*Whatever subject is, is solid still: Wound him, and with your violent 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 of

repeat:

Examines what hath past 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 rue

Need in one poor so, that I felt my mind (To breach of her free powers) with grie

declined?

Why will'd I what was better not t will?

Profit to honesty? why any one
Why (wicked that I was) preferr'd I still
Gave I a foul word? or but look'd upon
With countenance churlish? Why shoul

nature draw

More my affects, than manly reason law?

* Sit solidum quodcunque subest, nec inani in his sense; which the pressness and ma subtus. Subest and subtus Ascens. confound of this Poem allows not: it being in a Tran lator sooner and better seen than a Comme tator.

He would turn digitis pellentibus to digi palantibus, to which place the true order hard to hit, and that truth in my conversi (how opposite soever any way stand) with a conference, I make no doubt I shall persuade

Ascens. very ju

Miseratus egentem, cur aliquem fra persensi mente dolorem. cially makes this good man in this di opposite to a good Christian, since Christ president of all good men) enjoins us, ut sup omnia misericordes simus. But his mean here is, that a good and wise man should not pity the want of any, that he should wa manly patience himself to sustain it. And reason Servius allegeth for him is this, saying In quem cadit una mentis perturbatio, in eum omnes cadere: sicut potest virtute pollere cui virtus una contigerit.

Through all this thoughts, words, works, thus making way,

And all revolving from the Even till Day: ingry, with what amiss, abused the light, alm and reward he gives to what was right.

A GREAT MAN.

A GREAT and politic man (which I oppose good and wise) is never as he shows. ever explores himself to find his faults: it cloaking them, before his conscience halts.

atters himself, and others' flatteries buys, ems made of truth, and is a forge of lies.

eds bawds and sycophants, and traitors makes

betray traitors; plays, and keeps the stakes.

judge and juror, goes on life death:

and

d damns before the fault hath any breath.

ighs faith in falsehood's balance; justice does

cloak oppression; tail-like downward grows;

th his whole end is; heaven he mocks, and hell:

id thinks that is not, that in him doth dwell.

od, with God's right hand given, his left takes t' evil;

en holy most he seems, he most is evil.

ipon ill he lays; th' embroidery ought on his state, is like a leprosy, whiter, still the fouler. What his

like,

at ill in all the body politic

ives in, and most is cursed, his most bliss fires,

1 of two ills, still to the worst aspires. en his thrift feeds, justice and mercy fear him,

1, twolf-like fed, he gnarrs at all men near him.

A great and politic man, such as is, or may pposed to good or wise.

The privation of a good life, and therein joys of heaven, is hell in this world.

As Wolves and Tigers horribly gnarr in ir feeding, so these zealous and given-over at ones to their own lusts and ambitions; in iring to them and their ends, fare, to all t come near them in competency; or that st their devouring.

Never is cheerful, but when flattery trails On *squatting profit; or when Policy veils Some vile corruption, that looks red with anguish,

Like waving reeds, his wind-shook 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 stone-walls in his heart to keep it

out.

His sensual faith his soul's truth keeps in doubt,

And, like a rude tunlearn'd Plebeian, Without him seeks his whole insulting

man.

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 deform'd 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 sill he does (and hunts through
blood

For shame, ruth, right, religion) be withstood,

The mark'd withstander, his race, kin, least friend,

That never did in least degree offend,
He prosecutes, with hired intelligence
To fate, defying God and conscience,

And as Geometricians approve
That lines, nor superficies do move
Themselves, but by their bodies' 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,

In cares she ever comforts, undismay'd, Though her heart grieves, her looks yet makes it sleight,

Dissembling evermore without deceit.
And as the twins of learn'd Hippocrates,
If one were sick, the other felt disease:
If one rejoiced, joy th' other's spirits fed :
If one were grieved, the other sorrowed :
So fares she with her husband; every
thought

Weighty in him, still watch'd in her, and wrought.

And as those that in Elephants delight, Never come near them in weeds rich and bright,

Nor Bulls approach in scarlet; since those

hues

Through both those beasts enraged affects

diffuse;

And as from Tigers men the Timbrel's sound

And Cymbal's 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, breeds

Offence in him; she lays by all those weeds,

*Geometræ dicunt, lineas et superficies, non seipsis moveri, sed motus corporum comi tari. [The same simile is used in almost the same words by Tamyra towards the close of the first Act of The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois.]

† A good wife in most cares should ever undismayed comfort her husband.

It This simile is twice used by Chapman in his Plays; by Strozza in the fourth Act of The Gentleman Usher, and by Honour in The Masque of the Middle Temple (1613), almost

in the words of the text.]

§ A good wife watcheth her husband's serious thoughts in his looks, and applies her own to

them.

Of Christian piety, and respect of souls, Now drunk with avarice and th' adulterous bowls

Of the light Cyprian, and by Dis deflower'd,

I bring forth seed by which I am devour'd:

Infectious darkness from my entrails flies, That blasts Religion, breeds black heresies,

Strikes virtue bed-rid, fame dumb, knowledge blind,

And for free bounties (like an Eastern Knits nets of caterpillars, that all fruits wind) 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

Arac ne wins from Pallas all good parts,
To take her part, and every part converts
His honey into poison: abused Peace
Is turn d 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 right in gain,
All rule in only power, all true zeal

In trustless avarice: all the common weal In few men's purses. Volumes fill'd 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 My fruitful labours, and swoln blind with lust,

Creeps from herself, travails in yielding dust;

Even reeking in her never-shifted bed : Where with benumb'd security she is fed: Held up in Ignorance, and Ambition's

arms,

Lighted by Comets, sung to by blind

charms.

Behind whom Danger waits, subjection, spoil,

Disease and massacre, and uncrown'd 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' unlearn'd, to prove he is, and reigns:

*Ease and Security described.

And all things governs justly : nor neglects
Things humane, 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 high),
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.

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 childeren, 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 m given,

I would with both my hands held up to heaven,

Make these my last words to my Deity:
"Those faculties thou hast bestow'd on m
To understand thy government and will,
I have, in all fit actions offer'd still
To thy divine acceptance, and as far
As I had influence from thy bounty!

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

too

With all my gratitude. What is to do,