Detur Pulchriori: OR, A POEM in the Praise of the university OF OXFORD. Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis hàbent. Mart. Ep. Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt. Ovid. Anno Dom. 1658. Patri mihi Charissimo I. V. Haec parerga mea D. D. C. Q. NOn meus agnoscit Parnassi somnia Phoebus, Neve Caballina Musa Lavatur aquâ; Maenadis inspirat sitientes Mente Poetas, Ebria, nam nunquam Sobria Musa furit. Sis Genitor mihi Phoebus, erit pro fonte Caballi Isis, sim Vates Sobrius inde tuus, Et Filius &c. Philomus●● To my most Honoured Schoolmaster. Sir IF like a Pythonist I from my wits May chance to start, vent Oracles by fits, And so be Poet dubed, know I am one Not born but made by inspiration, For from Your influence my Muse begun, My lines the Paralelies of Your Sun. And since from the Pindaric Mountain You Descend, to lend Your hand to us below: Lo our inferior Orbs begin to move, And act by the Intelligence of Your Love, And though you can't expect from pigmy brains wit's Garagantuas', Gigantique strains, How 'ere my Muse (though stretched upon the Last Of an Hyperbole, 's but a Neurospast Moved by Your Candours Mysterious wire) Inspired, though not with a delphic fire, But a pure vestal flame, contends to raise Her note, unto the Elah of Your praise, If you accept these tender sprigs, know she. Will give You better at Maturity. Yours &c. Philomusus. An Apology. HAve you not seen when Titan's glorious ray Doth peep through th' Azure Welkin, and display It's Splendent lustre, not alone to those, Whose faces are more Painted than their clothes, Nor yet to those, who with Grandezza bear Their stately looks above the Vulgar sphere; Noah, no, the humble Sun descends to all, Glancing with smiles upon the lowest vale; Even so our Sun, our true Apollo leaves None in Cimmerian mists, to all he gives To be his stars, and have from him their light; Lest some should set in a perpetual night. Well then, I'll show myself to be his Son, His genuine Son, a boon companion Of the Aonian sisters, though I see The Sun of Censure Levelling at me: Look how he forms his thoughts into a Cone, And smites me with the sharpest end? anon He carps, he bites; this quick-eyed Basilisque What ere he sees, wounds with an Asterisque: he'll fine, if i'll not cleanse what I have writ Which shows he's but the scavenger of Witt. To his ingenious Friend F. V. SInce in so little room Thou hast set forth Thy mother's praise, and Her deserved worth, Which required Volumes, Thee in rank we'll put With him who wrote the Iliads in a Nut. W. C. G● A Poem in the Praise of the University of OXFORD. Hum! hum! what is't, that doth impede my note Causing a swelling Squincy in my throat? Methinks my wide-boared Muse might with her noise Drown pistol-shot, yea a Granadas vojce, But since so many Pamphlet bullets fly About mine ears, 'twill be best Chivalry To fight it out, and with a valiant pen Win Oxford's credit from Malignant men. Dear Mother, though unhallowed lips would stain with Satyrs flowing from a Wormwood brain Thy comely feature, with a Viperous strife Gnawing those bowels that did give them life; Although they sully Thee, 'twill be their shame, Thy Honour, and immortalize thy fame, Though full-mouthed cynics be in Sent so hot. Each Black patch Calumny's thy Beauty spot. The first mouth that maligns thee is the Clown's, Whose tongues more thumbed & sullied, than the Town's, Or Parish-book, he ne'er doth cease to Yawn And swallow solecisms, as smooth as Brawn, He'd rather be a Page unto his Car, Or his swine's Guardian, then go so far As to a Versity, for none but Vools, I swears will send their Children unto Schools. More could I name whose Counterpoising tongues Spit words far more corrupted than their lungs, But since 'tis not my scope to answer those, Whose names Donquixoted do live in prose, And never knew that Poets only claim Maugre the teeth of time, eternal fame, Then rouse my Muse and with immortal lays Carol unto the world famed Oxford's praise. Oxford! the arsenal of Arts, the muse's Sole staple, where