Four PARADOXES  

Of Art,  
Of Law,  
Of War,  
Of Service.   
By T. S.  Cupias quodcunque necesse est. 
At London Printed for Thomas bushel.  
1602.   

To the most Honourable, and more virtuous Lady, the Lady Helena, marquess of Northampton.  
MAdam, your friends send you jewels, your tenants, the fruit of their store, & your servants many good wishes, all of them, in their kind, being testimonies of their loves and duties: I that am too poor, to present you with the two former; and too ambitious, to supply my wants with the latter, have presumed, in an other manner to express my humility, sending you, not the riches of my exterior fortunes, but the fruit and issue of my brain, in the begetting whereof, I wasted much precious time. Your Honour, in accepting it, shall express more true bounty, than I, in writing, can express duty, though it be all the scope I level at. The Lord have you in his protection, and send you many happy Newyears.  
Your dutiful and devoted Servant, Thomas Scott.   


Nor base intrusion, nor the hope of Gain,  
Nor Adulation, nor Vainglorious pride,  
Nor th' idle fancy of a fuming brain,  
Nor any ill affected cause beside.  
Begat these Lines; but true respective Love,  
Which all good meanings, to one end doth move.   

Nor think these Rhymes skumed from the froth of wit,  
Nor loosely bound; but written with advise,  
When my sad soul, did in true judgement sit,  
About th' invention of some rare devise.  
When contemplation filled my flowing brain,  
And serious study did my sense restrain.   

Even than I wrote these Lines, which shall bewray,  
The faithful meaning of my constant soul,  
Which Time, nor obvious Chance shall wear away,  
Nor Fate convert, nor Sovereignty control.  
For this is all the certainty I find,  
No power can alter a resolved mind.    

Artes irritamenta malorum.  

FArewell uncertain Art, whose deepest skill  
Begets dissensions, and ambiguous strife,  
When (like a windy bladder) thou dost fill,  
The brain with groundless hopes, & shades of life.  
When thou dost set the word, against the word,  
And woundst our judgement with Opinions sword.   

When thou maintain'st all errors, under show  
Of plucking error up: and dost enable  
The subtle soul to prove all truth untrue,  
And lies the truth; even God himself a fable.  
Even God, whom every purblind soul can see,  
Thou provest with seeming reason not to be.   

Full well thou show'st thy Author from what spring,  
Thy seven Hydrean heads proceeded first,  
When our first father Paradises King,  
For thee was then deposed, and then accursed.  
Accursed thou author of all sin, all evil,  
Knowledge, thou fruit of lust, child of the devil.   

Thou now instruct'st my mild and gentle Muse,  
To rail against thine owneiniquitie,  
And 'gainst the manifold unjust abuse,  
Wherewith thou armest foul impiety.  
To Epicurian folly, actions evil,  
Proving thyself as subtle as the devil.   

Thou lendest the guileful Orator his skill,  
To plead 'gainst innocence, and to defend  
The guilty cause; thou turn'st the upright will,  
To favour falsehood, and dost backward bend.  
The most resolved judgement, arming fools  
With dangerous weapons and sharp edged tools.   

Thou keepest the thoughts of man in endless doubt,  
Under a show of teaching mysteries,  
And leadest the gazing scholar round about,  
By Paradise of fools, t' all miseries.  
Thou teachest circles in a blotted scroll,  
The whilst we lose both body, wit, and soul.   

Thou maintain'st Atheism and Heresy,  
Against our faith, our hope, and holy writ:  
Impugning the most certain veretie,  
With shameless boldness and contentious wit.  
Religion is a scarecrow in thy eye,  
Not band of zeal, but worldly policy.   

Thou dost entice th' inconstant wavering mind,  
To lewd forbidden practices; corrupting  
The purity of youth whom thou dost find,  
Most tractable to good, still interrupting  
Virtue in all her courses foul abuse,  
Which take away, and take away thy use.   

Thou art like gold, gotten with care and thought,  
Then brought to bribe the judge against the truth,  
Or like a sword with all our substance bought,  
To kill a friend: O thing of woe and ruth!  
Who with this gold th' oppressed doth defend?  
Or who doth use this sword to save his friend?   

Th' art like the fire with which for glory sake,  
The villain burned the Temple of Diana,  
Or like the tawny weed which gallants take,  
In pride, and fetch as far as rich Guiana.  
Thy end is infamy, thy fruit is smoke,  
With which the greedy taker thou dost choke.   

