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of M Bindery

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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.

Then would our drooping academies, brought
Again in heart, regain that reverend hand
Of lost opinion, and no more be thought
Th' unnecessary furnish of the land;
Nor (discouraged with their small esteem)
Confused, irresolute and wavering stand,

Caring not to become profound, but seem
Contented with a superficial skill,

Which for a slight reward enough they deem,
When th' one succeeds as well as th' other will:

Seeing shorter ways lead sooner to their end,

And others' longer travels thrive so ill.

Then would they only labour to extend

Their now unsearching spirit beyond these bounds
Of others' powers, wherein they must be penn'd,
As if there were besides no other grounds:
And set their bold plus ultra far without
The pillars of those axioms age propounds.

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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, that's 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?
Whose 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

What 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.

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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.