Apollo only uses To Barter, where our half-starved Poets buy Their soaring Pegasus, and mounted fly Up the Aönian cliffs, the towering mount Doth make them giddy, till th' Castalian fount Begins to reinspire their spur-galled brains, And add new spirits to their empty veins. In thee the Grave Logician doth commence To rant mysterious terms, and fustian sense, While his Lines cragged, and hard to understand Do far more baffle then the devil's hand. Daring more with his three forked mace of late, Then th' three necked Porter of th' infernal gate while his amazed auditors suppose Some Demogorgon always in the close. From thee the Politician hath his books, The Hieroglyphiks of majestic looks. Of thee Apollo his melodious strains, His dulced Anthems, sugared hymns obtains, Tying with music sweeter than the Sphear's Men mad with aspiration by the ears, And least injurious tongue's fly-blow thy praise, He will Thee crown with never dying bays. Thou oils the Rustique's tongue, and on him showers In his Youth's April, and produceth flowers Of particoloured rhetoric, he talks On Stilts, his slippery tongue confusedly walks, So he (whose tongue hidebound before) in sense Can prate, embellished with eloquence. Again thou teachest Devious Youth to tread In virtue's path, and giv'st them hands and head. Thou giv'st them Heads, from whence Conceptions flow, High soaring thoughts and not Pestantique low Thou giv'st them hands to hold Minerva's shield, From conquered Ignorance to gain the Field. Were't not for the, the milk-sop-youth would ne'er Be morallized nor would he ever bear His Father's royal stamp, nor would his age Admit of council, from the grave and sage Although the rustic scorns, it is from thee He got the rules of right economy. Of Thee the Learned Galenist obtains His knowledge in the Mystery of the veins And nerves; of late his skill he so enhances By finding out the blood's Maeandring dances, That he old nature with Industrious pain Renews, makes aged Aeson young again. The Art of numbering doth confess that she Endowed was with the Golden rule by thee. The skilled Geometrician who surveys With Curious eyes the Continent and Seas Squares by thy rule; He who at every rise Waits on Night's fairest Queen with courting eyes, And who Inamorato-like doth Honour And Homage pay to those that wait upon her, To every pinck-eyed star; who swears that he Will have no Mistress but a Cassiope, Doth vow to sacrifice to Thee each year The stalled Bull, snatched from his hemisphere, A Quarter of the heavenly Tupp, what's more, he'll add the Golden fleice, to quit the score, That still is chalked in his mind, He owes To Thee, what rarities so ere he knows, In lieu of payment therefore will he set On thy Head Ariadne's coronet, he'll make the zodiac be thy golden chain, Aquarius vernal showers upon Thee rain, To make thy May more Pregnant, and thy stem, Outgo the pearls in Flora's Diademm. The grave Divine, who doth the People awe Bonarges-like with the Mosaique Law, Again a Barnabas, who doth dispense Sweet nunico, of Christ intelligence, Inspiring with pure zeal th' amazed Soul, Making her lave herself then sin more foul, Says 'tis his Debvoir, 'fore the greyzeyd day Puts on her morning's dress, for Thee to pray; " Great God, immortal King! cast down an eye, " On Britain's fountains, let them never dry; " Let more especially my mother's Fountain, " Be baptised Helicon in zions Mountain, " Let it her Honour be t'extol Thy fame, " Let all her praise be still to praise thy name. Lo now my Muse is Jaded, and my quill Tired, begs a Vacation, she will No longer travel in Thy Praises Ocean, How 'ere she'll say Amen to the Devotion, Floreat aeternis Academia Nostra Camaenis. To the Author. WIll none none commend Thee? well had I but been Born at the brink of sacred Hippocrene, Or were the muse's darling, or might be An equal sharer in the Daphnean Tree; I would commend Thee, so that I would raise An Altar, and would offer to Thy praise An Hecatomb of verses, and my Pen If thou wert dead, should make Thee live again, T. S. Oxon. FINIS.