University of Virginia Library

To his deere friend the Author on his Tragedie of Cola's fury, or Lirenda's misery.

When first I read your Tragedy and meete
Truth, wit, and judgement trip with equall feet,
VVithout th'expence of paines, that all may know
They unconstrayned from your pen doe flow.
I could not choose, but wonder that your braine
VVithout great Arts could hit so high a straine,
Such as the power of each line alone
Is able to transforme a man to stone:
Nor is it strange, when that therein wee see
Such bloodie massachers and crueltie,
As doth transcend what cruell Nero and
Great Dyonisius acted in each land.
Had Rubens and Vandike liv'd and at strife
VVho should pourtray best, Cola to the life,
Their curious Art, the way could never find
To Paint his body, as thy Muse, his minde;
Thou hast so liuely him exprest that I
Reading was rapt into an extasie,
But straight againe perplext with so great feare
As if that cruell Cola present were,
Deere friend since then this peece so well limn'd
As most would thinke 'twas by Ben: Iohnson trimm'd,
That Shakespeare, Fletcher, and all did combine
To make Lirenda through the Clouds to shine,
Enfranchise her, and let her come th'view
Of publique Censure, where the best (be sure)
VVill give her welcoms such as shall endure,
Els as a Miser you'le be understood
That hoords up gold, and does the poore no good,
Feare not the Zoyly nor the Criticke faces
That barke and snarle at th'Muses and the Graces,
Their anticque mouthes and squinted eyes shall be,
Stopt and obscur'd when they Lirenda see:
Breake through the mists of Enuy and dispence
Light, vigour, Motion and intelligence,
To all that Candid art, whose votes shall Crowne
The Worke and Author, with a smile, not frowne
And to augment the Trophies of thy prayse
Impale thy browes with wreathes of Delplique bayes.