NOT like that loose and party-liver'd sect Of idle lovers, that (as different lights, On colour'd subjects, different hues reflect)

Change their affections with their mistress' sights,

That with her praise, or dispraise, drown, or float,

And must be fed with fresh conceits, and fashions;

Never wax cold, but die; love not, but doat:

Love's fires staid judgments blow, not humorous passions,

Whose loves upon their lovers' pomp depend,

And quench as fast as her eyes' sparkle twinkles,

* "Divers Poeticall Essaies on the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest of our moderne writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes: never before extant. And now first consecrated by them all generally to the love and merite of the truenoble Knight, Sir John Salisburie. Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori. MDCI. (Printed at the end of Love's Martyr, &c., by Robert Chester.) London: Imprinted for E. B. 1601, page 176."

So brings the wealth-contracting jeweller Pearls and dear stones from richest shores and streams,

As thy accomplish'd travail doth confer From skill-enriched souls, their wealthier gems;

So doth his hand enchase in amell'd gold, Cut and adorn'd beyond their native merits,

His solid flames, as thine hath here enroll'd

In more than golden verse, those better'd spirits;

So he entreasures Princes' Cabinets

As thy wealth will their wished libraries; So on the throat of the rude sea he sets His venturous foot, for his illustrious prize;

And through wild deserts, arm'd with wilder beasts,

As thou adventurest on the multitude, Upon the boggy and engulfed breasts

Of hirelings, sworn to find most right most rude;

And he, in storms at sea, doth not endure, Nor in vast deserts, amongst wolves,

more danger,

Than we that would with virtue live secure, Sustain for her in every vice's anger. Nor is this allegory unjustly rack'd

To this strange length, only that jewels

are,

In estimation merely, so exact;

And thy work, in itself, is dear and rare. Wherein Minerva had been vanquished

Had she, by it, her sacred looms advanced,

And through thy subject woven her graphic thread,

Contending therein, to be more entranced;

* Verses prefixed_to "Seianos his fall. Written by Ben: Ionson. Mart. non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas Harpyasgo inuenies: Hominem pagina nostra sapit. At London: Printed by G. Elld, for Thomas Thorpe. 1605.'

For though thy hand was scarce address'd to draw

The semi-circle of SEJANUS' life, Thy muse yet makes it the whole sphere, and law,

To all state lives; and bounds ambition's strife.

And as a little brook creeps from his spring, With shallow tremblings through the

lowest vales,

As if he fear'd his stream abroad to bring,

Lest profane feet should wrong it, and rude gales;

But finding happy channels, and supplies

Of other fords mix with his modest course, He grows a goodly river, and descries

The strength that mann'd him since he left his source;

Then takes he in delightsome meads and groves,

And with his two-edged waters, flourishes Before great palaces, and all men's loves

Build by his shores to greet his passages: So thy chaste muse, by virtuous selfmistrust,

Which is a true mark of the truest merit, In virgin fear of men's illiterate lust,

Shut her soft wings, and durst not show her spirit ;

Till, nobly cherish'd, now thou lett'st her fly, Singing the sable orgies of the Muses, And in the highest pitch of Tragedy,

Makest her command all things thy ground produces.

But, as it is a sign of love's first firing

Not pleasure by a lovely presence taken, And boldness to attempt; but close retiring

To places desolate and fever-shaken ; So, when the love of knowledge first affects

Nor can, saith Eschylus, a fair young dame,

Kept long without a husband, more contain

Her amorous eye from breaking forth in flame,

When she beholds a youth that fits her vein;

Than any man's first taste of knowledge truly

Can bridle the affection she inspireth; But let it fly on men that most unduly

Haunt her with hate, and all the loves she fireth.

If our teeth, head, or but our finger ache, We straight seek the physician; if a fever,

Or any cureful malady we take,

The grave physician is desired ever; But if proud melancholy, lunacy,

Or direct madness over-heat our brains, We rage, beat out, or the physician fly, Losing with vehemence even the ser.se of pains.

So of offenders, they are past recure,

That with a tyrannous spleen, their stings extend

'Gainst their reprovers; they that will endure

All discreet discipline, are not said t' offend.

Performing such a lively evidence

In thy narrations, that thy hearers still Thou turn'st to thy spectators, and the

serise

That thy spectators have of good or ill, Thou inject'st jointly to thy reader's souls, So dear is held, so deck'd thy numerous task

As thou putt'st handles to the Thespian bowls,

Or stuck'st rich plumes in the Palladian cask.

All thy worth, yet, thyself must patronize By quaffing more of the Castalian head; In expiscation of whose mysteries,

Our nets must still be clogg'd with heavy lead,

To make them sink and catch; for cheerful gold

Was never found in the Pierian streams, But wants, and scorns, and shames for silver sold.

What, what shall we elect in these extremes?

Now by the shafts of the great Cyrrhan poet,

That bear all light that is about the world,

I would have all dull poet-haters know it, They shall be soul-bound, and in darkness hurl'd

brains,