out Fate,  
Refuge past my reach is ever.   

13.  
I shall perish then in sin,  
If thy aid Lord, makes not in,  
Mending what doth thus deprave me;  
Mind thy word then, Lord, and le●d  
Thy work thy hand, crown my end.  
From the jaws of Satan save me.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son as great as he:  
With the coequal sacred Spirit;  
Who all beginnings were before,  
Are, and shall be evermore.  
Glory, all glory to their merit.    

PSALM II. Inuocabo quem offendi.  

1.  
I Will invoke whom I inflamed;  
Nor will approach, his fiery throne in fear;  
I will recall, nor be ashamed  
Whom I cast off, and pierce again his ear.  
Hope, quite even lost, I will restore,  
And dare again to look on heaven;  
The more I fall, invoke the more;  
Prayer once will speed, where ●are is ever given.   

2.  
In heaven my dear Redeemer dwells,  
His ear yet let down to our lowest sounds;  
His hand can reach the deepest hells;  
His hand holds balms for all our oldest wounds.  
ay, in myself, do often die;  
But in him, I as oft revive;  
My health shines ever in his eye;  
That heals in hell, and keeps even death alive.   

3.  
Fear all, that would put fear on me;  
My sin most great is, but much more his grace:  
Though ill for worse still altered be:  
And I in me, my eagrest foe embrace:  
Yet Truth in this hath ever stood,  
The blackest spots my sins let fall,  
One drop of his most precious blood;  
Can cleanse and turn, to purest luorie all.   

4.  
Strike, Lord, and break the rocks that grow  
In these red seas of thy offence in me:  
And cleansing fountains thence shall flow,  
Though of the hardest Adamant they be.  
As clear as silver, seas shall roar,  
Descending to that noisome sink,  
Where every hour hell's horrid Boar  
Lies plunged, and drowned, & doth his vomits drink.   

5.  
Race, Lord, my sins inveterate scars,  
And take thy newbuilt Mansion up in me:  
Though power fails, see my wills sharp wars,  
And let me please even while I anger thee.  
Let the remembrance of my sin,  
With sighs all night ascend thine ear:  
And when the morning light breaks in,  
Let health be seen, and all my skies be clear.   

6.  
Thus though I temper joys with cares.  
Yet keep thy mercies constant, as my crimes:  
I'll cherish, with my faith, my prayers,  
And look still sighing up for better times.  
Myself I evermore will fear,  
But thee, my rest, my hope, still keep:  
Thy darkest clouds, thy lightnings clear,  
Thy thunder's rock me, that break others sleep.   

7.  
My purgatory O Lord make  
My bridal chamber, wedded to thy will:  
And let my couch still witness take,  
In tears still steeped, that I adore thee still.  
My body I'll make pay thee pains,  
Hell jaws shall never need to open.  
Though all loves fail, thine ever raign●●,  
Thou art my refuge, last, and only hope.   

All glory to the Father, etc.    

PSALM III. Miserere Domine.  

1.  
STay now, O Lord, my bleeding woes,  
The vein grows low and dry▪  
O now enough, and too much flows,  
My sin is swollen too high.   

2.  
What rests for the abhorred event?  
Time wastes, but not my woe:  
Woes me, poor man, my life is spent  
In ask what to do.   

3.  
Pale Death stands fixed before mine eyes,  
My grave gaps, and my knell  
Rings out in my cold ears the cries  
and gnashed teerh of hell.   

4.  
How long shall this day mock my hope,  
With what the next will be?  
When shall I once begin to open,  
My locked up way to thee?   

5.  
Ease Lord, my still-increasing smart,  
Salve not, but cure my wounds:  
Direct the counsels of my heart,  
And give my labours bounds.   

6.  
As in me, thou hast skill infused,  
So will, and action breath:  
Lest chidden for thy gifts abused,  
I weep and pine to death.   

7.  
See, bound beneath the foe I lie,  
Rapt to his blasted shore:  
O claim thy right, nor let me die,  
Let him insult no more.   

8.  
Tell all the ransom I must give,  
Out of my hourly pains:  
See how from all the world I live,  
To give grief all the rains.   

9  
What is behind, in this life ask,  
And in these members sums:  
Before the never ending task,  
And bedrid beggary comes.   

10.  
Show me thy way, ere thy chief light  
Down to the Ocean dives:  
O now 'tis evening, and the night,  
Is chiefly friend to thieves.   

11.  
Compel me, if thy Call shall fail,  
To make thy strait way, mine:  
In any scorned state let me wail,  
So my poor soul be thine.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son as great as he,  
With the coequal sacred Spirit:  
Who all beginnings were before,  
Are, and shall be evermore.  
Glory, all glory to their merit.    

PSALM FOUR Recordari libet.  

1.  
ONce let me serve, Lord, my desire,  
Thy gifts to me recounting, and their prize,  
That shame may set my cheeks on fire,  
And just confusion tear in tears mine eyes.  
Since quite forgetting what I am,  
Adorned so Godlike with thy grace,  
I yet neglect to praise thy name,  
And make thy image in me, poor and base.   

2.  
Thou hast created, even for me,  
The stars, all heaven, and all the turns of time;  
For of what use are these to thee,  
Though every one distinguished by his clime?  
Thou Sun and Moon, thou Nights and Days,  
Thou Light and Darkness hast disposed:  
Wrapped earth in waters nimble ways,  
Her vales, hills, plains, with founts, floods, seas enclosed   

3.  
Her rich womb thou hast fruitful made,  
With choice of seeds, that all ways varied are:  
And every way, our eyes invade  
With forms and graces, in being common, rare.  
In sweet green herbs thou clothest her fields,  
Distinguishest her hills with flowers.  
Her woods thou mak'st her meadows shields,  
Adorned with branches, leaves, and odorous bowers.   

4.  
The weary thou hast rest prepared,  
The hot refreshest with cool shades of trees,  
Which streams melodious enterlared,  
For sweet retreats, that none but thy eye sees:  
The thirsty, thou giv'st silver springs;  
The hungry, berries of all kinds;  
Herbs wholesome, and a world of things,  
To nurse our bodies, and inform our mind●.   

5.  
Now let me cast mine eye, and see  
With what choice creatures, strangely formed and fair,  
All seas, and lands, are filled by thee:  
And all the round spread tracts of yielding air.  
Whose names or numbers who can reach?  
With all earth's power, yet in thy span:  
All which, thy boundless bounties preach,  
All laid, O glory! at the foot of man.   

6.  
Whose body, past all creatures shines,  
Such wondrous orders of his parts thou mak'st,  
Whose countenance, state, and love combines:  
In him unmoved, when all the world thou shak'st.  
Whose soul thou giv'st power, even of thee,  
Ordaining it to leave the earth,  
All heaven, in her discourse to see,  
And note how great a womb, went to her birth.   

7.  
Vnnumberd arts thou add'st in him,  
To make his life more quaint and more exact:  
His eye, eternesse cannot dim.  
Whose state he mounts to, with a mind infract:  
Thou show'st him all the milk-white way,  
Op'st all thy Tabernacles do●es.  
Learnest how to praise thee how to pray,  
To shun, and choose, what likes and what abhors.   

8.  
To keep him in which hallowed path,  
As his companions, and perpetual guides,  
Prayer thou ordainst, thy word and faith,  
And love, that all his soul offences hides.  
And to each step his foot● shall take,  
Thy covenants stand like walls of brass,  
Which, from thy watch tower, good to make,  
Thou add'st thine eye for his securer pass.   

9  
All this dear (Lord) I apprehend,  
Thy Spirit even partially inspiring me:  
Which to consort me to my end,  
With endless thanks, I'll strew my way to thee.  
Confessing falling, thou hast stayed:  
Confirmed me fainting, prostrate raised,  
With comforts rapt me, quite dismayed,  
And dead, hast quickened me, to see thee praised.   

All glory to the Father b●,  
And to the Son, etc.    

PSALM V. Noctes mea in moerore transeunt.  

1.  
YEt, Lord, unquiet sin is stirring,  
My long nights, longer grow, like evening shades:  
In which woe lost, is all ways erring:  
And varied terror every step invades.  
Ways made in tears, shut as they open,  
My loadstar I can no way see:  
Lame is my faith, blind love and hope,  
And, Lord, 'tis passing ill with me.   

2.  
My sleep, like glass, in dreams is broken,  
No quiet yielding, but affright and care,  
Signs that my poor life is forspoken:  
Lord, courbe the ill, and good in place prepare.  
No more delay my spent desire,  
'tis now full time, for thee to hear:  
Thy love hath set my soul on fire,  
My heart quite broke twixt hope and fear.   

3.  
No outward light, my life hath graced,  
My mind hath ever been my only Sun:  
And that so far hath envy chased,  
That all in clouds her hated head is run.  
And while she hides, immortal cares  
Consume the soul, that sense inspires:  
Since outward she sets eyes and ears,  
And other joys spend her desires.   

4.  
She musters both without and in me,  
Troubles, and tumults: she's my household thief,  
Opens all my doors to lust, and envy,  
And all my persecutors lends relief.  
Bind her, Lord, and my true soul free,  
Prefer the gift thy hand hath given:  
Thy image in her, crown in me,  
And make us here free, as in heaven.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son, etc.    

PSALM VI Circumuallarunt me inimici.  

1.  
MY foes have girt me in with arms,  
And earthquakes tossed up all my joints,  
No flesh can answer their alarms,  
Each spear they manage hath so many points.   

2.  
Death, armed in all his horrors, leads:  
Whom more I charge, the less he yields:  
Affections, with an hundred heads,  
Conspire with them, & turn on me their shields   

3.  
Nor look I yet, Lord, to the East,  
Nor hope for help, where I am willed:  
Nor, as I ought, have armed my breast;  
But rust in sloth, and naked come to field.   

4.  
And therefore hath the host of stars  
Now left me, that before I led:  
Armed Angels took my pay in wars,  
Fron whose height fallen, all leave me here for dead.   

