The Lady-Errant :: :: University of Virginia Library

As the great World, built in a Week, shall lye
Flat at one blow (for Death and Time shall dye:)
So Oxford, twice-six Ages upward grown,
Sunk all at once, and fell from Best to None.
For (Cartwright) when thy Fall shrunk up the Gown,
Fate scorn'd the Sythe of Time, to mow all down
Slew manly Diggs, high Masters, all the chiefe,
And damn'd all Remnant-Wits to suffer Life.

Yet if thy lofty Soul could stoop from high,
'Twould sweat to build, as others to destroy.
Thou couldst retrive and fashion us again
In that great Shop of Miracles, thy Brain.
Thy Sense and Reason (Man's two Eyes) would reach
All that Lay Prose or Sacred Verse could teach.
Armies of Words and Phansies, rais'd by Thee,
Would rescue all the Arts vast Heptarchy.

But Thou art gone: and groveling Trifles crawl
About the World, which but confirm thy Fall.
The Belgick Floud, which drank down fifty Townes,
At dead-low water shews their humble Crowns:
So, since thy flowing Brain ebb'd down to death,
Small Under-witts do shoot up from beneath.
They spread, and swarm, as fast as Preachers now,
New, Monthly Poets (and their Pictures too)
Who, like that Fellow in the Moon, look bright,
Yet are but Spots because they dwell in Light.

For thy Imperiall Muse at once defines
Lawes to arraign and brand their weak strong lines.
Unmask's the Goblin-Verse that fright's a page
As when old time brought Devills on the Stage.

Knew the right mark of things, saw how to choose,
(For the great Wit's great work is to Refuse,)
And smil'd to see what shouldering there is
To follow Lucan where he trod amiss.
Thine's the right Mettall, Thine's still big with Sense,
And stands as square as a good Conscience.
No Traverse lines, all written like a man:
Their Heights are but the Chaff, their Depths the Bran:
Gross, and not Great; which when it best does hit
Is not the Strength but Corpulence of Wit:
Stuft, swoln, ungirt: but Thine's compact and bound
Close as the Atomes of a Diamond.
Substance and Frame; Raptures not Phrensies grown;
No Rebel-Wit, which beares its Master down;
But checks the Phansy, tames that Giant's Rage
As He that made huge Ascapart his Page.
Such Law, such Conduct, such Oeconomy,
No Demonstrator walks more steadily.
Nothing of Chance, Thou handled'st Fortune then
As roughly as she now does Vertuous men.
Still saw'st thy Way; not a mote in thy Brain;
There needs no spotted Margent make Thee plain.
Great Sense, rich Words, full Numbers, kiss and greet;
The Head's not clogg'd with Cold sent from the Feet.
No grim-stiff-iron Verse, stuck full of Points;
Thy Elephant doth but conceale his joynts.
No line writ with a Gantlet, dragg'd along;
The Purple Queen's silk Cables, smooth and strong.
Thine swims away, clean as its Lord the Sun
Doth 'twixt his Tropicks rather saile than run.

Yet not meer Forme and Posture, built of Slime;
'Tis Substantive with or without its Rime.
Meer Verse hath but the Pace of Wit, treads high,
But, a proud Beggar, in straw-Prose should lye:
For such, if worse, were better, 'twould shew skill;
'Tis somewhat hard to write extremely ill.

Thine, the right Verse is Man, hath Voice, Feet, Sense,
Passion, and Aire, Phansie, Intelligence:
If it want Fire, and be not sweetly fierce,
'Tis but a coward Rime, no true-born Verse.
Where are such Flames, such Puissance and Sway,
As thy Cratander, or Lucasia!
His Soul would fill a Globe; yet big as 'tis,
Hers would informe as great a World as His.
What vast sweet Horrours (Love and Wit) exprest!
Such Living Metaphors, so costly drest,
Thy Language is all Tissue; no one part
But comes from All the Magazines of Art.
For as immortall Harvey's searching Brain
Found the Red Spirit's Circle in each Veyn,
Hath open'd Straights, and saild our World about,
As if He made that Sluice, not found it out:
So Wit, the bloud of Verse, in every line
Drawn by thy hand, doth shoot, and work, and mine,
This Gulfe, that Isthmus, through each Science dart's,
And proves its Circulation through all Arts.
All-over Wit, ne'r runs a-ground, but rides
In ever-flowing never-ebbing Tides.
Not sometimes rampant, sometimes groveling down,
But still keeps up its brave Complexion;
Which, like a German Prince's Title, runs
Both to thy eldest and to all thy Sons.

