Fools to the world these seem, and yet obey
Princes oppressions, whereat fools repine;
They know these crowns, these theaters of clay
Derive their earthly pow'r from pow'r divine:
Their sufferings are like all things else they do,
Conscience to God, with men a wisdom too.
Book-learning, arts, yea school divinity,
New types of old law-munging Pharisies
(Which curst in bondage of the letter be),
They know, they pitty, and would fain adyise;
The goodness moves them, yet the wisdom stays
From sowing heavenly seed in stony ways.
To you they cry, O you, that hold the shrine
As sent by God, ye priests of chance and gain!
Your charge is to distribute things divine;
O do not lie for God, and sin in vain!
Reveal his word, his misteries expound,
Else what he works you travel to confound.
Besides, who marks Gods course, from our creation
Down unto Christ, shall by succession see
Bliss of the goodness, evils condemnation
Establisht by unchanging destiny:
The word is cleer, and needs no explanation,
Onely the council is a mystery;
Why God commanded more than man could do,
Being all that he will, and wisdom too.
Why came our Saviour, if flesh could fulfill
The law enjoyn'd? or if it must transgress,
Whence took that justice this unequal will
To bind them more, to whom he giveth less?
Here pow'r indeed to wisdom must direct,
Else light saves few, and many doth detect.
Strive not then, wit corrupt and disobeying, [thrones,
To fetch from popes stools, pow'rs commanding
Doctrines of might, that suffer no denying,
Yet divers, as earths tempers in her zones;
Since Christs own heard him, saw him live and
Yet till he rose, knew not the mistery.
You should be keys to let his will pass out,
Blind sin, and free repentance by his word;
Fear those that scorn, and comfort them that doubt;
What drowned Pharaoh, still is Israels forde:
Wisdome above the truth was Adams sin;
That veyle which Christ rent off, will you walk in? Limits and bounds of thine illumination;
Observe faiths nature, in these hallow'd shrines,
Both of the old and perfect Testament;
Works be her fruits, her nature is divine,
Infus'd by him that is omnipotent;
Doe we believe on him, on whom we stay not?
Can we believe on him, whom we obey not?
His pen left two examples, it is true;
First of his chosen, how he grosly fell;
Then, of the thief born instantly anew;
Vice rais'd to heaven, perfection fall'n to hell;
And of each nature therefore left not many,
Lest hope, or fear should over-work in any.
Is it not then by warrant from above,
That who gives faith, gives true obedience?
What other medium hath our flesh to prove
That sin with God keeps no intelligence?
Takes this from man the fruits of Christ his death?
No, it translates him into it by faith.
For though God gave such measure of his grace
As might in flesh fulfill the second table,
Yet sin against the first, did quite deface
Gods image, and to raise that who is able?
Between the flesh and grace that spiritual fight
Needs Father, Son, and their proceeding might.
Nay, let us grant, God would enable man,
After his calling, to accomplish all;
From Adams sin, who yet redeem him can,
Or Pauls transgression cleer before his call,
But Christ that comes to none of Gods in vain ?
The justest need him, for the worst he is slain.
His life he makes example where he please
To give his spirit, which is, to forgive:
What can the flesh assume it self in these,
Since reason dies, before his faith can live?
Who knows Gods pow'r, but where he sin removes?
What should restrain the Almighty where he loves?
Pray then, and think, faith hath her mediation,
Ask for thy self that spirit which may judge,
Wait the degrees of thy regeneration,
Count not without thy God, nor do thou grudge
But give account of that which God hath given,
Since grace, not merit, with the law makes even.
And if thou seek'st more light to cleer thy mind,
Search not Gods councils in himself contracted,
But search his written word where thou shalt find,
That Adams fall was breach of law enacted,
By which in stained womb the chosen seed
Together with the reprobate did breed.
The one shew'd forth the light which he receiv'd
Fashon'd within him by the infinite;
The other serv'd the evil, was deceiv'd,
And in that which condemn'd him took delight:
Both states partakers of eternity,
In life, or death, as good, or ill they be.
Both had one school, one form and education,
Each knew one God; but onely one obey'd,
Where in the odds was spiritual adoration,
And outward rites, which ever have betray'd;
Abel sought God alone, Cain would have more,
Which pride was in the angels judged before.
