Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope?

Though God be our true glass, through which we fee

All, fince the being of all things is he,
Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive
Things, in proportion fit, by perspective
Deeds of good men; for by their living here,
Virtues, indeed remote, feem to be near.

Who would imagine it poffible that in a very few lines fo many remote ideas could be brought together:

Since 'tis my doom, Love's underfhrieve,
Why this reprieve?

Why doth my She Advowson fly

Incumbency?

To fell thyfelf doft thou intend

By candle's end,

And hold the contraft thus in doubt,
Life's taper out?

Think but how foon the market fails,
Your fex lives fafter than the males;
As if to measure age's span,

The fober Julian were th' account of man,
Whilft you live by the fleet Gregorian.

CLEIVELAND.

OF

F enormous and difgufting hyberboles,

OF

thefe may be examples:

By every wind, that comes this way,
Send me at least a figh or two,

Such and fo many I'll repay

As fhall themselves make winds to get to you.

In tears I'll wafte thefe eyes,

By Love fo vainly fed;

COWLEY.

So luft of old the Deluge punished.

COWLEY.

All arm'd in brass, the richest drefs of war,
(A dismal glorious fight) he fhone afar.
The fun himself started with fudden fright,
To fee his beams return fo difmal bright.

COWLEY.

An univerfal confternation :

His bloody eyes he hurls round, his fharp paws
Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,
Lashing his
angry tail and roaring out.

Beafts creep into their dens, and tremble there;
Trees, though no wind is ftirring, shake with

fear;

Silence and horrour fill the place around:

Echo itself dares fcarce repeat the found.

COWLEY.

THEIR fictions were often violent and

unnatural.

Of his Mistress bathing:

The fish around her crouded, as they do
To the falfe light that treacherous fishers fhew,
And all with as much ease might taken be,
As fhe at firft took me :"

For ne'er did light fo clear
Among the waves appear,

Though every night the fun himfelf fet there.

COWLEY.

The poetical effect of a Lover's name upon

glafs :

My name engrav'd herein

Doth contribute my firmness to this glass;
Which, ever fince that charm, hath been
As hard as that which grav'd it was.

DONNE.

THEIR conceits were sometimes slight and trifling.

On an inconftant woman:

He enjoys thy calmy funfhine now,
And no breath stirring hears,

In the clear heaven of thy brow,

No smallest cloud

appears.

He fees thee gentle, fair and gay,

And trufts the faithlefs April' of thy May.

COWLET.

Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire:

Nothing yet in thee is feen,

But when a genial heat warms thee within,
A new-born wood of various lines there grows;
Here buds an L, and there a B,

Here sprouts a V, and there a T,
And all the flourishing letters stand in rows.

COWLEY.

AS they fought only for novelty, they did not much enquire whether their allufions were to things high or low, elegant or grofs; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little.

Phyfick and Chirurgery for a Lover.

Gently, ah gently, madam, touch

The wound, which you yourself have made;

That pain muft needs be very much,

Which makes me of your hand afraid.

Cordials of pity give me now,

For I too weak for purgings grow.

COWLEY.

The

The World and a Clock.

Mahol, th' inferior world's fantastic face,
Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace;
Great Nature's well-fet clock in pieces took;
On all the fprings and smallest wheels did look
- Of life and motion; and with equal art
Made up again the whole of every part.

COWLEY.

A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the Sun :

i

The moderate value of our guiltless ore
Makes no man atheift, and no woman whore;
Yet why should hallow'd veftal's facred fhrine
Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?
These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be
Than a few embers, for a deity.

Had he our pits, the Perfian would admire
No fun, but warm's devotion at our fire
He'd leave the trotting whipfter, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat, or light? or would have
ftore

Or both? 'tis here: and what can funs give
more?

Nay, what's the fun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame!