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 outgo 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 be live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar;
Yea, it shall be nis 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 gulfy Dun,
Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads
His thirsty 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 hallowed Dee;

Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name; Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame.

[The rest was prose.]

AN EPITAPH

On the admirable Dramatic Poet, William Shakspeare.

WHAT needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid ?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What needst thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a livelong 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 Delphic lines with deep impression took ;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchered, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.

ON THE 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,
Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevailed,
Had not his weekly course of carriage failed;
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

Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the light:

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;

So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot;
Made of sphere metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime

'Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time:
And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceased, he ended straight.
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,
Too long vacation hasted on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sickened,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened;
'Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched,
'If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers.'
Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leisure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burdensome,
That even to his last breath, (there be that say't,)
As he were pressed to death, he cried,' More weight;'
But, had his doings lasted as they were,
He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas,

Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:
His letters are delivered all and gone,

Only remains this superscription.

*M

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE,

Under the Long Parliament.

BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred;
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford ?

Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent,
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,
Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent:
That so the Parliament
May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears,

And succour our just fears, When they shall read this clearly in your charge, New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.

THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, Lib. I.

WHAT slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bindest thou

In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatness? O, how oft shall he

On faith, and changed gods, complain; and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who always vacant, always amiable,

Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they,

To whom thou untried seemest fair! Me, in my vowed
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the stern god of sea.

FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.

Brutus thus addresses Diana in the Country of Leogecia.

GODDESS of shades, and huntress, who at will
Walkest on the rolling spheres, and through the deep;
On thy third reign, the earth, look now, and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou biddest me seek,
What certain seat, where I may worship thee
For aye, with temples vowed and virgin quires.

To whom, sleeping before the Altar, Diana answers in a Vision the same Night.

BRUTUS, far to the west, in the ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old;
Now void, it fits thy people: thither bend
Thy course; there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreadful might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.

FROM DANTE.

AH Constantine, of how much ill was cause, Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy pope received of thee!

FROM DANTE.

FOUNDED in chaste and humble poverty,
'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn?
Impudent whore, where hast thou placed thy hope?
In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wealth?
Another Constantine comes not in haste.

FROM ARIOSTO.

THEN passed he to a flowery mountain green, Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously: This was the gift, if you the truth will have, That Constantine to good Sylvester gave.

FROM HORACE.

WHOм do we count a good man? Whom but he
Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate,
Who judges in great suits and controversies,
Whose witness and opinion wins the cause?
But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood,
Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.

FROM EURIPIDES.

THIS is true liberty, when freeborn men,
Having to advise the public, may speak free;
Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace;
What can be juster in a state than this?

FROM HORACE.

LAUGHING, to teach the truth,

What hinders? As some teachers give to boys Junkets and knacks, that they may learn apace.

FROM HORACE.

JOKING decides great things,

Stronger and better oft than earnest can.

FROM SOPHOCLES.

'TIS you that say it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words.

FROM SENECA.

THERE can be slain

No sacrifice to God more acceptable,
Than an unjust and wicked king.

PSALM I.

(Done into verse 1653.)

BLESSED is the man who hath not walked astray
In counsel of the wicked, and i' the way
Of sinners hath not stood, and in the seat
Of scorners hath not sat. But in the great
Jehovah's law is ever his delight,
And in his law he studies day and night.
He shall be as a tree which planted grows
By watery streams, and in his season knows
To yield his fruit, and his leaf shall not fall,
And what he takes in hand shall prosper all.
Not so the wicked, but as chaff which fanned
The wind drives, so the wicked shall not stand
In judgment, or abide their trial then,
Nor sinners in the assembly of just men;
For the Lord knows the upright way of the just,
And the way of bad men to ruin must.

PSALM II.

(Done August 8, 1653.)

Terzetti.

WHY do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations
Muse a vain thing, the kings of the earth upstand
With power, and princes in their congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each land
Against the Lord and his Messiah dear?
Let us break off, say they, by strength of hand
Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear,

Their twisted cords. He, who in heaven doth dwell, Shall laugh; the Lord shall scoff them; then severe, Speak to them in his wrath, and in his fell

And fierce ire trouble them. But I, saith he,
Anointed have my King (though ye rebel)
On Sion my holy hill. A firm decree

I will declare the Lord to me hath said,
Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee

For thou art not a God that takes

In wickedness delight;

Evil with thee no biding makes;

Fools or mad men stand not within thy sight,
All workers of iniquity

Thou hatest; and them unblest
Thou wilt destroy that speak a lie;

The bloody and guileful man God doth detest.
But I will, in thy mercies dear,

Thy numerous mercies, go

Into thy house; I, in thy fear,

Will towards thy holy temple worship low.
Lord, lead me in thy righteousness,

Lead me, because of those

That do observe if I transgress;

Set thy ways right before, where my step goes.
For, in his faltering mouth unstable,

No word is firm or sooth;

Their inside, troubles miserable;

An open grave their throat, their tongue they smooth. God, find them guilty, let them fall

By their own counsels quelled;
Push them to their rebellions all

Still on; for against thee they have rebelled.
Then all who trust in thee, shall bring

Their joy; while thou from blame
Defendest them: they shall ever sing
And shall triumph in thee, who love thy name.
For thou, Jehovah, wilt be found

To bless the just man still;

As with a shield, thou wilt surround
Him with thy lasting favour and good will.

PSALM VI.

(August 13, 1653.)

LORD, in thine anger do not reprehend me,
Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct;
Pity me, Lord, for I am much deject,

And very weak and faint; heal and amend me:
For all my bones, that even with anguish ake,

Are troubled, yea, my soul is troubled sore,
And thou, O Lord, how long? Turn, Lord; restore
My soul; O save me for thy goodness' sake:
For in death no remembrance is of thee;

Who in the grave can celebrate thy praise? Wearied I am with sighing out my days; Nightly my couch I make a kind of sea; My bed I water with my tears; mine eye Through grief consumes, is waxen old and dark I' the midst of all mine enemies that mark.

Depart, all ye that work iniquity,

Depart from me; for the voice of my weeping

The Lord hath heard; the Lord hath heard my

prayer;

My supplication with acceptance fair

The Lord will own, and have me in his keeping.