5.  
In falling, I discerned how sleight,  
My footing was on those blessed towers.  
I looked to earth, and her base height,  
And so lost heaven, and all his aidful powers.   

6.  
Now, broke on earth, my body lies,  
Where thieves insult on my sad fall:  
Spoil me of many a dainty prize,  
That far I fetched, t'enrich my soul withal.   

7.  
Nor cease they, but deform me too,  
With wounds that make me all engored:  
And in the desert, leave me so,  
Half dead, all naked, and of all abhorred.   

8.  
My head, and bosom, they transfixed,  
But in my torn affections raged:  
Wounds there, with blood, and matter mixed,  
Corrupt and leave my very soul engaged.   

9  
There, Lord, my life doth most misgive,  
There quickly thy white hand bestow:  
Thou liv'st, and in thee I may live.  
Thy fount of life doth ever overflow.   

10.  
All this from heaven, thy eyes explore,  
Yet silent sit'st, and sufferest all:  
Since all I well deserve, and more;  
And must confess me, wilful in my fall:   

11.  
And hence 'tis, that thou lettest me bleed,  
Mak'st all men shun, and scorn my life:  
That all my works such envy breed,  
And my disgrace gives food to all men's strife.   

12.  
But this, since Goodness oft doth cause,  
And 'tis Goods grace to hear his ill:  
Since 'tis a chief point in his laws,  
No thought, without our power, to make our wil   

13.  
Still let the green seas of their gall,  
Against this rock with rage be borne:  
And from their height, still let me fall:  
Them, stand and laugh, & me lie still and scorn.   

14.  
But, Lord, my fall from thee, o raise,  
And give my fainting life thy breath:  
Sound keep me ever in thy ways,  
Thou mighty art, and setst down laws to death.   

15.  
Drive thou from this my ruins rape,  
These thieves, that make thy Fane their den:  
And let my innocence escape  
The cunning malice of ungodly men.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son as great as he:  
With the coequal sacred Spirit:  
Who all beginnings were before,  
Are, and shall be evermore.  
Glory, all glory to their merit.    

PSALM VII. Cogitabam stare.  

1.  
WHile I was fallen, I thought to rise,  
And stand, presuming on my thighs:  
But thighs, and knees, were too much broken.  
My hair stood up to see such bane  
Depress presumption so profane:  
I tremble but to hear it spoken.   

2.  
Yet in my strength, my hope was such,  
Since I conceived, thou vow'dst as much:  
I feigned dreams, and rejoiced to feign them:  
But weighing awake, thy vows profound,  
Their depth, my lead came short to sound:  
And now, ay me, my tears contain them.   

3.  
For calms, I into storms did steer,  
And looked through clouds, to see things clear,  
Thy ways show'd crooked, like spears in water;  
When mine went traverse, and no Snake  
Could wind with that course, I did take:  
No Courtier could so grossly flatter.   

4.  
But which way I soever bend,  
Thou meetest me ever in the end:  
Thy finger strikes my joints with terrors;  
Yet no more strikes, then points the way:  
Which, weighing weeping, strait I stay,  
And with my tears cleanse feet and errors.   

5.  
But of myself, when I believe  
To make my steps, thy ways achieve,  
I turn head, and am treading mazes▪  
I feel sins ambush; and am ●ext  
To be in error so perplexed,  
Nor yet can find rests holy places.   

6.  
I loathe myself, and all my deeds,  
Like Rhubarb taste, or Colche in weed●:  
I fly them, with their throws upon me.  
In each new purpose, customs old,  
So check it, that the stone I rolled  
Never so oft, again falls on me.   

7.  
No step in man's trust should be trod,  
Unless in man's, as his in God:  
Of which trust, make good life the founder:  
Without which, trust no form, nor art;  
Faiths lodestar is a guiltless heart;  
Good life is truths most learned expounder.   

8.  
With which, Lord, ever rule my skill;  
In which, as I join power with will,  
So let me trust, my truth in learning,  
To such minds, thou all truth setst ope●  
The rest are rapt with storms past hopes  
The less, for more deep arts discerning.   

9  
Bless, Lord, who thus their arts employ,  
Their sure truth, celebrate with joy,  
And tear the masks from others faces;  
That make thy Name, a cloak for sin;  
Learning but terms to jangle in,  
And so disgrace thy best of Graces.   

10.  
Whereof since I have only this,  
That learns me what thy true will is,  
Which thou, in comforts still concludest;  
My poor Muse still shall sit, and sing,  
In that sweet shadow of thy wing,  
Which thou to all earth's state obtrudest.   

11.  
As oft as I my frail foot move,  
From this pure fortress of thy love:  
So oft let my glad foes deride me.  
I know my weakness yet, and fear,  
By trial, to build comforts there,  
It doth so like a ruin hide me.   

12.  
My worth is all, but shade, I find,  
And like a fume, before the wind;  
I gasp with sloth, thy ways applying:  
Lie tumbling in corrupted blood;  
Love only, but can do no good:  
Help, Lord, lest I amend not dying.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son as great as he,  
With the coequal sacred Spirit:  
Who all beginnings were before:  
Are, and shall be evermore.  
Glory, all glory to their merit.   
The end of Petrarch's seven Penitential Psalms.    

THE I. PSALM more strictly translated.  

1.  
O Me accursed, since I have set on me  
(Incensed so sternly) my so meek Redeemer;  
And have been proud in prides supreme degree;  
Of his so serious law, a sleight esteemer.   

2.  
I left the narrow right way with my will,  
In by-ways broad, and far about transferred:  
And every way found toil, and every ill,  
Yet still in tracts more rough, and steep I erred.   

3.  
Where one or other of the brutish heard  
My feet encountered, yet more brute affected:  
Even to the dens of savage beasts I erred,  
And there my manless mansion house erected.   

4.  
I haunted pleasure still, where sorrow mourned,  
My couch of ease, in sharpest brambles making:  
I hoped for rest, where restless torment burnt,  
In ruins bosom, sleeps securely taking.   

5.  
Now then, ay me, what resteth to be done,  
Where shall I turn me, where such dangers tremble?  
My youths fair flowers, are altogether gone,  
And now a wretched shipwreck I resemble.   

6.  
That (all the merchandise, and venture lost,)  
Swims naked forth, with seas and tempests tossed.   

7.  
far from my haven, I rove, touch at no stream  
That any course to my salvation tenders:  
But ways sinister, ravish me with them:  
I see a little; which more grievous renders   

8.  
My inward conflict; since my charges pass  
Upon myself; and my sad soul endanger:  
Anger with sin strives; but so huge a mass  
Of cruel miseries oppress mine anger,   

9  
That it confounds me, nor leaves place for breath.  
Oft I attempt to fly, and meditation  
Contends to shake off my old yoke of death,  
But to my bones cleaves the uncured vexation.   

10.  
O that at length, my neck his yoke could clear,  
Which would be strait, wouldst thou o highest will it:  
O that so angry with my sin I were,  
That I could love thee, though thus late fulfil it.   

11.  
But much I fear it, since my freedom is  
So with mine own hands out of heart, & starved:  
And I must yield, my torment just in this,  
Sorrow, and labour, wring me most deserved.   

12.  
Mad wretch, what have I to myself procured?  
Mine own hands forged, the chains I have endured.   

13.  
In death's black ambush, with my will I fell,  
And wheresoever vulgar broad ways train me:  
Nets are disposed for me, by him of hell.  
When more retired, more narrow paths contain me.   

14.  
There meet my feet with fitted snares as sure,  
I (wretch look downward, and of one side ever,  
And every slippery way I walk secure,  
My sins forget their traitorous flatteries never.   

15.  
I thought the grace of youth could never err,  
And followed where his boundless force would drive me,  
Said to myself; Why should th'extremes deter,  
Before youth's season, of the mean deprive me?   

16.  
Each age is bounded in his proper ends;  
God, I know, sees this, but he laughs and sees it:  
Pardon, at any time, on prayer attends;  
Repentance still weeps when thy wish decrees it.   

17.  
Then vilest custom challengeth his slave,  
And lays on hand, that all defence denies me;  
And then no place reserved for flight I have:  
Subdued I am, and far my refuge flies me.   

17.  
Die'in my sin I shall, unless my aid  
Stoops from aloft, of which deserts deprive me.  
Yet have thou mercy, Lord, help one dismayed,  
Thy word retain, & from hell mo●●h retrieve me.   

All glory to the Father be,  
And to the Son as great as he▪  
With the coequal sacred Spirit;  
Who all beginnings were before,  
Are, and shall be evermore.  
Glory, all glory to their merit.    

A HYMN TO OUR Saviour on the Crosse.  

