Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MUSOPHILUS, by SAMUEL DANIEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MUSOPHILUS, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fond man, musophilus, that thus dost spend
Last Line: Above the reach of lightness and contempt.
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Muses; Philosophy & Philosophers; Thought; Virtue; Wisdom; Thinking


Philocosmus.

Fond man, Musophilus, that thus dost spend
In an ungainful art thy dearest days,
Tiring thy wits and toiling to no end
But to attain that idle smoke of praise,
Now, when this busy world cannot attend
Th' untimely music of neglected lays;
Other delights than these, other desires
This wiser profit-seeking age requires.

Musophilus.

Friend Philocosmus, I confess indeed
I love this sacred art thou set'st so light,
And though it never stand my life in stead,
It is enough it gives myself delight,
The whiles my unafflicted mind doth feed
On no unholy thoughts for benefit.
Be it that my unseasonable song
Come out of time, that fault is in the time,
And I must not do virtue so much wrong
As love her ought the worse for others' crime;
And yet I find some blessed spirits among
That cherish me, and like and grace my rhyme --
A gain that I do more in soul esteem
Than all the gain of dust the world doth crave;
And if I may attain but to redeem
My name from dissolution and the grave
I shall have done enough, and better deem
T' have lived to be than to have died to have.
Short-breathed mortality would yet extend
That span of life so far forth as it may,
And rob her fate, seek to beguile her end
Of some few ling'ring days of after-stay,
That all this little All might not descend
Into the dark a universal prey;
And give our labors yet this poor delight,
That when our days do end they are not done;
And though we die we shall not perish quite,
But live two lives, where other have but one.

Philocosmus.

Silly desires of self-abusing man,
Striving to gain th' inheritance of air,
That having done the uttermost he can,
Leaves yet perhaps but begg'ry to his heir.
All that great purchase of the breath he won
Feeds not his race, or makes his house more fair.
And what art thou the better thus to leave
A multitude of words to small effect,
Which other times may scorn, and so deceive
Thy promised name of what thou dost expect?
Besides, some vip'rous critic may bereave
Th' opinion of thy worth for some defect,
And get more reputation of his wit
By but controlling of some word or sense
Than thou shalt honor for contriving it,
With all thy travail, care, and diligence,
Being learned now enough to contradict
And censure others with bold insolence.
Besides, so many so confusedly sing,
Whose diverse discords have the music marred,
And in contempt that mystery doth bring,
That he must sing aloud that will be heard;
And the received opinion of the thing,
For some unhallowed strings that vilely jarred,
Hath so unseasoned now the ears of men
That who doth touch the tenor of that vein
Is held but vain, and his unreckoned pen
The title but of levity doth gain --
A poor light gain, to recompense their toil
That thought to get eternity the while.
And therefore leave the left and outworn course
Of unregarded ways, and labor how
To fit the times with what is most in force;
Be new with men's affections that are now;
Strive not to run an idle counter-course
Out from the scent of humors men allow.
For not discreetly to compose our parts
Unto the frame of men (which we must be)
Is to put off ourselves, and make our arts
Rebels to nature and society;
Whereby we come to bury our deserts
In th' obscure grave of singularity.

Musophilus.

Do not profane the work of doing well,
Seduced man, that canst not look so high
From out that mist of earth as thou canst tell
The ways of right, which virtue doth descry,
That overlooks the base, contemptible,
And low-laid follies of mortality;
Nor mete out truth and right-deserving praise
By that wrong measure of confusion,
The vulgar foot, that never takes his ways
By reason, but by imitation,
Rolling on with the rest, and never weighs
The course which he should go, but what is gone.
Well were it with mankind if what the most
Did like were best; but ignorance will live
By others' square, as by example lost;
And man to man must th' hand of error give
That none can fall alone at their own cost;
And all because men judge not, but believe.
For what poor bounds have they whom but th' earth bounds?
What is their end whereto their care attains,
When the thing got relieves not, but confounds,
Having but travail to succeed their pains?
What joy hath he of living, that propounds
Affliction but his end, and grief his gains?
Gath'ring, encroaching, wresting, joining to,
Destroying, building, decking, furnishing,
Repairing, alt'ring, and so much ado
To his soul's toil, and body's travailing;
And all this doth he, little knowing who
Fortune ordains to have th' inheriting.
And his fair house raised high in envy's eye,
Whose pillars reared, perhaps, on blood and wrong,
The spoils and pillage of iniquity,
Who can assure it to continue long?
If rage spared not the walls of piety,
Shall the profanest piles of sin keep strong?
How many proud aspiring palaces
Have we known made the prey of wrath and pride,
Leveled with th' earth, left to forgetfulness,
Whilst titlers their pretended rights decide,
Or civil tumults, or an orderless
Order pretending change of some strong side!