Thus when creation was a fresh tradition,
And miracle the proper ground of faith,
Guiding the sin unto her true physitian,
Yet then (we see) sin multiplyed death :
For him that made them men would not obey;
Idols and sects ne'r had any other way.
Men would be gods, or earthly giants rather,
Number their strength, and strength their number is,
Their doctrine sin, which as it spreads doth gather
This present world, flesh seeks no other bliss.
As God, by goodness, saves those souls he chooseth,
So hell condemns those wicked souls it useth.
Now while both churches lived thus together,
Parted by grace, by miracle united,
The outward worship common was to either,
And both alike by benefits invited :
Yet murmure and obedience prov'd them too,
For while both knew, yet onely one would doe.
Thus though by life the Spirit spirits trieth,
So as Gods goodness is by his exprest;
Which goodness in the devils ever dieth,
Yet God hath here more latitude imprest:
For unto those who only bear his name,
He gave such Gentiles as deny'd the same.
But when with idols they prophan'd the land
Which he gave them, for seeming to adore him,
When they that held by form, even brake that band,
And Israel in the outward fail'd before him;
Then came captivity, that earthly hell,
Planting the Gentiles where his did dwell.
In this times womb, this uttermost defection Of fleshly Israel, came the Virgins seed,
Our three crown'd miters, are but works of spirit,
Faith, key and scepter; our ambition, love;
Built upon grace we are, and thence inherit
Temptation, which in us doth purge and prove,
Mortifie, regenerate, sanctify and raise
Our old fall'n Adam to new Adams ways.
This word of life, then, let not fleshly man
Corrupt and unregenerate expound;
As well the mortal judge the immortal can,
Or deafness find the discords out of sound,
Or creatures their Creator comprehend,
Which they presume that judge before they mend.
Mix not in functions God and earth together;
The wisdom of the world and his are two;
That rightfulness which wrought Gods own election, One latitude can well agree to neither,
And in the flesh fulfill'd the law indeed:
When doctrine, miracles, benefits prov'd vain, Then was this Lamb ordained to be slain.
Thus by defection from obedience,
Successively both sin and sects have grown;
Religion is a miracle to sence,
The new man of the old is never known;
And to those hearts where gross sins do not die, Gods Testaments are meer philosophy.
What latitude this to the world allows,
Those souls in whom Gods image was decay'd
Then know when they perform such spiritual vows
As underneath our Saviours cross are laid,
They that receive his wages, bear his arms,
Know onely what avails us, and what harms.
Wherein to take thrones first, as chief in might, Davids we wish, of Salomons find some, Not in those wisdoms of the infinite, But in the rest, which bide more doubtful doom: Thrones are the worlds, how they stand wel with heaven, [given.
Those pow'rs can iudge to whom such grace is
Next that, high priesthood, which the spirit-fall'nJew
So prized, and erroneously maintain'd,
Ceased in him, whose sacrifice was due
To all the world by her defections stain'd:
Small hopes this gives to our cathedral chairs,
The spirit onely choosing spiritual heirs.
Again, for such as strive to undermine
The vanity of Romes ore-built foundation,
With sins ambition, under words divine,
Hoping to raise sects from her declination;
O let them know, God is to both alike,
The one he hath, the other he will strike.
And in the world where pow'r confirms opinion,
Advantage, disadvantage as they stand;
Rome hath the odds in age and in dominion,
By which the devils all things understand,
The superstition is too worn a womb
To raise a new church now to equal Rome.
Last, for our selves which of that church would be
Which (though invisible) yet was, is, shall
For ever be the state and treasurie
Of Gods elect, which cannot from him fall:
Arks now we look for none, nor signes to part
Ægypt from Israel, all rest in the heart.
In each men have their beings as they do:
The world doth build without, our God within;
He traficks goodness, and she traficks sin.
Schools have their limits, wherein man prescribes ;
What credit hopes truth there, which contradicts?
States have their laws, all churches have their tribes,
Where sin is ever strongest, and inflicts;
For man is judge, and force still wisdom there, How can God thence expect a spiritual heir?