Hail great Redeemer, man, and God, all hail,  
Whose fervent agony, tore the temples vail,  
Let sacrifices out, dark Prophecies  
And miracles: and let in, for all these,  

* Simplicity of piety, and good life, answerable to such doctrine in men; now as rare as miracles in other times: and require as much divinity of supportation.  A simple piety, a naked heart,  
And humble spirit, that no less impart,  
And prove thy Godhead to us, being as rare,  
And in all sacred power, as circular.  
Water and blood mixed, were not sweat from thee  
With deadlier hardness: more divinity  
Of supportation, then through flesh and blood,  
Good doctrine is diffused, and life as good.  
O open to me then, (like thy spread arms  
That East & West reach) all those mystic charms  
That hold us in thy life and discipline:  
Thy merits in thy love so thrice divine;  
It made thee, being our God, assume our man;  
And like our Champion Olympian,  
Come to the field 'gainst Satan, and our sin:  
Wrestle with torments, and the garland win  
From death & hell; which cannot crown our brows  

1 As our saviours brows bled with his crown of thorns.  But blood must follow: thorns mix which thy bows  
Of conquering ●aw●ell, fast nailed to thy Cross,  
Are all the glories we can here engross.  
Prove then to those, that in vain glories place  
Their happiness here: thy hold not by thy grace,  
To those whose powers, proudly oppose thy laws,  
Oppressing Virtue, giving Vice applause:  
They never manage just authority,  
But thee in thy dear members crucify.  
Thou couldst have come in glory past them all,  
With power to force thy pleasure, and impale  
Thy Church with brass, & Adamant, that no swine,  
Nor thieves, nor hypocrites, nor fiends 
2 Such as are Divines in profession; and in fact, devils, or Wolves in sheeps clothing  divine  
Could have broke in, or rooted, or put on  
Vestments of Piety, when their hearts had none:  
Or rapt to ruin with pretext, to save:  
Would 
3 Pomp and outward glory, rather outface truth then countenance it.  pomp, and radiance, rather not out brave  
Thy naked truth, than cloth, or countenance it  
With grace, and such sincereness as is fit:  
But since true piety wears her pearls within,  
And outward paintings only prank up sin:  
Since bodies strengthened, souls go to the wall;  
Since God we cannot serve and Beliall.  
Therefore thou putst on, earth's most abject plight,  
Hidest thee in humblesse, underwentst despite,  
Mockery, detraction, shame, blows, vilest death.  
These, thou, thy 
4 Christ taught all his militant soldiers to fight under the ensigns of Shame and Death.  soldiers taughtst to fight beneath:  
Mad'st a commanding Precedent of these,  
Perfect, perpetual: bearing all the keys  
To holiness, and heaven. To these, such laws  
Thou in thy blood writ'st: that were no more cause  

5 We need no other excitation to our faith in God, and good life, but the Scriptures, and use of their means prescribed.  T'inflame our loves, and fervent faiths in thee,  
Then in them, truths divine simplicity,  
'twere full enough; for therein we may well  
See thy white finger furrowing blackest hell,  
In turning up the errors that our sense  
And sensual powers, incur by negligence  
Of our eternal truth-exploring soul.  
All Churches powers, thy writ word doth control;  
And, mixed it with the fabulous Koran,  
A man might boult it out, as flower from bran;  
Easily discerning it, a heavenly birth,  
Broke it but now out, and but crept on earth.  
Yet (as if God lacked man's election,  
And shadows were creators of the Sun)  
Men must authorize it: antiquities  
Must be explored, to spirit, and give it thighs,  
And 
6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. In these controversies men make the By the Main: the Main the By.  controversies, thick as flies at Spring,  
Must be maintained about th'ingenuous meaning;  
When no style can express itself so clear,  
Nor holds so even, and firm a character.  
Those mysteries that are not to be reached,  
Still to be strived with, make them more impeached:  

* Simile.  And as the Mill fares with an ill picked grist,  
When any stone, the stones is got betwist,  
Rumbling together, fill the grain with grit;  
Offends the ear, sets teeth an edge with it:  
blunt's the picked quarry so, 'twill grind no more,  
Spoils bread, and scants the Miller's customed store.  
So in the Church, when controversy falls,  
It mars her music, shakes her battered walls,  
Grates tender consciences, and weakens faith;  
The bread of life taints, & makes work for Death;  
Darkens truths light, with her perplexed Abysmes,  
And dustlike grinds men into sects and schisms.  
And what's the cause? the words deficiency?  
In volume, matter, perspicutitie?  
Ambition, lust, and damned avarice,  
Pervert, and each the sacred word applies  
To his profane ends; all to profit given,  

7 Men seek heaven, with using the enemies to it; Money and Avarice.  And pu●snets lay to catch the joys of heaven.  
Since truth, and real worth, men seldom seize,  
Impostors most, and slightest learnings please:  
And, where the true Church, like the nest should be  
Of chaste, and provident 
8 Alciones' nest described in part, out of Plut. to which the Church is compared.  Alcione:  
(To which is only one strait orifice,  
Which is so strictly fitted to her size,  

9 If the bird be less, the sea will get in; by which means though she may get in, she could not preserve it.  That no bird bigger than herself, or less,  
Can pierce and keep it, or discern th'access:  
Nor which the sea itself, on which 'tis made,  
Can ever overflow, or once invade.  

1 Altars of the Church for her holiest place● understood.  Now ways so many to her Altars are,  
So easy, so profane, and populare:  
That torrents charged with weeds, and sin-drowned beasts,  
Break in, load, crack them: sensual joys and feasts  
Corrupt their pure fumes: and the slenderest flash  
Of lust, or profit, makes a standing plash  
Of sin about them, which men will not pass.  
Look (Lord) upon them, build them walls of brass,  
To keep profane feet off: do not thou  
In wounds and anguish ever overflow,  
And suffer such in ease, and sensuality,  
Dare to reject thy rules of humble life:  
The minds true peace, & turn their zeals to strife,  
For objects earthly, and corporeal.  
A trick of humblesse now they practise all,  
Confess their no deserts, abilities none:  
Profess all frailties, and amend not one:  
As if a privilege they meant to claim  
In sinning by acknowledging the maim  
Sin gave in Adam: Nor the surplusage  
Of thy redemption, seem to put in gage  
For his transgression: that thy virtuous pains  
(Dear Lord) have eat out all their former stains;  
That thy most mighty innocence had power  
To cleanse their guilts: that the unvalued dower  
Thou mad'st the Church thy spouse, in piety,  
And (to endure pains impious) constancy,  
Will and alacratie (if they invoke)  
To bear the sweet load, and the easy yoke  
Of thy injunctions, in diffusing these  
(In thy perfection) through her faculties:  
In every fiver, suffering to her use,  
And perfecting the form thou didst infuse  

2 Vbi abundavit delictum, superabunda●it gratia. Rom. 5. ver. 20.  In man's creation: made him clear as then  
Of all the frailties, since defiling men.  

3 A simile, to life expressing man's estate, before our Saviour's descension.  And as a runner at th'Olympian games,  
With all the luggage he can lay on, frames  
His whole powers to the race, bags, pockets, greaves  
Stuffed full of sand he wears, which when he leaves,  
And doth his other weighty weeds uncover,  
With which half smothered, he is wrapped all over:  
Then seems he light, and fresh as morning air;  
Girds him with silks, swaddles with roulers fair  
His lightsome body: and away he scours  
So swift, and light, he scarce treads down the flowers:  
So to our game proposed, of endless joy  
(Before thy dear death) when we did employ,  
Our tainted powers; we felt them clogged and chained  
With sin and bondage, which did rust, and reigned  
In our most mortal bodi●●: but when thou  
Strip'dst us of these bands, and from foot to brow  
Girt, ●old, and trimmed us up in thy deserts:  
Free were our feet, and hand●; and sprightly hearts  
Leapt in our bosoms; and (ascribing still  
All to thy merits: both our power and will  
To every thought of goodness, wrought by thee;  

4 Our saviours blood, now and ever, as fresh, and virtuous as in the hour it was shed for us.  That divine scarlet, in which thou didst die  
Our cleansed consistens; lasting still in power  
T'enable acts in us, as the next hour  
To thy most saving, glorious sufferance)  
We may make all our manly powers advance  
Up to thy Image; and these forms of earth,  
Beauties and mockeries, match in beastly birth:  
We may despise, with still aspiring spirits  
To thy high graces, in thy still fresh merits:  
Not ●ouching at this base and spongy mould,  
For ●●y springs of lust, or mines of gold.  
For else (mild Saviour, pardon me to speak)  
How did thy foot, the Serpent's forehead break?  
How hath the Nectar of thy virtuous blood,  
The sink of Adam's forfeit overflowed?  
How doth it set us free, if we still stand  

5 Our Saviour suffered nothing for himself, his own betterness, or comfort: but for us and ours.  (For all thy sufferings) bound both foot and hand  
Vassals to Satan? Didst thou only die,  
Thine own divine deserts to glorify,  
And show thou couldst do this? O were not those  
Given to our use in power? If we shall lose  
By damned relapse, grace to enact that power:  
And basely give up our redemptions tower,  
Before we try our strengths, built all on thine,  

6 It is false humility to lay necessarily (all our saviours grace understood) the victory of our bodies, on our souls.  And with a humblesse, false, and Asinine,  
Flattering our senses, lay upon our souls  
The burdens of their conquests, and like Moules  
Grovel in earth still, being advanced to heaven:  
(Cows that we are) in herds how are we driven  
To Satan's shambles? Wherein stand we for  
Thy heavenly image, Hell's great Conqueror?  
Didst thou not offer, to restore our fall  
Thy sacrifice, full, once, and one for all?  
If we be still down, how then can we rise  
Again with thee, and seek crowns in the skies?  
But we excuse this; saying, We are but men,  
And must err, must fall: what thou didst sustain  
To free our beastly frailties, never can  
With all thy grace, by any power in man  
Make good thy Rise to us: O blasphemy  
In hypocritical humility!  

