St. George's sorrell, or his crosse of blood,
Arthur's round board, or Caledonian wood,
Or holy battles of bold Charlemaine,

What were his knights did Salem's siege maintaine:
How the mad rival of faire Angelice

Was physick'd from the new-found paradise.
High stories they, which with their swelling straine
Have riven Frontoe's broad rehearsal plaine.
But so to fill up books, both backe and side,
What needs it? Are there not enow beside ?
well thriven and well fortunate,

O age

When each man hath a Muse appropriate;

And she, like to some servile eare-boar'd slave,
Must play and sing when and what he'd have!
Would that were all-small fault in number lies,
Were not the feare from whence it should arise.
But can it be aught but a spurious seed
That growes so rife in such unlikely speed?
Sith Pontian left his barren wife at home,
And spent two years at Venice and at Rome,
Returned, hears his blessing ask'd of three,
Cries out, "O Julian law! adultery!"
Though Labeo reaches right (who can deny?)
The true strains of heroick poesy;
For he can tell how fury reft his sense,
And Phoebus fill'd him with intelligence.
He can implore the heathen deities
To guide his bold and busy enterprize;
Or filch whole pages at a clap for need
From honest Petrarch, clad in English weed;
While big but oh's! each stanza can begin,

Whose trunk and taile sluttish and heartlesse been.
He knowes the grace of that new elegance,

Which sweet Philisides fetch'd of late from France,

That well beseem'd his high-stil❜d Arcady,
Though others marre it with much liberty,
In epithets to joine two wordes in one
Forsooth, for adjectives can't stand alone:
As a great poet could of Bacchus say,
That he was Semele-femori-gena.

Lastly he names the spirit of Astrophel;
Now hath not Labeo done wondrous well?
But ere his Muse her weapon learn to wield,
Or dance a sober pirrhicke in the field,
Or marching wade in blood up to the knees,
Her arma virum goes by two degrees,
The sheepe-cote first hath beene her nursery
Where she hath worne her idle infancy,
And in high startups walk'd the pastur'd plaines,
To tend her tasked herd that there remaines,
And winded still a pipe of oate or breare,
Striving for wages who the praise shall beare;
As did whilere the homely Carmelite,
Following Virgil, and he Theocrite;

Or else hath beene in Venus chamber train'd
To play with Cupid, till she had attain'd
To comment well upon a beauteous face,
Then was she fit for an heroick place;
As witty Pontan in great earnest said,

His mistress' breasts were like two weights of lead.
Another thinks her teeth might liken'd be

To two faire rankes of pales of ivory,

To fence in sure the wild beast of her tongue,
From either going far, or going wrong;
Her grinders like two chalk-stones in a mill,
Which shall with time and wearing waxe as ill
As old Catillaes, which wont every night
Lay up her holy pegs till next day-light,

And with them grind soft-simpring all the day,
When, lest her laughter should her gums bewray,
Her hands must hide her mouth if she but smile;
Fain would she seem all frixe and frolicke still.
Her forehead faire is like a brazen hill,

Whose wrinkled furrows, which her age doth breed,
Are dawbed full of Venice chalke for need:
Her eyes like silver saucers faire beset
With shining amber, and with shady let,

Her lids like Cupid's bow case, where he hides
The weapons that doth wound the wanton-ey'd :
Her chin like Pindus, or Parnassus hill,
(fill
Where down descends th' o'erflowing stream doth
The well of her faire mouth.-Each hath his praise,
Who would not but wed poets now a dayes!

SELECT POEMS

OF

THE EARL OF STIRLING.

WITH

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

EZEKIEL SANFORD.