Wilt thou engross thy store
Of wheat, and pour no more,
Because their bacon-brains have such a taste,
As more delight in mast:

No! set them forth a board of dainties, full
As thy best Muse can cull;
Whilst they the while do pine
And thirst, midst all their wine.
What greater plague can Hell itself devise,
Than to be willing thus to tantalize?

Thou canst not find them stuff,
That will be bad enough

To please their palates: let 'em refuse
For some pye-corner Muse;

She is too fair an hostesse; 'twere a sin
For them to like thine Inn:
'Twas made to entertain
Guests of a nobler strain;

Yet if they will have any of thy store, [door.
Give them some scraps and send them from thy

8

And let those things in plush,
Till they be taught to blush,
Like what they will, and more contented be
With what Broome swept from thee.
I know thy worth, and that thy lofty strains
Write not to clothes, but brains:
But thy great spleen doth rise,
'Cause moles will have no eyes:
This only in my Ben I faulty find,

He's angry they'll not see him that are blind.

Why should the scene be mute, 'Cause thou canst touch thy lute, And string thy Horace: let each Muse of nine Claim thee, and say, thou'rt mine. 'Twere fond to let all other flames expire, To sit by Pindar's fire;

For by so strange neglect,

I should myself suspect

Thy palsy, were as well thy brain's disease,

If they could shake thy Muse which way they please.

And though thou well canst sing

The glories of thy king,

And on the wings of verse his chariot bear
To Heaven, and fix it there;

Yet let thy Muse as well some raptures raise
To please him, as to praise.

I would not have thee choose
Only a treble Muse;

But have this envious, ignorant age to know,
Thou that canst sing so high, canst reach as low.

FRAGMENT

OF A SATIRE ON JONSON'S MAGNETIC LADY.
BY ALEXANDER GILL OF ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL.

But to advise you, Ben, in this strict age,
A brick-kiln's better for thee than a stage;

sons in the muses, and held him in equal esteem with Cartwright. He has left behind him six plays, and several poems, published in 8vo. 1651. The ode addressed to Jonson is reasonbly smooth, and marks him a tolerable versifier.

* His amanuensis or attendant, Richard Broome: wrote with success several comedies.

Thou better know'st a groundsil for to lay, Than lay the plot or ground-work of a play; And better canst direct to cap a chimney, Than to converse with Clio or Polyhimny.

Fall then to work in thy old age agen; Take up thy trug and trowel, gentle Ben; Let plays alone; or if thou needs will write, And thrust thy feeble Muse into the light, Let Lowen cease, and Taylor scorn to touch The lothed stage, for thou hast made it such.

THE ANSWER.

SHALL the prosperity of a pardon still
Secure thy railing rhymes, infamous Gill,
At libelling? Shall no star-chamber peers,
Pillory, nor whip, nor want of ears,
All which thou hast incurr'd deservedly,
Nor degradation from the ministry,
To be the Denis of thy father's school,
Keep in thy bawling wit, thou bawling fool?
Thinking to stir me, thou hast lost thy end,
I'll laugh at thee, poor wretched tike; go send
Thy blotant Muse abroad, and teach it rather
A tune to drown the ballads of thy father:
For thou hast nought in thee, to cure his fame,
But tune and noise, the echo of his shame.
A rogue by statute, censur'd to be whipt,
Cropt, branded, slit, neck-stockt; go, you are stript.

ΤΟ

MY DEAR SON, AND RIGHT LEARNED FRIEND, MASTER JOSEPH RUTTER.

PREFIXED TO THE shepherd's HOLIDAY, A PASTORAL
TRAGI-COMEDY. 1635.

You look, my Joseph, I should something say
Unto the world in praise of your first play:
And truly, so I would, could I be heard.
You know I never was of truth afeard,
And less asham'd; not when I told the crowd
How well I lov'd truth: I was scarce allow'd
By those deep-grounded, understanding men,
That sit to censure plays, yet know not when,
Or why to like; they found, it all was new,
And newer, then [r. than] could please them bycause

true.

