When out came the book which the news-monger | But, alas! he had been feasted
From the preaching ladies letter, [took
Where, in the first place, stood the Conqueror's
Which made it show much the better. (face,
But now without lying, you may paint him flying,
At Bristol they say you may find him,
Great William the Con, so fast he did run,
That he left half his name behind him.
With a spiritual collation,
By our frugal mayor,
Who can dine on a prayer,
And sup on an exhortation.
'Twas mere impulse of spirit, Though he us'd the weapon carnal: "Filly foal," quoth he, "My bride thou shalt be,
And now came the post, save all that was lost, And how this is lawful, learn all.
But alas, we are past deceiving
By a trick so stale, or else such a tale
Might amount to a new Thanksgiving.
This made Mr. Case, with a pitiful face,
In the pulpit to fall a weeping,
[eyes,
Though his mouth utter'd lyes, truth fell from his
Which kept the lord-mayor from sleeping.
Now shut up shops, and spend your last drops, For the laws, not your cause, you that loath 'em,
Lest Essex should start, and play the second part Of the worshipful sir John Hotham.
NEWS FROM COLCHESTER:
Or, A proper New Ballad of certain Carnal Passages betwixt a Quaker and a Colt, at Horsly, near Colchester, in Essex.
To the tune of Tom of Bedlam.
ALL in the land of Essex,
Near Colchester the zealous,
On the side of a bank,
Was play'd such a prank,
As would make a stone-horse jealous.
Help Woodcock, Fox, and Naylor,
For brother Green 's a stallion:
Now, alas, what hope
Of converting the Pope,
When a Quaker turns Italian:
Even to our whole profession
A scandal 'twill be counted,
When 'tis talk'd with disdain,
Amongst the profane,
How brother Green was mounted.
And in the good time of Christmas,
Which though our saints have damn'd all,
Yet when did they hear
That a damn'd-cavalier
E'er play'd such a Christmas gambal!
Had thy flesh, O Green, been pamper'd
With any cates unhallow'd,
Hadst thou sweeten'd thy gums
With pottage of plums,
Or profane minc'd pye hadst swallow'd:
Roll'd up in wanton swine's flesh,
The fiend might have crep into thee;
Then fullness of gut
Might have caus'd thee to rut,
And the Devil have so rid through thee.
"For if no respect of persons
Be due 'mongst sons of Adam,
In a large extent,
Thereby may be meant
That a mare's as good as a madam."
Then without more ceremony,
Not bonnet vail'd, nor kiss'd her,
But took her by force,
For better for worse,
And us'd her like a sister.
Now when in such a saddle
A saint will needs be riding, Though we dare not say 'Tis a falling away,
May there be not some back-sliding? "No surely," quoth James Naylor, "'Twas but an insurrection
Of the carnal part,
For a Quaker in heart
Can never lose perfection.
"For (as our masters teach us)
The intent being well directed,
Though the Devil trepan
The Adamical man,
The saint stands uninfected."
But alas! a Pagan jury
Ne'er judges what's intended;
Then say what we can,
Brother Green's outward man
I fear will be suspended.
And our adopted sister
Will find no better quarter,
But when him we enrol
For a saint, Filly Foal
Shall pass herself for a martyr.
Rome, that spiritual Sodom, No longer is thy debtor, Colchester, now Who's Sodom but thou, Even according to the letter?
MORPHEUS, the humble god, that dwells
In cottages and snoaky cells,
Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;
And though he fears no prince's frown,
Flies from the circle of a crown.
Come, I say, thou powerful god,
And thy leaden charming rod,
Dipt in the Letbéan lake,
O'er his wakeful temples shake,
Lest he should sleep, and never wake.
Nature (alas!) why art thou so
Obliged to thy greatest foe?
Sleep that is thy best repast,
Yet of death it bears a taste,
And both are the same thing at last.
MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS.
