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 sense 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.

Though others qualified, then, with natural skill

(More sweet-mouth'd, and affecting shrewder wits)

Blanch coals, call illness good, and goodness ill,

Breathe thou the fire, that true-spoke knowledge fits.

Thou canst not then be great? yes: who is he

Said the good Spartan king-greater than I,

That is not likewise juster? No degree

Can boast of eminence, or Empery (As the great Stagyrite held) in any one Beyond another, whose soul farther sees,

And in whose life the gods are better known:

Degrees of knowledge difference all degrees.

Thy Poem, therefore, hath this due respect,

That it lets pass nothing without observing

Worthy instruction; or that might correct Rude manners, and renown the welldeserving:

Performing such a lively evidence

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

sense

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

A thousand years, as Satan was, their sire,

Ere any worthy the poetic name (Might I, that warm but at the muse' fire,

Presume to guard it), should let deathless fame

Light half a beam of all her hundred eyes,

At his dim taper, in their memories. Fly, fly, you are too near; so odorous flowers,

Being held too near the censer of our

Burn out the webs from their Arachnean

eyes, Whose knowledge-day-star to all diadems

Should banish knowledge-hating policies:

So others, great in the sciential grace,

His Chancellor, fautor of all human skills;

His Treasurer taking them into his place,

Northumber, that with them his crescent fills,

Grave Worcester, in whose nerves they guard their fire,

Northampton, that to all his height in blood,

Heightens his soul with them, and Devonshire,

In whom their streams, ebb'd to their

brains,