Such men I met withal, and so have you.
Now for mine own part, and it is but due
(You have deserv'd it from me), I have read,
And weigh'd your play: untwisted ev'ry thread,
And know the woofe, and warp thereof; can tell
Where it runs round, and even : where so well,
So soft, and smooth it handles, the whole piece,
As it were spun by nature, off the fleece:
This is my censure. Now there is a new
Office of wit, a mint, and (this is true)
Cry'd up of late: whereto there must be first
A malter-worker call'd, th' old standard burst
Of wit, and a new made: a warden then,
And a comptroller, two most rigid men
For order and for governing the pixe,
A say-master, hath studied all the tricks
Of fineness and alloy: follow his hint,
You've all the mysteries of wit's new mint:
The valuations, mixtures, and the same
Concluded from a carract to a dramme.

TO MY CHOSEN FRIEND,

THE LEARNED TRANSLATOR OF LUCAN, THOMAS
MAY, ESQ.

WHEN, Rome, I read thee in thy mighty pair,
And see both climbing up the slippery stair
Of Fortune's wheel, by Lucan driv'n about,
And the world in it, I begin to doubt,

At every line some pin thereof should slack,
At least, if not the general engine crack.
But when again I view the parts so piz'd,
And those in number so, and measure rais'd,
As neither Pompey's popularity,
Cæsar's ambition, Cato's liberty,
Calm Brutus' tenor start, but all along
Keep due proportion in the ample song,
It makes me ravish'd with just wonder, cry
What Muse, or rather god of harmony,
Taught Lucan these true moodes? replies my sense,
What gods, but those of arts aud eloquence?
Phoebus and Hermes? They whose tongue, or pen,
Are still th' interpreters 'twixt God and men !
But who hath them interpreted, and brought,
Lucan's whole frame unto us, and so wrought,
As not the smallest joint, or gentlest word
In the great mass, or machine there is stirr'd?
The self same genius! so the work will say.
The sun translated, or the son of May.

TO THE

WORTHY AUTHOR OF THE HUSBAND.

AN ANONYMOUS PIECE PUBLISHED IN 1614.

Ir fits not onely him that makes a booke
To see his worke be good: but that he looke
Who are his test, and what their judgment is,
Lest a false praise do make theyr dotage his,
I do not feel that ever yet I had
The art of utt'ring wares, if they were bad:
Or skill of making matches in my life:
And therefore I commend unto the Wife?
That went before-a Husband. She, I'le sweare,
Was worthy of a good one: and this here
I know for such, as (if my word will weigh)
She need not blush upon the marriage day.

HORACE,

OF THE ART OF POETRIE.

10

Ir to a woman's head a painter would
Set a horse-neck, and divers feathers fold
On every limbe, ta'en from a severall creature,
Presenting upwards a faire female feature,
Which in some swarthie fish uncomely ends:
Admitted to the sight, although his friends
Could you containe your laughter? Credit me,
This peece, my Piso's, and that booke-agree,
Whose shapes, like sick-men's dreames, are fain'd so
As neither head nor foot, one forme retaine. [vaine,
But equall power, to painter and to poët,

Of caring all, hath still beene given; we know it:
And both doe crave, and give againe this leave.
Yet, not as therefore wild and tame should cleave

By Sir Thomas Overbury.

10 From the Censura Literaria, vol. 5.

Together: not that we should serpents see
With doves; or lambes with tygres coupled be,
In grave beginnings, and great things profest,
Ye have oft-times, that may ore-shine the rest,
A scarlet peece, or two, stitch'd in: when or
Diana's grove, or altar, with the bor-
Dring circles of swift waters that intwine
The pleasant grounds, or when the river Rhine,
Or rainbow is describ'd. But here was now
No place for these. And, painter, hap'ly thou
Know'st only well to paint a cipresse tree.
What's this? if he, whose money hireth thee
To paint him, hath by swimming hopelesse scap'd,
The whole fleet wreck'd? a great jarre to be shap'd,
Was meant at first. Why forcing still about
Thy labouring wheele, comes scarce a pitcher out.
In short; I bid, let what thou work'st upon,
Be simply quite throughout, and wholly one.

Most writers, noble sire, and either sonne,
Are, with the likenesse of the truth undone.
My selfe for shortnesse labour; and I grow
Obscure. This, striving to run smooth and flow,
Hath neither soule nor sinewes. Loftie he
Professing greatnesse swells: that low by lee
Creepes on the ground; too safe, too afraid of storme.
This seeking, in a various kind to forme
One thing prodigiously paints in the woods,
A dolphin, and a boare amid' the floods.
So, shunning faults, to greater fault doth lead,
When in a wrong, and artlesse way we tread.
The worst of statuaries, here about
Th' Emilian schoole, in brasse can fashion out
The nailes, and every curled haire disclose;
But in the maine worke haplesse: since he knowes
Not to designe the whole. Should I aspire
To forme a worke, I would no more desire
To be that smith; than live, mark'd one of those,
With faire black eyes and haire, and a wry nose.