Then where is that proud title of thy name,
Written in ice of melting vanity?
Where is thine heir left to possess the same?
Perhaps not so well as in beggary.
Something may rise to be beyond the shame
Of vile and unregarded poverty,
Which, I confess, although I often strive
To clothe in the best habit of my skill,
In all the fairest colors I can give,
Yet for all that methinks she looks but ill.
I cannot brook that face which dead-alive
Shows a quick body but a buried will.
Yet oft we see the bars of this restraint
Holds goodness in, which loose wealth would let fly,
And fruitless riches, barrener than want,
Brings forth small worth from idle liberty,
Which when disorders shall again make scant,
It must refetch her state from poverty.
But yet, in all this interchange of All,
Virtue, we see, with her fair grace stands fast;
For what high races hath there come to fall
With low disgrace, quite vanished and past,
Since Chaucer lived, who yet lives, and yet shall,
Though -- which I grieve to say -- but in his last.
Yet what a time hath he wrested from time,
And won upon the mighty waste of days,
Unto th' immortal honor of our clime,
That by his means came first adorned with bays;
Unto the sacred relics of whose rhyme
We yet are bound in zeal to offer praise.
And could our lines, begotten in this age,
Obtain but such a blessed hand of years,
And 'scape the fury of that threat'ning rage
Which in confused clouds ghastly appears,
Who would not strain, his travails to engage,
When such true glory should succeed his cares?
But whereas he came planted in the spring,
And had the sun before him of respect,
We, set in th' autumn, in the withering
And sullen season of a cold defect,
Must taste those sour distastes the times do bring
Upon the fullness of a cloyed neglect,
Although the stronger constitutions shall
Wear out th' infection of distempered days,
And come with glory to outlive this fall,
Recov'ring of another spring of praise,
Cleared from th' oppressing humors wherewithal
The idle multitude surcharge their lays.
Whenas, perhaps, the words thou scornest now
May live, the speaking picture of the mind,
The extract of the soul that labored how
To leave the image of herself behind,
Wherein posterity, that love to know,
The just proportion of our spirits may find.
For these lines are the veins, the arteries,
And undecaying life-strings of those hearts
That still shall pant, and still shall exercise
The motion spirit and nature both imparts;
And shall with those alive so sympathize
As, nourished with their powers, enjoy their parts.
O blessed letters, that combine in one
All ages past, and make one live with all,
By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the dead-living unto counsel call;
By you th' unborn shall have communion
Of what we feel, and what doth us befall.
Soul of the world, knowledge, without thee
What hath the earth that truly glorious is?
Why should our pride make such a stir to be,
To be forgot? What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading, and the world's delight?
And let th' unnatural and wayward race
Born of one womb with us but to our shame,
That never read t' observe, but to disgrace,
Raise all the tempest of their power to blame;
That puff of folly never can deface
The work a happy genius took to frame.
Yet why should civil learning seek to wound
And mangle her own members with despite?
Prodigious wits that study to confound
The life of wit, to seem to know aright,
As if themselves had fortunately found
Some stand from off the earth beyond our sight,
Whence, overlooking all as from above,
Their grace is not to work, but to reprove.
But how came they placed in so high degree,
Above the reach and compass of the rest?
Who hath admitted them only to be
Free denizens of skill, to judge the best?
From whom the world as yet could never see
The warrant of their wit soundly expressed.
T' acquaint our times with that perfection
Of high conceit which only they possess,
That we might have things exquisitely done,
Measured with all their strict observances,
Such would, I know, scorn a translation,
Or bring but others' labors to the press;
Yet oft these monster-breeding mountains will
Bring forth small mice of great expected skill.
Presumption, ever fullest of defects,
Fails in the doing to perform her part;
And I have known proud words and poor effects,
Of such indeed as do condemn this art.
But let them rest; it ever hath been known,
They others' virtues scorn that doubt their own.
And for the divers disagreeing chords
Of interjangling ignorance that fill
The dainty ears and leave no room for words,
The worthier minds neglect, or pardon will;
Knowing the best he hath, he frankly 'ffords,
And scorns to be a niggard of his skill.
And that the rather, since this short-lived race,
Being fatally the sons but of one day,
That now with all their power ply it apace
To hold out with the greatest might they may
Against confusion, that hath all in chase
To make of all a universal prey.
For now great nature hath laid down at last
That mighty birth wherewith so long she went,
And overwent the times of ages past,
Here to lie in, upon our soft content,
Where fruitful she hath multiplied so fast
That all she hath on these times seemed t' have spent.
