86 JOHN DONNE. I know my body's of so frail a kind, I know my soul hath power to know all things, I know I'm one of nature's little kings, Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall, I know my life's a pain, and but a span; CHAP. IV. 50. John DONNE. 1573-1631. (Manual, p. 82.) FROM HIS ELEGIES. Language, thou art too narrow and too weak Thou hast killed her, to make thy empire more? Knew'st thou some would, that knew her not, lament, Was't not enough to have that palace won, But thou must raze it too, that was undone? Had'st thou stay'd there, and looked out at her eyes, That know her better now, who knew her well. 51. BISHOP HALL. 1574-1656. (Manual, p. 83.) FROM THE SATIRES. Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side; So little in his purse, so much upon his back? In lieu of their so kind a conquerment. His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, As if he meant to wear a native cord, If chance his fates should him that bane afford. All British bare upon the bristled skin, Close notched is his beard both lip and chin; 1 The phrase of dining with Duke Humphry arose from St. Paul's being the general resort of the loungers of those days, many of whom, like Hall's gallant, were glad to beguile the thoughts of dinner with a walk in the middle aisle, where there was a tomb, by mistake supposed to be that of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester. Whose thousand double turnings never met: But when I look, and cast mine eyes below, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel. 52. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 1560-1595. (Manual, p. 85.) Robert TIMES GO BY TURNS. The loppèd tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: The sea of fortune doth not ever flow, She draws her favors to the lowest ebb: Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring; The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. d; A chance may win that by mischance was lost; 53. GILES FLETCHER. (Manual, p. 84.) From Christ's Victory in Heaven. JUSTICE ADDRESSING THE CREATOR. Upon two stony tables, spread before her, Where good, and bad, and life, and death, were painted: But, when that scroll was read, with thousand terrors fainted. Witness the thunder that Mount Sinai heard, On this dead Justice, she, the living law, Bowing herself with a majestic awe, All heaven, to hear her speech, did into silence draw. * 54. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 1585-1649. (Manual, p. 87.) ON SLEEP. Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, CHAPTER V. THE NEW PHILOSOPHY AND PROSE LITERATURE IN THE REIGNS OF ELİZABETH AND JAMES I. 55. SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. 1554-1586. (Manual, p. 78.) (For his Poetry, see page 79.) From the Defence of Poesy. IN PRAISE OF POETRY. Now therein (that is to say, the power of at once teaching and enticing to do well) — now therein, of all sciences—I speak still of human and according to human conceit-is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimneycorner; and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue, even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste. For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think virtue a school name, and know no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted; which is all the good-fellow poet seems to promise; and so steal to see the form of goodness—which, seen, they cannot but love ere themselves be aware, as if they had taken a medicine of cherries. By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a conclusion not unfitly ensues, that as virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make an end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to |