So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms Have turu'd to their own substances and forms: Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to fire,
We shall behold more than at first entire;
As now we do, to see all thine thy own
In this my Muse's resurrection,
Whose scatter'd parts from thy own race, more wounds
Hath suffer'd, than Acteon from his bounds; Which first their brains, and then their belly fed,
And from their excrements new poets bred.
But now thy Musé enraged, from her urn,
Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, does return
T' accuse the murderers, to right the stage,
And undeceive the long-abused age,
Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy
Gives not more gold than they give dross to it:
Who, not content, like felons, to purloin,
Add treason to it, and debase the coin.
But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt
Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
Then was Wit's empire at the fatal height,
When labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Jonson, Shakespeare, and thyself did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit-
Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow,
Or what more easy Nature did bestow
On Shakespeare's gentler Muse, in thee full
Their graces both appear, yet so that none
Can say, here Nature ends, and Art begins,
But mixt like th' elements, and born like twins,
So interwove, so like, so much the same,
None, this mere Nature, that mere Art can name :
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Free from the blemish of an artless hand,
Secure of fame, thou justly dost esteem
Less honour to create, than to redeem.
Nor ought a genius less than his that writ,
Attempt translation; for transplanted wit,
All the defects of air and soil doth share,
And colder brains like colder climates are ;
In vain they toil, since nothing can beget
A vital spirit but a vital heat.
That servile path thou nobly dost decline
Of tracing word by word, and line by line.
Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains,
Not the effect of poetry, but pains;
Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords
No flight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at
words.
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue
To make translations and translators too.
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
Fording bis current, where thou find'st it low,
Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow;
Wisely restoring whatsoever grace
It lost by change of times, or tongues, or place.
Nor fetter'd to his numbers and his times,
Betray'st his music to unhappy rhymes.
Nor are the nerves of his compacted strength
Stretch'd and dissolv'd into unsinew'd length:
Yet after all, (lest we should think it thine)
Thy spirit to his circle dost confine.
New names, new dressings, and the modern cast,
Some scenes, some persons alter'd, and out-
[known
The world, it were thy work: for we have Some thank'd and prais'd for what was less their
That master's hand which to the life can trace
The airs, the lines, and features of the face,
May with a free and bolder stroke express
A vary'd posture or a flattering dress;
He could have made those like, who made the
rest,
But that he knew his own design was best.
'Twas this the ancients meant, Nature and Skill POOL. To thee dear Tom, myself addressing,
Are the two tops of their Parnassus' hill.
TO SIR RICHARD FANSHAW,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF
PASTOR FIDO.
SUCH is our pride, our folly, or our fate,
That few but such as cannot write, translate.
Most queremoniously confessing,
That I of late have been compressing.
Destitute of my wonted gravity,
I perpetrated arts of pravity,
In a contagious concavity.
Making efforts with all my puissance,
For some venereal rejouissance,
I got (as once may say) a nuysance,
Come leave this fooling, cousin Poole y,
And in plain English tell us truly
Why under th' cyes you look so bluely?
'Tis not your hard words will avail you,
Your Latin and your Greek will fail
you,
Till you speak plainly what doth ail you.
When young, you led a life monastic,
And wore a vest ecclesiastic;
Now in your age you grow fantastic.
POOL. Without more preface or formality,
A female of malignant quality
Set fire on label of mortality.
The fæces of which ulceration
Brought o'er the helm a distillation,
Through th' instrument of propagation.
KIL. Then, cousin, (as I guess the matter)
You have been an old fornicator,
And now are shot 'twixt wind and water.
Your style has such an ill complexion,
That from your breath I fear infection,
That even your mouth needs an injec-
You that were once so economic,
Quitting the thrifty style laconic,
Turn prodigal in makeronic.
Yet be of comfort, I shall send-a
Person of knowledge, who can mend-a
Disaster in your nether end-a-
But you that are a man of learning,
So read in Virgil, so discerning,
Two kings like Saul, much taller than the rest,
Their equal armies draw into the field:
Till one take th' other prisoner they contest;
Courage and fortune must to conduct yield.
