University of Virginia Library

On Mr Will: Cartwright's excellent Poems.

Cartwright, Thou liv'st; They that suspect Thee dead,
Know thee not yet; Thou liv'st to all that Read:
Our sage Fore-fathers (when they had no Son)
Begat a Pillar, glad to live in Stone:
Thy Marble Book needs no such Masonry,
Is its own Pillar, and Posterity:
When others put off Flesh, They're dead and gone,
But Thou canst change that Rayment, and Live on;
Being return'd in a more happy Dress,
Cloath'd with Ubiquity by this one Press.
Thy Friends whom Five-mile Prisons do confine,
And those that breath within the larger Line,
Will joy to see thy glorious Shadow move,
The Object of their Wonder and their Love.
In thee, all Wit, Art, Learning, meet and flow,
The Poets hand makes the best Oglio:
All learn from Thee; Divines, Philosophers,
And (if the Air could brook them) Courtiers:
They that have lost fair Studies, buying Thee
Will hardly miss their Plunder'd Library:
All gain, except the Stationer, and He
Will lose in Others what he gains by Thee,
For though thy Tenth Impression won't suffice
Those that will buy Thee up at any Price,
Yet he defalkes a Thousand Things would sell
(Before thy Book did blast them) passing well;
Which now lye on his hands, condemn'd to live
At a less Rate that any man will give.
Thus Thou at once dost shame and Crown the Press,
All Poets that succeed Thee shall go less.