7 Man i● a living soul. Gen. 2.  As we are men, we death and hell control,  
Since thou createdst man a living soul:  

8 We do not like men when we sin, (for as we are true and worthy men, we are Gods images:) but like brutish creatures, slavishly and wilfully conquered with the powers of flesh.  As every hour we sin, we do like beasts:  
Needless, and wilful, murdering in our breasts  
Thy saved image, out of which, one calls  
Our human souls, mortal celestials:  
When casting off a good life's godlike grace,  
We fall from God; and then make good our place  
When we return to him: and ●o are said  
To live: when life like his true form we lead,  
And die (as much as an immortal creature:)  

1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hier. in Carm. Pythag. Non quod existere de●inat, sed quod vitae praestantia exciderit.  Not that we utterly can cease to be,  
But that we fall from life's best quality.  
But we are tossed out of our human Throne  
By pied and Protean opinion;  
We vouch thee only, for pretext and fashion,  
And are not inward with thy death and passion.  
We slavishly renounce the royalty  
With which thou crown'st us in thy victory:  
Spend all our manhood in the fiends defence,  
And drown thy right, in beastly negligence.  
God never is deceived so, to respect,  
His shade in Angels beauties, to neglect  
His own most clear and rapting loveliness:  
Nor Angels dote so on the species  
And grace given to our soul (which is their shade)  
That therefore they will let their own forms fade.  
And yet our soul (which most deserves our woe,  
And that from which our whole mishap doth flow)  
So softened is, and rapt (as with a storm)  
With flatteries of our base corporeal form,  
(Which is her shadow) that she quite forsakes  
Her proper noblesse, and for nothing takes  
The beauties that for her love, thou putst on;  
In torments rarefied far past the Sun.  
Hence came the cruel fate that Orpheus  
Sings of Narcissus: who being amorous  
Of his shade in the water (which denotes)  
Beauty in bodies, that like water floats)  
Despised himself, his soul, and so let fade,  
His substance for a never-purchast shade.  
Since souls of their use, ignorant are still,  
With this vile bodies use, men never fill.  
And, as the Sun's light, in streams ne'er so fair  
Is but a shadow, to his light in air,  
His splendour that in air we so admire,  

3 Simile.  Is but a shadow to his beams in fire:  
In fire his brightness, but a shadow is  
To radiance fired, in that pure breast of his:  
So as the subject on which thy grace shines,  
Is thick, or clear; to earth or heaven inclines;  
So that truth's light shows; so thy passion takes;  
With which, who inward is, and thy breast makes  
Bulwark to his breast, against all the darts  
The foe st●l shoots more, more his late blow smarts,  
And sealike raves most, where 'tis most withstood.  
He tastes the strength and virtue of thy blood:  
He knows that when flesh is most soothed, & graced,  
Admired and magnified, adored, and placed  
In height of all the bloods Idolatry,  
And fed with all the spirits of Luxury,  
One thought of joy, in any soul that knows  
Her own true strength, and thereon doth repose;  
Bringing her body's organs to attend  
Chiefly her powers, to her eternal end;  
Makes all things outward; and the sweetest sin,  
That ravisheth the beastly flesh within;  
All but a fiend, pranked in an Angel's plume:  
A shade, a fraud, before the wind a fume.  

The minds joy far above the bodies, to those few, whom God hath inspired with the souls true use.  Hail then divine Redeemer, still all ●aile,  
All glory, gratitude, and all avail,  
Be given thy all deserving agony;  
Whose vinegar thou Nectar mak'st in me,  
Whose goodness freely all my ill turns good:  
Since thou being crushed, & strained through flesh & blood:  
Each nerve and artery needs must taste of thee.  
What odour burned in airs that noisome be,  
Leaves not his scent there? O then how much more  
Must thou, whose sweetness sweat eternal odour,  
Stick where it breathed: & for whom thy sweet breath,  
Thou freely gav'st up, to revive his death?  
Let those that shrink then as their conscience loads,  
That fight in Satan's right, and faint in Gods,  
Still count them slaves to Satan. I am none:  
Thy fight hath freed me, thine thou mak'st mine own.   


* Inuocatio.  O then (my sweetest and my only life)  
Confirm this comfort, purchased with thy grief,  
And my despised soul of the world, love thou:  
No thought to any other joy I vow.  
Order these last steps of my abject state,  
strait on the mark a man should level at:  
And grant that while I strive to form in me,  
Thy sacred image, no adversity  
May make me draw one limb, or line amiss:  
Let no vile fashion wrest my faculties  
From what becomes that Image. Quiet so  
My body's powers, that neither weal nor woe,  
May stir one thought up, 'gainst thy freest will.  
Grant, that in me, my minds waves may be still:  
The world for no extreme may use her voice;  
Nor Fortune treading reeds, make any noise.  
Amen.   
Complain not whatsoever Need invades,  
But heaviest fortunes bear as lightest shades.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  

Poems.  

VIRGIL'S EPIGRAM of a good man.  


1 The Sunn● usurp for Apollo; whose Oracle being ask for such a man, ●ound only Socrates.  A Good and wise man (such as hardly one  
Of millions, could be found out by the Sun)  
Is judge himself, of what stuff he is wrought,  
And doth explore his whole man to a thought.  
What ere great men do; what their saucy bawds;  
What vulgar censure barks at, or applauds:  
His carriage still is cheerful and secure;  
He, in himself, worldlike, full, round, and sure.  

2 Externae nequid labis per laevia sidat. This verse Ascensius joins with the next before; which is nothing so; the sense being utterly repugnant, as any impar●●all and judicial conferrer (I suppose) will confirm.  Lest, through his polished parts, the slenderest stain  
Of things without, in him should sit, and reign;  
To whatsoever length, the fiery Sun,  
Burning in Cancer, doth the day light run;  
How fair soever Night shall stretch her shades,  
When Phoebus' gloomy Capricorn invades;  
He studies still; and with the equal beam,  

3 Cogitat, & justo trutinae se examine pensat▪ This verse is likewise mis●yned in the order of Ascenscius, which makes the period to those before.  His balance turns; himself weighs to th'extreme.  
Lest any cranny gasp, or angle swell  
Through his strict form: and that he may compel  
His equal parts to meet in such asphere,  
That with a 
* I here needlessly take a little licence: for the word is Amussis, the mind of the Author being as well expressed in A compass. Sit solidum quodcunqu● subest, nec inania subtus. Subest and subtus Ascens●con found'st in his sense; which the presnesse and matter of this Poem allows not: it being in a Translator sooner and better seen then a Commentor. He would turn digitis pellentibus, to digitis palantibus. To which place, the true order is hard to ●it. And that truth in my conversion (how opposite soever any may stand) with any conference, I make no doubt I shall persuade.  compass tried, it shall not err:  
What 
* I here needlessly take a little licence: for the word is Amussis, the mind of the Author being as well expressed in A compass. Sit solidum quodcunqu● subest, nec inania subtus. Subest and subtus Ascens●con found'st in his sense; which the presnesse and matter of this Poem allows not: it being in a Translator sooner and better seen then a Commentor. He would turn digitis pellentibus, to digitis palantibus. To which place, the true order is hard to ●it. And that truth in my conversion (how opposite soever any may stand) with any conference, I make no doubt I shall persuade.  ever subject is, is solid still:  
Wound him, and with your violent 
* I here needlessly take a little licence: for the word is Amussis, the mind of the Author being as well expressed in A compass. Sit solidum quodcunqu● subest, nec inania subtus. Subest and subtus Ascens●con found'st in his sense; which the presnesse and matter of this Poem allows not: it being in a Translator sooner and better seen then a Commentor. He would turn digitis pellentibus, to digitis palantibus. To which place, the true order is hard to ●it. And that truth in my conversion (how opposite soever any may stand) with any conference, I make no doubt I shall persuade.  fingers feel  
All parts within him, you shall never find  
An empty corner, or an abject mind.  
He never lets his watchful lights descend,  
To those sweet sleeps that all just men attend,  
Till all the acts the long day doth beget,  
With thought on thought laid, he doth oft repeat:  
Examines what hath passed him, as forgot:  
What deed or word was used in time, what not.  
Why this deed of Decorum felt defect?  
Of reason, that? What left I by neglect?  
Why set I this opinion down for true,  
That had been better changed? Why did I 
* Miseratus egentem, cur aliquen fracta persensi mente dolorem. Ascens very judicially makes this good man in this deity, opposite to a good Christian, since Christ (the precedent of all good men) enjoins us, ut supra omnia misericordes simus. But his meaning here is, that a good and wise man should not so pity the want of any, that he should want manly patience himself to sustain it. And his reason Ser●ius allegeth for him is this, saying, In quem cadit una mentis perturbatio, posse in eum omnes cadere: sicut potest omni virtute pollere cui virtus una contigerit.  rue  
Need in one poor so, that I felt my mind  
(To breach of her free powers) with grief declined?  
Why willed I what was better not to will?  
Why (wicked that I was) preferred I still  
Profit to honesty? Why any one  
Gave I a foul word? or but looked upon,  
With countenance churlish? Why should nature draw  
More my affects, then manly reason's law?  
Through all this thoughts, words works, thus making way,  
And all revolving, from the Even till Day:  
Angry, with what amiss, abused the light,  
Palm and reward he gives to what was right.    

A great man..  


1 A great & politic man, such as is, or may be opposed, to good or wise.  A Great and politic man (which I oppose  
To good and wise) is never as he shows.  
Never explores himself to find his faults:  
But cloaking them, before his conscience halts.  
Flatters himself, and others flatteries buys,  
Seems made of truth, and is a forge of lies.  
Breeds bawds and sycophants, and traitors makes  
To betray traitors; plays, and keeps the stakes,  
Is judge and juror, goes on life and death:  
And damns before the fault hath any breath.  
Weighs faith in falsehoods balance; justice does  
To cloak oppression; taile-like downward grows:  
Earth his whole end is: heaven he mocks, and hell:  

2 The privation of a good life, and therein the joys of heaven, is hell in this world.  And thinks that is not, that in him doth dwell.  
Good, with God's right hand given, his left takes t'euil:  
When holy most he seems, he most is evil.  
Ill upon ill he lays: th'embroidery  
Wrought on his state, is like a leprosy,  
The whiter, still the fouler. What his like,  
What ill in all the body politic  
Thrives in, and most is cursed: his most bliss fires:  
And of two ills, still to the worst aspires.  
When his thrift feeds, justice and mercy fear him:  
And (
* As Wolves and Tigers horribly gnarre, in their feeding: so these zealous, and given-over great ones to their own lusts and ambitions: in aspiriring to them, and their ends, fare, to all that come near them in competency; or that resist their devouring.  Wolf-like fed) he gnars at all men near him.  
Never is cheerful, but when flattery trails  
On 
* This alludeth to hounds upon the trail of a squa● Hare, and making a cheerful cry about her, is applied to the forced cheer or flattery this great man showeth, when he hunts for his profit.  squatting profit; or when Policy veils  
Some vile corruption: that looks red with anguish  
Like waving reeds, his windshook comforts languish.  
Pays never debt, but what he should not owe;  
Is sure and swift to hurt, yet thinks him slow.  
His bounty is most rare, but when it comes,  
'tis most superfluous, and with strook-up drums.  
Lest any true good pierce him, with such good  
As ill breeds in him, Mortar▪ made with blood  
Heaps stonewalls in his heart, to keep it out.  
His sensual faith, his soul's truth keeps in doubt,  
And like a rude, 
* Plebeij status & nota est nunquam à seipso vel damn●m expectare, vel utilitatem, sed à rebus externis.  unlearned Plebeian,  
Without him seeks his whole insulting man.  