All that which might have many ages graced
Is born in one, to make one cloyed with all;
Where plenty hath impressed a deep distaste
Of best and worst, and all in general;
That goodness seems goodness to have defaced,
And virtue hath to virtue giv'n the fall.
For emulation, that proud nurse of wit,
Scorning to stay below or come behind,
Labors upon that narrow top to sit
Of sole perfection in the highest kind;
Envy and wonder, looking after it,
Thrust likewise on, the self-same bliss to find;
And so long striving till they can no more,
Do stuff the place, or others' hopes shut out,
Who, doubting t' overtake those gone before,
Give up their care, and cast no more about;
And so in scorn leave all as fore-possessed,
And will be none where they may not be best.
Ev'n like some empty creek that long hath lain
Left or neglected of the river by,
Whose searching sides, pleased with a wand'ring vein,
Finding some little way that close did lie,
Steal in at first, then other streams again
Second the first, then more, then all supply,
Till all the mighty main hath borne at last
The glory of his chiefest power that way,
Plying this new-found pleasant room so fast
Till all be full, and all be at a stay;
And then about, and back again doth cast,
Leaving that full to fall another way:
So fears this hum'rous world, that evermore
Rapt with the current of a present course,
Runs into that which lay contemned before,
Then glutted leaves the same, and falls t' a worse;
Now zeal holds all, no life but to adore;
Then cold in spirit, and faith is of no force;
Straight all that holy was unhallowed lies,
The scattered carcases of ruined vows;
Then truth is false, and now hath blindness eyes,
Then zeal trusts all, now scarcely what it knows --
That evermore to foolish or to wise
It fatal is to be seduced with shows.
Sacred religion, mother of form and fear,
How gorgeously sometimes dost thou sit decked!
What pompous vestures do we make thee wear!
What stately piles we prodigal erect!
How sweet perfumed thou art, how shining clear!
How solemnly observed, with what respect!
Another time, all plain and quite threadbare,
Thou must have all within and nought without,
Sit poorly without light, disrobed, no care
Of outward grace t' amuse the poor devout,
Powerless, unfollowed, scarcely men can spare
Thee necessary rites to set thee out.
Either truth, goodness, virtue are not still
The self-same which they are, and always one,
But alter to the project of our will,
Or we our actions make them wait upon,
Putting them in the liv'ry of our skill,
And cast them off again when we have done.
You mighty lords, that with respected grace
Do at the stern of fair example stand,
And all the body of this populace
Guide with the only turning of your hand,
Keep a right course, bear up from all disgrace,
Observe the point of glory to our land;
Hold up disgraced knowledge from the ground,
Keep virtue in request, give worth her due,
Let not neglect with barb'rous means confound
So fair a good to bring in night anew.
Be not, O be not accessary found
Unto her death that must give life to you.
Where will you have your virtuous names safe laid?
In gorgeous tombs, in sacred cells secure?
Do you not see those prostrate heaps betrayed
Your fathers' bones, and could not keep them sure?
And will you trust deceitful stones fair laid,
And think they will be to your honor truer?
No, no, unsparing time will proudly send
A warrant unto wrath, that with one frown
Will all these mock'ries of vainglory rend,
And make them as before, ungraced, unknown,
Poor idle honors that can ill defend
Your memories, that cannot keep their own.
And whereto serve that wonld'rous trophy now
That on the goodly plain near Wilton stands?
That huge dumb heap, that cannot tell us how,
Nor what, nor whence it is, nor with whose hands,
Nor for whose glory, it was set to show
How much our pride mocks that of other lands.
Whereon, whenas the gazing passenger
Hath greedy looked with admiration,
And fain would know his birth, and what he were,
How there erected, and how long agone,
Inquires, and asks his fellow traveler
What he hath heard, and his opinion,
And he knows nothing; then he turns again
And looks, and sighs, and then admires afresh,
And in himself with sorrow doth complain
The misery of dark forgetfulness,
Angry with time that nothing should remain
Our greatest wonder's wonder to express.
Then ignorance, with fabulous discourse,
Robbing fair art and cunning of their right,
Tells how those stones were by the Devil's force
From Afric brought to Ireland in a night,
And thence to Britanny by magic course,
From giant's hand redeemed by Merlin's sleight,
And then near Ambri placed, in memory
Of all those noble Britons murdered there
By Hengist and his Saxon treachery,
Coming to parle in peace at unaware.
With this old legend then credulity
Holds her content, and closes up her care.
But is antiquity so great a liar?
Or do her younger sons her age abuse,
Seeing after-comers still so apt t' admire
The grave authority that she doth use,
That rev'rence and respect dares not require
Proof of her deeds, or once her words refuse?
Yet wrong they did us to presume so far
Upon our easy credit and delight;
For once found false, they straight became to mar
Our faith and their own reputation quite,
That now her truths hardly believed are,
And though she'avouch the right, she scarce hath right.