But Gods elect still humbly pass by these,
Make love their school, and scale of righteousness;
Which infinite those hearts desire to please,
While to the world they leave her wickedness;
Sect and division cannot here arise,
Where every man in God is only wise.
Can it then be a doctrine of despair
To use the words or councils of our God;
As they stand in him? though they seem severe,
Health of the chosen is the lost childs rod.
Though flesh cannot believe, yet God is true,
And onely known, where he creates anew.
Things possible with man are yet in question,
Gods pow'r, gifts, will, here faith's true bases be,
All mediums else are but the sins suggestion,
The mover onely makes our nature free,
Faith and obedience he that asketh gives;
And without these Gods spirit never lives.
Again, in this strange war, this wilderness,
These Ægypt brick-kills, from our straw depriv'd,
God ever liveliest doth himself express,
Help being here from heavenly pow'r deriv'd:
Affliction of the spirit made mans true glass,
To shew him, God brings what he will to pass.
Now in this fight, wherein the man despairs,
Between the sin, and his regeneration,
Faith upon credit never takes her heirs,
Gods wonder in us works her adoration:
Who from the heaven sends his graces down,
To work the same obedience he will crown.
This leads us to our Saviour; who no more
Doth ask then he enables us to do;
The next he frees, and takes upon his score,
Faith and obedience onely binds us to:
All other latitudes are flesh and devil,
To stain our knowledge and enlarge our evil.
Offer these truths to pow'r, will she obey?
Onely that little flock, Gods own elect,
It prunes her pomp, perchance ploughs up the root; Who living in the world, yet of it are not,
It pride of tyrants humors doth allay,
Makes God their lord, and casts them at his foot,
This truth they cannot wave, yet will not do,
And fear to know because that binds them too.
Shew these to arts; those riddles of the sin
Which error first creates, and then inherits;
This light consumes those mists they flourish in,
At once deprives their glory and their merit;
Those mortal forms, moulded of humane error,
Dissolve themselves by looking in this mirror.
Shew it to laws; Gods law, the true foundation,
Proves how they build up earth, and loose the heaven;
Gives things eternal, mortal limitation,
Ore-ruling him from whom their laws were given:
Gods laws are right, just, wise, and so would make
Mans, captious, divers, false, and so they take us.
Shew it the outward church, strange speculation
For that hypocrisie to see the life;
They that sell God for earthly estimation,
Are here divorc't from that adulterous wife:
For this truth teacheth mankind to despise them,
While God more justly for his own denies them.
Offer these truths to flesh; in general,
God in his pow'r, and truth they do confess;
But want of faith, that venome of their fall,
Despairs to undergo his righteousness,
They think God good, and so his mercy trust,
Yet hold good life imposible to dust.
God, is the wealth, will, empire they affect,
His law, their wisdom, for the rest they care not;
Among all floods this ark is still preserv'd,
Storms of the world are for her own reserv'd.
For their sake, God doth give restraining grace
To his seen church, and to the heathen too;
Sets sin her latitude of time and place,
That onely she her own may still undoe;
And where the sin is free to all, as one,
He binds temptation to preserve his own.
So as though still in wilderness they live,
As gone from Egypt, suffer Israels care,
Yet food and clothes that wear not out he gives,
Of them that hate them they preserved are,
This grace restraining bounds the hypocrites,
Whose ravine else might spoil the world of lights.
Then, man! rest on this feeling from above,
Plant thou thy faith on this celestial way,
The world is made for use, God is for love,
Sorrow for sin, knowledge but to obey;
Fear and temptation to refine and prove,
The heaven for joy; desire thou that it may
Find peace in endless, boundless, heavenly things;
Place it else where, it desolation brings.
Camden, Sir Fulke Grevile, and Shakspeare. He lived, however, to feel that his reputation was on the wane; and retiring to a farm at Beckington, between Marlborough and Devizes, he there ended his days in 1619. He was a married man, but left no issue. His History of the Civil Wars, which is the longest of his poems, was published, after his death, by his brother, who was a musician, and who appears in that capacity to have been employed by the court.