1 How a good great man should employ his greatness.  Nor can endure, as a most dear prospect,  
To look into his own life, and reflect  
Reason upon it, like a Sun still shining,  
To give it comfort, ripening, and refining:  
But his black soul, being so deformed with sin,  
He still abhors; with all things hid within:  
And forth he wanders, with the outward fashion,  
Feeding, and fatting up his reprobation.  
Disorderly he sets forth every deed,  
Good never doing, but where is no need.  
If any 
* The most unchristian disposition of a great and ill man, i● following any that withstand his ill.  ill he does, (and hunts through blood,  
For shame, ruth, right, religion) be withstood,  
The marked withstander, his race, kin, lest friend,  
That never did, in least degree offend,  
He prosecutes, with hi●'d intelligence  
To fate, defying God and conscience,  
And to the utmost mite, he ravisheth  
All they can yield him, racked past life and death.  
In all his acts, he this doth verify,  
The greater man, the less humanity.  
While 
* This hath reference (as most of the rest hath) 〈◊〉 the good man before, being this man's opposite.  Phoebus runs his course through all the signs,  
He never studies; but he undermines,  
Blows up, and ruins, with pretext to save:  
Plots treason, and lies hid in th'actors grave.  
Vast crannies gasp in him, as wide as hell,  
And angles, gibbet-like, about him swell:  
Yet seems he smooth and polished, but no more  
solid within, then is a Medlars core.  
The king's frown fells him, like a gun-strooke fowl:  
When down he lies, and casts the calf his soul.  
He never sleeps but being tired with lust:  
Examines what passed, not enough unjust▪  
Not bringing wealth enough, not state, not grace:  
Not showing misery bedrid in his face:  
Not scorning virtue, not depraving her,  
Whose ruth so flies him, that her Bane's his cheer.  
In short, exploring all that pass his guards,  
Each good he plagues, and every ill rewards.    

A sleight man.  

A Sleight, and mixed man (set as 'twere the mean  
Twixt both the first) from both their heaps doth glean:  
Is neither good, wise, great, nor polititick.  
Yet tastes of all these with a natural trick.  
Nature and Art, sometimes meet in his parts:  
Sometimes divided are: the austere arts,  
Splint him together, set him in a brake  
Of form and reading. Nor is let partake  
With judgement, wit, or 
1 Intending in his writing, etc.  sweetness: but as time,  
Terms, language, and degrees, have let him climb,  
To learned opinion; so he there doth stand,  
Stark as a statue; stirs nor foot nor hand▪  
Nor any truth knows: knowledge is a mean  
To make him ignorant, and rapts him clean,  
In storms from truth. For what Hypocrates  
Says of foul 
2 Quo magis alantur, co magis ea laedi.  bodies (what most nourishes,  
That most annoys them) is more true of minds:  
For there, their first inherent pravity blinds  
Their powers prejudicate: and all things true  
Proposed to them, corrupts, and doth eschew:  
Some, as too full of toil; of prejudice some:  
Some fruitless, or past power to overcome:  
With which, it so augments, that he will seem  
With 
3 To be therefore instructed in the truth of knowledge, or a●spire to any egregious virtue; not stiff & 〈◊〉 Art serves▪ but he must be help● beside, benigniore nascendi hor●. According to this of Inusual.— plus etenim fati valet hora benigni, Quam fi te Veneris commendet epistola Marti.  judgement, what he should hold, to contemn  
And is incurable. And this is he  
Whose learning forms not lives integrity.  
This the mere Artist; the mixed naturalist,  
With fool quick memory, makes his hand a fist,  
And catcheth Flies, and Nifles: and retains  
With hearty study, and vnthrif●ie pains,  
What your composed man shuns. With these his pen  
And prompt tongue tickles th'●ares of vulgar men:  
Sometimes takes matter too, and utters it  
With an admired and heavenly strain of wit:  
Yet with all this, hath humours more than can  
Be thrust into a fool, or to a woman.  
As nature made him, reason came by chance,  
Held her torch to him, cast him in a trance;  
And makes him utter things that (being awake  
In life and manners) he doth quite forsake.  
He will be grave, and yet is light as air;  
He will be proud, yet poor even to despair.  
Never sat Truth in a tribunal fit,  
But in a modest, stayed, and humble wit.  
I rather wish to be a natural bred,  
Then these great wits with madness leavened.  
He's bold, and frontless, passionate, ●nd mad,  
Drunken, adulterous, good at all things bad.  
Yet for one good, he quotes the best in pride,  
And is enstiled a man well qualifide▪  
These delicate shadows of things virtuous the●  
Cast on these vicious, pleasing, patched up men,  
Are but the devils cousinages to blind  
men's sensual eyes, and choke the envied mind.  
And where the truly 
* The truly learned imitateth God, the sophisters emul●●eth man. His imperfections are hid in the mists imposture breathes: the others perfections are unseen by the brightness truth casts about his temples, that dazzle ignorant and corrupt beholders, or ●pprehenders.  learned is evermore  
Gods simple Image, and true imitator:  
These sophisters are emulators still  
(Cozening, ambitious) of men true in skill.  
Their imperfections yet are hid in sleight,  
Of the felt darkness, breathed out by deceit,  
The truly learned, is likewise hid, and fails  
To pierce eyes vulgar▪ but with other veils.  
And they are the divine beams, truth casts round  
About his beauties, that do quite confound  
Sensual beholders. 'Scuse these rare seen then,  
And take more heed of common slighted men.    

A good woman.  

A Woman good, and fair (which no dame can  
Esteem much easier found than a good man)  
Sets not herself to show, nor found would be:  
Rather her virtues fly abroad then she.  
Dreams not on fashions, loves no gossips feasts,  
Affects no news, no tales, no guests, no jests:  
Her work, and reading writs of worthiest men:  
Her husband's pleasure, well taught children:  
Her households fit provision to see spent,  
As fits her husband's will, and his consent:  
Spends pleasingly her time, delighting still,  
To her just duty, to adapt her will.  
Virtue she loves, rewards and honours it,  
And hates all scoffing, bold and idle wit:  
Pious and wise she is, and treads upon  
This foolish and this false opinion,  
That learning fits not women▪ since it may  
Her natural cunning help, and make more way  
To light, and close affects: for so it can  
Courbe and compose them too, as in a man:  
And, being noble, is the noblest mean,  
To spend her time: thoughts idle and unclean,  
Preventing and suppressing▪ to which end  
She entertains it: and doth more commend  
Time spent in that, than houswiferies low kinds,  
As short of that, as bodies are of minds.  
If it may hurt, is power of good less great,  
Since food may lust excire, shall she not eat?  
She is not Moon-like, that the Sun, her spouse  
Being furthest off, is clear and glorious:  
And being near, grows pallid and obscure:  
But in her husband's presence, is most pure,  
In all chaste ornaments, bright still with him,  
And in his absence, all retired and dim:  
With him still kind and pleasing, still the same;  
Yet with her weeds, not putting off her shame:  
But when for bed-rites her attire is gone,  
In place thereof her modest shame goes on.  
Not with her husband lies, but he with her:  
And in their love-ioyes doth so much prefer  
Modest example, that she will not kiss  
Her husband, when her daughter present is.  
When a just husbands right he would enjoy,  
She neither flies him, nor with moods is ●oy.  
One, of the light dame savours▪ th'other shows  
Pride, nor from loves ingenuous humour flows.  
And as 
* Geometrae dicunt, lineas & superficies, non seipsis moue●i, sed motus corporum comitari.  Geometricians approve,  
That lines, nor superfie●es, do move  
Themselves, but by their body's motions go:  
So your good woman never strives to grow  
Strong in her own affections and delights,  
But to her husband's equal appetites,  
Earnests and jests, and looks austerities,  
Herself in all her subject powers applies.  
Since life's chief cares on him are ever laid,  

* A good wife in most cares, should ever undismayed comfort her husband.  In cares she ever comforts, undismayed,  
Though her heart grieves, her looks yet makes it sleight,  
Dissembling evermore, without deceit.  

* Simile.  And as the twins of learned Hypocrates,  
If one were sick, the other felt disease:  
If one rejoiced; joy th'others spirits fed:  
If one were grieved, the other sorrowed:  

* A good wife watcheth her husband's serious thoughts in his looke● and applies her own to them.  So fares she with her husband; every thought  
(Weighty in him) still watched in her, and wrought.  

* Simile.  And as those that in Elephant's delight,  
Never come near them in weeds rich and bright▪  
Nor bulls approach in scarlet; since those hews,  
Through both those beasts, enraged affects diffuse:  
And as from Tigers, men the Timbrels sound  
And Cymbals keep away; since they abound  
Thereby in fury, and their own flesh tear:  
So when t'a good wife, it is made appear,  
That rich attire, and curiosity  
In wires, tires, shadows, do displease the eye  
Of her loved husband; music, dancing, breed●  
Offence in him; she lays by all those weeds,  
Leaves dancing, music; and at every part  
Studies to please; and does it from her heart.  
As greatness in a Steed; so dignity  
Needs in a woman, courbe, and bit, and eye,  
If once she weds, she's two for one before:  
Single again, she never doubles more.    

VIRGIL'S EPIGRAM of Play.  

