FOR if that learning's rooms to learned men
Were as their heritage distributed, All this disordered thrust would cease. For when The fit were called, the unworthy frustrated, These would be shamed to seek, those to be unsought And, staying their turn, were sure they should be sped.
Discovering daily more and more about In that immense and boundless ocean Of nature's riches, never yet found out, Nor foreclosed with the wit of any man. So far beyond the ordinary course That other unindustrious ages ran,
That these more curious times they might divorce From the opinion they are linked unto, Of our disable and unactive force ; To shew true knowledge can both speak and do: Armed for the sharp which in these days they find With all provisions that belong thereto:
That their experience may not come behind The time's conceit: but, leading in their place, May make men see the weapons of the mind Are states' best strengths, and kingdoms' chiefest grace.
DANIEL'S Musophilus.
[GO now with some daring drug Bait the disease, and while they tug, Thou, to maintain their cruel strife, Spend the dear treasure of thy life: Go, take physic, doat upon Some big-nam'd composition, The oraculous doctor's mystic bills, Certain hard words made into pills ; And what at length shalt get by these? Only a costlier disease. Go, poor man, think what shall be Remedy against thy remedy. That which makes us have no need of physic, thats physic indeed.]
Hark hither, reader, wouldst thou see Nature her own physician be? Wouldst see a man all his own wealth, His own music, his own health ? A man, whose sober soul can tell How to wear her garments well ; Her garments that upon her sit (As garments should do) close and fit:
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A well-cloth'd soul, that's not opprest Nor chokt with what she should be drest? Those soul's sheath'd in a crystal shrine, Through which all her bright features shine, As when a piece of wanton lawn, A thin aerial vail is drawn, O’er Beauty's face; seeming to hide, More sweetly shews the blushing bride ? A soul, whose intellectual beams No mists do mask, no lazy steams ? A happy soul, that all the way To heav'n rides in a summer's day? Wouldst see a man whose well-warm'd blood Bathes him in a genuine flood : A man, whose tuned humours be A set of rarest harmony ? Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks beguile Age ? wouldst see December smile? Wouldst see a nest of roses grow In a bed of reverend snow? Warm thoughts, free spirits, flattering Winter's self into a spring ? In sum, wouldst see a man that can Live to be old, and still a man; Whose latest and most leaden hours Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers : And when life's sweet fable ends, His soul and body part like friends : No quarrels, murmurs, no delay ; A kiss, a sigh, and so away? This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see? Hark hither, and thyself be he.
RICHARD CRASHAW, In praise of Lessius.
HOW'S this? A book for Temperance? that first page Will mar the sale on't. Our luxurious age Expects some new invention to devour Estates at mouthfuls, swallow in an hour TVhat was not scraped in years: had ye but hit On some such subject, that had been most fit For these loose times, when a strict sparing food More's out of fashion than an old French hood.
But what (alas!) must moderate Temperance,-she- Live in perpetual exile, because we Turn such voluptuous Epicures? No; now Sh'has got bold champions dare her cause avow In spite of opposition, and have shewn In print t'our shame, how we're intemperate grown. The pearl-dissolving courtier may well here Learn to make meaner, yet far better cheer: The scholar to be pleased with 's penny bit, As much as those that at kings' tables sit, Crowded with heaps of dishes. Here's a diet Ne'er troubles nature; and whoe'er shall buy it For practice sake, buys but his own content. And that's a purchase he shall ne'er repent.
J. JACKSON, to the translator of Lessius.
METHINKS I could be intemperate in thy praise, Feast thee with forced words and sugared lays ; But that thy prose, my verse, do both command Me to keep measure, and take off my hand. There's gluttony in words; the mouth may sin In giving out, as well as taking in.
BARNABAS OLEY, to the same.
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