Take therefore, you that write, still matter fit Unto your strength and long examine it, Upon your shoulders. Prove what they will beare, And what they will not. Him whose choice doth reare His matter to his power, in all be makes, Nor language, nor cleere order ere forsakes. The vertue of which order, and true grace, Or I am much deceiv'd, shall be to place Invention. Now to speake; and then defer Much, that mought now be spoke: omitted here Till fitter season. Now, to like of this, Lay that aside, the epick's office is.

In using also of new words to be Right spare, and warie: then thou speak'st to me Most worthie praise, when words that common grew, Are, by thy cunning placing, made meere new. Yet, if by chance, in utt'ring things abstruse, Thou need new termes; thou maist, without excuse, Faine words, unheard of to the well-truss'd race Of the Cethegi; and all men will grace, And give, being taken modestly, this leave, And those thy new and late-coyn'd words receive, So they fall gently from the Grecian spring, And come not too much wrested. What's that thing, A Roman to Cæcilius will allow,

Or Plautus, and in Virgil disavow,

Or Varius? why am I now envi'd so,

If I can give some small increase? when loe, Cato's and Ennius' tongues have lent much worth, And wealth unto our language; and brought forth New names of things. It hath beene ever free, And ever will, to utter termes that be

Stamp'd to the time. As woods whose change appeares
Still in their leaves, throughout the sliding yeares,
The first-borne dying; so the aged state
Of words decay, and phrases borne but late
Like tender buds shoot up, and freshly grow.
Our selves, and all that's ours, to death we owe :
Whether the sea receiv'd into the shore,
That from the north, the navie safe doth store,
A kingly worke; or that long barren fen
Once rowable, but now doth nourish men

In neighbour-townes, and feeles the weightie plough;
Or the wilde river, who hath changed now
His course so hurtfull both to graine, and seedes,
Being taught a better way. All mortall deeds
Shall perish: so farre off it is the state,
Or grace of speech, should hope a lasting date.
Much phrase that now is dead, shall be reviv'd;
And much shall dye, that now is nobly liv'd,
If custome please; at whose disposing will
The power and rule of speaking resteth still.

The gests of kings, great captaines,and sad warres,
What number best can fit, Homer declares.
In verse unequall match'd, first sowre laments,
After men's wishes, crown'd in their events
Were also clos'd: but who the man should be,
That first sent forth the dapper elegie,
All the grammarians strive; and yet in court
Before the judge it hangs, and waites report.

Unto the lyrick strings, the Muse gave grace
To chant the gods and all their god-like race,
The conqu'ring champion, the prime horse in course,
Fresh lovers businesse, and the wine's free source.
Th' Iambick arm'd Archilochus to rave,
This foot the socks tooke up and buskins grave,
As fit t' exchange discourse; a verse to win
On popular noise with, and doe businesse in.
The comick matter will not be exprest
In tragick verse; no lesse Thyestes' feast
Abhorres low numbers, and the private straine
Fit for the sock: each subject should retaine
The place allotted it, with decent thewes.
If now the turnes, the colours, and right hues
Of poëms here describ'd, I can, nor use,
Nor know t' observe: why (i' the Muse's name)
Am I called poët? wherefore with wrong shame,
Perversly modest, had I rather owe

To ignorance still, then either learne, or know.
Yet sometime, doth the comedie excite

Her voyce and angry Chremes chafes out-right
With swelling throat: and oft the tragick wight
Complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus,
And Peleus, if they seeke to heart-strike us
That are spectators, with their miserie,
When they are poore, and banish'd, must throw by
Their bombard-phrase, and foot-and-halfe-foot words:
'T is not enough, th' elaborate Muse affords
Her poem's beautie, but a sweet delight

To work the hearers' minds, still to their plight.
Men's faces still, with such as laugh, are prone
To laughter; so they grieve with those that mone.
If thou would'st have me weepe, be thou first drown'd
Thy selfe in teares, then me thy losse will wound,
Peleus, or Telephus. If you speake vile
And ill-penn'd things, I shall, or sleepe, or smile.
Sad language fits sad lookes; stuff'd menacings,
The angry brow; the sportive, wanton things;
And the severe, speech ever serious.
For Nature, first within doth fashion us
To every state of fortune; she helpes on,
Or urgeth us to anger; and anon
VOL. V.