DEspise base gain; mad Avarice hurts the mind:  
Ye wise, shun fraud; believe the learned, ye blind.  
At play put passions down, as moneys are.  
He plays secure, whose trunks hold crowns to spare:  
Who brings all with him, shall go out with none:  
A greedy gamester ever ends undone.  
Peace holy is to men of honest minds;  
If ye will play, then courbe your warring spleens:  
No man wins always. It shames man's true worth,  
Of but three Furies, to far like a fourth.  
Correct your earnest spirits, and play indeed:  
At stayed years be not moved: near play for need.    

VIRGIL'S EPIGRAM of wine and women.  

BE not enthralled with wine, nor women's love,  
For both by one means hurt: as women prove  
Means to effeminate, and men's powers decline:  
So doth the too much indulgence of wine,  
Staggers the upright steps a man should take,  
Dissolves his nerves, and makes his goers weak.  
Blind love makes many all their thoughts express,  
Whose like effect hath brainless drunkenness.  
Wild Cupid oft beats up wars stern alarms,  
As oft fierce Bacchus calls our hands to arms.  
Dishonest Venus made Mars Ilium seize:  
And Bacchus lost with war the Lapiths.  
Lastly, when both make mad misgoverned minds,  
Fear, shame, all virtues vanish with the winds.  
With Gives make Venus hold her legs together,  
And bind Liaeus in his ivy with her.  
Let wine quench thirst, sweet Venus' children bear,  
Whose bounds once broke, ye buy their pleasures dear.    

VIRGIL'S EPIGRAM of this letter Y.  

THis letter of Pythagoras, that bears  
This forked distinction, to conceit prefers  
The form man's life bears. virtues hard way takes  
Upon the right hand path: which entry makes  
(To sensual eyes) with difficult affair:  
But when ye once have climbed the highest stair,  
The beauty and the sweetness it contains,  
Give rest and comfort, far past all your pains.  
The broad-way in a bravery paints ye forth  
(In th'entry) softness, and much shade of worth:  
But when ye reach the top, the taken Ones  
It headlong hurls down, to●●e at sharpest stones.  
He then, whom virtues love, shall victor crown,  
Of hardest fortunes, praise wins and renown:  
But he that sloth and fruitless luxury  
Pursues, and doth with foolish wariness fly  
Opposed pains, (that all best acts befall)  
lives poor and vile, and dies despised of all.    

A FRAGMENT OF the Tears of peace.  

O That some sacred labour would let in  
The ocean through my womb, to cleanse my sin;  
I, that beloved of Heaven, as his true wife,  
Was wont to bring forth a delightsome life  
To all his creatures: and had virtues hand  
To my deliverance, decking every land  
(Where war was banished) with religious Temples,  
Cloisters and monuments in admired examples  
Of Christian piety, and respect of souls,  
Now drunk with Avarice and th'adulterous bowls  
Of the light Cyprian, and by This deflowered,  
I bring forth seed, by which I am devoured:  
Infectious darkness from my entrails flies,  
That blasts Religion, breeds black heresies,  
Strikes virtue bedrid, fame dumb, knowledge blind,  
And for free bounties (like an Eastern wind)  
Knits nets of Caterpillars, that all fruits  
Of planting peace, catch with contentious suits.  
And see (O heaven) a war that inward breeds  
Worse far than Civil, where in brazen steeds,  
Arms are let in unseen, and fire and sword  
Wound and consume men with the ravenous hoard  
Of private riches, like pricked pictures charmed,  
And hid in dunghills, where some one is armed  
With arms of thousands; and in such small time,  
(Even out of nakedness) that the dismal crime  
Sticks in his blazing forehead like a star,  
Signal of rapine and spoil worse than war,  
These wars give such sly poison for the spleen,  
That men affect and study for their teen,  
That it recures the wolf in avarice,  
And makes him freely spend his golden thighs:  
Yet no one thought spends on poor virtues peace.  
Wars, that as peace abounds, do still increase.  
wars where in endless rout the kingdom errs,  
Where misers mighty grow the mighty misers,  
Where partial Lucre justice sword doth draw:  
Where Eris turns into Eunomia,  
And makes Mars wear the long rob, to perform  
A fight more black and cruel, with less storm,  
To make for stratagem, a policy driven  
Even to the conquest▪ ere th'alarm be given.  
And for set battles where the quarrel dies,  
Wars that make lanes through whole posterities,  
A●achne wins from Pallas all good parts,  
To take her part, and every part converts  
His honey into poison: abused Peace  
Is turned to fruitless and impostumed ease,  
For whom the dwarf Contraction is at work  
In all professions; and makes heaven lurk  
In corner pleasures: learning in the brain  
Of a dull linguist, and all tied in gain,  
All rule in only power, all true zeal  
In trustless avarice: all the commonweal  
In few men's purses. Volumes filled with fame  
Of deathless souls, in signing a large name  
Love of all good in self love: all deserts  
In sole desert of hate. Thus Ease inverts  

* Ease and Security described.  My fruitful labours, and swollen blind with lust,  
Creeps from herself, travails in yielding dust;  
Even recking in her nevershifted bed:  
Where with benumbed security she is fed:  
Held up in Ignorance, and Ambitions arms,  
Lighted by Comets, sung to by blind charms.  
Behind whom Danger waits, subjection, spoil,  
Disease, and massacre, and uncrowned Toil:  
Earth sinks beneath her, heaven falls: yet she deaf  
Hears not their thundering ruins: nor one leaf  
Of all her Aspen pleasures, ever stirs;  
In such dead calms her stark presumption errs.    

For good men.  

A Good man want? will God so much deny  
His laws, his witnesses, his ministry?  
Which only for examples he maintains  
Against th'unlearned, to prove, he is, and reigns:  
And all things governs justly: nor neglects  
Things human, but at every part protects  
A good man so, that if he lives or dies,  
All things sort well with him? If he denies  
A plenteous life to me, and sees it fit  
I should live poorly; What, alas, is it?  
But that (refusing to endanger me  
In the forlorn hope of men rich and ●ie,)  
Like a most careful Captain, he doth sound  
Retreat to me▪ makes me come back, give ground  
To any, that hath least delight to be  
A scuffler in man's war for vanity?  
And I obey, I follow, and I praise  
My good Commander. All the cloudy days  
Of my dark life, my envied Muse shall sing  
His secret love to goodness: I will bring  
Glad tidings to the obscure few he keeps:  
Tell his high deeds, his wonders, which the deeps,  
Of poverty, and humblesse, most express,  
And weep out (for kind joy) his holiness.    

Please with thy place.  

GOd hath the whole world perfect made, & free;  
His parts to th'use of all. Men then, that be  
Parts of that all, must as the general sway  
Of that importeth, willingly obey  
In every thing, without their powers to change.  
He that (unpleasd to hold his place) will range,  
Can in no other be contained, that's fit:  
And so resisting all is cruset with it.  
But he that knowing how divine a frame  
The whole world is, and of it all can name  
(Without self flattery) no part so divine  
As he himself, and therefore will confine  
Freely, his whole powers, in his proper part:  
Goes on most godlike. He that strives t'invert  
The universal course, with his poor way:  
Not only, dustlike, shivers with the sway;  
But (crossing God in his great work) all earth  
Bears not so cursed, and so damned a birth.  
This then the universal discipline  
Of manners comprehends: a man to join  
Himself with th'universe, and wish to be  
Made all with it, and go on, round as he.  
Not plucking from the whole his wretched part,  
And into straits, or into nought revert:  
Wishing the complete universe might be  
Subject to such a rag of it, as he.  
But to consider great necessity,  
All things, as well refract, as voluntary  
Reduceth to the high celestial cause:  
Which he that yields to, with a man's applause,  
And cheek by cheek goes, crossing it, no breath,  
But like God's image follows to the death:  
That man is perfect wise, and every thing,  
(Each cause and every part distinguishing)  
In nature, with enough Art understands,  
And that full glory merits at all hands,  
That doth the whole world, at all parts adorn,  
And appertains to one celestial borne.    

Of sudden Death.  

WHat action wouldst thou wish to have in hand,  
If sudden death should come for his command.  
I would be doing good to most good men  
That most did need, or to their children,  
And in advice (to make them their true heirs)  
I would be giving up my soul to theirs.  
To which effect if Death should find me given,  
I would with both my hands held up to heaven,  
Make these my last words to my deity:  
Those faculties thou hast bestowed on me  
To understand thy government and will  
I have, in all fit actions offered still  
To thy divine acceptance, and as far  
As I had influence from thy bounties star,  
I have made good thy form infused in me:  
Th'anticipations given me naturally,  
I have with all my study, art, and prayer  
Fitted to every object, and affair  
My life presented, and my knowledge taught.  
My poor sail, as it hath been ever fraught  
With thy free goodness, hath been ballast to  
With all my gratitude. What is to do,  
Supply it sacred Saviour: thy high grace  
In my poor gifts, receive again, and place  
Where it shall please thee: thy gifts never die  
But, having brought one to felicity,  
Descend again, and help another up, etc.    

Height in Humility.  

WHy should I speak impe●ious courtiers fair?  
Lest they exclude thee, at thy Court repair.  
If they shall see me enter willingly,  
Let them exclude me. If necessity  
Drive me amongst them, and they shut the door,  
I do my best, and they can do no more.  
God's will, and mine, then weighed: I his prefer,  
Being his vowed lackey, and poor sufferer:  
I try what his will is, and will with it:  
No gate is shut to me; that shame must fit  
Shameless intruders. Why fear I disgrace  
To bear ill censure by a man of face?  
Will any think that impudence can be  
An equal demonstration of me?  
'tis kingly, Cyrus (said Antisthenes)  
When thou dost well, to hear this ill of these.  
But many pity thy defects in thee.  
I mock them ever that so pity me.  
Strangers they are, and know not what I am;  
Where I place good and ill, nor ever came  
Where my course lies: but theirs the world may know:  
They lay it out, only to name and show.  
If comfort follow truth of knowledge still,  
They meet with little truth; for if their skill  
Get not applause, their comfort comes to nought.  
I study still to be, they to be thought.  
Are they less frustrate of their ends then I?  
Or fall they less into the ills they fly?  
Are they industrious more? less passionate?  
Less faltering in their course? more celebrate  
Truth in their comforts? But they get before  
Much in opinion. True, they seek it more.    

