He came from Bevis and his Arundel;1 Wonders my friend at this? what is't to thee Who canst produce a nobler pedigree, And in meer truth affirm thy soul of kin To some bright star, or to a cherubin? When these in their profuse moods spend the night, With the same sins they drive away the light: Thy learned thrift puts her to use, while she And looking on the separated skies And their clear lamps with careful thoughts and eyes Thou break'st through Nature's upmost rooms and bars To heav'n, and there conversest with the stars. 1 Sir Bevis ? and the renowned 'Arundell' family and 'Morglay' of the Normans'? G. ON SIR THOMAS BODLEY'S LIBRARY, THE AUTHOR BEING THEN IN How fraile a thing is flesh! though we see there Athens lives here, more than in Plutarch's lives. strain Of Orpheus, here do lodge his muse again. Sir Thomas Bodley, Founder of the Bodleian Library: born 1544: died 1612. His life was written by HEARNE (1703). Cf. THOMAS VAUGHAN's Latin Verses at close of this volume. G. Rare Seneca! how lasting is thy breath! Though Nero did, thou coulds't not bleed to death. How dull the expert tyrant was, to look For that in thee, which livèd in thy book! His counsels and his life proceed from thee. I change the name, and thou doest write to me; Thy stately Consolations are mine. Poor Earth! what though thy viler dust enrouls Most noble BODLEY! we are bound to thee Thy treasure was not spent on horse and hound, Nor that new mode, which doth old States con found. Thy legacies another way did go: Nor were they left to those would spend them so. Thy safe, discreet expence on us did flow; Th' hast made us all thine heirs; whatever we This is thy monument! here thou shalt stand THE IMPORTUNATE FORTUNE, WRITTEN TO DOCTOR POWEL, OF CANTRE[FF]. OR shame desist, why should'st thou seek my fall? It cannot make thee more monarchical. Leave off; thy empire is already built; 1 Mr. Macray (of the Bodleian) suggests to me, as the poet's idea, that as Walsingham was in the days of the old religion, a place of pilgrimage, so the Bodleian had (or would) become such. Or it may mean that Walsingham Library was dispersed and that some of its treasures found their way to the Bodleian: but of this there is no record. G. To ruine me were to inlarge thy guilt, The fates hatch more for thee; 'twere a disgrace If in thy annals I should make a clause. The future ages will disclose such men There must be fortunes; whether they be good, I scorn thy trash, and thee: nay more, I do |