With weightie sorrow hurles us all along,
And tortures us: and after by the tongue
Her truch-man, she reports the minds each throw.
If now the phrase of him that speaks shall flow
In sound, quite from his fortune; both the rout,
And Roman gentrie, jearing, will laugh out.
It much will differ, if a god speake than,
Or an heroe; if a ripe old man,

Or some hot youth, yet in his flourishing course;
Where some great lady, or her diligent nourse;
| A ventring merchant, or the farmer free
Of some small thankfull land: whether he be
Of Cholchis borne; or in Assyria bred;
Or, with the milk of Thebes; or Argus, fed.
Or follow fame, thou that dost write, or faine
Things in themselves agreeing: if againe
Honour'd Achilles chance by thee be seiz'd,
Keepe him still active, angry, un-appeas'd,
Sharpe and contemning lawes at him should aime,
Be nought so 'bove him but his sword let claime.
Medea make brave with impetuous scorne;
Ino bewaild; Ixion false, forsworne;
Poore Jö wandring; wild Orestes mad:
If something strange, that never yet was had
Unto the scene thou bringst, and dar'st create
A meere new person; looke he keepe his state
Unto the last, as when he first went forth,
Still to be like himselfe, and hold his worth.

'T is hard to speake things common, properly:
And thou maist better bring a rhapsody
Of Homer's forth in acts, then of thine owne,
First publish things unspoken and unknowne.
Yet common matter thou thine owne maist make,
If thou the vile, broad-troden ring forsake.
For being a poët, thou maist feigne, create,
Not care, as thou wouldst faithfully translate,
To render word for word: nor with thy sleight
Of imitation, leape into a streight,

From whence thy modestie, or poëme's law
Forbids thee forth againe thy foot to draw.
Nor so begin, as did that circler late,

I sing a noble warre and Priam's fate.
What doth this promiser such gaping worth
Afford? the mountaines travail'd, and brought forth
A scorned mouse! O, how much better this,
Who nought assaies unaptly, or amisse ?

"Speake to me, Muse, the man, who after Troy was sack't

Saw many townes and men, and could their manners tract."

He thinkes not, how to give you smoake from light,
But light from smoake; that he may draw his bright
Wonders forth after: as Antiphates,
Scylla, Charybdis, Polypheme, with thesc.
Nor from the brand, with which the life did burne
Of Meleager, brings he the returne

Of Diomede; nor Troye's sad warre begins
From the two egges, that did disclose the twins,
He ever hastens to the end, and so
(As if he knew it) rapps his hearer to
The middle of his matter: letting goe
What he despaires, being handled, might not show,
And so well faines, so mixeth cunningly

Falsehood with truth, as no man can espie
Where the midst differs from the first: or where
The last doth from the midst dis-joyn'd appeare.
Heare, what it is the people, and I desire:
If such a one's applause thou dost require,
That tarries till the haugings be ta'en downe,
And sits till the epilogue saies clap, or crowne;

ND

The customes of each age thou must observe,
And give their yeares, and natures, as they swerve,
Fit rites. The child, that now knowes how to say,
And can tread firme, longs with like lads to play;
Soone angry, and soone pleas'd, is sweet, or sowre,
He knowes not why, and changeth every houre.
Th' unbearded youth, his guardian once being
Loves dogges and horses; and is ever one [gone,
I' the open field; is waxe like to be wrought
To every vice, as hardly to be brought
To endure counsell: a provider slow
For his owne good, a carelesse letter-goe
Of money, haughtie, to desire soon mov'd,
And then as swift to leave what he hath lov'd.'
These studies alter now, in one, growne man;
His better'd mind seekes wealth and friendship:
Lookes after honours, and bewares to act [then
What straight-way he must labour to retract.
The old man many evils doe girt round;
Either because he seekes, and, having found,
Doth wretchedly the use of things forbeare,
Or does all businesse coldly and with feare;
A great deferrer, long in hope, growne numbe
With sloth, yet greedy still of what's to come:
Froward, complaining, a commender glad
Of the times past, when he was a young lad;
And still correcting youth and censuring. [bring
Man's comming yeares much good with them doe
At his departing take much thence: lest, then,
The parts of age to youth be given, or men
To children; we must alwayes dwell, and stay
In fitting proper adjuncts to each day.