For stay in competence.  

THou that enjoyest only enough to live,  
Why grievest thou that the giver does not give  
Food with the fullest, when as much as thou  
He thinks him empty? 'tis a state so low  
That I am fearful every hour to sink.  
Well said. Unthankful fearful, eat and drink,  
And fear to starve still. Know'st thou not who sings  
Before the thief? The penury of things  
Whither confers it? Draws it not one breath  
With great satiety? End not both in death?  
Thy entrails, with thy want, together shrink;  
He bursts with crudity, and too much drink.  
Will not thy want then with a cheerful eye  
Make thee expect death? whom stern tyranny,  
Empire, and all the glut of thirsty store,  
eat with pale cheeks affrighted ●uermore?  
Earth is a whore, and brings up all her brats  
With her insatiate gadfly: even her flats  
High as her ●il● look; lusting, lusting still,  
No earthly pleasure ever hath her fill.  
Turn a new leaf then: thirst for things past death;  
And thou shalt never think of things beneath.  
How should I thirst so, having no such heat●?  
Fast, pray, to have it: better never eat,  
Then still the more thou 〈◊〉 the more des●re.  
But wilt thou quench this overneedie fire?  
Canst thou not write, nor read, nor keep a gate●  
Teach children, be a porter. That poor state  
Were base and hateful. Is that base to thee,  
That is not thy work? That necessity  
Inflicts upon thee? that invades thee to  
Only as headaches and agues do?  
That the great Ordrer of th'universe sees  
So good, he puts it in his master piece?  
But men will scorn me. Let them then go by,  
They will not touch thee: he that shifts his eye  
To others eyebrows, must himself be blind.  
Leav'st thou thyself for others? 'tis the mind  
Of all that God and every good forsakes.  
If he goes thy way, follow: if he takes  
An opposite course, canst thou still go along,  
And end thy course? Go right, though all else wrong.  
But you are learned, and know Philosophy  
To be a shift to salve necessity:  
Love syllogisms, figures, and to make  
All men admire how excellent you spoke.  
Your caution is to keep a studious eye,  
Lest you be caught with carp of sophistry:  
To b● a man of reading, when alas,  
All these are caught in a Plebeians case.  
None such poor fools, incontinent, covetous,  
Atheistical, deceitful, villainous.  
Show me thy study's end, and what may be  
Those weights and measures, that are used by thee,  
To meet these ashes barrelled up in man.  
Is not the wreath his, that most truly can  
Make a man happy? And (in short) is that  
Any way wrought more, then in teaching what  
Will make a man most joyfully embrace  
The course his end holds, and his proper place?  
Not suffering his affections to disperse,  
But fit the main sway of the universe.    

Of the Will.  

THe empire of the Will is ever saved,  
Except lost by itself, when 'tis depraved.    

Of man..  

MAn is so sovereign and divine a state,  
That not contracted and elaborate,  
The world he bears about with him alone,  
But even the Maker makes his breast his throne.    

Of a Philosopher.  

Does a Philosopher invite, or pray  
Any to hear him? or not make his way,  
As meat and drink doth? or the Sun excite  
Only by virtue of his heat and light?    

Of Ambition.  

Who, others loves and honours goes about,  
Would have things outward, not to be without.    

Of Friendship.  

NOw I am old, my old friends loves I wish,  
As I am good; & more old, grow more fresh.  
Friends constant, not like lakes are standing ever,  
But like sweet streams, ever the same, yet never  
Still profiting themselves, and perfecting.  
And as a river furthest from his spring,  
Takes virtue of his course, and all the way  
Greater and greater grows, till with the sea  
He combats for his empire, and gets in,  
Curling his billows, till his style he win:  
So worthy men should make good to their ends,  
Increase of goodness; such men make thy friends.  
Such nobler are, the poorer was their source;  
And though which crooks & turns, yet keep their course,  
Though till their strength, they did some weakness show,  
(All thanks to God yet) now it is not so.  
Will is the garden first, than Knowledge plants;  
Who knows and wills well, never virtue wants:  
Though o●t he fail in good, he nought neglects;  
The affect, not the effect, God respects.  
But as the Academics ever rate  
A man for learning, with that estimate  
They made of him, when in the schools he lived;  
And how so ere he scattered since, or thrived,  
Still they esteem him as they held him then:  
So fares it with the dooms of vulgar men;  
If once they knew a man defective, still  
The stain sticks by him; better he his skill,  
His life and parts, till quite refined from him  
He was at first; good drowns, ill still doth swim:  
Best men are long in making: he that soon  
Sparkles and flourishes, as soon is gone.  
A wretched thing it is, when nature gives  
A man good gifts, that still the more he lives,  
The more they die. And where the complete man  
(Much less esteemed) is long before he can  
The passage clear, betwixt his soul and sense,  
And of his body gain such eminence,  
That all his organs open are, and fit  
To serve their Empress. Th'other man of wit,  
At first is served with all those instruments▪  
Open they are, and full, and free events  
All he can think obtains, and forth there flies  
Flashes from him, thick as the Meteord skies,  
Like which he looks, and up draws all men's eyes,  
Even to amaze: yet like those Meteors,  
(Only in air impressed) away he soars,  
His organs shut: and twixt his life and soul,  
Sue a divorce alive. Such ne'er enroll  
In thy brass book of Friendship: such are made  
To please light spirits, not to grow but fade.  
Nor friends for old acquaintance choose, but faith,  
Discretion, good life, and contempt of death:  
That foes wrongs bear with Christian patience,  
Against which fight, Reason hath no fence:  
That lay their fingers on their lips the more,  
The more their wronged simplicities deplore,  
And stop their mouths to every enemies ill,  
With th'ill he does them. Thus good men do still,  
And only good men friends are: make no friend  
Of fleshie-beast-men, friendship's of the mind.    

Of plenty and freedom in goodness.  

NOt to have want, what riches doth exceed?  
Not to be subject, what superior thing?  
He that to nought aspires, doth nothing need: 
Resp.   
Who breaks no law, is subject to no King.    

Of Attention.  

WHen for the least time, thou lettest fall thine ear  
From still attending, things still fit to hear,  
And gin'st thy mind way to thy bodies will:  
Imagine not thou hold'st the rains so still,  
That at thy pleasure thou canst turn her in:  
But be assured that one days soothed sin,  
Will ask thee many to amend and mourn:  
And make thy mind so willing to adjourn  
That instant-due amendment, that 'twill breed  
A custom to do ill; and that will need  
A new birth to reform. What? May I then  
(By any diligence, or power in men)  
Avoid transgression? No, 'tis past thy power:  
But this thou mayst do; every day and hour,  
In that be labouring still, that lets transgression:  
And worth my counsel 'tis, that this impression  
Fixed in thy mind, and all means used in man,  
He may transgress as little as he can.  
If still thou sayst, To morrow I will win  
My mind to this attention: therein  
Thou sayst as much, as this day I will be  
Abject and impudent: it shall be free  
This day for others to live Lords of me,  
To lead and rule me: this day I will give  
Reins to my passions, I will envious live,  
Wrathful and lustful: I will leave the state  
Man holds in me, and turn adulterate,  
Vulgar and beastly. See to how much ill  
Thou standest indulgent. But all this thy will  
Shall mend to morrow: how much better 'twere  
This day thou shouldst man's godlike sceptre bear:  
For if to morrow, in thy strengths neglect,  
Much more to day, while 'tis uncounter-checkt.    

To live with little.  

WHen thou seest any honoured by the king,  
Oppose thou this, thou thirsts for no such thing.  
When thou seest any rich, see what in stead  
Of those his riches thou hast purchased.  
If nothing, nothing fits such idle wretches.  
If thou hast that, that makes thee need no riches▪  
Know thou hast more, and of a greater price,  
And that which is to God a sacrifice.  
When thou seest one linked with a lovely wife,  
Thou canst contain, and lead a single life.  
Seem these things small to thee? O how much more  
Do even those great ones, and those men of store  
Desire those small things, than their greatest own:  
That they could scorn their states so bladder-blown,  
Their riches, and even those delicious Dames,  
That feast their blood with such enchanted flames?  
For have not yet thy wits the difference found,  
Betwixt a feu'rie man's thirst, and one sound?  
He having drunk is pleased: the other lies  
Fretting and loathing, vomits out his eyes:  
His drink to choler turns, and ten parts more  
His vicious heat inflames him, than before.  
So while the long fit of his dry desire  
Lasts in a rich man, such insatiate fire  
He feels within him. While the like fit lasts  
In one ambitious, so he thirsts, and wastes.  
While the fit lasts, and lust hath any fuel:  
So fares the fond venerean with his jewel  
There being linked to every one of these  
Fears, emulations, sleepless jealousies,  
Fowl cogitations, foul words, fouler deeds.  
Enough be that then, that may serve thy needs,  
What thou canst keep in thy free power alone,  
Others affect, and thou reiect'st thine own.  
Both will not draw in one yoke: one release  
And th'other use, or neither keep in peace  
Twixt both distracted. Things within thee prize;  
Only within, thy help and ruin lies.  
What wall so fencefull? what possession  
So constant, and so properly our own?  
What dignity so expert of deceits?  
All trade-like beggarly, and full of sleights.  
On which who sets his mind, is sure to grieve,  
Feed on faint hopes, never his ends achieve,  
Fall into that he shuns, and never rest,  
But bad esteem his state, when 'tis at best.  
Serve but thy mind with objects fit for her,  
And for things outward thou shalt never care.  
Obtain but her true, and particular use  
And obtain all things Nor let doubt, abuse  
Thy will to win her, as being coy inclined,  
Nought is so pliant as a human mind.  
And what shall I obtain, obtaining her,  
Not wishing all, but some particular?  
What wouldst thou wish for her dower more than these?  
To make thee pleasant, of one hard to please?  
To make thee modest, of one impudent;  
Temperate, and chaste, of one incontinent:  
Faithful, being faithless. Fit not these thy will?  
Affectest thou greater? What thou dost, do still:  
I give thee over, doing all I can,  
thouart past recure, with all that God gives man.    