And as for thee, thou huge and mighty frame
That stands corrupted so with time's despite,
And giv'st false evidence against their fame
That set thee there to testify their right,
And art become a traitor to their name
That trusted thee with all the best they might,
Thou shalt stand still belied and slandered,
The only gazing-stock of ignorance,
And by thy guile the wise, admonished,
Shall nevermore desire such heaps t' advance,
Nor trust their living glory with the dead
That cannot speak, but leave their fame to chance;
Consid'ring in how small a room do lie,
And yet lie safe, as fresh as if alive,
All those great worthies of antiquity
Which long fore-lived thee, and shall long survive,
Who stronger tombs found for eternity
Than could the powers of all the earth contrive;
Where they remain these trifles to upbraid,
Out of the reach of spoil and way of rage,
Though time with all his power of years hath laid
Long batt'ry, backed with undermining age;
Yet they make head only with their own aid,
And war, with his all-conqu'ring forces, wage,
Pleading the heav'ns' prescription to be free,
And t' have a grant t' endure as long as he.

Philocosmus.

Behold how ev'ry man, drawn with delight
Of what he doth, flatters him in his way;
Striving to make his course seem only right,
Doth his own rest and his own thoughts betray;
Imagination bringing bravely dight
Her pleasing images in best array,
With flatt'ring glasses that must show him fair
And others foul; his skill and his wit best;
Others seduced, deceived, and wrong in their;
His knowledge right, all ignorant the rest;
Not seeing how these minions in the air
Present a face of things falsely expressed,
And that the glimm'ring of these errors shown
Are but a light to let him see his own.
Alas, poor fame, in what a narrow room,
As an encaged parrot, art thou pent
Here amongst us, where ev'n as good be dumb
As speak and to be heard with no attent!
How can you promise of the time to come
Whenas the present are so negligent?
Is this the walk of all your wide renown,
This little point, this scarce-discerned isle
Thrust from the world with whom our speech unknown
Made never any traffic of our style?
And is this all, where all this care is shown,
T' enchant your fame to last so long a while,
And for that happier tongues have won so much,
Think you to make your barb'rous language such?
Poor narrow limits for so mighty pains,
That cannot promise any foreign vent;
And yet if here to all your wond'rous veins
Were generally known, it might content.
But lo, how many reads not, or disdains
The labor of the chief and excellent!
How many thousands never heard the name
Of Sidney, or of Spenser, or their books --
And yet brave fellows, and presume of fame,
And seem to bear down all the world with looks!
What then shall they expect of meaner frame,
On whose endeavors few or none scarce looks?
Do you not see these pamphlets, libels, rhymes,
These strange confused tumults of the mind,
Are grown to be the sickness of these times,
The great disease inflicted on mankind?
Your virtues, by your follies made your crimes,
Have issue with your indiscretion joined.
Schools, arts, professions, all in so great store,
Pass the proportion of the present state,
Where, being as great a number as before
And fewer rooms them to accommodate,
It cannot be but they must throng the more,
And kick, and thrust, and shoulder with debate.
For when the greater wits cannot attain
Th' expected good, which they account their right,
And yet perceive others to reap that gain,
Of far inferior virtues in their sight,
They, present with the sharp of envy, strain
To wound them with reproaches and despite;
And for these cannot have as well as they,
They scorn their faith should deign to look that way.
Hence discontented sects and schisms arise;
Hence interwounding controversies spring,
That feed the simple, and offend the wise,
Who know the consequence of cavilling.
Disgrace, that these to others do devise,
Contempt and scorn on all in th' end doth bring,
Like scolding wives, reck'ning each other's fault,
Make standers-by imagine both are naught.
For when to these rare dainties time admits
All comers, all complexions, all that will,
Where none should be let in but choicest wits
Whose mild discretion could comport with skill,
For when the place their humor neither fits
Nor they the place, who can expect but ill?
For being unapt for what they took in hand,
And for ought else whereto they shall be'addressed,
They ev'n become th' encumbrance of the land,
As out of rank, disord'ring all the rest;
This grace of theirs, to seem to understand,
Mars all their grace to do, without their rest.
Men find that action is another thing
Than what they in discoursing papers read:
The world's affairs require in managing
More arts than those wherein you clerks proceed.
Whilst tim'rous knowledge stands considering,
Audacious ignorance hath done the deed.
For who knows most, the more he knows to doubt:
The least discourse is commonly most stout.
This sweet enchanting knowledge turns you clean
Out from the fields of natural delight,
And makes you hide, unwilling to be seen
In th' open concourse of a public sight;
This skill wherewith you have so cunning been
Unsinews all your powers, unmans you quite.