For Thine's a Spring; Thy Phansie works and beats
Swift as the Pulse, and strikes no second Heats.
Not drawn with Engines; didst not pant, resist,
Long as the all-consuming Alchemist.
Nor for some mighty line were stretcht and torn
Till 'twas thy Son because Nine Months e'r born.
Thou didst but bid it flow, and then thy Stile
Came easily as flatterd Ladies smile.
And hadst writ Greek or Latin with like ease,
But Sense and Reason speak all Languages.

These were thine own, not plunderd; Thou hadst not
Adopted Phansies, Thine were all begot.
Thou knewst such gatherd Raggs would ill befit
Thy Wardrobe, but their Frippery of Wit;
Whose new Productions like new Rome do swell,
Where, for one Native, thrice two strangers dwell.
Thou wert thy self, lett'st all the Godds alone
Which Hesiod rear'd, or Lucian laugh'd down.
Thy Laurell grew on thee, that verdant Crown
Will last, 'tis not usurp'd, 'tis all thine own.

And now tis publish'd; they that pilfer'd Thine
And beat a new broad page out of one line,
(Who adding Brass or Pewter of their own,
Of a Kings shilling made a false Half-crown)
Must quit their Trade, their Night and Shades are gone,
Hee's a bold Thief that robs 'twixt Sun and Sun.
They'l blast thee now, as in this roguing Age
Some writ dull Poems, then raild down the Stage:
They try'd for Wit, but fail'd, then (lest men know it)
With Antonine thank God they are no Poet.
Looking at Verse as on some fatall thing,
As if twere some good Bishop or great King.
No, Thine's as free from Danger as from Gall,
('Twas the bold leaden Prose that routed all:)
Thou hadst no Fangs, though thou wert quick and smart,
Thy Wit was not thy Irascible part.
No bloody drops did from thy Pencill fall,
Thy blackest Scean's but Tragi-comicall.

Nor were these drunken Fumes, Thou didst not write
Warm'd by male Claret or by female White:
Their Giant Sack could nothing heighten Thee,
As far 'bove Tavern Flash as Ribauldry.
Thou thought'st no ranke foul line was strongly writ,
That's but the Scum or Sediment of Wit;
Which sharking Braines do into Publike thrust,
(And though They cannot blush, the Reader must;)

Who when they see't abhor'd, for fear, not shame,
Translate their Bastard to some Other's name.
No rotten Phansies in thy Scenes appear;
Nothing but what a Dying man might hear.
All of all Sexes may pronounce or show it,
Thou (as old Prophets) wert annointed Poet:
Who didst (when thou had'st Sockt and Buskind gone)
Without Remorse put th' holy Girdle on.
Then, then what dreadfull Sweetnesse didst thou show,
Making the Learn'd admire, and tremble too!
Thunder was set in tunes; the Temple shak'd,
Graves of each Bosome open'd, Dead sinns wak'd,
Lightning, and Darknesse, Earthquakes, every thing
As if the Jewes re-crucifi'd their King.
Thou might'st affright our would-be Atheists pride,
Who talk, drink, scribble, all for any side;
Pretending Depths, that Others know but th' Brim,
Soules that can dive because they ne're could swim.

