Show'd him his room where he must lodge that
Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:
any ask for him, it shall be said,
"Hobson has supp'd, and's newly gone to bed."
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 number'd 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 hasten'd on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;
"Nay,"quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch'd,
"If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
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 press'd to death, he cried, "More
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
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,
Only remains this superscription.
THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE
LONG PARLIAMENT.
you have thrown off your prelate Lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his liturgy,
To seize the widow'd whore Plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr❜d;
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 Rotherford2?
1 Adam Steuart, a divine of the church of Scotland, and the author of several polemical tracts: some portions of which commence with A. S. only prefixed.
2 Samuel Rotherford, or Rutherford, one of the chief commissioners of the church of Scotland, and professor of divinity in the church of St. Andrew. He published a great variety of Calvinistic tracts.
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 Edwards3 and Scotch what d'ye call+:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of
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."
3 Thomas Edwards, minister, a pamphleteering opponent of Milton; whose plan of independency he assailed with shallow invectives.
Perhaps Henderson, or Galaspie, Scotch divines: the former of whom appears as "a loving friend," in Rutherford's Joshua Redivivus; and the latter was one of the ecclesiastical commissioners at Westminster.
THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I.
WHAT slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odors, Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bind'st 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 seem'st fair! Me, in my
Picture, the sacred wall declares to' have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
FROM GEOFFERY OF MONMOUTH.
BRUTUS thus addresses DIANA in the Country of LEOGECIA. GODDESS of shades, and huntress! who at will Walk'st on the rowling spheres, and through the deep;
On thy third reign, the earth, look now, and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou bidds't me seek,
What certain seat, where I may worship thee
For aye, with temples vow'd 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.
AH, Constantine! of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy pope received of thee.
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.
THEN pass'd 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.
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