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The poems and verse-translations of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor

For the first time collected and edited after the author's own text: With introduction. By the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart [in Miscellanies of The Fuller Worthies' Library]
Taylor, Jeremy (1613-1667)

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II. Festival Hymns.
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III. Job's Curse.
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IV. Verse-portraits of the Four Evangelists;
 1. 
1 St. Matthew.
 2. 
2 St. Marke.
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3. St. Luke.
 4. 
4. St. John.
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V. Aurea Grana.

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I. From “Deus Justificatus or a Vindication of the Glory of the Divine Attributes in the Question of Original Sin: in a Letter to a Person of Quality.” 1656 (12o) and 1657 (folio).

1. THE FALL.

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Man was the worke of God, fram'd by His hands;
Him did the Serpent cheat, that to death's bands
He was subjected for his sin: for this was all:
He tasted good and evill by his Fall.
[_]

[Sic apud Lactant. ii. 13: fol. Cæsenæ, 1646. Aliter in edd-recent.]


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2. GUILT AND DESTINY.

No guilt upon Mankinde can lie
For what's the fault of Destiny.
[_]

[Seneca Œdip, line 1019.]


3. ORIGINAL SIN.

Nor did it please our God, when that our state
Was chang'd, to adde a crime unto our fate.
[_]

[‘Hoc placet’, &c.—Lucan vii., 58.]


4. NO MASTERS: ONE MASTER.

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If Aristotle be deceiv'd, and say that's true
What nor himself nor others ever knew,
I leave his text, and let his schollers talke
Till they be hoarse or weary in their walke:
When wise men erre, though their fame ring like bells,
I scape a danger when I leave their spells.
[_]

[In Poemate cui nomen ‘Zodiacus vitæ’, lib. viii. sive ‘scorpio’, p. 187.—Basil 1563. 8vo.—]


5. THE SOFT ANSWER.

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Some weaknesse to each man by birth descends,
To me too great a kindnesse Nature lends.
[_]

[Propertius: lib. ii. el. 22.17.]


6. HINDRANCES.

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He that will sow his field with hopefull seed,
Must every bramble, every thistle weed;
And when each hindrance to the graine is gone,
A fruitfull crop shall rise of corn alone.
[_]

[al. ‘liberat,’ ‘resecat.’ Boethius, lib. iii. metr. 1.]


7. CONSCIENCE.

He that is guilty of a sin
Shal rue the crime that he lies in.
[_]

[Lege ‘Exemplo. . . . . . malo’ Juvenal, Sat. xiii. I.]


8. TRUE IF NEW.

Fear not to own what's said because 'tis new;
Weigh well and wisely if the thing be true.
Truth and not conquest is the best reward;
'Gainst falsehood onely stand upon thy guard.
[_]

[Lib. ii. lines 1039 et seqq.]


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