Who ever shut those stragglers in a room,
Or put a circle about vacuuт,

66

That should confine those undetermined crowds,
And yet extend no further than the clouds?
Who ever could have thought, but you alone,
A "sign" and an ascendant" were all one?
Or how 'tis possible the Moon should shroud
Her face, to peep at Mars, behind a cloud;
Since clouds below are so far distant placed
They cannot hinder her from being barefaced?
Who ever did a language so enrich

To scorn all little particles of speech?

For, though they make the sense clear, yet they're found To be a scurvy hindrance to the sound;

Therefore you wisely scorn your style to humble,

Or for the sense's sake to waive the rumble.

Had Homer known this art, he had ne'er been fain

To use so many particles in vain,

That to no purpose serve but as he haps

To want a syllable to fill up gaps.

You justly coin new verbs, to pay for those
Which in construction you o'ersee and lose ;
And by this art do Priscïan no wrong

When you break's head, for 'tis as broad as long.
These are your own discoveries, which none
But such a Muse as yours could hit upon,
That can, in spite of laws of art or rules,
Make things more intricate than all the schools:
For what have laws of art to do with you,
More than the laws with honest men and true?
He that's a prince in poetry should strive
To cry 'em down, by his prerogative,

And not submit to that which has no force
But o'er delinquents and inferiors.

Your poems will endure to be tried

I' the fire like gold, and come forth purified;
Can only to eternity pretend,

For they were never writ to any end.

All other books bear an uncertain rate;

But those you write are always sold by weight,-
Each word and syllable brought to the scale,

And valued to a scruple in the sale.

For, when the paper's charged with your rich wit,
'Tis for all purposes and uses fit;

Has an abstersive virtue to make clean
Whatever nature made in man obscene;
Boys find, by experiment, no paper kite,
Without your verse, can make a noble flight;
It keeps our spice and aromatics sweet;
In Paris they perfume their rooms with it:

For burning but one leaf of yours, they say,
Drives all their stinks and nastiness away.

Cooks keep their pies from burning with your wit,
Their pigs and geese from scorching on the spit;
And vintners find their wines are ne'er the worse,
When arsenic's only wrapped up in the verse.
These are the great performances that raise
Your mighty parts above all reach of praise,
And give us only leave to admire your worth;
For no man but yourself can set it forth,-
Whose wondrous power's so generally known,
Fame is the echo, and her voice your own.

DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND.1

A COUNTRY that draws fifty foot of water,
In which men live as in the hold of Nature
And, when the sea does in upon them break,
And drown a province, does but spring a leak;
That always ply the pump, and never think
They can be safe, but at the rate they stink;2
That live as if they had been run aground,
And, when they die, are cast away and drowned;
That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and prey
Upon the goods all other nations' fleets convey;
And, when their merchants are blown up and cracked,
Whole towns are cast away in storms and wrecked;
That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,
And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes.
A land that rides at anchor, and is moored;
In which they do not live, but go aboard.

REGAL ADULATION.

IN foreign universities,

When a king's born, or weds, or dies,
Straight other studies are laid by,

And all apply to poetry.

Some write in Hebrew, some in Greek;

And some, more wise, in Arabic,

To avoid the critic, and the expense

Of difficulter wit and sense,

And seem more learnedish than those

1 Compare these verses with the Character of Holland, by Marvell, p. 141. Butler's lines had not been published during Marvell's lifetime.

2 Should this word be "sink"? If so, the sense appears to be that the Hollanders do not so much as think of being absolutely safe, but only think (reckon) at what rate they are sinking: if that rate is slow, they have to be contented. If" stink" is correct, I do not seize the sense.

That at a greater charge compose.
The doctors lead, the students follow;
Some call him Mars, and some Apollo,
Some Jupiter, and give him the odds,
On even terms, of all the gods.

Then Cæsar he's nicknamed,-as duly as
He that in Rome was christened Julius,
And was addressed to by a crow

As pertinently long ago,

And with more heroes' names is styled

Than saints' are clubbed to an Austrian child.

And, as wit goes by colleges,

As well as standing and degrees,

He still writes better than the rest

That's of the house that's counted best.

FEAR.