The art a Chameleon, changing to the hue,  
That's interposed, as object to thy eye;  
For truth to say, in true men, thou art true,  
In evil men, full of damned subtlety.  
The Bee sucks honey from thee: but the Toad,  
With doubled force his poisoned bulk doth load   

For when a careless villain sold to sin,  
And dedicated wholly to the devil;  
Thy power, and knowledge of thy power doth win  
He therewith seeks t' approve and 'stablish evil.  
Persuading both himself, and others too,  
That what he doth, all wisemen ought to do.   

From hence my resolution grows, that I  
Neglecting Art will view the naked truth;  
Whence my clear soul with an unpartial eye  
May best discern the errors of my youth.  
" Truth can defend itself; we show most wit  
" And learning, in defending things unfit.   

Grammar instructs us to misconstrue things,  
Logic to wrangle, Rhetoric to flatter;  
Arithmitick to tell our gold, not sins,  
Geometry, to measure every matter  
Except our lives: Then Poetry to lie,  
And Music teacheth us all villainy.   

Thus like seven deadly sins these arts agree  
Against the truth, till knowledge of more skill,  
Transport us quite beyond all honesty,  
Abusing wit, and overthrowing will.  
Contemning council, and deriding faith,  
Still contradicting what the Gospel saith.   

O Art! not much unlike the fowler's glass,  
Wherein the silly soul delights to look  
For novelties; until the net doth pass  
Above her head and she unwares be took.  
Thou common Courtesan, thou Bawd to sin  
Painted without, but leprous within.   

The art a companion for all company,  
A Garment made for every man to wear;  
A Golden coffer, wherein dirt doth lie,  
A Hackney horse, all sorts of men to bear.  
What art thou not? faith thou art nought at all,  
For he that knows thee best knows nought at all.   

Then farewell nothing something seeming Art,  
I do disclaim thy knowledge, and thy use;  
Nor shalt thou in these Lines have any part,  
Nor ever soil my minds true native Muse.  
Farewell Lucifrian Art I will go find  
Some better thing to please my troubled mind.   
Finis.  Ars ommis à naturali simplicitati recedit, ita dolo affinis est. Cic.  

Juris iniuria.  

What thing is that so huge? so richly clad?  
So borne on great men's shoulders? kneeled unto?  
So grave in countenance? so sober sad?  
To which so many Potentates do bow?  
And with submission yield themselves and lands,  
Into her powerful and imperious hands.   

she's holy, for Divinity attends her,  
She hath her Chaplains, and she goes to church:  
she's well beloved, for every mah defends her,  
she's rich, for see how fast she gold doth lurch.  
she's great, for she keeps house in Rufus hall,  
And makes all men down at her feet to fall.   

See see, what troops of people hourly post,  
To pay her tribute, all the streets are full,  
Of her base bondmen, who with care and cost,  
Enrich her servants, and themselves do gull.  
Sure I will be her follower out of doubt,  
I may find clients amongst such a rout.   

I love her, for she helps to end debate,  
Desciding quarrels, and expounding doubts:  
she's not too proud, for oft she leaves her state,  
To question and confer with country louts.  
She is impartial, for she takes of all,  
And plagues a public sin in general.   

All this is good, I like her yet: yet better,  
For she revengeth blood, maintaineth peace,  
She sets at one the Creditor and Debtor,  
Making apparent injuries surcease.  
She doth all right, she recompenseth wrong,  
She helps the weak, she weakeneth the strong.   

Besides, how many grave and civil grooms  
Doth she maintain, in wealth, in peace, in ease,  
Giving them several Liveries, several Rooms,  
And all that may theit daintiest senses please.  
Some run about, some speak, and others judge,  
Some writ, some read, and every one do drudge.   

But see, all's marred, a pooreman doth complain,  
Of open wrong, done by a treacherous slave:  
The poor man's cause she gladly would maintains  
But see, the villain shall the sentence have.  
Her Officers, new-bribed, do stop her ear,  
And will not suffer her the cause to hear.   

So sits she like the virtuous Emperor,  
Old Galba, whom all men approved just,  
But that about him, unjust Officers  
Abused his geratnes, to their private lust.  
Their wickedness was counted his: his good,  
Was counted theirs, so valulesse he stood.   