The business either on the stage is done,
Or acted told. But ever, things that run
In at the eare, doe stirre the mind more slow
Than those the faithfull eyes take in by show,
And the beholder to himselfe doth render.
Yet, to the stage, at all thou maist not tender
Things worthy to be done within, but take

They might with ease be numbred, being a few
Chaste, thriftie, modest folke, that came to view.
But as they conquer'd, and enlarg'd their bound,
That wider walls embrac'd their citie round,
And they uncensur'd might at feasts and playes
Steepe the glad genius in the wine whole dayes,
Both in their tunes, the licence greater grew,
And in their numbers; for alas, what knew
The ideot, keeping holy-day, or drudge,
Clowne, towns-man, base and noble, mix'd, to judge?
Thus, to his antient art the piper lent
Gesture and riot, whilst he swooping went
In his train'd gowne about the stage: so grew
In time to tragedie, a musicke new.
The rash, and head-long eloquence brought forth
Unwonted language; and that sense of worth
That found out profit, and foretold each thing,
Now differ'd not from Delphick riddling.

Thespis is said to be the first found out
The tragedie, and carried it about,
Till then unknowne, in carts, wherein did ride
Those that did sing and act: their faces dy'd
With lees of wine. Next Eschylus, more late
Brought in the visor, and the robe of state,
Built a small timbred stage, and taught them take
Loftie and grave; and in the buskin stalke.
He too, that did in tragick verse contend,
For the vile goat, soone after forth did send
The rough rude satyres naked; and would try,
Though sower, with safetie of his gravitie,
How he could jest; because he mark'd and saw
The free spectators, subject to no law,
Having well eat and drunke, the rites being done
Were to be staid with softnesses, and woune
With something that was acceptably new.
Yet so the scoffing satyres to men's view,
And so their prating to present was best,
And so to turne all earnest into jest,

As neither any god, were brought in there,

Her sonnes before the people; nor the ill-
Natur'd and wicked Atreus cooke, to th' eye,
His nephew's entrailes; nor must Progne flie
Into a swallow there; nor Cadmus take,
Upon the stage, the figure of a snake.
What so is showne, I not beleeve, and hate.

Nor must the fable, that would hope the fate
Once seene, to be againe call'd for and plaid,
Have more or lesse then just five acts: nor laid,
To have a god come in; except a knot
Worth his untying happen there: and not
Any fourth man, to speake at all, aspire.

An actor's parts and office too, the quire Must maintaine manly; not be heard to sing Betweene the acts, a quite cleane other thing Than to the purpose leades and fitly 'grees. It still must favour good men and to these Be wonne a friend; it must both sway and bend The angry, and love those that feare t' offend. Praise the spare diet, wholsome justice, lawes, Peace, and the open ports, that peace doth cause, Hide faults, pray to the gods, and wish aloud Fortune would love the poore, and leave the proud. The hau'-boy, not as now with latten bound, And rivall with the trumpet for his sound, But soft and simple, at few holes breath'd time And tune too, fitted to the chorus' rime, As loud enough to fill the seats, not yet So over-thick, but where the people met,

A royall crowne and purple; be made hop
With poore base termes, through every baser shop:
Or whilst he shuns the earth, to catch at aire
And emptie clowdes. For tragedie is faire,
And farre unworthie to blurt out light rimes;
But, as a matrone drawne at solemne times
To dance, so she should, shamefac'd, differ farre
From what the obscene and pertulant satyres are.
Nor I, when I write satyres, will so love
Plaine phrase, my Pisos, as alone t' approve
Meere raigning words: nor will I labour so
Quite from all face of tragedie to goe,
As not make difference, whether Davus speak,
And the bold Pythias, having cheated weake
Simo; and of a talent wip'd his purse;
Or old Silenus, Bacchus' guard and nurse.

I can out of knowne geare, a fable frame,
And so as every man may hope the same;
Yet he that offers at it may sweat much,
And toile in vaine: the excellence is such
Of order and connexion: so much grace
There comes sometimes to things of meanest place.
But let the Faunes, drawne from their groves, beware,
Be I their judge, they doe at no time dare
Like men street-borne, and neere the hall, reherse
Their youthfull tricks in over-wanton verse:
Or crack out baudie speeches and uncleane.
The Roman gentric, men of birth, and meane
Will take offence at this: nor, though it strike
Him that buyes chiches blauch'd, or chance to i ke

The nut-crackers throughout, will they therefore
Receive, or give it an applause the more.
To these succeeded the old comedie,
And not without much praise; till libertie
Fell into fault so farre, as now they saw
Her licence fit to be restrain'd by law:
Which law receiv'd, the Chorus held his peace,
His power of foulely hurting made to cease.

