Beauty breeds pride, pride hatcheth forth disdain,
Disdain gets hate, and hate calls for revenge,
Revenge with bitter prayers urgeth still;
Thus self-love, nursing up the pomp of pride,
Makes beauty wreck against an ebbing tide.

VERSES

WRITTEN UNDER A CARVING OF MERCURY
THROWING FEATHERS UNTO THE WIND.

THE richest gift the wealthy heaven affords,
The pearl of price sent from immortal Jove,
The shape wherein we most resemble gods,
The fire Prometheus stole from lofty skies;
This gift, this pearl, this shape, this fire is it,
Which makes us men bold by the name of wit.
By wit we search divine aspéct above,

By wit we learn what secrets science yields,
By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd,
By wit we govern all our actions;

Wit is the load-star of each human thought,
Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.
The brightest jacinth hot becometh dark;
Of little 'steem is crystal being crack'd;
Fine heads that can conceit no good but ill,
Forge oft that breedeth ruin to themselves;
Ripe wits abus'd that build on bad desire,
Do burn themselves, like flies within the fire.

VERSES

WRITTEN UNDER A CARVING OF CUPID BLOWING
BLADDERS IN THE AIR.

LOVE is a lock that linketh noble minds,
Faith is the key that shuts the spring of love,
Lightness a wrest that wringeth all awry,
Lightness a plague that fancy cannot brook;
Lightness in love so bad and base a thing,
As foul disgrace to greatest states do[th] bring.

VERSES WRITTEN ON TWO TABLES AT A TOMB.

ON THE FIRST TABLE.

THE Graces in their glory never gave
A rich or greater good to womankind,
That more impales their honours with the palm
Of high renown, than matchless constancy.
Beauty is vain, accounted but a flower,
Whose painted hue fades with the summer sun;

Wit oft hath wreck by self-conceit of pride; Riches are trash that fortune boasteth on. Constant in love who tries a woman's mind, Wealth, beauty, wit, and all in her doth find.

ON THE SECOND TABLE.

THE fairest gem, oft blemish'd with a crack,
Loseth his beauty and his virtue too;
The fairest flower, nipt with the winter's frost,
In show seems worser than the basest weed;
Virtues are oft far over-stain'd with faults.
Were she as fair as Phoebe in her sphere,
Or brighter than the paramour of Mars,
Wiser than Pallas, daughter unto Jove,
Of greater majesty than Juno was,
More chaste than Vesta, goddess of the maids,
Of greater faith than fair Lucretia;
Be she a blab, and tattles what she hears,
Want to be secret gives far greater stains
Than virtue's glory which in her remains.

MADRIGAL.*

REST thee, desire, gaze not at such a star;

Sweet fancy, sleep; love, take a nap awhile; My busy thoughts that reach and roam so far, With pleasant dreams the length of time beguile;

Fair Venus, cool my over-heated breast,
And let my fancy take her wonted rest.

Cupid abroad was lated in the night,

His wings were wet with ranging in the rain;
Harbour he sought, to me he took his flight,
To dry his plumes: I heard the boy complain;
My door I op'd, to grant him his desire,
And rose myself to make the wag a fire.

Looking more narrow by the fire's flame,
I spied his quiver hanging at his back:

I fear'd the child might my misfortune frame,
I would have gone for fear of further wrack;
And what I drad (poor man) did me betide,
For forth he drew an arrow from his side.

He pierc'd the quick, that I began to start;
The wound was sweet, but that it was too high,
And yet the pleasure had a pleasing smart:

This done, he flies away, his wings were dry;
But left his arrow still within my breast,
That now I grieve I welcom'd such a guest.

*The three last stanzas of this madrigal are in the Orpharion with some variations: see p. 317, first col.

DESCRIPTION OF GOWER. LARGE he was; his height was long; Broad of breast; his limbs were strong; But colour pale, and wan his look,— Such have they that plyen their book; His head was grey and quaintly shorn ; Neatly was his beard worn;

His visage grave, stern, and grim,—
Cato was most like to him;

His bonnet was a hat of blue;

His sleeves strait, of that same hue;

A surcoat of a tawny dye

Hung in plaits over his thigh;
A breech close unto his dock,
Handsom'd with a long stock;

* See List of Greene's prose-works, p. 80 of the present

vol.

t stock] i. e. stocking.

side] i. e. long.

§ whittle] i. e. knife.

corned] i. e. pointed.

A breech] i. e. Breeches.

It was the month in which the righteous maid,
That, for disdain of sinful world's upbraid,
Fled back to heaven, where she was first conceiv'd,
Into her silver bower the sun receiv'd;
And the hot Sirian Dog, on him awaiting,
After the chafèd Lion's cruel baiting,
Corrupted had the air with noisome breath,
And pour'd on earth plague, pestilence, and
death.+
p. 369, sub "August."

*Prick'd...

† doon] i. e. done, -do. death] Old ed. "dearth."-The later part of this fragment resembles one of Pope's flourishes upon Homer; "Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,

Thro' the thick gloom of some tempestuous night,
Orion's dog (the year when Autumn weighs),

And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays;
Terrific glory! for his burning breath

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death."

Compare the simplicity of the original;

Παμφαίνονθ', ὥστ' ἀστές', ἐπεσσύμενον πεδίοις,
Ος ρά τ' ὁπώρης εἶσιν κ. τ. λ. -11. xxii. 26.