Such doth she seem, good in herself, and kind,  
But that bad Officers abuse their trust,  
And too and fro her mighty power do wind,  
For greedy lucre, and gold-getting lust.  
The honest man oft begs, or worse, starves,  
But he gains most, that most from virtue swerves.   

Better it were far for the Commonwealth,  
Herself were wicked, and her servants true,  
Then for her officers to live by stealth,  
Under the colour, to give all their due.  
So have I seen the Lion part his prey  
And from the weaker beast bear all away.   

So have I seen a pair of catch-poule thieves,  
Lead a poor wretch to Luds unlucky gate,  
Like greedy bandogs hanging at his sleeves,  
Without remorse, or feeling of his state:  
So have I seen a villain hangman be,  
To many other honester than he.   

This warranted great Alexander's theft,  
When he did all men wrong, through force, not right  
But this the waker Pirate helpless left,  
Because he robbed but few for want of might.  
O fie for shame, when that which should rule all,  
Is grown the Lord of misrule in the hall.   

O Law! thou cobweb, wherein little flies  
Are daily caught, whilst greater break away:  
Thou dear Experience, which so many bies,  
With loss of time, wealth, friends, and long delay.  
Thou endless Labyrinth of care and sorrow,  
Near hand to day, and far removed to morrow.   

Thou sweet revenge of craven-harted hinds,  
Who never relish loved society,  
Nor barber kindness in their currish minds,  
But barbarous beastly incivility.  
Thou nurse of discord, instrument of hatred,  
Whose power with vice hath all the earth or'e-skattred.   

Why should we not be good, without thy aid?  
And fear thy force less than deserved blame?  
Shall man forbear to sin, being afraid  
Of punishment? not of reproach and shame?  
So Children learn their lessons, kept from meat,  
So Asses mend their paces, being beat.   

But man should bear a free unforced spirit,  
Uncapable of servile fear and awe,  
The guilty soul doth punishment demerrit,  
Because he is not to himself a Law.  
Let men, like men, love Virtue and embrace her,  
Let men, like men, hate Vice, the soul's defacer.   

In old time, justice was portrayed blind,  
To signify her straight impartial doom.  
And in her hand she held a scale, to find,  
By weight, which case did most remove the Loom.  
She still is blind, and deaf, yet feels apace,  
Her scales now ways her fees, and not the case.   

The farewell Law, thou power to make or mar,  
I dare not trust myself for doing wrong:  
Few rich do clearly stand before the bar,  
For Bribes have ruled, do rule, and will rule long.  
Farewell both Art and Law, I will go find,  
Some better thing, to please my troubled mind.   
Finis.  Veri juris germanaeque justitiae solidam & expressam imaginem nullam tenemus, umbra & imaginibus utimur.  

Bellum perniciosissimum  

NOw War presents itself, O glorious war!  
I do admire thee, and adore thy skill:  
Thou art in earth another hopeful star,  
The chief profession of the wit and will,  
In thee Religion thrives, Goodness doth flourish,  
For thou dost Vice correct, and Virtue nourish.   

Thou breakest the slender twist of childish Art,  
Scorning the curb of Apish policies:  
Thou Law, and all Corruption dost subvart,  
o'er throwing quirks, and verbal fallacies.  
Thou rootst up every evil which doth increase  
Within the idle reign of drowsy Peace.   

Thou exerci'st the Body and the Mind,  
Which in the time of rest did bring forth weeds;  
Because it could no good employment find,  
Nor answer fruitful harvest of bad Seeds.  
Thou makest the man esteemed more than his gold,  
Though Peace doth that in far more reckoning hold.   

Thou teachest Patience how to endure  
The skorching heat; and liver-freezing cold;  
To fast, and watch, and pray, thou dost enure  
The sturdy soldier, that's in sin grown bold.  
Thou dost temptations & affections slay,  
And mortifies our Bodies every day.   

But ah! too soon thy cause of praises cease,  
And fresh presentments of thy cruel deeds  
Makes men prefer an unjust prouling peace  
Before a just War that destruction feeds.  
Which helps the brother to destroy the brother  
And makes one friend to rise against an other.   

Thou hast no mercy nor no justice in thee,  
To pity, or to punish any creature;  
Nor tears, nor prayers, gifts, nor vows can win thee  
To favour any sex, or any feature.  
Thou art chief executioner unto Death,  
And like a prodigal, consumest much breath.   