To young imaginaries in knowledge.  

Never for common signs, dispraise or praise,  
Nor ar●, nor want of a●t▪ for what he says  
Ascribe to any Men may both ways make  
In form, & speech, a man's quick doom mistake.  
All then that stand in any rank of Art,  
Certain decrees have, how they shall impart  
That which is in them: which decrees, because  
They are within men, making there the laws  
To all their actions, hardly show without:  
And till their ensigns are displayed, make doubt  
To go against or with them: nor will they  
So well in words as in their deeds display.  
Decrees are not degrees. If thou shalt give  
Titles of learning, to such men as live  
Like rude Plebeians, since they have degrees,  
Thou shalt do like Plebeians. He that sees  
A man held learned do rudely, rather may  
Take for that deed, his learned name away,  
Then giv't him for his name. True learning's act▪  
And special object is, so to compact  
The will, and every active power in man,  
That more than men illiterate, he can  
Keep all his actions in the narrow way  
To God and goodness, and there force their stay  
As in charmed circles. Terms, tongues, reading, all  
That can within a man, called learned, fall;  
Whose life is led yet like an ignorant man's:  
Are but as tools to gouty Artisans,  
That cannot use them; or like children's arts,  
That out of habit, and by roots of hearts,  
Construe and pierce their lessons, yet discern  
Nought of the matter, whose good words they learn:  
Or like our Chemic Magis, that can call  
All terms of Art out, but no gold at all:  
And so are learned like them, of whom, none knows  
His Arts clear truth, but are mere Ciniflos.  
But sacred learning, men so much profane,  
That when they see a learn'd-accounted man  
Live like a brute man; they will never take  
His learned name from him, for opinions sake:  
But on that false ground brutishly conclude,  
That learning profits not. You beastly rude,  
Know, it mor●s profits, being exact and true,  
Then all earth's high ways choked with herds of you.  
But must degrees, & terms, and time in schools,  
Needs make men learned, in life being worse than fools?  
What other Art lives into happy air,  
That only for his habit, and his hair,  
His false professors worth you will commend?  
Are there not precepts, matter, and an end  
To every science? which, not kept, nor shown  
By understanding; understanding known  
By fact; the end, by things to th'end directed,  
What hap, or hope have they to be protected?  
Yet find such, greatest friends: and such profess  
Most learning, and will press for most access  
Into her presence, and her priviest state,  
When they have hardly knocked yet at her gate.  
external circumscription never s●rues  
To prove us men: blood, flesh, nor bones nor nerves  
But that which all these useth, and doth guide:  
God's image in a soul eternifide,  
Which he that shows not in such acts as tend  
To that eternesse, making that their end:  
In this world nothing knows, warrant after can,  
But is more any creature than a man.  
This rather were the way, if thou wouldst be,  
A true proficient in philosophy:  
Dissemble what thou studiest, till alone  
By thy impartial con●e●tion  
Thou provest thee fit, to do as to profess.  
And if thou still profess it nor, what less  
Is thy philosophy, if in thy deeds  
Rather than signs, and shadows, it proceeds?  
Show with what temper thou dost drink, and eat:  
How far from wrong thy deeds are, angers heat●▪  
How thou sustainst, and abstainst; how far gone  
In appetite and aversation▪  
To what account thou dost affections call,  
Both natural, and ad●entitiall:  
That thou art faithful, pious, humble, kind,  
Enemy to envy: of a cheerful mind,  
Constant, and dauntless. All this when men see  
Done with the learnedst▪ them let censure thee;  
But if so dull, and blind of soul they are,  
Not to acknowledge heavenly Mulciber,  
To be a famous Artist by his deeds,  
But they must see him in his working weeds:  
What ill is it, if thou art never known  
To men so poor of apprehension?  
Are they within thee, or so much with thee  
As thou thyself art? Can their dull eyes see  
Thy thoughts at work? Or how like one that's sworn  
To thy destruction, all thy powers are borne  
T'entrap thyself? whom thou dost hardlier please  
Then thou canst them? Arm then thy mind with these:  
I have decrees set down twixt me and God;  
I know his precepts, I will bear his load,  
But what men throw upon me, I reject:  
No man shall let the freedom I elect;  
I have an owner that will challenge me,  
Strong to defend, enough to satisfy:  
The rod of Mercury, will charm all these,  
And make them neither strange, nor hard to please▪  
And these decrees, in houses constitute  
Friendship, and love: in fields cause store of fruit:  
In cities, riches; and in temples zeal:  
And all the world would make one commonweal.  
eat braggart glory, seek no place, no name:  
No shows, no company, no laughing game,  
No fashion: nor no champion of thy praise,  
As children sweet meats love, and holidays:  
Be knowing shamefastness, thy grace, and guard,  
As others are with doors, walls, porters bard.  
Live close awhile; so fruits grow, so their seed  
Must in the earth a little time lie hid;  
Spring by degrees, and so be ripe at last.  
But if the Ear, be to the blades top passed  
Before the joint amidst the blade, be knit,  
The corn is lank, and no Sun ripens it.  
Like which art thou young Novice; flourishing  
Before thy time, winter shall burn thy spring.  
The husbandman dislikes his fields fair birth,  
When timeless heat beats on unready earth,  
Grieves lest his fruits with air should be too bold,  
And not endure the likely-coming cold.  
Comfort the root than first, then let appear  
The blades joint knit, and then produce the Ear:  
So Nature's self, thou shalt constrain, and be  
Blest with a wealthy crop in spite of thee.    

Of Constancy in goodness.  

Who fears disgrace for things well done, the knows i●  
Wrong ever does most harm to him that does it.  
Who more joy takes, that men his good advance,  
Then in the good itself, does it by chance:  
That being the work of others; this his own.  
In all these actions therefore that are common,  
Men never should for praise or dispraise care,  
But look to the Decrees, from whence they are.    

Of Learning.  

LEarning, the Art is of good life: they then  
That lead not good lives, are not learned men.    

For ill success.  

If thou sustainst in any sort an ill,  
Bear some good with thee to change for it still.    

Of negligence.  

When thou lettest lose thy mind to objects vain  
'tis not in thee to call her back again:  
And therefore when thy pleasure in her good  
Droops, and would down in melancholy blood,  
Feed her alacrity with any thought  
Or word, that ever her recomfort wrought.    

Of injury.  

When thou art wronged, see if the wrong proceed  
From fault within thy judgement, word or deed:  
If not, let him beware that injures thee,  
And all that sooth him; and be thy state fr●e.    

Of Attire.  

IN habit, nor in any ill to th'eye,  
Affright the vulgar from Philosophy:  
But as in looks, words, works, men witness thee  
Comely and checkless, so in habit be.  
For if a man shall show me one commended  
For wit, skill, judgement, never so extended,  
That goes fantastically, and doth fit  
The vulgar fashion; never think his wit  
Is of a sound piece, but hath bracks in it.  
If slovenly and nastily in weed●  
Thou keep'st thy body, such must be thy deeds,  
Hence, to the desert, which thou well deservest,  
And now no more for man's society servest.  
external want to this height doth express  
Both inward negligence, and rottenness.    

FRAGMENTS. Of Circumspection.  

IN hope to scape the law, do nought amiss,  
The penance ever in the action is.    

Of Sufferance.  

IT argues more power willingly to yield  
To what by no repulse can be repelled,  
Then to be victor of the greatest state,  
We can with any fortune subjugate.    

Of the Soul.  

THe Soul serves with her functions to excite,  
Abhor, prepare, and order appetite,  
cause aversation, and susception:  
In all which, all her ill is built upon  
Ill received judgements; which reform with good;  
And as with ill she yielded to thy blood,  
And made thy pleasures, God and man displease,  
She will as well set both their powers at peace,  
With righteous habits, and delight thee more  
With doing good now, then with ill before.    

Of great men.  

WHen Homer made Achilles passionate,  
Wrathful, revengeful, and insatiate  
In his affections; what man will deny  
He did compose all that of industry?  
To let men see, that men of most renown,  
Strongest, noblest, fairest, if they set not down  
Decrees within them, for disposing these,  
Of judgement, resolution, uprightness.  
And virtuous knowledge of their use and ends,  
Mishaps and misery, no less extends  
To their destruction, with all that they prisde,  
Then to the poorest, and the most despised.    

Of learned men  

Who knows not truth, knows nothing; who what's best  
Knows not, not 
1 Si absit scientia optimi, nihil scitur.  truth knows. Who (alone professed  
In that which best is) lives bad: Best not knows,  
Since with that Best and Truth, such joy still goes,  
That he that finds them, cannot but dispose  
His whole life to them. Servile Avarice can  
Profane no liberall-knowledge-coveting man.  
Such hypocrites, opinion only have,  
Without the 
2 Qui opinioni absque mente, consenserint.  minds use: which doth more deprave  
Their knowing powers, then if they 
3 Prodest multis non nosse quicquam.  nought did know.  
For if with all the sciences they flow,  
Not having that, that such joy brings withal,  
As cannot in unlearned men's courses fall:  
As with a 
4 Nun merit●, multa tempestate iactabitur●  tempest they are rapt past hope  
Of knowing Truth, because they think his scope  
Is in their tongues, much reading, speech profuse,  
Since they are means to Truth in their true use:  

5 Absurdam alia laudare, alia sequi.  But 'tis a fashion for the damned crew,  
One thing to praise, another to pursue:  
As those learned men do, that in words prefer  
Heaven and good life, yet in their lives so err,  
That all heaven is not broad enough for them  
To hit or aim at, but the vulgar stream  
Hurries them headlong with it: and no more  
They know or shall know, than the ride Boar.    
FINIS.