Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage,
Or like a crabbe-louse with its bag and baggage,
Or like the four square circle of a ring,
Or like to hey dinge, dingea dingea dinge:
Even such is he who spake, and yet no doubt
Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out.

Like to a faire, fresh, faiding, withered rose,
Or lyke to rhyming verse that runs in prose,
Or lyke the stumbles of a tynder box,
Or lyke a man that's sound yet hath the pox:
Even such is he who dyed, and yet did laugh
To see these lines writt for his epitaph.

THE COUNTRY LIFE'.

THRICE and above blest (my soul's halfe!) art thou
In thy though last yet better vowe,

Canst leave the cyttye with exchange to see
The country's sweet simplicitie,

And to knowe and practise, with intent

To growe the sooner innocent,

By studdyinge to knowe vertue, and to ayme
More at her nature than her name.

The last is but the least, the first doth tell
Wayes not to live, but to live well.

And both are knowne to thee, who now canst live, ́
Led by thy conscience, to give

Justice 2 to soon pleas'd Nature, and to showe
Wisdome and she togeather goe,

And keepe one center: this with that conspires
To teach man to confine's desires;

To knowe that riches have their proper stint
In the contented minde, not mint;

And canst instruct, that those that have the itch
Of cravinge more, are never rich. [prevent
These thinges thou knowst to th' height, and dost
The mange, because thou art content

With that Heaven gave thee with a sparinge hand, More blessed in thy brest than land,

To keepe but Nature even and upright,

To quench not cocker appetite.

The first is Nature's end; this doth impart.
Least thankes to Nature, most to Art.
But thou canst tersely live, and satisfie
The bellye only, not the eye;

Keepinge the barkinge stomache meanly quiet
With a neat yet needfull dyett.

But that which most creates thy happy life,
Is the fruition of a wife,

Whom (starres consentinge with thy fate) thou hast
Gott, not so beautifull as chast.

1 This poem, of which the leading features seem to be copied from the 10th epistle of the 1st book of Horace, has been printed in The Antient and Modern Miscellany, by Mr. Waldron, from a manuscript in his possession, and it is consequently retained in this edition of Corbet's Poems; to whose acknowledged productions it bears no resemblance, at the same time that it is attributed (in Ashmole's MSS. No. 38, fol. 91.) to Robert Heyrick, the author of Hesperides. G.

2 Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam, Et quantum natura petat.

Lucan, iv. ver. 377.

By whose warm'd side thou dost securely sleepe,
Whilst Love the centinell doth keepe
With those deeds done by day, which ne'er affright
The silken slumbers in the night;
Nor hath the darkenesse power to usher in

Feare to those sheets that knowe no sinne:
But still thy wife, by chast intention led,
Gives thee each night a maidenhead.

For where pure thoughts are led by godly feare,
Trew love, not lust at all, comes there;
And in that sense the chaster thoughts commend
Not halfe so much the act as end:

That, what with dreams in sleepe of rurall blisse,
Night growes farre shorter than she is.
The damaske meddowes, and the crawlinge streames,
Sweeten, and make soft thy dreams.
The purlinge springes, groves, birdes, and well-
weav'd bowers,

With fields enamelled with flowers,

Present thee shapes, whilst phantasye discloses
Millions of lillyes mixt with roses.

Then dreame thou hear'st the lambe with many a

bleat

Woo'd to come sucke the milkey teate; Whilst Faunus, in the vision, vowes to keepe

From ravenouse wolfe the woolley sheepe; With thowsand such enchantinge dreames, which

meet

To make sleepe not so sound as sweet. Nor can these figures in thy rest endeere, As not to up when chanticleere

Speaks the last watch, but with the dawne dost rise To worke, but first to sacrifice:

[us,

Makinge thy peace with Heaven for some late fault,
With holy meale and cracklinge salt.
That done, thy painfull thumbe this sentence tells
God for our labour all thinges sells us.

Nor are thy daylye and devout affayres
... Attended with those desperate cares

Th' industriouse marchant hath, who for to finde
Gold, runneth to the furthest Inde3,

And home againe tortur'd with fear doth hye.
Untaught to suffer povertye.

But you at home blest with securest ease,
Sitt'st and beleev'st that there are seas,

And watrye dangers; but thy better hap
But sees these thinges within thy mapp,
And viewinge them with a more safe survaye,
Mak'st easy Feare unto thee say,

A heart thrice wall'd with oake and brass that man
Had, first durst plough the ocean.

But thou at home, without or tyde or gale,
Canst in thy mapp securely sayle,
Viewinge the parted countryes, and so guesse
By their shades their substances;
And from their compasse borrowing advise,
Buy'st travayle at the lowest price.

Nor are thy eares so seald but thou canst heare
Far more with wonder than with feare.

ΤΟ

THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOME'.

THOU, once a body, now but aire,
Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer,
From Carfax come;

And patch me up a zealous lay,
With an old ever and for ay,
Or, all and some.

Or such a spirit lend me,
As may a hymne downe send me,
To purge my braine:
So, Robert, looke behinde thee,
Least Turke or Pope doe find thee,
And
goe to bed againe.

AN

EPITAPH ON THOMAS JONCE.

HERE, for the nonce,
Came Thomas Jonce,

In St. Giles church to lye.
None Welsh before,
None Welshman more,

Till Shon Clerk die.

I'll tole the bell
I'll ring his knell;
He died well,

He's sav'd from Hell;
And so farwel

Tom Jonce.

TO THE

LADYES OF THE NEW DRESSE,

THAT WEARE THEIR GORGETS AND RAYLES DOWNE TO THEIR WASTES.

