If of himself his thoughts are not employ'd

Nor in himself they are by him enjoy'd. And since not in himself, his mind hath act,

The mind's act chiefly being of thought compact

Who works not in himself, himself not is;
For these two are in man joint properties,
To work and Be; for Being can be never
But Operation is combined ever.
Nor Operation, Being doth exceed,
Nor works man where he is not: still his
deed,

His being consorting, no true lover's mind,
He in himself can therefore ever find,
Since in himself it works not, if he gives
Being from himself, not in himself he
lives:

And he that lives not, dead is, Truth then

said

That whosoever is in love is dead."

If death the Monster brought then, he had

laid

A second life up, in the loved maid:
And had she died, his third life Fame

decreed,

Since death is conquer'd in each living deed.

Then came the Monster on, who being

shown

His charmed shield, his half he turn'd to

stone,

And through the other with his sword made way;

Till like a ruin'd city, dead he lay

Who would have set his hand to his design

But in his scorn? Scorn censures things divine :

True worth, like truth, sits in a groundless pit,

And none but true eyes see the depth of it. Perseus had Enyos' eye, and saw within That grace which out-looks held a desperate sin :

He for itself, with his own end went on, And with his lovely rescued Paragon Long'd of his conquest, for the latest shock:

Dissolved her chains, and took her from the rock,

Now wooing for his life that fled to her As hers in him lay: Love did both confer To one in both: himself in her he found, She with herself, in only him was crown'd. "While thee I love," said he, "you loving

shriek,

And Sirens (fearful to sustain the like), And even the ruthless and the senseless

tide

Before his hour, ran roaring terrified
Back to their strength: wonders and mon-

sters both,

With constant magnanimity, like froth Suddenly vanish, smother'd with their prease;

No wonder lasts but virtue: which no less
We may esteem, since 'tis as seldom found
Firm and sincere, and when no vulgar
ground

Or flourish on it, fits the vulgar eye
Who views it not but as a prodigy.
Plebeian admiration needs must sign

For he that loves, when he himself neglects Dies in himself once. In her he affects Straight he renews, when she with equa fire

Embraceth him, as he did her desire; Again he lives too, when he surely seeth Himself in her made him. O blessed death

Which two lives follow! O commerc most strange

Where, who himself doth for anothe change,

Nor hath himself, nor ceaseth still to have O gain, beyond which no desire can crave When two are so made one, that either is For one made two, and doubled as in this Who one life had, one intervenient death

shine :

wound;

As Learning hath delighted from her cradle to hide herself from the base and profane vulgar, her ancient Enemy, under divers veils of Hieroglyphics, Fables, and the like, so hath she pleased herself with no disguise more than in mysteries and allegorical fictions of Poesy. These have in that kind been of special reputation, as taking place of the rest both for priority of time and precedence of use, being born in the old world long before Hieroglyphics or Fables were conceived; and delivered from the fathers to the sons of Art without any author but Antiquity; yet ever held in high reverence and authority as supposed to conceal within the utter bark, as their Eternities approve, some sap of hidden Truth: as either some dim and obscure prints of divinity, and the sacred history; or the grounds of natural, or rules of moral Philosophy, for the recommending of some virtue, or curing of some vice in general (for howsoever physicians allege that their medicines respect non Hominem sed Socratem, not every, but such a special body; yet poets profess the contrary, that their physic intends non Socratem sed Hominem, not the individual but the universal); or else recording some memorable examples for the use of policy and state; ever, I say, enclosing within the rind some fruit of knowledge, howsoever darkened; and, by reason of the obscurity, of ambiguous and different construction. Ἔστι τε φύσει ποιητικὴ ἤ ζύμπασα αἰνιγματώδης,t &c. Est enim ipsa Natura universa Poesis anigmatum plena, nec quivis eam

"A Free and offenceles Iustification of a Lately publisht and most maliciously misinterpreted Poeme: entituled Andromeda liberata. Veritatem qui amat, emat. London, Printed for Lavrence L'isle and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls church-yard at the signe of the Tigershead. 1614.'

1 Plato. in Alcibid., ii. [147 b].

dignoscit. This ambiguity in the s hath given scope to the variety of ext tions; while poets in all ages, challen as their birthrights the use and applica of these fictions, have ever been allowe fashion both, pro & contra, to their offenceless and judicious occasions. borrowing so far the privileged licenc their professions, have enlarged or alte the Allegory with inventions and dist tions of their own, to extend it to 1 present doctrinal and illustrous purp By which authority, myself, resol amongst others to offer up my poor to the honour of the late nuptials bet the two most noble personages w honoured names renown the front of poem, singled out, as in some parts h lessly and gracefully applicable to occasion, the nuptials of Perseus Andromeda, an innocent and spc virgin rescued from the polluted t of a monster, which I in this place ap to the savage multitude; perverting most lawfully-sought propagation, bo blood and blessing, to their own most less and lascivious intentions; from " in all right she was legally and form delivered. Nor did I ever imagine till so far-fetched a thought in malice was my simplicity) that the fiction as ancient as the first world, was origi intended to the dishonour of any p now living; but presumed that the a cation being free, I might, pro meo dispose it innocently to mine own ob if at least in mine own writing, I migh reasonably and conscionably master of own meaning. And to this sense I fined the Allegory throughout my p as every word thereof, concerning point, doth clearly and necessarily der strate; without the least intendmen Vow to God, against any noble person free state or honour. Nor make I noble, whose mere shadows herein