This game the Persian Magi did invent,
The force of Eastern wisdom to express;
From thence to busy Europeans sent,
And styl'd by modern Lombards pensive Chess.
Yet some that fled from Troy to Rome report,
Penthesilea Priam did oblige;
Her Amazons, his Trojans taught this sport,
To pass the tedious hours of ten years' siege.
There she presents herself, whilst kings and
Look gravely on whilst fierce Bellona fights;
Yet maiden modesty her motion steers,
Nor rudely skips o'er bishops' heads like
knights.
PASSION OF DIDO FOR ÆNEAS.
HAVING at large declar'd Jove's embassy,
Cyllenius from Æneas straight doth fly:
He loth to disobey the god's command,
Nor willing to forsake this pleasant land,
Asham'd the kind Eliza to deceive,
But more afraid to take a solemn leave;
He many ways his labouring thoughts revolves,
But fear o'ercoming shame at last resolves
(Instructed by the god of thieves) to steal
Himself away, and his escape conceal.
He calls his captains, bids them rig the fleet,
That at the port they privately should meet;
And some disembled colour to project,
That Dido should not their design suspect:
Methinks towards fifty should take But all in vain he did his plot disguise;
Once in a pit, you did miscarry,
No art a watchful lover can surprise.
She the first motion finds; love though most
Yet always to itself seems unsecure.
That danger might have made one wary That wicked fame which their first love pro-
This pit is deeper than the quarry.
POOL. Give me not such disconsolation,
Having now cur'd my inflammation,
To ulcerate my reputation.
Though it may gain the ladies' favour,
Yet it may raise an evil savour
Upon all grave and staid behav'our.
And I will rub my mater pia,
To find a rhyme to gonorrheia,
And put it in my Litania.
Foretells the end; the queen with rage infiam'd
Thus greets him: "Thou dissembler, would'st thou
Out of my arms by stealth perfidiously?
[fly
Could not the hand I plighted, nor the love,
Nor thee the fate of dying Dido move ?
And in the depth of winter, in the night,
Dark as thy black designs to take thy flight,
To plow the raging seas to coasts unknown,
The kingdom thou pretend'st to, not thy own!
Were Troy restor'd thou should'st mistrust a
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Into my horders now larbus falls, And my revengeful brother scales my walls; The wild Numidians will advantage take, For thee both Tyre and Carthage me forsake. Hadst thou before thy flight but left with me A young Æneas, who, resembling thee, Might in my sight have sported, I had then Not wholly lost, nor quite deserted been; Bythee, no more my husband, but my guest, Betray'd to mischiefs, of which death's the least."
With fixed looks he stands, and in his breast By Jove's command, his struggling care supprest.
"Great queen, your favours and desert so great,
Though numberless, I never shall forget;
No time, until myself I have forgot,
Out of my heart Eliza's name shall blot :
But my unwilling flight the gods inforce,
And that must justify our sad divorce.
Since I must you forsake, would Fate permit,
To my desires I might my fortune fit;
Toy to her ancient splendour I would raise,
And where I first began, would end my days.
But since the Lycian lots, and Delphic god
Have destin'd Italy for our abode;
Since you proud Carthage (fied from Tyre) enjoy,
Why should not Latium us receive
As for my son, my father's angry ghost Tells me his hopes by my delays are crost,
And mighty Jove's ambassador appear'd
I'll follow thee in funeral flames, when dead
My ghost shall thee attend at board and bed,
And when the gods on thee their vengeance
That welcome news shall comfort me below."
This saying, from his hated sight she fled,
Conducted by her damsels to her bed;
Yet restless she arose, and, looking out,
Beholds the fleet and hears the seamen shout,
When great Ænens pass'd before the guard,
To make a view how all things were prepar'd.
Ah, cruel Love, to what dost thou inforce
Poor mortal breasts! Again she hath recourse
To tears and prayers, again she feels the smart
Of a fresh wound from his tyrannic dart.