LADYES, that weare black cipress-vailes
Turn'd lately to white linnen-rayles,
And to your girdle weare your bands,
And shew your armes instead of hands;
What can you doe in Lent so meet
As, fittest dress, to weare a sheet ?
T'was once a band, 't is now a cloake,
An acorne one day proves an oke:
Weare but your linnen to your feet,
And then your band will prove a sheet.
By which devise, and wise excesse,
You'l doe your penance in a dresse;
And none shall know, by what they see,
Which lady's censur'd, and which free.

* See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 170, 171. G. He contributed some of the Psalms in the Old Version. C.

"A clergyman, and inhabitant of St. Giles's parish, Oxford. His proper name was Jones. G.

THE LADIES' ANSWER.

(HARL. MSS. NO. 6396.)

BLACKE Cypresse vailes are shroudes on night,
White linnen railes are raies of light,
Which though we to the girdles weare,
We've hands to keep your hands off there.
A fitter dresse we have in Lent,
To shew us trewly penitent.
Whoe makes the band to be a cloke
Makes John-a-style of John-an-oake.
We weare our garments to the feet,

Yet neede not make our bandes a sheet:
The clergie weare as long as we,
Yet that implies conformitie.

Be wise, recant what you have writt,
Least you doe pennance for your witte;
Love's charm hath power to weare a stringe,
To tye you as you tied your ringe;
There by love's sharpe but just decree
You may be censured, we go free.

CORBET'S REPLY.

(ASHMOLE'S MUSEUM, a. 38. fol. 66.)

YFF nought but love-charmes power have
Your blemisht creditt for to save;
Then know your champion is blind,
And that love-nottes are soon untwinde.
But blemishes are now a grace,
And add a lustre to your face;
Your blemisht credit for to save,
You needed not a vayle to have;
The rayle for women may be fitte,
Because they daylie practice ytt.
And, seeing counsell can you not reforme,
Read this reply-and take ytt not in scorne.

UPON FAIRFORD WINDOWS".

TELL me, you anti-saints, why brass
With you is shorter lived than glass?
And why the saints have scap't their falls
Better from windows than from walles?
Is it, because the brethren's fires
Maintain a glass-house at Blackfryars?
Next which the church stands north and south,
And east and west the preacher's mouth.
Or is 't, because such painted ware
Resembles something that you are,
Soe py'de, soe seeming, soe unsound
In manners, and in doctrine, found,
That, out of emblematick witt,
You spare yourselves in sparing it?
If it be soe, then, Faireford, boast

Thy church hath kept what all have lost;
And is preserved from the bane
Of either warr, or puritane:
Whose life is colour'd in thy paint,
The inside drosse, the outside saint.

UPON FAIREFORD WINDOWES'.

(MISC. MSS. POEMS, MUS. BRIT. BIB. SLOAN. NO. 1446.)

I KNOWE no painte of poetry

Can mend such colour'd imag'ry
In sullen inke, yet (Fayreford) I
May rellish thy fair memory.
Such is the echoe's fainter sound,

Such is the light when the Sunn 's drown'd,
So did the fancy look upon

The work before it was begun.

Yet when those showes are out of sight,
My weaker colours may delight.
Those images doe faithfullie
Report true feature to the eie,
As you may think each picture was
Some visage in a looking-glass;
Not a glass window face, unless
Such as Cheapside hath, where a press
Of painted gallants, looking out,
Bedeck the casement rounde about.
But these have holy phisnomy;
Each paine instructs the laity
With silent eloquence; for heere
Devotion leads the eie, not eare,
To note the cathechisinge paint,
Whose easie phrase doth soe acquainte
Our sense with gospell, that the creede
In such an hand the weake may reade.
Such tipes e'en yett of vertue bee,
And Christ as in a glass we see-
When with a fishinge rod the clarke
St. Peter's draught of fish doth marke,
Such is the scale, the eie, the finn,
You'd thinke they strive and leape within;
But if the nett, which holdes them, brake,
He with his angle some would take.
But would you walke a turn in Paul's,
Looke up, one little pane inrouls
A fairer temple. Flinge a stone,
The church is out at the windowe flowne.
Consider not, but aske your eies,
And ghosts at mid-day seem to rise,
The saintes there seemeing to descend,
Are past the glass, and downwards bend.
Look there! The Devil! all would cry,
Did they not see that Christ was by.
See where he suffers for thee! See
His body taken from the tree!
Had ever death such life before?
The limber corps, be-sully'd o'er
With meagre paleness, does display
A middle state 'twixt flesh and clay.
His armes and leggs, his head and crown,

Like a true lambskin dangle downe:
Whoe can forbeare, the grave being nigh,
To bringe fresh ointment in his eye?
The wond'rous art hath equall fate,
Unfixt, and yet inviolate.

The Puritans were sure deceav'd

Whoe thought those shaddowes mov'd and heav'd,

stories of the Old and New Testament. C.

112. G.

And all my deedes misconster.
Boldly I preach, &c.

I unhorst the whore of Babel
With a launce of inspirations:
I made her stinke,
And spill her drinck
In the cupp of abominations.

Boldly I preach, &c.

I have seene two in a vision,
With a flying booke betweene them:
I have bin in dispaire

Five times a yeare,

And cur'd by reading Greenham.
Boldly I preach, &c.

I observ'd in Perkin's Tables 3
The black lines of damnation:
Those crooked veines

Soe struck in my braines,
That I fear'd my reprobation.
Boldly I preach, &c.

In the holy tongue of Chanaan
I plac'd my chiefest pleasure:
Till I prickt my foote

With an Hebrew roote,
That I bledd beyond all measure.
Boldly I preach, &c.

I appear'd before the arch-bishopp,
And all the high commission:

I gave him noe grace,

But told him to his face
That he favour'd superstition.

Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice,
Miters, copes, and rotchets:

Come heare me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.

• An eminent divine of Cambridge. C.