Bell's Edition

Produc'd; the matter and the stuff of this
Her virtue, and the form our practice is;
And tho' to be thus elemented arm

These creatures from homeborn intrinsic harm, (For all assum'd unto this dignity,

So many weedless Paradises be,

Which of themselves produce no ven'mous sin,
Except some foreign serpent bring it in)

Yet because outward storms the strongest break,
And strength itself by confidence grows weak,
This new world may be safer, being told
The dangers and diseases of the old;

For with due temper men do then forego

4] .

Or covet things when they their true worth know. ge There is no health; physicians say that we

At best enjoy but a neutrality:

And can

there be worse sickness than to know
That we are never well, nor can be so?
We are born ruinous; poor mothers cry
That children come not right nor orderly,
Except they headlong come, and fall upon
An ominous precipitation.

How witty's ruin, how importunate
Upon mankind! it labour'd to frustrate
Ev'n God's purpose, and made woman, sent
For man's relief, cause of his languishment:
They were to good ends, and they are so still,
But accessary, and principal in ill;

For that first marriage was our funeral;
One woman at one blow then kill'd us all,
And singly one by one they kill us now,
And we delightfully ourselves allow
To that consumption; and, profusely blind,
We kill ourselves to propagate our kind;
And yet we do not that; we are not men;
There is not n

now that mankind which was then,
When as the sun and man did seem to strive
(Joint tenants of the world) who should survive;
When stag and raven, and the long-liv'd tree,
Compar'd with man, died in minoritie;
When, if a slow-pac'd star had stoln away
From the observer's marking, he might stay
Two or three hundred years to see 't again,
And then make up his observation plain;
When as the age was long, the size was great,
Man's growth confess'd and recompens'd the meat;
So spacious and large, that every soul

Did a fair kingdom and large realm controul ;
And when the very stature, thus erect,

Did that soul a good way t'wards heav'n direct:
Where is this mankind now? who lives to age
Fit to be made Methusalem his page?
Alas! we scarce live long enough to try
Whether a true-made clock run right or lie.
Old granʼsires talk of yesterday with sorrow,
And for our children we reserve to-morrow,

110

120

130

So short is life, that every peasant strives, se eid? In a torn house or field to have three livesitivos) A And as in lasting, so in length, is man tetto as t bпAContracted to an inch who was a span; and sy"-yodTFor had a man at first in forests stray'd, no know of Or shipwreck'd in the sea, one would have laid manT A wager that an elephant or whale

New More sid That met him would not hastily assail 8 489 4☎ A thing so equal to him: now, alas les

The fairies and the pigmies well may pass a ba As credible. Mankind decays so soon, 9:35 am 11 We're scarce our father' shadows cast at noon. q Only death adds t' our length; nor are we grown to In stature to be men till we are none.

But this were light, did our less volume hold

All the old text; or had we chang'd to gold and W
Their silver, or dispos'd into less glass
Spirits of virtue which then scatter'd was:

But 'tis not so; we 're not retir'd but damp'd;305ad2
And as our bodies so our minds are cramp'd:***
'Tis shrinking, not close weaving, that hath thus, CO,
In mind and body both, bedwarfed us. “ 7238
We seem ambitious God's whole work t undo; e una,
Of nothing he made us, and we strive too ward Jodr
To bring ourselves to nothing back; and wenssi MA,
Do what we can to do 't as soon as held foss T
With new diseases on ourselves wedwar,)...s tad: baÄ
And with new physic, a worse engine far,qua

This man, this world's vice-emperor, in whom sode 02 All faculties, all graces, are at homega seotud 11034 nă And if in other creatures they appear,viuasi-mi za buA. They're but man's ministers and legates there, t

To work on their rebellions, and reduce wasted på Them to civility and to man's use:

This man, whom God did woo, and, loth t'attend ✨ ^7
Till man came up, did down to man descend;

This man, so great, that all that is is his,
Oh! what a trifle and poor thing he is !
If man were any thing, he 's nothing now;
Help, or at least some time to waste, allow
To' his other wants; yet when he did depart
With her, whom we lament, he lost his heart.
She, of whom th' ancients seem'd to prophesy,
When they call'd virtues by the name of She; vel like
She, in whom virtue was so much refin'd,

That for allay unto so pure a mind, ranavgatari
She took the weaker sex; she that could drive 28
The poisonous tincture aud the stain of Evers en k186.
Out of her thoughts and deeds, and purify

All by a true religious alchemy;'

She, she is dead; she's dead! When thou know'st this,
Thou know'st how poor a trifling thing man is,
And learn'st thus much by our Anatomie,bu pastd
The heart being perish'd, no part can be free, to
And that except thou feed (not banquet) on *** *
The supernatural food, religion, ngan wad yw bra

Thy better growth grows wither'd and scant; a sof
Be more than man, or thou 'rt less than an ant.10 49812
Then as mankind, so is the world's whole frame 21 and T
Quite out of joint, almost created lame; jodohad: 92
For before God had made up all the rest,
Corruption enter'd and deprav'd the best use o
It seiz'd the angels, and then, first of all,
The world did in her cradle take a fall,
And turn'd her, brains, and took a general maim,
Wronging each joint of th' universal frame,
The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then
Both beasts and plants curst in the curse of man:
So did the world from, the first hour decay,
That evening was beginning of the day;