Public society and commerce of men
Require another grace, another port;
This eloquence, these rhymes, these phrases, then,
Begot in shades, do serve us in no sort;
The unmaterial swellings of your pen
Touch not the spirit that action doth import.
A manly style fitted to manly ears
Best 'grees with wit, not that which goes so gay,
And commonly the gaudy liv'ry wears
Of nice corruptions which the times do sway,
And waits on th' humor of his pulse that bears
His passions set to such a pleasing key;
Such dainties serve only for stomachs weak,
For men do foulest when they finest speak.
Yet do I not dislike that in some wise
Be sung the great heroical deserts
Of brave renowned spirits, whose exercise
Of worthy deeds may call up others' hearts,
And serve a model for posterities,
To fashion them fit for like glorious parts;
But so that all our spirits may tend hereto
To make it not our grace to say, but do.

Musophilus.

Much thou hast said, and willingly I hear,
As one that am not so possessed with love
Of what I do, but that I rather bear
An ear to learn than a tongue to disprove.
I know men must, as carried in their sphere,
According to their proper motions move,
And that course likes them best which they are on;
Yet truth hath certain bounds, but falsehood none.
I do confess our limits are but small
Compared with all the whole vast earth beside;
All which again, rated to that great All,
Is likewise as a point scarcely descried;
So that in these respects we may this call
A point but of a point, where we abide.
But if we shall descend from that high stand
Of over-looking contemplation,
And cast our thoughts but to, and not beyond,
This spacious circuit which we tread upon,
We then may estimate our mighty land
A world within a world, standing alone;
Where if our fame, confined, cannot get out,
What, shall we then imagine it is penned,
That hath so great a world to walk about,
Whose bounds with her reports have both one end?
Why shall we not rather esteem her stout
That farther than her own scorn to extend?
Where being so large a room, both to do well
And eke to hear th' applause of things well done,
That farther if men shall our virtues tell,
We have more mouths but not more merit won;
It doth not greater make that which is laudable;
The flame is bigger blown, the fire all one.
And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world, which with a few
Doth ever live, and move, and work, and stir;
This is the heart doth feel, and only know.
The rest of all, that only bodies bear,
Roll up and down, and fill but up the row,
And serve as others' members, not their own,
The instruments of those that do direct.
Then what disgrace is this, not to be known
To those know not to give themselves respect?
And though they swell with pomp of folly blown,
They live ungraced, and die but in neglect.
And for my part, if only one allow
The care my lab'ring spirits take in this,
He is to me a theater large enow,
And his applause only sufficient is;
All my respect is bent but to his brow;
That is my all, and all I am is his.
And if some worthy spirits be pleased too,
It shall more comfort breed, but not more will.
But what if none? It cannot yet undo
The love I bear unto this holy skill;
This is the thing that I was born to do:
This is my scene, this part must I fulfil.
Let those that know not breath esteem of wind,
And set t' a vulgar air their servile song,
Rating their goodness by the praise they find,
Making their worth on others' fits belong,
As virtue were the hireling of the mind,
And could not live if fame had ne'er a tongue.
Hath that all-knowing power that holds within
The goodly prospective of all this frame
(Where whatsoever is, or what hath been,
Reflects a certain image of the same)
No inward pleasures to delight her in,
But she must gad to seek an alms of fame?
Must she, like to a wanton courtesan,
Open her breasts for show, to win her praise,
And blaze her fair bright beauty unto man,
As if she were enamored of his ways,
And knew not weakness, nor could rightly scan
To what defects his hum'rous breath obeys?
She that can tell how proud ambition
Is but a beggar, and hath nought at all
But what is giv'n of mere devotion;
For which how much it sweats, how much it's thrall!
What toil it takes! and yet when all is done,
The ends in expectation never fall.
Shall she join hands with such a servile mate,
And prostrate her fair body to commit
Folly with earth, and to defile that state
Of clearness, for so gross a benefit,
Having reward dwelling within her gate,
And glory of her own to furnish it,
Herself a recompense sufficient
Unto herself, to give her own content?
Is't not enough that she hath raised so high
Those that be hers, that they may sit and see
The earth below them, and this All to lie
Under their view? taking the true degree
Of the just height of swoll'n mortality
Right as it is, not as it seems to be,
And undeceived with the parallax
Of a mistaking eye of passion, know
By these masked outsides what the inward lacks;
Meas'ring man by himself, not by his show,
Wond'ring not at their rich and golden backs
That have poor minds and little else to show;
Nor taking that for them which well they see
Is not of them, but rather is their load --
The lies of fortune, wherewithal men be
Deemed within, when they be all abroad;
Whose ground, whose grass, whose earth have cap and knee
Which they suppose is on themselves bestowed;
And think, like Isis' ass, all honors are
Giv'n unto them alone, the which are done
Unto the painted idol which they bear,
That only makes them to be gazed on, --
For take away their pack and show them bare,
And see what beast this honor rides upon.