DANIEL was the son of a music-master near Taun- | friendship of such men as Chapman, Marlowe, ton, and having the good fortune to be patronized by the Pembroke family, was placed as a commoner at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; afterwards he pursued those studies to which inclination led him, at Wilton, a house, which, he says, had been his best school. He was then made tutor to the Lady Anne Clifford, a noble-minded woman, worthy of her rank and ancestry, though, by some strange infelicity of choice, she married, for her second husband, that Earl of Pembroke, who was, perhaps, the most despicable person of his age. She always Daniel frequently writes below his subject and remembered her tutor with affectionate respect. his strength; but always in a strain of tender feelIt has been said that Daniel succeeded Spensering, and in language as easy and natural as it is as poet laureate, because he composed some of those masques and pageants which were then the refined amusements of the court. Queen Anne of Denmark was fond of his writings, and liked his conversation; and he was appointed one of the grooms of her chamber, with a fair salary. At this time his place of abode was in a "garden house" in Old Street; where he enjoyed the society and
pure. For his diction alone he would deserve to be studied by all students or lovers of poetry, even if his works did not abound with passages of singular beauty. Thoughtful, grateful, right-minded, and gentle-hearted, there is no poet, in any language, of whom it may be inferred with more certainty, from his writings, that he was an amiable, and wise and good man.
UPON THE DEATH OF THE LATE NOBLE EARL OF
DEVONSHIRE.
Now that the hand of Death hath laid thee there,
Where neither greatness, pomp, nor grace we see,
Nor any diff'rences of earth; and where
No veil is drawn betwixt thy self and thee.
Now, Devonshire, that thou art but a name,
And all the rest of thee besides is gone;
When men conceive thee not but by the fame
Of what thy virtue and thy worth have done :
Now shall my verse, which thou in life did'st grace,
(And which was no disgrace for thee to do,)
Not leave thee in the grave, that ugly place,
That few regard, or have respect unto :
Where all attendance and observance ends;
Where all the sunshine of our favour sets;
Where what was ill no countenance defends,
And what was good th' unthankful world forgets.
Here shalt thou have the service of my pen;
(The tongue of my best thoughts) and in this case
I cannot be suppos'd to flatter, when
I speak behind thy back, not to thy face.
Men never soothe the dead, but where they do
Find living ties to hold them thereunto.
And I stand clear from any other chain
Than of my love; which, free-born, draws free breath:
The benefit thou gav'st me, to sustain
My humble life, I lose it by thy death.
Nor was it such, as it could lay on me
Any exaction of respect so strong,
As t' enforce m' observance beyond thee,
Or make my conscience differ from my tongue :
"For I have learnt, it is the property
For free men to speak truth, for slaves to lie."
And therefore I sincerely will report,
First how thy parts were fair convey'd within;
How that brave mind was built, and in what sort
All thy contexture of thy heart hath been:
Which was so nobly fram'd, so well compos'd,
As Virtue never had a fairer seat,
Nor could be better lodg'd, nor more repos'd,
Than in that goodly frame; where all things sweet,
And all things quiet, held a peaceful rest;
Where passion did no sudden tumults raise,
That might disturb her― Nor was ever breast
Contain'd so much, and made so little noise:
That by thy silent modesty is found,
The empti'st vessels make the greatest sound.
For thou so well discern'd'st thyself, had'st read
Man and his breath so well, as made thee force
The less to speak: as b'ing ordain'd to spread
Thy self in action, rather than discourse.
Though thou had'st made a general survey
Of all the best of men's best knowledges,
And knew as much as ever learning knew;
Yet did it make thee trust thyself the less,
And less presume - And yet when being mov'd
In private talk to speak; thou did'st bewray
How fully fraught thou wert within; and prov'd,
That thou did'st know whatever wit could say.
Which show'd, thou had'st not books as many have,
For ostentation, but for use: and that
Thy bount'ous memory was such, as gave
A large revenue of the good it gat.
Witness so many volumes, whereto thou
Hast set thy notes under thy learned hand,
And mark'd them with that print, as will show how
The point of thy conceiving thoughts did stand:
That none would think, if all thy life had been
Turn'd into leisure, thou could'st have attain'd
So much of time, to have perus'd and seen
So many volumes that so much contain'd.
Which furniture may not be deem'd least rare,
Amongst those ornaments that sweetly dight
Thy solitary Wansted '; where thy care
Had gather'd all what heart or eyes delight.
