And to the utmost mite he ravisheth In all his acts he this doth verify, While *Phoebus runs his course through all the signs, He never studies; but he undermines, Blows up, and ruins, with pretext to save; Plots treason, and lies hid in th' actor's grave. Vast crannies gasp in him, as wide as hell, And angles, gibbet-like, about him swell; Yet seems he smooth and polish'd, but no more Solid within, than is a medlar's core. The king's frown fells him, like a gunstrook fowl: When down he lies, and casts the calf his soul. He never sleeps but being tired with lust; Examines what past, not enough unjust; Not bringing wealth enough, not state, not grace, Not showing misery bed-rid in his face; Not scorning virtue, not depraving her, Whose ruth so flies him, that her bane's his cheer. In short, exploring all that pass his guards, Each good he plagues, and every ill rewards. A SLEIGHT MAN. A SLEIGHT and mix'd man (set as 'twere the mean 'Twixt both the first) from both their heaps doth glean : Is neither good, wise, great, nor politic, Sometimes divided are: the austere arts, Terms, language, and degrees, have let him climb, To learn'd opinion; so he there doth stand, Stark as a statue; stirs not foot nor hand. *This hath reference (as most of the rest hath) to the good man before, being this man's opposite. 1 Intending in his writing, &c. Nor any truth knows: knowledge is a mean To make him ignorant, and rapts him clean, In storms from truth. For what Hippo crates, Says of foul bodies (what most nourishes, That most annoys them) is more true of minds : For there, their first inherent gravity blinds Their powers prejudicate; and all things true Proposed to them, corrupts, and doth eschew: Some, as too full of toil; of prejudice some: Some fruitless, or past power to overcome : With which, it so augments, that he will seem Witht judgment, what he should hold, to contemn, And is incurable. And this is he This the mere Artist; the mix'd naturalist, With fool-quick memory, makes his hand a fist, And catcheth flies, and nifles: and retains With hearty study, and unthrifty pains, What your composed man shuns. With these his pen And prompt tongue tickles th'ears of vulgar men: Sometimes takes matter too, and utters it With an admired and heavenly strain of wit: Yet with all this, hath humours more than can Be thrust into a fool, or to a woman. As nature made him, reason came by chance, Held her torch to him, cast him in a trance; And makes him utter things that (being awake In life and manners) he doth quite forsake. He will be grave, and yet is light as air; He will be proud, yet poor even to despair. Quo magis alantur, eo magis ea lædi. knowledge, or aspire to any egregious virtue, not stiff and unjointed Art serves; but he must be helped besides, benigniore nascendi hora. According to this of Juvenal: Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni, Quam si te Veneris commendet epistola Marti. Are but the devil's cozenages to blind Men's sensual eyes, and choke the envied mind And where the *truly learn'd is evermore About his beauties, that do quite confound Sensual beholders. 'Scuse these rare seen then, Her household's fit provision to see spent, As fits her husband's will, and his consent: Spends pleasingly her time, delighting still To her just duty to adapt her will. Her natural cunning help, and make more way To light, and close affects; for so it can Curb and compose them too, as in a man; And, being noble, is the noblest mean To spend her time: thoughts idle and unclean Preventing and suppressing; to which end She entertains it; and doth more commend Time spent in that, than housewiferies' low kinds, As short of that, as bodies are of minds. She is not Moon-like, that the Sun, her spouse And take more heed of common sleighted Being furthest off, is clear and glorious : And as Geometricians approve go: So your good woman never strives to grow Strong in her own affections and delights, But to her husband's equal appetites, Earnests and jests, and looks' austerities, Herself in all her subject powers applies. Since life's chief cares on him are ever laid, tIn cares she ever comforts, undismay'd, Though her heart grieves, her looks yet makes it sleight, Dissembling evermore without deceit. Weighty in him, still watch'd in her, and wrought. And as those that in Elephants delight, Never come near them in weeds rich and bright, Nor Bulls approach in scarlet; since