Hath knowledge lent to hers the privy key
To let them in unto the highest stage
Of causes, secrets, counsels; to survey
The wits of men, their heats, their colds, their rage,
That build, destroy, praise, hate, say, and gainsay,
Believe, and unbelieve, all in one age?
And shall we trust goodness as it proceeds
From that unconstant mouth, which with one breath
Will make it bad again unless it feeds
The present humor that it favoreth?
Shall we esteem and reckon how it heeds
Our works, that his own vows unhalloweth?
Then whereto serves it to have been enlarged
With this free manumission of the mind,
If for all that we still continue charged
With those discovered errors which we find?
As if our knowledge only were discharged,
Yet we ourselves stayed in a servile kind,
That virtue must be out of countenance
If this gross spirit, or that weak shallow brain,
Or this nice wit, or that distemperance,
Neglect, distaste, uncomprehend, disdain,
When such sick eyes can never cast a glance
But through the colors of their proper stain.
Though I must needs confess the small respect
That these great-seeming best of men do give
(Whose brow begets th' inferior sort's neglect)
Might move the weak irresolute to grieve;
But stronger see how justly this defect
Hath overtook the times wherein we live,
That learning needs must run the common fate
Of all things else, thrust on by her own weight,
Comporting not herself in her estate
Under this burden of a self-conceit;
Our own dissentious hands, op'ning the gate
Unto contempt, that on our quarrels wait,
Discovered have our inward government,
And let in hard opinion to disgrace
The general for some weak impotent,
That bear out their disease with a stol'n face;
Who (silly souls) the more wit they have spent,
The less they showed, not bett'ring their bad case.
And see how soon this rolling world can take
Advantage for her dissolution,
Fain to get loose from this withholding stake
Of civil science and discretion;
How glad it would run wild, that it might make
One formless form of one confusion!
Like tyrant Ottoman's blindfolded state,
Which must know nothing more but to obey;
For this seeks greedy ignorance t' abate
Our number, order, living, form, and sway;
For this it practises to dissipate
Our number, order, living, form, and sway;
For this it practises to dissipate
Th' unsheltered troops, till all be made away.
For since our fathers' sins pulled first to ground
The pale of their dissevered dignity,
And overthrew that holy rev'rend bound
That parted learning and the laity,
And laid all flat in common to confound
The honor and respect of piety,
It did so much envile the estimate
Of th' opened and envulgared mysteries,
Which now reduced unto the basest rate
Must wait upon the Norman subtleties,
Who, being mounted up into their state,
Do best with wrangling rudeness sympathize.
And yet, though now set quite behind the train
Of vulgar sway, and light of power weighed light,
Yet would this giddy innovation fain
Down with it lower, to abase it quite;
And those poor remnants that do yet remain,
The spoiled marks of their divided right,
They wholly would deface, to leave no face
Of reverend distinction and degree,
As if they weighed no diff'rence in this case
Betwixt religion's age and infancy:
Where th' one must creep, the other stand with grace,
Lest turned t' a child, it overturned be.
Though to pull back th' on-running state of things --
Gath'ring corruption as it gathers days --
Unto the form of their first orderings
Is the best means that dissolution stays,
And to go forward backward right men brings
T' observe the line from whence they took their ways;
Yet being once gone wide, and the right way
Not level to the time's condition,
To alter course may bring men more astray,
And leaving what was known, to light on none;
Since ev'ry change the rev'rence doth decay
Of that which alway should continue one.
For this is that close-kept Palladium
This stirred makes men, fore-settled, to become
Curious to know what was believed before,
Whilst faith disputes, that used to be dumb,
And more men strive to talk than to adore.
For never headstrong reformation will
Rest till to th' extreme opposite it run,
And over-run the mean, distrusted still
As being too near of kin to that men shun;
For good, and bad, and all must be one ill
When once there is another truth begun.
So hard it is an even hand to bear
In temp'ring with such maladies as these,
Lest that our forward passions lance too near,
And make the cure prove worse than the disease.
For with the worst we will not spare the best
Because it grows with that which doth displease;
And faults are easier looked in, than redressed,
Men running with such eager violence
At the first view of errors fresh in quest,
As they to rid an inconvenience
Stick not to raise a mischief in the stead,
Which after mocks their weak improvidence.
And therefore, O make not your own sides bleed
To prick at others, you that would amend
By pulling down, and think you can proceed
By going back unto the farther end;
Let stand that little covert left behind,
Whereon your succors and respects depend.