O why should men in envy, pride, and hate,  
In swollen Ambition, lust and Covetise,  
Usurp the bloody rule of Death and Fate;  
Becoming one an others destinies?  
Is there not sea enough for every Swan?  
And land enough to bury every Man?   

Why should our ships so justle in the deep,  
As though the waters were not large and wide?  
Or our huge armies so unkindly sleep,  
Their bloody weapons in a christians side?  
Why should I travel into skorching Spain,  
To meet my Death, when I may here be slain?   

Fie that the private hate, or love of any,  
Should make me be a murderer of Men:  
And one Man's will should overthrow a many,  
Such as himself perhaps far worthier then.  
For oftentimes we see it falls out true,  
We kill our friend for him we never knew.   

O bloody War, to th' unexperien'st sweet,  
That robbest, and spoilst, and butcherest every sex,  
That tramplest all things with upheaved feet,  
And quiet states with civil broils dost vex.  
That sayst, all things are just thou dost with might,  
But to th'unable, there remains no right.   

That like a wilful woman runnest astray,  
In causeless Enmity and deadly Fude,  
Having for thy director all the way,  
That many headed beast, the Multitude.  
Who without all respect of wrong or right  
Will do as others do, or flee or fight.   

That art the Instrument of stern revenge,  
Fore-plotted in the subtle sconce of Hate,  
And servest the spreading wings of youth to singe,  
A pretty drug to purge a gouty state.  
That swollen with poisoned surfeits, like to burst,  
voids up those Humours to prevent the worst.   

But as our private Doctor's physic learned,  
Kill more diseased Persons than they cure,  
Yet think they justly have their wages earned;  
Teaching their patiented torment to endure.  
Or as Cyriurians do more hurt then good,  
When with small ill, they let out much pure blood.   

So these sword Paracelsians get such power,  
That oft they stroy when they should cure the state,  
And with confusion all things do devour;  
Making well-peopled kingdoms desolate.  
Much like a spirit raised up by arts deep skill,  
Which doth much hurt against the Bookemans' wil   

Even as we see in marches and in fens,  
The careful husband thinking to destroy  
The fruitless sedge (wherein the adder dens,)  
Set's fire upon some part, with which to toy  
The Northern wind gins, and burneth down,  
Spite of all help the next abutting town.   

So War once set afloat, adds strength to strength,  
And where it was pretended to confound,  
The foes of Virtue, it proceeds at length;  
Virtue, the state, and statesman's self to wound.  
And like a mastiff hearted to a Bear,  
Turns back, and doth his master's bowels tear.   

O you deep master Politicians,  
Convert your stratagems against the Turk,  
And like to careful state-phisitians  
'Gainst him apply this wit-begotten work.  
Lest Christian Kingdoms, grown too weak with purging  
Yield, being not able to withstand his urging.   

Let those that take delight in doing harm,  
And savage minded joy in shedding blood;  
With iron walls their guilty body's arm,  
And do all things but only that that's good.  
For my part, I am yet resolved to find,  
Some better thing to please my troubled mind.   
Finis.  Non solum adventus belli, sed metus ipse affert calamitatem. Cic: prole goe Manil.  

Omnis est misera servitus.  

But stay: O rest thee Muse, and rest thee Mind,  
I now have found the jewel which I sought,  
Whose only good is in itself confined,  
The sanctuary of the hopeful thought.  
The port of safety, and the happy Life,  
Free from malicious broils, and tedious strife.   

Who list to draw himself from public throng,  
And to converse with men of more regard;  
Or fears the weighty power of others wrong,  
Or seeks himself from envious tongues to ward.  
Or covets quiet, or eschews debate,  
Or loves content, or fears leane-visaged Hate.   

Let him repair to Court, and in the Court,  
(Like ivy) clean unto some great man's side,  
Whose able strength his weakness may support,  
And with his spreading arms, and shadow wide,  
Protect and patronize his feeble youth,  
And yield him needful sap t' increase his growth.   

So may he live secure, free from the fear  
Of public malice, or close-creeping Hate,  
And never dread the Sun or Wind should sear  
His verdant moisture and exalted state.  
For still her Lord protects him with his bows,  
So he grows up, even as his patron grows.   

