I think how kind a heart he'd have
If he were some servile slave;
And if that same mind I see,
What care I how poor she be?
Poor, or bad, or curst, or black,
I will ne'er the more be slack,
If she hate me, then believe
She shall die ere I will grieve.
If she like me when I woo,
I can like and love her too;
If that she be fit for me,
What care I what others be?
MARTIAL. EPIG. Lib. x. 47, TRANSLATED.5
HE things that make the happier life are these,
Most pleasant Martial; Substance got with
Not laboured for, but left thee by thy Sire; A soil not barren; a continual fire;
Never at law; seldom in office gownd;
A quiet mind, free powers, and body sound;
A wise simplicity; friends alike stated;
Thy table without art, and easy rated;
Thy night not drunken, but from cares laid waste,
No sour or sullen bed-mate, yet a chaste;
Sleep that will make the darkest hours swift-pac't;
Will to be what thou art, and nothing more;
Nor fear thy latest day, nor wish therefor.
5 In a conversation at Hawthornden (No. ii. post) Jonson recommended Drummond to study Martial, and added that he had translated his Epigram Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem, &c. The above verses were discovered by Mr. Collier at Dulwich in Jonson's handwriting, and are no doubt the translation alluded to. Mr. Collier printed them in his Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, P. 54. F. C.
Y verses were commended, thou dar'st say,
And they were very good; yet thou think'st nay;
For thou objectest (as thou hast been told)
The envied returns of forty pound in gold.
Fool! do not rate my rhymes: I've found thy vice
Is to make cheap the lord, the lines, the price.
But howl thou on, I pity thee, poor cur,
Till thou hast lost thy noise, thy foam, thy stir,
To be known what thou art, a blatant beast,
By barking against me. Thou look'st at least
I now would write on thee! No, wretch; thy name
Shall not work out unto it such a fame.
Thou art not worth it. Who will care to know
If such a tyke as thou e'er wert or no?
A mongrel cur, thou should'st stink forth and die
Nameless and noisome as thy infamy!
No man will tarry by thee, as he goes,
To ask thy name if he have half his nose,
But fly thee like the Pest. Walk not the street
Out in the dog-days, lest the killer meet
Thy noddle with his club, and dashing forth
Thy dirty brains, men smell thy want of worth."
TO HIS MUCH AND WORTHILY-ESTEEMED FRiend,
THE AUTHOR OF "CINTHIA'S REVENGE."7
HO takes thy volume to his virtuous hand
Must be intended still to understand:
Who bluntly doth but look upon the same
May ask, What Author would conceal his
6 Gifford printed a very imperfect copy of these verses, and pronounced them not to be Jonson's. See ante, p. 32. F. C.
7 These lines are prefixed to Cinthia's Revenge: or Menander's Extasie. Written by John Stephens, Gent., London, 1613. Mr. W.
Who reads may roave, and call the passage
Yet may as blind men, sometimes, hit the mark.
Who reads, who roaves, who hopes to understand,
May take thy volume to his virtuous hand.
Who cannot read, but only doth desire
To understand, he may at length admire.
FROM THE NEW ENGLISH CANAAN."
SING the adventures of nine worthy wights,
And pity 'tis I cannot call them knights,
Since they had brawn and brain, and were
right able
To be installed of Prince Arthur's table;
Yet all of them were squires of low degree,
As did appear by rules of Heraldry.
The Magi told of a prodigious birth,
That shortly should be found upon the earth,
By Archimedes' art, which they misconster
Unto their land would prove a hideous monster.
Seven heads it had, and twice so many feet,
Arguing the body to be wondrous great;
Besides a forked tail, heaved up on high,
As if it threatened battle to the sky.
The Rumour of this fearful prodigy
Did cause the effeminate multitude to cry,
For want of great Alcides' aid, and stood
Like people that have seen Medusa's head:
Great was the grief of heart, great was the moan,
C. Hazlitt states his conviction that " although the name of Stephens appears upon the title, internal evidence establishes the authorship of Swallow." F. C.
8 To roave, or rove, a term of archery; means here to take a guess. 9 From The New English Canaan. Containing an Abstract of New England in three Books, written upon tenne Yeares Knowledge and Experiment of the Country. [By Thomas Morton.] Amsterdam, 1627, 4to. F. C.
And great the fear conceived by every one,
Of Hydra's hideous form and dreadful power,
Doubting in time this monster would devour
All their best flocks, whose dainty wool consorts
Itself with scarlet in all Princes' Courts.
Not Jason, nor the adventurous youths of Greece,
Did bring from Colchos any richer fleece:
In emulation of the Grecian force,
These Worthies nine prepared a wooden horse,
And, pricked with pride of like success, devise
How they may purchase glory by this prize,
And, if they give to Hydra's head the fall,
It will remain a platform unto all
Their brave achievements, and in time to come,
Per fas aut nefas they'll erect a throne.
Clubs are turned trumps: so now the lot is cast
With fire and sword to Hydra's den they haste,
Mars in the ascendant, Sol in Cancer now,
And Lerna Lake to Pluto's Court must bow.
What though they are rebuked by thundering Jove,
'Tis neither gods or men that can remove
Their minds from making this a dismal day:
These nine will now be actors in this play,
And summon Hydra to appear anon
Before their witless combination.
But his undaunted spirit, nursed with meat
Such as the Cyclops gave their babes to eat,
Scorned their base accons, for with Cecrops' charm
He knew he could defend himself from harm
Of Minos, Eacus, and Radamand,
Princes of Limbo, who must out of hand
Consult 'bout Hydra what must now be done.
Who having sate in Counsel one by one
Return this answer to the Stygian fiends;
And first grim Minos spake, "Most loving friends,
Hydra prognosticks ruin to our state,
And that our kingdom will grow desolate;
But if one head from thence be ta'en away,
The body and the members will decay."
"To take in hand," said Eacus, "this task,
Is such as hare-brained Phaeton did ask
Of Phoebus to begird the world about,
Which, granted, put the nether lands to rout.
Presumptuous fools learn wit at too much cost,
For life and labour both at once he lost."
Stern Radamantus being last to speak,
Made a great hum, and thus did silence break:
"What if with rattling chains or iron bands
Hydra be bound either by feet or hands,
And after being lashed with smarting rods,
He be conveyed by Styx unto the gods,
To be accused on the upper ground
Of læsæ majestatis; this crime found,
'Twill be impossible from thence I trow
Hydra shall come to trouble us below."
This sentence pleased the friends exceedingly,
That up they tossed their bonnets and did cry,
Long live our Court in great prosperity!"
The Sessions ended, some did straight devise
Court Revels, antics, and a world of joys;
Brave Christmas gambols, therewith open hall
Kept to the full, and sport the Divell and all!
Labours despised, the looms are laid away,
And this proclaimed the Stygian holiday!
In came grim Minos with his motley beard,
And brought a distillation well prepared;
And Eacus, who is as sure as text,
Came in with his preparatives the next.
Then Radamantus, last and principall,
Feasted the Worthies in his sumptuous hall.
There Charon, Cerberus, and the rout of fiends,
Had lap enough, and so their pastime ends.
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