THE MOTTO.

" Tentanda via est, &c."

WHAT shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the age to come my own?
I shall, like beasts or common people, die,
Unless you write my elegy;

Whilst others great, by being born, are grown;
Their mothers' labour, not their own.

In this scale gold, in th' other fame does lie,
The weight of that mounts this so high.
These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright;
Brought forth with their own fire and light:

If I, her vulgar stone, for either look,

Out of myself it must be strook.

Yet I must on; What sound is't strikes mine ear?
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear:

It sounds like the last trumpet; for it can
Raise up the buried man.

Unpast Alps stop me; but I'll cut them all,
And march, the Muses' Hannibal.
Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay
Nets of roses in the way!

Hence, the desire of honours or estate,
And all that is not above Fate!

Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days!

Which intercepts my coming praise.

Come, my best friends, my books! and lead me on; "T is time that I were gone.

Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now
All I was born to know:

Thy scholar's victories thou dost far out-do;

He conquer'd th' earth, the whole world you. Welcome, learn'd Cicero! whose blest tongue and wit Preserves Rome's greatness yet:

Thou art the first of Orators; only he

Who best can praise thee, next must be.
Welcome the Mantuan swan, Virgil the wise!
Whose verse walks highest, but not flies ;
Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age,
And made that Art which was a Rage.
Tell me, ye mighty Three! what shall I do
To be like one of you?

But you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit
On the calm flourishing head of it,

And, whilst with wearied steps we upward go,

TELL me, O tell, what kind of thing is Wit,
Thou who master art of it?

For the first matter loves variety less;

Less women love't, either in love or dress.

A thousand different shapes it bears, Comely in thousand shapes appears. Yonder we saw it plain; and here 't is now, Like spirits, in a place we know not how.

London, that vents of false ware so much store,
In no ware deceives us more;

For men, led by the colour and the shape,
Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape.

Some things do through our judgment pass
As through a multiplying-glass;

And sometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

Hence 't is a Wit, that greatest word of fame,
Grows such a common name;

And Wits by our creation they become,
Just so as titular bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, 't is not a jest

Admir'd with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that title gain; The proofs of Wit for ever must remain.

'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet
With their five gouty feet.

All, every-where, like man's, must be the soul,
And Reason the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call

The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we see
No towns or houses rais'd by poetry:

Yet 't is not to adorn and gild each part;
That shows more cost than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;

Rather than all things Wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between.

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i'th'sky, If those be stars which paint the Galaxy.

'Tis not when two like words make up one noise (Jests for Dutch men and English boys); In which who finds out Wit, the same may see In an'grams and acrostick poetry :

Much less can that have any place

At which a virgin hides her face; Such dross the fire must purge away: 't is just The author blush there, where the reader must.

"Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage
When Bajazet begins to rage;
Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way;
Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca;
Nor upon all things to obtrude

And force some odd similitude.

What is it then, which, like the Power Divine,
We only can by negatives define?

In a true piece of Wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree;

As in the ark, join'd without force or strife,.

All creatures dwelt; all creatures that had life: