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AN EPITAPH1

ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATICK POET W. SHAKSPEARE.

WHAT needs my Shakspeare, for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid ?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued 2 book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took;
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulcher'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die.

ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,

WHO SICKENED IN THE TIME OF HIS VACANCY; BEING FORBID TO GO TO
LONDON, BY REASON OF THE PLAGUE.

HERE lies old Hobson ;3 Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.

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'An Epitaph:' the first of Milton's pieces published.-2 Unvalued:' invaluable.- 'Hobson:' he put up at the Bull in Bishopsgate Street. He died in 1630.

"Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down ;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodg'd with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,

In the kind office of a chamberlin1

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night,
Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:

If any ask for him, it shall be said,
"Hobson has supt, and's newly gone to bed."

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

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 ceas'd, 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.

Chamberlin: the ancient Boots.

Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,

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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 weight :
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 encrease:
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,

Only remains this superscription.

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ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE

UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

BECAUSE you have thrown off your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff vows renounc'd 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 classick1 hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S.2 and Rotherford ?3
Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent,
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,
Must now be named and printed Hereticks
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call: 5
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent,
That so the Parliament
May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears,
And succour our just fears,

When they shall read this clearly in your charge,
New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.

Classick:' referring to the classes, including the parochial presbyteries into which England was divided.-A. S.:' 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. 3 Samuel Rotherford,' or Rutherford, one of the chief commissioners of the Church of Scotland, and professor of divinity in the University of St Andrews. He was a great genius, but disliked by Milton for his aversion to Independency. Who has not heard of his 'Letters'?Thomas Edwards,' minister: a pamphleteering opponent of Milton, whose plan of Independency he assailed.—5 'What d'ye call:' perhaps Henderson, or Gillespie, Scotch divines.- Bauk:' spare.

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TRANSLATIONS.

THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, LIB. I.

WHAT slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours,
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 vow'd
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the stern God of sea.

FROM GEOFFREY 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;

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