O happy man, whose fortune it is to find,  
This rare-ly-hare of bounty in the great:  
Which sooner happens to th' illiterate hind,  
Then him whose brain the learned Sister's heat,  
Because the man that's only great in show,  
Dreads other men his ignorance should know.   

This makes the child of fortune to reveal  
His thoughts to drudging bores, and shallow fools:  
But all his consultations to conceal,  
From those that are not enemies to schools.  
For ignorance, like every other sin,  
loves still to live unknown, and blind within.   

The honest servant seeks t' amend his Lord,  
And grieus to hear his wants themselves should speak,  
But the base slave, doth fearfully afford,  
A jeering flattery with countenance bleak  
To every word; and therefore is regarded,  
When Truth is with suspect and hate rewarded.   

Base flattery, and double diligence,  
That thrusts their fingers into every place,  
That carries tales, and gives intelligence,  
Of all that may their fellows faith disgrace.  
These are employed, these come and go at pleasure,  
Have what they ask, and ask without all measure.   

He that can these, shall thrive, and may in time,  
Purchase large Lordships with ill gotten wealth,  
And may from Yeomanry to worship clime,  
(Ill fare that Gentry so purloined with stealth.)  
But other never may expect to rise,  
For to their deeds he turns his Argus eyes.   

And doth persuade his Lord, that his whole care,  
Is like a trusty Servant, for the best,  
His younger son the better for't shall far,  
For at his death all shall to him be left.  
The credulous Lord believes his smooth conclusion,  
Until too late he proves it an illusion.   

But when the trusty servant stands aloof,  
Forewarning these events with modesty:  
Exampling this with many likely proofs,  
Of others craft, and close hypocrisy.  
He is suspected of deceit, his drift  
Thought a detractors favour-fauning shift.   

Fond youth, who dedicates thy precious hours,  
To do him service that neglects thy merit:  
And prizeth less the minds unvalued powers,  
Then his, who only doth rude strength inheritt.  
Fond youth that bindest thyself to be a slave,  
To him whose love thy service cannot have.   

O why should I aim all my thoughts to please  
One like myself; or to subject my soul  
Unto the unrespective rule of these  
That only know how others to control.  
So Asses suffer, Ass' spur and ride them,  
So camels kneeled, whilst bondmen do bestride them.   

But man that is freeborn, not borne a beast,  
Should freely bear himself, and freely love;  
Where reason doth induce him: or at least  
Where Sympathy of liking equal move.  
So I could love, and fear, obey, and serve  
Him, that I see doth see what I deserve.   

For what avails it me to know so much,  
If other will no notice take thereof,  
Or cannot well discern me to be such,  
As I do know myself, and yet will scoff  
At that they understand not, and suppose,  
" Not smelling, there's no sweetness in a rose?   

What boots it me to climb the starry Tower,  
And fetch from thence all sectets that remain,  
Within that everlasting blissful Bower,  
If I had none to tell them to again.  
The soul would glut herself with heaven I know,  
If she might not her joys to others show.   

It is a crown unto a gentle breast,  
T'imparte the pleasure of his flowing mind,  
(Whose sprightly motion never taketh rest,)  
To one whose bosom he doth open find.  
So wise Promethius stealing heavenly fire,  
In stones, the soul of knowledge did inspire.   

O how I (lest in knowledge, and in Art,)  
Admire and love an understanding spirit,  
And share with him my poor divided heart,  
Wishing his fortunes equal to his merit.  
But since in service few of these I find,  
Service dislikes my malcontented mind.   Cum omnis est misera servitus, tum vero intolerabile est servire impure, impudico, effe●●nato, insulso.  

The resolution.  

THen this my resolution is; I know,  
All worldly things displease and vex the mind,  
Yet something I must do, for here below  
Our time to some employment Fate doth bind.  
I'll be a fool (for knowledge is accursed)  
Chance makes that best, which Nature framed worst.   

I am resolved to be a fool; to hate  
All learning, all things else that do not please,  
Great men of clouts; whose fortune raised state,  
For some ill part she crowns with wealth & ease.  
So I (like Fortune) ignorant and blind,  
Some good fools Frotune by desert may find.   

Art, Law, War, Service, I'll embrace for need,  
To serve my wants, or to defend my right:  
For otherways I purpose not to bleed,  
Or waste my life by day, my wit by night.  
But since my soul can nothing certain find,  
I am resolved to have a wavering mind.   
Finis.  Errando disco.