And whereas many others have, we see,
All things within their houses worth the sight;
Except themselves, that furniture of thee,
And of thy presence, gave the best delight.
With such a season, such a temp'rature,
Wert thou composed, as made sweetness one;
And held the tenour of thy life still sure,
In consort with thyself, in perfect tone.
And never man had heart more truly serv'd
Under the regiment of his own care,
And was more at command, and more observ'd
The colours of that modesty he bare,
Than that of thine; in whom men never found
That any show, or speech obscene, could tell
Of any vein thou had'st that was unsound,
Or motion of thy pow'rs that turn'd not well
And this was thy provision laid within:
Thus wert thou to thyself, and now remains ;
What to the world thou outwardly hast been,
What the dimension of that side contains ;
Which likewise was so goodly and so large,
As shows that thou wert born t' adorn the days
Wherein thou liv'dst; and also to discharge [raise.
Those parts which England's and thy fame should
Although in peace thou seem'd'st to be all peace,
Yet b'ing in war, thou wert all war: and there,
As in thy sphere, thy spir'ts did never cease
To move with indefatigable care;
And nothing seem'd more to arride thy heart,
Nor more enlarge thee into jollity,
Than when thou saw'st thyself in armour girt,
Or any act of arms like to be nigh.
The Belgic war first try'd thy martial spir't,
And what thou wert, and what thou would'st be found;
And mark'd thee there according to thy mer't,
With honour's stamp, a deep and noble wound.
And that same place that rent from mortal men
Immortal Sidney, glory of the field!
And glory of the Muses! and their pen
(Who equal bear the caduce and the shield)
1 The library at Wansted.
Had likewise been my last; had not the fate Of England then reserv'd thy worthy blood, Unto the preservation of a state
That much concern'd her honour and her good;
And thence return'd thee to enjoy the bliss
Of grace and favour in Eliza's sight,
(That miracle of women!) who by this
Made thee beheld according to thy right:
Which fair and happy blessing thou might'st well
Have far more rais'd, had not thine enemy
(Retired privacy) made thee to sell
Thy greatness for thy quiet, and deny
To meet fair Fortune when she came to thee.
For never man did his preferment fly,
And had it in that eminent degree,
As thou; as if it sought thy modesty.
For that which many (whom ambition toils
And tortures with their hopes) hardly attain
With all their thrusts, and should'ring plots, and wiles,
Was easily made thine without thy pain.
And without any private malicing,
Or public grievance, every good man joy'd
That virtue could come clear to any thing,
And fair deserts to be so fairly paid.
Those benefits that were bestow'd on thee,
Were not like Fortune's favours: they could see
Eliza's clear-ey'd judgment is renown'd
For making choice of thy ability.
But it will everlastingly rebound
Unto the glory and benignity
Of Britain's mighty monarch, that thou wert
By him advanced for thy great desert:
It b'ing the fairer work of majesty,
With favour to reward, than to employ.
Although thy services were such, as they
Might ask their grace themselves; yet do we see,
That to success desert hath not a way,
But under princes that most gracious be:
For without thy great valour we had lost
The dearest purchase ever England made;
And made with such profuse, exceeding cost
Of blood and charge, to keep and to invade ;
As commutation paid a dearer price
For such a piece of earth: and yet well paid,
And well adventur'd for with great advice,
And happily to our dominions laid :
Without which, out-let England, thou had'st been
From all the rest of th' Earth shut out, and pent
Unto thy self, and forc'd to keep within;
Environ'd round with others' government.
Where now by this, thy large imperial crown
Stands boundless in the west, and hath a way
For noble times, left to make all thine own
That lies beyond it, and force all t'obey.
And this important piece like t' have been rent
From off thy state, did then so tickle stand,
As that no jointure of the government
But shook no ligament, no band
Of order and obedience, but were then
Loose and in tott'ring, when the charge
Thereof was laid on Montjoy, and that other men,
Chok'd by example, sought to put it off.
And he, out of his native modesty,
(As b'ing no undertaker) labours too
To have avoided that which his ability,
And England's genius, would have him to do:
Alleging how it was a charge unfit
For him to undergo; see'ng such a one
As had more pow'r and means t'accomplish it,
Than he could have, had there so little done.
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