That she no ways nor means may leave untry'd,
Thus to her sister she herself apply'd;
"Dear sister, my resentinent had no been
So moving, if this fate I had foreseen;
Therefore to me this last kind office do,
Thou hast some interest in our scornful foe,
He trusts to thee the counsels of his mind,
Thou his soft hours, and free access canst find,
Tell him I sent not to the Ilian coast
My fleet to aid the Greeks; his father's ghost
I never did disturb; ask him to lend
To this, the last request that I shall send,
A gentle ear; I wish that he may find
A happy passage, and a prosperous wind.
The contract I don't plead, which he betray'd,
Nor that his promis'd conquest be delay'd;
All that I ask is but a short reprieve,
Till I forget to love, and learn to grieve;
With the same message, whom I saw and Some pause and respite only I require,
We both are griev'd when you or I complain,
But much the more when all complaints are vain:
I call to witness all the gods, and thy
Beloved head, the coast of Italy
Against my will I seek."
Whilst thus he speaks, she rolls her sparkling Surveys him round, and thus incens'd replies;
"Thy mother was no goddess, nor thy stock
From Dardanus, but in some horrid rock,
Perfidious wretch, rough Caucasus thee bred,
And with their milk Hyrcanian tigers fed.
Dissimulation I shall now forget,
And my reserves of rage in order set,
Could all my prayers and soft entreaties force Sighs from his breast, or from he look remorse. Where shall I first complain? can mighty Jove Or Jano such impieties approve?
Till with my tears I shall have quench'd my fire.
If thy address can but obtain one day
Or two, my death that service shall repay."
Thus she entreats; such messages with tears
Condoling Anne to him, and from him, bears,
But him no prayers, nor arguments can move;
The Fates resist, his ears are stopt by Jove.
As when fierce northern b'asts froin th' Alps
From his firm roots with struggling gusts to
An aged sturdy oak, the rattling sound
[rend
Grows loud, with leaves and scatter'd arms the
Is over-laid; yet he stands fixt, as high [ground
As his proud head is rais'd towards the sky,
So low towards Hell his roots descend. With
I rescued: Now the Lycian lots conspire
And tears the hero thus assail'd, great cares
He smothers in his breast, yet keeps his post,
All their addresses and their labour lost.
Then she deceives her sis er with a smile:
"Anne, in the inner court erect a pile;
Thereon his arms and once-lov'd portrait lay,
Thither our fatal marriage-bed convey;
All cursed monuments of him with fire
We must abolish (so the gods require.")!
The just Astræa sure is fled to Hell;
Nor more in Earth, nor Heaven itself will dwell.
Oh Faith! him on my coasts by tempest cast,
Receiving madly, on my throne I plac'd;
His men from famine, and his fleet from fire
With Phœbus; now Jove's envoy though the She gives her credit for no worse effect
Than from Sichæus' death she did suspect,
And her commands obeys.
Aurora now had left Tithonus' bed,
And o'er the world her blushing rays did spread;
The queen beheld, as soon as day appear'd,
The navy under sail, the haven clear'd;
Thrice with her hand her naked breast she
And from her forehead tears her golden locks.
"O Jove," she cry'd, "and shall he thus delude f As loud as if her Carthage, or old Tyre
Me and my realm! why is he not pursued ?
Arm, arm," she cry'd," and let our Tyrians board
With ours his fleet, and carry fire and sword;
Leave nothing unattempted to destroy
That perjur'd race, then let us die with joy.
What if th' event of war uncertain were?
Nor death, nor danger, can the desperate fear.
But, oh, too late! this thing I should have done,
When first I plac'd the traitor on my throne,
Behold the faith of him who sav'd from fire
His honour'd household gods, his aged sire
His pious shoulders from Troy's flames did bear;
Why did I not his carcase piece-meal tear,
And cast it in the sea? why not destroy
All his companions, and beloved boy
Ascanius; and his tender limbs have drest,
And made the father on the son to feast?
