Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments his two sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains.
Good luck befriend thee, Son; for, at thy birth,
The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth;
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spie
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
eyes of mortals walk invisible:
Yet there is something that doth force my fear;
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And, in time's long and dark prospective glass,
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
"Your son," said she, ("nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling;
And those, that cannot live from him asunder,
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And Peace shall lull him in her flowery lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring War shall never cease to roar ;
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?"
The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose
then Relation was called by his name.
RIVERS, arise; whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who, like some Earth-born giant, spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads;
Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death;
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,
Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee;
Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name; Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame.
ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATICK POET,
WHAT needs my Shakspeare, for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones ?
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointed pyramid ?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst, to the shame of slow endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepúlcher'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.
UNIVERSITY CARRIER,
Who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague.
HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodg'd with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,
In the kind office of a chamberlin
Show'd him his room where he must lodge that
Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:
If any ask for him, it shall be sed,
"Hobson has supt, and's newly gone to bed."
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