Two rests, a short and long, th' iambick frame;
A foot, whose swiftnesse gave the verse the name
Of trimeter, when yet it was sixe-pac'd,
But meere iambicks all, from first to last.
Nor is 't long since, they did with patience take
Into their birth-right, and for fitnesse sake,
The steadie spondæes; so themselves doe beare
More slow, and come more weightie to the eare:
Provided ne're to yeeld, in any case

Of fellowship, the fourth, or second place.
This foot yet, in the famous trimeters
Of Accius and Ennius, rare appeares :
So rare as with some taxe it doth ingage
Those heavie verses sent so to the stage,
Of too much haste and negligence in part,
Or a worse crime, the ignorance of art.
But every judge hath not the facultie
To note in poems breach of harmonie;
And there is given, too, unworthy leave
To Roman poëts. Shall I therefore weave
My verse at randome and licentiously?
Or rather, thinking all my faults may spie,
Grow a safe writer, and be warie-driven
Within the hope of having all forgiven.
T is cleare, this way I have got off from blame,
But in conclusion, merited no fame.
Take you the Greeke examples, for your light,
In hand, and turne them over day and night.
Our ancestors did Plautus' numbers praise,
And jests; and both to admiration raise
Too patiently, that I not fondly say;
If either you, or I, know the right way
To part scurrilitie from wit, or can

A lawfull verse, by th' eare, or finger scan.
Our poëts, too, left nought unproved here;
Nor did they merit the lesser crowne to weare,
In daring to forsake the Grecian tracts,
And celebrating our owne home-borne facts;
Whether the guarded tragedie they wrought,
Or 't were the gowned comedy they taught.
Nor had our Italie more glorious bin
In vertue and renowne of armes, than in
Her language, if the stay and care t' have mended,
Had not our every poët like offended.

But you, Pompilius' off-spring, spare you not
To taxe that verse, which many a day and blot
Have not kept in; and (lest perfection faile)
Not ten times o're, corrected to the naile.
Because Democritus beleeves a wit
Happier then wretched art, and doth, by it,
Exclude all sober poëts from their share
In Helicon; a great sort will not pare
Their nailes, nor shave their beards, but to by-paths
Retire themselves, avoid the publike baths;
For so, they shall not only gaine the worth,
But fame of poets, they think, if they come forth,
And from the barber Licinus conceale
Their heads, which three Anticyras cannot heale.
OI left-witted, that purge every spring
For choller! If I did not, who could bring
Out better poëms? but I cannot buy
My title at the rate, l'ad rather, I,

Be like a whet-stone, that an edge can put
On steele, though 't selfe be dull, and cannot cut.
I, writing nought my selfe, will teach them yet
Their charge and office, whence their wealth to fet,
What nourisheth, what formed, what begot
The poët, what becommeth, and what not :
Whether truth may, and whether error bring.

The very root of writing well, and spring
Is to be wise; thy matter first to know;
Which the Socratick writings best can show:
And, where the matter is provided still,
There words will follow, not against their will.
He, that hath studied well the debt, and knowes
What to his countrey, what his friends he owes,
What height of love a parent will fit best,
What brethren, what a stranger, and his guest,
Can tell a states-man's dutie, what the arts
And office of a judge are, what the parts
Of a brave chiefe sent to the warres: he can,
Indeed, give fitting dues to every man.
And I still bid the learned maker looke

On life and manners, and make those his booke,
Thence draw forth true expressions. For, sometimes,
A poëme of no grace, weight, art, in rimes
With specious places, and being humour'd right,
More strongly takes the people with delight,
And better stayes them there, than all fine noise
Of verse meere-matter-lesse, and tinckling toiest
The Muse not only gave the Greeks a wit,
But a well-compass'd mouth to utter it.
Being men were covetous of nought but praise;
Our Roman youths they learne the subtle wayes
How to divide, into a hundred parts,

A pound, or piece, by their long compting arts :
There's Albin's sonne will say, substract an ounce
From the five ounces; what remaines ? pronounce
A third of twelve, you may: foure ounces. Glad,
He cries, good boy, thou'lt keepe thine owne. Now,

adde

would.