those hues Through both those beasts enraged affects diffuse; And as from Tigers men the Timbrel's sound And Cymbal's keep away; since they abound Thereby in fury and their own flesh tear; So when t' a good wife, it is made appear That rich attire and curiosity In wires, tires, shadows, do displease the eye Of her loved husband; music, dancing, breeds Offence in him; she lays by all those weeds, Geometræ dicunt, lineas et superficies. non seipsis moveri, sed motus corporum comitari. [The same simile is used in almost the same words by Tamyra towards the close of the first Act of The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois.] † A good wife in most cares should ever undismayed comfort her husband. [This simile is twice used by Chapman in his Plays; by Strozza in the fourth Act of The Gentleman Usher, and by Honour in The Masque of the Middle Temple (1613), almost in the words of the text.] § A good wife watcheth her husband's serious thoughts in his looks, and applies her own to them. (To sensual eyes) with difficult affair ; But when ye once have climb'd the highest stair, The beauty and the sweetness it contains, Give rest and comfort, far past all your pains. To all his creatures and had virtue's hand To my deliverance, decking every land (Where war was banish'd) with religious temples, Cloisters and monuments in admired examples Of Christian piety, and respect of souls, Now drunk with avarice and th' adulterous bowls Of the light Cyprian, and by Dis deflower'd, I bring forth seed by which I am devour'd: Infectious darkness from my entrails flies, That blasts Religion, breeds black heresies, Strikes virtue bed-rid, fame dumb, knowledge blind, And for free bounties (like an Eastern Knits nets of caterpillars, that all fruits wind) Of planting peace, catch with contentious suits. And see, O heaven, a war that inward breeds Worse far than civil, where in brazen steeds The broadway in a bravery paints ye forth, Arms are let in unseen, and fire and (In th' entry) softness, and much shade of worth; sword Wound and consume men with the ravenous hoard Of private riches, like prick'd pictures charm'd, And hid in dunghills, where some one is arm'd With arms of thousands; and in such small time And makes Mars wear the long robe, to perform A fight more black and cruel, with less storm, To make for stratagem, a policy driven Even to the conquest, ere th' alarm be given. And for set battles where the quarrel dies, Wars that make lanes through whole posterities. Arachne wins from Pallas all good parts, In all professions; and makes heaven lurk In trustless avarice: all the common weal In few men's purses. Volumes fill'd with fame Of deathless souls, in signing a large name. Love of all good in self-love: all deserts In sole desert of hate. Thus Ease inverts *My fruitful labours, and swoln blind with lust, Creeps from herself, travails in yielding dust; Even reeking in her never-shifted bed : Where with benumb'd security she is fed: Held up in Ignorance, and Ambition's arms, Lighted by Comets, sung to by blind charms. Behind whom Danger waits, subjection, spoil, Disease and massacre, and uncrown'd Toil: Earth sinks beneath her, heaven falls: yet she, deaf, Hears not their thundering ruins : nor one leaf Of all her aspen pleasures, ever stirs ; errs. FOR GOOD MEN. A GOOD man want? will God so much deny His laws, his witnesses, his ministry? Which only for examples he maintains Against th' unlearn'd, to prove he is, and reigns: * Ease and Security described. And all things governs justly: nor neglects Retreat to me; makes me come back, give ground To any, that hath least delight to be Of my dark life, my envied Muse shall sing His secret love to goodness; I will bring Glad tidings to the obscure few he keeps; Tell his high deeds, his wonders, which the deeps Of poverty and humblesse, most express, And weep out (for kind joy) his holiness. OF SUDDEN DEATH. WHAT action wouldst thou wish to have in hand, If sudden death should come for his command? I would be doing good to most good men That most did need, or to their childeren, And in advice (to make them their true heirs) I would be giving up my soul to theirs. To which effect if Death should find me given, I would with both my hands held up to heaven, Make these my last words to my Deity: I have made good thy form infused in me; My poor sail, as it hath been ever fraught too With all my gratitude. What is to do, |