The Infufficiency of monumental honours to preserve the Memory.
You mighty Lords, that with respected grace
YOU
Do at the stern of fair example stand,
And all the body of this populace
Guide with the turning of your hand;
Keep a right course; bear up from all difgrace;
Obferve the point of glory to our Land:
Hold up difgraced Knowledge from the ground;
Keep Virtue in request; give Worth her due.
Let not Neglect with barb'rous means confound
So fair a good, to bring in Night a-new ;
Be not, O be not acceffary found
Unto her death, that must give life to you.
Where will you have your virtuous name safe laid
In gorgeous tombs, in facred cells fecure?
Do you not fee thofe proftrate heaps betray'd
Your Father's bones, and could not keep them fure?
And will you trust deceitful stones fair laid,
And think they will be to your honour truer?
No, no; unfparing Time will proudly fend
A warrant unto Wrath, that with one frown
Will all these mockries of vain-glory rend,
And make them (as before) ungrac'd, unknown;
Poor idle honours, that can ill defend
Your memories, that cannot keep their own,
And whereto ferve that wondrous Trophee now
That on the goodly plain near Walton stands?
That huge dumb heap, that cannot tell us how,
Nor what, nor whence it is; nor with whose hands,
Nor for whofe glory-it was set to shew,
How much our pride mocks that of other Lands.
Whereon when as the gazing Paffenger
Hath greedy look'd with admiration;
And fain would know his birth, and what he were ;
How there erected; and how long agon;
Enquires and afks his fellow traveller
What he hath heard, and his opinion:
And he knows nothing, then he turns again,
And looks and fighs; and then admires afresh,
And in himself with forrow doth complain
The mifery of dark forgetfulnefs:
Angry with Time that nothing should remain,
Our greatest Wonders Wonder to exprefs.
Then Ignorance, with fabulous discourse,
Robbing fair Art and Cunning of their right,
Tells how thofe ftones were by the Devil's force
From Afric brought to Ireland in a night;
And thence to Britany, by magick courte,
From Giant's hands redeem'd by Merlin's flight;
And then near Ambri plac'd in memory
Of all thofe noble Britons murther'd there,
By Hengift and his Saxon treachery,
Coming to parlee in peace at unaware,
With this old legend then Credulity
Holds her content, and clofes up her
*And as for thee, thou huge and mighty frame,
That ftands corrupted fo with Time's defpite,
And giv'it falfe evidence against their fame
That fet thee there to testify their right;
And are become a traitor to their name,
That trusted thee with all the best they might;
Thou shalt stand still bely'd and flandered,
The only gazing-stock of Ignorance,
And by thy guile the wife admonished,
Shall never more defire fuch hopes t' advance,
Nor trust their living glory with the dead
That cannot speak, but leave their fame to chance.
Confid'ring in how small a room do lie,
And yet lie fafe, (as fresh as if alive)
All those great Worthies of Antiquity,
Which long foreliv'd thee, and fhall long furvive;
Who ftronger tombs found for Eternity,
Than could the Pow'rs of all the Earth contrive.
Where they remain these trifles to upbraid,
Out of the reach of spoil, and way of Rage;
Tho' Time with all his Pow'r of years hath laid
Long batt'ry, back'd with undermining Age;
Yet they make head only with their own aid,
And war with his all-conqu'ring forces wage;
Pleading the Heavens prescription to be free,
And t' have a grant t' endure as long as He.
Mufophilus. by S. Daniel,
A few lines of inferior merit are here omitted.
End, and Beginning of each thing that growes,
Whose felfe no end, nor yet beginning knowes,
That hath no eyes to lee, nor ears to heare,
Yet fees and heares, and is all eye, all eare,
That no whear is contain'd, and yet is every whear,
Changer of all things, yet immutable,
Before and after all, the first, and last,
That mooving all, is yet immoveable,
Great without quantitie, in whofe forecast,
Things paft are prefent, things to come are paft;
Swift without motion, to whose open eye,
The hearts of wicked men unbrested lie,
At once abfent, and prefent to them, farre and nigh.
It is no flaming luftre, made of light,
No fweet concent, or well-tim'd harmonie,
Ambrofia, for to feast the appetite,
Or flowrie odour mixt with 1picerie.
No foft embrace, or pleasure bodilily,
And yet it is a kind of inward feast,
A harmony, that founds within the breaft,
An odour, light, embrace, in which the foule doth reft.
A heav'nly feast, no hunger can confume,
A light unfeene, yet shines in every place,
A found, no time can steale, a sweet perfume
No windes can scatter, an entire embrace,
That no fatietie can ére unlace,
Ingrac't into fo high a favour, thear
The Saints, with their beaw-peers, whole worlds outwear, And things unfeene doe fee, and things unheard doe hear.
Chrift's Triumph,
Part II. Stan, 38—41.
Ed. 1610. by G. Fletcher,
TH' Egyptians, amidst their folemne feasts,
Used to welcome, and prefent their guests
With the fad fight of Man's anatomy,
Serv'd in with this loud motto, "All muft die,"
Fooles often goe about, when as they may
Take better vantage of a neerer way.
Looke well into your bofomes: doe not flatter
Your knowne infirmities: behold, what matter
Your fleshe was made of: Man, cáft backe thine
Upon the weakneffe of thine infancy;
See how thy lips hang on thy mother's brest
Bawling for helpe, more helpleffe than a beast.
Liv'ft thou to Childhood? then, behold, what toies Doe mocke the fenfe, how fhallow are thy joyes.
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