University of Virginia Library

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To the READER of my Dearly Loved, because truly Pious Friend, Mr, T. W.'s Religious Poems.

Draw neer, but draw devoutly, for you may
Better keep hence, then come and be away;
And yet approach still, though thy soul brings none,
That it may carry hence Devotion.
Expect, if thou be such, some loose sin here,
That so thou maist be caught at unaware:
So Heathens, when to Christian slaughter they
With Pagan hate flock'd only to annoy,
Did return Converts, and there learnt to do
What they saw done, hope, confess, and dye too.
He that came Snake, and Serpent, sting and hiss,
Did return man; for there he left all these;
He that did come, and but in part a man,
Went back a whole, and intire Christian.
He that was got so far would stil go on,
And by Gods faith reach up to Gods own Son;

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Serpent too much, and man too little; I
And Christian too; he would be saint and dye.

Expect no fond invokings; We confesse,
There is no Genius besides holinesse.
Were this left out, had he another theame,
Child's straw, and bubbles, would be all the gemme;
How many, and none, compose and not compose!
For without this, 'tis neither Rime nor Prose;
Read this mans storms, and that mans fairer weather,
Compare them both to none, not each to either;

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What get you? but that you can only tell
This line's like that, a decasyllable?
That he was Knight? he gentleman? Their fire
Tun'd not to Davids; but Apollo's lyre;
And that because there is in neither even
What was in Johnson's self, a close to heaven.

Cartwright is Wit throughout, but I read o're
More then his four playes, his fast pious four;
And then his several Gratitudes unto
Him, whose head taught him, and purse fed him too;
Who gave him to buy books, and gave him skil
In each of them, to chuse out Well from Ill;
The Learned, Pious, Constant Duppa; he
Who was, and is stil Reverend in those three;
Whom these three, voice, and pen, and heart cannot
(No not Cartwrights own) enough celebrate;
In these he kept Christs law, lov'd God, and then
His next act was to pay his debt to men.
He did it here; for this one to him wou'd
Be Universal, ev'ry neighbourhood.
Though he out-sabers, out-words, out-wits all,
Grave Virgil, Horace nice, Salt Martial,
Yet more then in's (though unprofane) verse, wou'd
Wrench my soul in his Diviner stood;

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Those Sermons in which he did wind about
Our passions more then Cicero could do't,
In which he did out-sense deep Plutarchs skil,
And taught so wel, almost all else taught ill,
Unlesse when's Father Duppa 'gan to preach,
Who us to live, and taught him too to teach.
Oh, for that Text where he forbad to ly,
And prest home truth, in unbound Poetry?
Where David like, he did instil and charme
Us to be honest, though to our own harm,
Charg'd truths upon us, such as do shine here
In this smal volume, scorn'd and damn'd elsewhere;
O for his Passion-text, that we might buy
Th' inestimable price at Sixpence fee;
That we that winepresse which at Edom was,
And Christs Church trod, might taste from a new press!

And here we hav't i'th' dialogue between
Christ Angels, and Apostles, of slain sin;
Jesus is up again, he did not die,
He but lay downe, that death it self might lie.
I, who this book throughout love, Adore here
As (though all Horace was to Scaliger
Precious and rich, yet above all the rest
He did affect his Lydia dialogue best,)
He who t'ave made That, would give Empire, though
A world he offer here, he bids too low;
For as the whole is sacred, and each line,
Though 'tis not God, yet it is each Divine;
So here, 'tis not Apostle only who
Does speak, and Angel, but 'tis Jesus too;
What would that Learnings lover now impart
To speak with an Apostle heart to heart?
(For they did not converse, as some of late,
With face of love, but with a brest of hate)
What would his inquisition give to hear
An Angel vocally round him i'th' eare!

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What would he? nay, what would he not bestow?
A world! almost another Jesus too,
To hear his own Christ speake, who since sixteen
Last hundred yeers, was neither heard nor seen.