And bring not down the prizes of the mind
With under-rating of yourselves so base,
You that the mighty's doors do, crouching, find,
To sell yourselves to buy a little grace,
Or wait whole months to outbid simony
For that which, being got, is not your place;
For if it were, what needed you to buy
What was your due? Your thrusting shows your shift,
And little worth, that seeks injuriously
A worthier from his lawful room to lift;
We cannot say that you were then preferred,
But that your money was, or some worse gift.
O scatt'ring gath'rers, that without regard
Of times to come, will, to be made, undo;
As if you were the last of men, prepared
To bury in your graves all other too.
Dare you profane that holy portion
Which never sacrilegious hands durst do?
Did form-establishing devotion,
To maintain a respective reverence,
Extend her bountiful provision
With such a charitable providence
For your deforming hands to dissipate,
And make God's due your impious expense?
No marvel, then, though th' over-pestered state
Want room for goodness, if our little hold
Be lessened unto such a narrow rate
That rev'rence cannot sit fit as it should;
And yet what need we thus for rooms complain,
That shall not want void room if this course hold?
And more than will be filled; for who will strain
To get an empty title to betray
His hopes and travail for an honor vain,
And gain a port without support or stay?
What need hath envy to malign their state
That will themselves, so kind, give it away?
This makes indeed our number pass the rate
Of our provisions; which if dealt aright
Would yield sufficient room t' accommodate
More than we have in places requisite.
The ill disposing only doth us set
In disarray, and out of order quite,
Whiles other gifts than of the mind shall get
Under our colors that which is our dues,
And to our travails neither benefit,
Nor grace, nor honor, nor respect accrues;
This sickness of the state's soul -- learning -- then
The body's great distemp'rature ensues.
For if that learning's rooms to learned men
Were as their heritage distributed,
All this disordered thrust would cease, for when
The fit were called, th' unworthy frustrated,
These would be'ashamed to seek, those to be'unsought,
And staying their turn, were sure they should be sped.
Then would our drooping academies, brought
Again in heart, regain that rev'rend hand
Of lost opinion, and no more be thought
Th' unnecessary furnish of the land,
Nor, disencouraged with their small esteem,
Confused, irresolute, and wav'ring stand,
Caring not to become profound, but seem
Contented with a superficial skill,
Which for a slight reward enough they deem,
When th' one succeeds as well as th' other will;
Seeing shorter ways lead sooner to their end,
And others' longer travails thrive so ill.
Then would they only labor to extend
Their now unsearching spirits beyond these bounds
Of others' powers, wherein they must be penned,
As if there were besides no other grounds,
And set their bold plus ultra far without
The pillars of those axioms age propounds;
Discov'ring daily more and more about,
In that immense and boundless ocean
Of nature's riches, never yet found out
Nor foreclosed with the wit of any man;
So far beyond the ordinary course
That other unindustrious ages ran,
That these more curious times they might divorce
From the opinion they are linked unto
Of our disable and unactive force,
To show true knowledge can both speak and do;
Armed for the sharp, which in these days they find,
With all provisions that belong thereto;
That their experience may not come behind
The time's conceit, but leading in their place,
May make men see the weapons of the mind
Are states' best strengths, and kingdoms' chiefest grace;
And rooms of charge, charged full with worth and praise,
Makes majesty appear with her full face,
Shining with all her beams, with all her rays,
Unscanted of her parts, unshadowed
In any darkened point (which still bewrays
The wane of power, when power's unfurnished
And hath not all those entire complements
Wherewith the state should for her state be sped).
And though the fortune of some age consents
Unto a thousand errors grossly wrought,
Which flourished over with their fair events
Have passed for current, and good courses thought --
The least whereof in other times again
Most dang'rous inconveniences have brought --
Whilst to the times, not to men's wits, pertain
The good successes of ill-managed deeds;
Though th' ignorant, deceived with colors vain,
Miss of the causes whence this luck proceeds,
Foreign defects, giving home-faults the way,
Make ev'n that weakness sometimes well succeeds.
I grant that some unlettered practic may
(Leaving beyond the Alps faith and respect
To God and man) with impious cunning sway
The courses fore-begun with like effect,
And without stop maintain the turning on,
And have his errors deemed without defect.
But when some powerful opposition
Shall, with a sound encount'ring shock, disjoint
The fore-contrived frame, and thereupon
Th' experience of the present disappoint,
And other stirring spirits, and other hearts
Built huge for action, meeting in a point,
Shall drive the world to summon all their arts,
And all too little for so real might,
When no advantages of weaker parts
Shall bear out shallow counsels from the light,
And this sense-op'ning action (which doth hate
Unmanly craft) shall look to have her right:
Who then holds up the glory of the state,
Which lettered arms and armed letters won?