THERE needs no other charm nor conjurer,
To raise infernal spirits up, but fear;

That makes men pull their horns in, like a snail,
That's both a prisoner to itself, and jail;

Draws more fantastic shapes than in the grains
Of knotted wood, in some men's crazy brains;
When all the cocks they think they see, and bulls,
Are only in the inside of their skulls.

A JUBILEE.

A JUBILEE is but a spiritual fair

To expose to sale all sorts of impious ware;

In which his Holiness buys nothing in

To stock his magazines, but deadly sin,

And deals in extraordinary crimes,

That are not vendible at other times;

For, dealing both for Judas and th' High-Priest, He makes a plentifuller trade of Christ.

SCRIBBLERS.

As he that makes his mark is understood
To write his name, and 'tis in law as good:-
So he that cannot write one word of sense
Believes he has as legal a pretence

To scribble what he does not understand
As idiots have a title to their land.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

[Born in 1613, son of the Controller of the Household to Charles I.; died in 1641. An elegant courtier, and man of gallantry and wit. He saw some service under Gustavus Adolphus, and raised a troop of horse in the cause of Charles I., but with no successful result].

SIR J. S.

OUT upon it, I have loved

Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings,
Ere he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant Lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:

Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,

And that very face,

There had been at least ere this

A dozen dozen in her place.

LOVE AND DEBT ALIKE TROUBLESOME.

THIS one request I make to him that sits the clouds above,—
That I were freely out of debt, as I am out of love.

Then for to dance, to drink and sing, I should be very willing ;
I should not owe one lass a kiss, nor ne'er a knave a shilling.
'Tis only being in love and debt that breaks us of our rest;
And he that is quite out of both of all the world is blest :
He sees the Golden Age wherein all things were free and common;
He eats, he drinks, he takes his rest, he fears no man nor woman.
Though Croesus compassèd great wealth, yet he still cravèd more;
He was as needy a beggar still as goes from door to door.
Though Ovid was a merry man, love ever kept him sad;
He was as far from happiness as one that is stark mad.
Our merchant he in goods is rich, and full of gold and treasure;
But, when he thinks upon his debts, that thought destroys his
pleasure.

Our courtier thinks that he's preferred, whom every man envies;
When love so rumbles in his pate, no sleep comes in his eyes.
Our Gallant's case is worst of all, he lies so just betwixt them;
For he's in love, and he's in debt, and knows not which most vex
him.

But he that can eat beef, and feed on bread which is so brown,
May satisfy his appetite, and owe no man a crown:

And he that is content with lasses clothed in plain woollen May cool his heat in every place; he need not to be sullen, Nor sigh for love of lady fair; for this each wise man knows,As good stuff under flannel lies as under silken clothes.

UPON THE BLACK SPOTS WORN BY MY LADY D.

I KNOW your heart cannot so guilty be
That you should wear those spots for vanity;
Or, as your beauty's trophies, put on one

For every murder which your eyes have done.

No, they're your mourning-weeds for hearts forlorn,

Which, though you must not love, you could not scorn;
To whom since cruel honour does deny

Those joys could only cure their misery,

Yet you this noble way to grace 'em found,

Whilst thus your grief their martyrdom has crowned :-
Of which take heed you prove not prodigal ;

For, if to every common funeral,

By your eyes martyred, such grace were allowed,
Your face would wear not patches, but a cloud.

THE METAMORPHOSIS.

THE little boy to show his might and power,
Turned Io to a cow, Narcissus to a flower;
Transformed Apollo to a homely swain,
And Jove himself into a golden rain.
These shapes were tolerable; but, by the mass,
He has metamorphosed me into an ass!

JOHN CLEVELAND.

[Born at Loughborough in 1613, son of a clergyman; died in London in 1658. Cleveland is said to have been the first champion in verse of the cause of Charles I., when the parliamentary struggle began. He was imprisoned for awhile, but had been set at large some time before his death. A satire named The Rebel Scots is his principal performance].

THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

Most gracious and omnipotent
And everlasting Parliament,

Whose power and majesty

Are greater than all kings' by odds,—
And to account you less than gods

Must needs be blasphemy,

Moses and Aaron ne'er did do
More wonder than is wrought by you
For England's Israel;