Thou Sun, whose lustre all things here below
Surveys; and Juno, conscious of my woe;
Revengeful Furies, and queen Hecate,
Receive and grant my prayer? if he the sea
Must needs escape, and reach th' Ausonian land,
If Jove decree it, Jove's decree must stand;
When landed, may he be with arms opprest
By his rebelling people, be distrest
By exile from his country, be divorc'd
From young Ascanius' sight, and be enforc'd
To implore foreign aids, and lose his friends
By violent and undeserved ends!
When to conditions of unequal peace
He shall submit, then may he not possess
Kingdom nor life, and find his funeral
I' th' sands, when he before his day shall fall!
And ye, oh Tyrians, with immortal hate
Pursue this race, this service dedicate
To my deplored ashes, let there be
'Twixt us and them no league nor amity.
May from my bones a new Achilles rise,
That shall infest the Trojan colonies
With fire, and sword, and famine, when at length
Time to our great attempts contributes strength;
Our seas, our shores, our armies theirs oppose,
And may our children be for ever foes!"
A ghastly paleness death's approach portends,
Then trembling she the fatal pile ascends;
Viewing the Trojan reliques, she unsheath'd
Æneas' sword, not for that use bequeath'd;
Then on the guilty bed she gently lays
Herself, and softly thus lamenting prays:
"Dear reliques, whilst that Gods and Fates give
Free me from care, and my glad soul receive.
That date which Fortune gave, I now must end;
And to the shades a noble ghost descend.
Sichæus' blood, by his false brother spilt,
I have reveng'd, and a proud city built.
Happy, alas; too happy I had liv'd,
Had not the Trojan on my coast arriv'd.
But shall I die without revenge? yet die
Thus, thus with joy to thy Sichæus fly.
My conscious foe my funeral fire shall view
From sea, and may that omen him pursue!"
Her fainting hand let fall the swor'd besmear'd
With blood, and then the mortal wound ap-
pear'd;
Through all the court the fright and clamours
rise,
Which the whole city fills with fears and cries
The foe had entered, and had set on fire.
Amazed Anne with speed ascends the stairs
And in her arms her dying sister rears :
"Did you for this, yourself and me beguile?
For such an end did I erect this pile?
Did you so much despiseme, in this fate
Myself with you not to associate?
Yourself and me, alas! this fatal wound
The senate, and the people, doth confound.
I'll wash her wound with tears, and at her
death
My lips from hers shall draw her parting
Then with her vest the wound she wipes and
dries;
Thrice with her arm the queen attempts to
rise,
But her strength failing, falls into a swound,
Life's last efforts yet striving with her wound;
Thrice on her bed she turns, with wandering
Seeking, she groans when she beholds the light.
Then Juno pitying her disastrous fate,
Sends Iris down, her pangs to mitigate.
(Since, if we fall before th' appointed day,
Nature and Death continue long their fray.)
Iris descends; "This fatal lock (says she)
To Pluto I bequeath, and set thee free;"
Then clips her hair: cold numbness straight be-
Her corpse of sense, and th' air her soul re
Going this last summer to visit the Wells, 1 took an occasion (by the way) to wait upon an ancient and honourable friend of mine, whom I found diverting his (then solitary) retirement with the Latin original of this translation, which (being out of print) I had never seen before: when I looked upon it, I saw that it had formerly passed through two learned hands not without approbation; which were Ben Johnson and Sir Kenelm Digby; but I found it (where I shall never find myself) in the service of a better master, the earl of Bristol, of whom I shall say no more; for 1 love not to improve the honour of the living by impairing that of the dead; and my own profession hath taught me not to erect new superstructures upon an old ruin. He was pleased to recommend it to me for my companion at the Wells, where I liked the enter tainment it gave me so well, that I undertook to redeem it from an obsolete English disguise, wherein an old monk had clothed it, and to make as becoming a new vest for it as I could. The author was a person of quality in Italy, his name Mancini, which family matehed since with the sister of cardinal Mazarine; he was contemporary to Petrarch and Mantuan, and not long before Torquato Tasso; which shows that the age they lived in was not so unicarned as that which preceded, or that which followed.
The author wrote upon the four cardinal vir
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