Who shall be fittest to negotiate --
Contemned Justinian, or else Littleton?
When it shall not be held wisdom to be
Privately made, and publicly undone,
But sound designs, that judgment shall decree
Out of a true discern of the clear ways
That lie direct, with safe-going equity,
Embroiling not their own and others' days;
Extending forth their providence beyond
The circuit of their own particular,
That even th' ignorant may understand
How that deceit is but a caviller,
And true unto itself can never stand,
But still must with her own conclusions war.
Can truth and honesty, wherein consists
The right repose on earth, the surest ground
Of trust, come weaker armed into the lists
Than fraud or vice, that doth itself confound?
Or shall presumption, that doth what it lists,
Not what it ought, carry her courses sound?
Then what safe place out of confusion
Hath plain-proceeding honesty to dwell?
What suit of grace hath virtue to put on,
If vice shall wear as good and do as well;
If wrong, if craft, if indiscretion
Act as fair parts, with ends as laudable?
Which all this mighty volume of events,
The world (the universal map of deeds)
Strongly controls, and proves from all dissents
That the directest courses best succeeds
When craft, wrapped still in many cumberments,
With all her cunning thrives not, though it speeds.
For should not grave and learn'd experience,
That looks with th' eyes of all the world beside,
And with all ages holds intelligence,
Go safer than deceit without a guide?
Which in the by-paths of her diffidence
Crossing the ways of right, still runs more wide
Who will not grant? And therefore this observe:
No state stands sure but on the grounds of right,
Of virtue, knowledge, judgment to preserve,
And all the powers of learnings requisite;
Though other shifts a present turn may serve,
Yet in the trial they will weigh too light.
And do not thou contemn this swelling tide
And stream of words, that now doth rise so high
Above the usual banks, and spreads so wide
Over the borders of antiquity;
Which, I confess, comes ever amplified
With th' abounding humors that do multiply,
And is with that same hand of happiness
Enlarged, as vices are out of their bands;
Yet so, as if let out but to redress,
And calm, and sway th' affections it commands,
Which as it stirs, it doth again repress,
And brings in th' outgone malice that withstands.
Power above powers, O heav'nly eloquence,
That with the strong rein of commanding words
Dost manage, guide, and master th' eminence
Of men's affections, more than all their swords:
Shall we not offer to thy excellence
The richest treasure that our wit affords?
Thou that canst do much more with one poor pen
Than all the powers of princes can effect,
And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men
Better than force or rigor can direct:
Should we this ornament of glory then,
As th' unmaterial fruits of shades, neglect?
Or should we, careless, come behind the rest
In power of words, that go before in worth,
Whenas our accents, equal to the best,
Is able greater wonders to bring forth;
When all that ever hotter spirits expressed
Comes bettered by the patience of the North?
And who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident
May come refined with th' accents that are ours?
Or who can tell for what great work in hand
The greatness of our style is now ordained;
What powers it shall bring in, what spirits command,
What thoughts let out, what humors keep restrained,
What mischief it may powerfully withstand,
And what fair ends may thereby be attained?
And as for poesy, mother of this force,
That breeds, brings forth, and nourishes this might,
Teaching it in a loose, yet measured, course
With comely motions how to go upright,
And fost'ring it with bountiful discourse,
Adorns it thus in fashions of delight,
What should I say? since it is well approved
The speech of heav'n, with whom they have commerce
That only seem out of themselves removed,
And do with more than human skills converse.
Those numbers wherewith heav'n and earth are moved
Show weakness speaks in prose, but power in verse.
Wherein thou likewise seemest to allow
That th' acts of worthy men should be preserved,
As in the holiest tombs we can bestow
Upon their glory that have well deserved;
Wherein thou dost no other virtue show
Than what most barb'rous countries have observed,
When all the happiest nations hitherto
Did with no lesser glory speak than do.
Now to what else thy malice shall object
For schools, and arts, and their necessity:
When from my lord, whose judgment must direct
And form and fashion my ability,
I shall have got more strength, thou shalt expect,
Out of my better leisure, my reply.
And if herein the curious sort shall deem
My will was carried far beyond my force,
And that it is a thing doth ill beseem
The function of a poem, to discourse,
Thy learned judgment, which I most esteem,
Worthy Fulke Greville, must defend this course;
By whose mild grace and gentle hand at first
My infant muse was brought in open sight
From out the darkness wherein it was nursed,
And made to be partaker of the light;
Which peradventure never else had durst
T' appear in place, but had been smothered quite;
And now herein encouraged by thy praise,
Is made so bold and vent'rous to attempt
Beyond example, and to try those ways
That malice from our forces thinks exempt,
To see if we our wronged lines could raise
Above the reach of lightness and contempt.





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