Sleep, next Society and true friendship, Mans best contentment, doth securely slip His passions and the worlds troubles. Rock me O sleep, wean'd from my dear friends company, In a cradle free from dreams or thoughts, there Where poor men ly, for Kings asleep do fear. Here sleeps House by famous Ariosto, By silver-tongu'd Ovid, and many moe, Perhaps by golden-mouth'd Spencer too pardie, (Which builded was some dozen Stories high) I had repair'd, but that it was so rotten, As sleep awak'd by Ratts from thence was gotten: And I will build no new, for by my Will, Thy fathers house shall be the fairest still In Excester. Yet, methinks, for all their Wit, Those wits that say nothing, best describe it. Without it there is no Sense, only in this Sleep is unlike a long Parenthesis. Not to save charges, but would I had slept The time I spent in London, when I kept Fighting and untrust gallants Company, In which Natta, the new Knight, seiz'd on me, And offered me the experience he had bought With great Expence. I found him throughly taught In curing Burnes. His thing hath had more scars Then Things himselfe; like Epps it often wars, And still is hurt. For his Body and State The Physick and Counsel which came too late, 'Gainst Whores and Dice, hee nowe on mee bestowes Most superficially: hee speaks of those (I found by him) least soundly who most knows: He swears well, speakes ill, but best of Clothes, What fits Summer, what Winter, what the Spring. He had Living, but now these waies come in His whole Revenues. Where each Whore now dwells, And hath dwelt, since his fathers death, he tells. Yea he tells most cunningly each hid cause Why Whores forsake their Bawds. To these some Laws He knows of the Duello, and touch his Skill The least Jot in that or those he quarrell will, Though sober; but so never fought. I know What made his Valour, undubb'd, Windmill go, Within a Pint at most: yet for all this (Which is most strange) Natta thinks no man is More honest than himself. Thus men may want Conscience, whilst being brought up ignorant, They use themselves to vice. And besides those Illiberal Arts forenam'd, no Vicar knows, Nor other Captain less then he; His Schools Are Ordinaries, where civil men seem fools, Or are for being there; His best bookes, Plaies, Where, meeting godly Scenes, perhaps he praies. His first set prayer was for his father, ill And sick, that he might dye: That had, until The Lands were gone, he troubled God no more: And then ask'd him but his Right, That the whore Whom he had kept, might now keep him: She spent, They left each other on even terms; she went To Bridewel, he unto the Wars, where want Hath made him valiant, and a Lieutenant He is become: Where, as they pass apace, He steps aside, and for his Captains place He praies again: Tells God, he will confess His sins, swear, drink, dice and whore thenceforth less, On this Condition, that his Captain dye And he succeed; But his Prayer did not; They Both cashir'd came home, and he is braver now Than'his captain: all men wonder, few know how. Can he rob? No. Cheat? No. Or doth he spend His own? No. Fidus, he is thy dear friend, That keeps him up. I would thou wert thine own, Or thou'hadst as good a friend as thou art one. No present Want nor future hope made me, Desire (as once I did) thy friend to be: But he had cruelly possest thee then, And as our Neighbours the Low-Country men, Being (whilst they were Loyal, with Tyranny Opprest) broke loose, have since refus'd to be Subject to good Kings, I found even so, Wer't thou well rid of him, thou't have no moe. Could'st thou but chuse as well as love, to none Thou should'st be second: Turtle and Damon Should give thee place in songs, and Lovers sick Should make thee only Loves Hieroglyphick: Thy Impress should be the loving Elm and Vine, Where now an ancient Oak, with Ivy twine Destroy'd, thy Symbol is. O dire Mischance! And, O vile verse! And yet your Abraham France Writes thus, and jests not. Good Fidus for this Must pardon me, Satyres bite when they kiss. But as for Natta, we have since faln out: Here on his knees he pray'd, else we had fought. And because God would not he should be winner, Nor yet would have the Death of such a sinner, At his seeking, our Quarrel is deferr'd, I'll leave him at his Prayers, and (as I heard) His last; Fidus, and you, and I do know, I was his friend, and durst have been his foe, And would be either yet; But he dares be Neither; Sleep blots him out and takes in thee. "The mind, you know is like a Table-book, "Which, th'old unwipt, new writing never took. Hear how the Huishers Checques, Cupbord and Fire I pass'd; by which Degrees young men aspire In Court; And how that idle and she-state, Whenas my judgment cleer'd, my soul did hate; How I found there (if that my trifling Pen Durst take so hard a Task) Kings were but men, And by their Place more noted, if they erre; How they and their Lords unworthy men prefer; And, as unthrifts had rather give away Great Summs to flatterers, than small debts pay, So they their weakness hide, and greatness show, By giving them that which to worth they owe: What Treason is, and what did Essex kill, Not true Treason, but Treason handled ill; And which of them stood for their Countries good, Or what might be the Cause of so much Blood. He said she stunck, and men might not have said That she was old before that she was dead. His Case was hard, to do or suffer; loth To do, he made it harder, and did both. Too much preparing lost them all their Lives, Like some in Plagues kill'd with preservatives. Friends, like land-souldiers in a storm at Sea, Not knowing what to do, for him did pray. They told it all the world; where was their wit? Cuffs putting on a sword, might have told it. And Princes must fear Favorites more then Foes, For still beyond Revenge Ambition goes. How since Her death, with Sumpter-horse that Scot Hath rid, who, at his coming up, had not A Sumpter-dog. But till that I can write Things worth thy Tenth reading (dear Nick) goodnight. |