But Cartwright's gone: and now such Levites teach
As that hard Heap to whom old Bede did preach:
Clodds, that can only sink a Ship: whose skull
Can be at once exactly mad and dull:
Still scalding hot, and yet the Brain so dead,
Pigeons apply'd draw nothing from Their head:
Can roar an Age, ne'r out, 'cause never in;
(For they can never end, did ne'r begin.)
But, as His weekly thrice-nine Leagues had hurld
Fourty-yeeres-Hobson eight times round the World,
Yet weaving still the selfe same Lanes and Stiles,
His Ninescore Thousand were not Fifty miles:
So, though our Sermon-winder stretch his Tale
Till the Church marble, nay till his Lungs fail,
Yet, from his first Give eare to' his last Amen,
'Tis but the same sad puffing-work agen.
But thou didst still reveale; still new, and choice;
Wert the great Africk Prince weares no Cloaths twice.

Such Power, that had those Gentiles heard thee then,
They'd cry again the Gods come down to men.
What vast Dominions thy rich Wit would have!
All things that are, and are not, were thy Slave!
Nothing withstood thy Phansy's Battery,
But All confess'd ther's Nothing Poet-free.
Me thinks Thou now art in thy Study set,
Thy Curtain drawn, and all thy Notions met:
How glorious high thy flaming Phansie beats,
While yet thy ballanc'd Judgement still retreats,
Summons, arraignes, confounds, saves, routs, turns, hurls
Ten thousand waies ten hundred thousand Worlds!

But oh! 'twas this, this rapt thee hence; we know
Nothing could fill thy spacious thoughts below.
Thou hadst too much Soul, Nature might assigne
Another's Soul but to embody Thine.
But Wit (the Beauty of the Minde) ne'r stay's,
Tis lost as soon as a bad Girl's good face.
Too oft (like Thee) live's but its thirtieth Yeer,
And then (with Spanish wives) leaves off to bear:
For when it climbs to fourty, tis so high,
Down streight it fals to Beard and Husbandry.
The Poet's head's on fire, that glowing flame
Makes him not cinders, but it melts his Brain.
No Salamanders wool, it burns too strong:
Old Poets onely liv'd long since, not long.
If any to a Cubit stretcht their Span,
Twas not the Poet liv'd, 'twas but the Man.
Bald Æschylus, wither'd Simonides,
Might have been begg'd (as well as Sophocles:)
Half of whose eighty yeers were blank, and thrown
Eighty degrees into the frozen Zone:
Degraded, as that proud Chaldæan was
All the dumb yeers God turn'd him out to grass.
Their Aged Wit's born wrinkled, th' After-birth
Is cold and dry as Elementall earth.

The Poet growes not green, 'tis but his Tree;
His Name, his Verse shall never fade, not Hee.

And so shall Thine, flourish, though thou art dead,
Till every line be blazon'd, and not read:
Shall stand thy Monument, when some that have
Huge Tombs, are found unworthy of a Grave.
Thy Orphan Book shall perish'd Wit restore:
Thus, Thou liv'st after Death, We die before.
For when a coward Victor, in cool blood
Butcher's some Chieftaines who had nobly stood,
Those that have Quarter or (perhaps) Reprieve,
Do blush, and think it scandalous to live:
So We, thy blasted Friends, with shame survive,
Who have so often dy'd, 'cause yet alive.
Our Sighs and fetter'd thoughts blow out our Braines,
(As captiue Cælius dasht out his with's Chaines.)
Thy Oxford's but a Town; since she lost Thee,
England's Right Eye can only weep, not see.
And her bright Sister failes, Both must preferre
Those two proud Dames, London and Westminster.
Behold poor Britaine in its first wild Looks
When it had Swords and Druids, but no Books!
Yet then th' unletter'd Bard could tune his Thought,
For the rough Gaul swam hither to be taught:
But now this savage Isle will soake in Blood
Till 'tis but one red Bog; whose guilty mud
Will sink, or make some Clowd of Brimstone fall;
Or else old Corah's Earthquake sweep down all.
Something, bad Angels hope, the good one feares:

Beasts are but nine daies blind, but Men ten Yeares.

John Berkenhead.