The Lady-Errant | ||
On Mr Cartvvright and his Poems.
Some say that Poets, like Grand Signeurs, hateTheir Brothers, yet will bury them in State.
A bold expression of a strain so high,
No Poet e'r invented such a Lye.
Truth knows, when Cartwright liv'd and was inspir'd,
I envied not what other Men admir'd:
Nor (though on Tombs, Custome and Grief allow
Hyperboles in Marble) will I now
Follow him with a Complement so far,
To plant his Spirit in a New-found Star.
Yet I presume, a more harmonious Sphere
Moves not in Heav'n, than Cartwright mov'd in here.
Witness these Charmes and Raptures, which he sung
Like th' aged Swan; but He, alas, dy'd young.
So did
Præfect [illeg.] Rome, the[illeg.] Sanctuary [illeg.] Treasuary [illeg.] the Law ([illeg.] Historian [illeg.] call him.)
The Miracle, and Martyr of their Law;
And still 'mong those the Learn'd Civilians quote,
That grave young Chair-man hath a double Vote.
Much more is due unto this younger Sage,
A Man That merits th' honours of an Age.
All Poets graces may in him be read,
Why should not all their Bayes then crown his head?
'Tis true, he's of our Authors last set forth,
But last in Order is the first in Worth:
He may be Johnson's Grand-Child, Fletchers Son.
If by desert, a Muse might be his Mother,
He Homer's Heir, and Hesiod's elder Brother.
Nature allow'd, when she did Cartwright mould,
Not one and Thirty years to make him old,
By living to time-past: There's in his List
Of Friends Pythagoras and Trismegist;
These Ancients will engage our Modern men,
To doat upon their Learning in his Pen.
Nor as his Knowledge grew did's Form decay,
He still was strong and fresh, his Brain was gray.
Such agedness might our young Ladies move
To somewhat more than a Platonick Love,
Which to prevent Fate barrs him their Commerce,
And leaves them what is handsomer, his Verse:
'Tis an Adonis, they may safely wooe,
Yet to our Sex 'twill be a Venus too,
And make (in Poetry such vertue lurks)
His Readers as immortall as his Works.
Robert Stapylton Kt.
The Lady-Errant | ||