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Sure fome mens fouls are given 'em for plagues,
My foul to me, is all the plagues of Epypt.

My thoughts are frogs, and flies, and lice, and locufts. Crown's Ambitious Statesman.

SPR 1 N G.

Whence is it that the air fo fudden clears,

And all things in a moment turn fo mild ?
Whose breath or beams, have got proud earth with child,
Of all the treasure that great nature's worth,
And makes her ev'ry minute to bring forth ?
How comes it winter is fo quite forc'd hence,
And lock'd up under ground? That ev'ry sense
Hath fev'ral objects? Trees have got their heads,
The fields their coats? That now the fhining meads
Do boast the paunfe, lily, and the rose :

And ev'ry flow'r doth laugh as Zephyr blows?
The feas are now more even than the land:
The rivers run as smoothed by his hand;
Only their heads are crisped by his ftroke.
How plays the yearling, with his brow fcarce broke,
Now in the open grafs? And frisking lambs
Make wanton falts about their dry-fuck'd dams,
Who to repair their bags do rob the fields.
How is't each bough a fev'ral mufick yields ?
The lufty throftle, early nightingale,
Accord in tune, tho' vary in their tale:
The chirping fwallow call'd forth by the fun,
And crefted lark doth his divifion run :
The yellow bees the air with murmur fill,
The finches carol, and the turtles bill.

Johnson's Mafques

The wanton fpring lies dallying with the earth,
And pours fresh blood in her decayed veins.
Look how the new-fapp'd branches are in child
With tender infants! How the fun draws out,
And shapes their moisture into thousand forms

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Of fprouting buds! All things that fhew or breath,

Are now inftaur'd!

Marfton's What you will.

Now had the fun rode through his winter stage,
And lighted at the lufty ram: The earth
With herbs, as Æfon, did renew her age,
And was impregnate with a num'rous birth:
Flora to ope her wardrobe did begin,
As 'twere to deck her at her lying in.

The conftellation of the winged fleed

Rifing with Sol, attempereth the air
To the radical humour; and doth breed

Blood in the sprouting veins, and fp'rits repair;
Soldiers in fpring double their fervice can ;
A man in winter is but half a man.

The fpeckled fnake when he hath new put on
His annual coat, with feeming triple tongue,
Calls for the fight; and basked in the sun,

Is able or to give, or pay a wrong:
But when th' earth lies like one great ball of fnow,
Alas, poor fnake, what mischief can it do!
Aleyn's Poitiers.
Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath loft
Her fnow white robes, and now no more the froft
Candies the grafs, or cafts an icy cream
Upon the filver lake, or crystal stream;
But the warm fun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a facred birth
To the dead fwallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckow, and the humble bee:
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world, the youthful fpring.
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the long'd for May.
Now all things fimile.

Carew.

The

The ox which lately did for shelter fly
Into the ftall, doth now fecurely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fire fide, but in the cooler fhade.

What a verdent weed the fpring arrays
Fresh Tellus in! how Flora decks the fields
With all her tapestry! And the choristers
Of ev'ry grove chaunt carols! Mirth is come
To vifit mortals. Ev'ry thing is blith,
Jocund and jovial.

Carew.

Randolph's Jealous Lovers. STATESME N. There can no king imagine aught fo bad, But fhall find fome that will perform it glad : For ficknefs feldom doth fo fwiftly breed, As humours ill do grow the grief to feed.

G. Ferrers in the Mirror for Magiftrates.
When wilful princes carelefly defpife
To hear th' oppreffed people's heavy cries,
Nor will correct their polling thieves; then God
Doth make those thieves, the reckless princes rod.
Mirror for Magiflrates,
At what a divers price, do divers men
Act the fame things! another might have had
Perhaps the hurdle, or at leaft the ax,

For what I have this coronet, robes, and wax.
There is a fate, that flies with tow'ring fpirits
Home to the mark, and never checks at confcience.
Poor plodding priests, and preaching fryars may make
Their hollow pulpits, and the empty ifles

Of churches ring with that round word but we
That draw the fubtile and more piercing air,
In that fublimed region of a court,

Know all is good, we make fo; and go on,
Secur'd by the profperity of our crimes.

Johnfon's Mortimer.

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-Forbear, you things,

That ftand upon the pinnacles of ftate,

To boast your flipp'ry height; when you do fall,
You do fh yourselves in pieces, ne'er to rife:
And he that lends you pity, is not wife.

Johnfen's Sejanus.
I will not ask, why Cafar bids do this:
But joy, that he bids me. It is the blifs
Of courts, to be employ'd; no matter how ;
A prince's power makes all his actions virtue.
We, whom he works by, are dumb inftruments,
To do, but not enquire: his great intents

Are to be ferv'd, not fearch'd: Yet, as that bow
Is most in hand, whofe owner best doth know
'I'affect his aims; fo let that statesman's hope
Moft ufe, moft price, can hit his prince's scope.
Nor must he look at what, or whom to strike,
But loofe at all; each mark must be alike:
Were it to plot against the fame, the life
Of one, with whom I twinn'd: remove a wife
From my warm fide, as lov'd as is the air;
Practice away each parent; draw mine heir
In compass, though but one; work all my kin
To fwift perdition; leave no untrain❜d engine,
For friendship, or for innocence; nay, make
The gods all guilty: I would undertake
This, being impos'd me, both with gain and ease:
The way to rife, is to obey and please.
He that will thrive in ftate, he must neglect
The trodden paths that truth and right refpect;
And prove new, wilder ways: for virtue there,
Is not that narrow thing, fhe is elsewhere;
Mens fortune there, is virtue; reason their will;
Their licence, law; and their observance skill.
Occafion is their foil; confcience their stain ;
Profit their luftre, and what else is vair.
If then it be the luft of Cafar's pow'r
T' have rais'd Sejanus up, and in an hour

O'erturn

O'erturn him, tumbling down from height of all;
We are his ready engine, and his fall
May be our rife: it is no uncouth thing,
To fee fresh buildings from old ruins fpring.

Johnfon's Sejanus.

He must be the organ we must work by now;
Though none lefs apt for truft: need doth allow
What choice would not. I have heard, that aconite
B'ing timely taken, hath a healing might
Against the scorpion's stroke; the proof we'll give :
That while too poisons wrestle we may live.
He hath a fp'rit too working to be us'd
But to th' encounter of his like: excus'd
Are wifer fov'reigns then, that raise one ill
Against another, and both fafely kill.

-As a city dame

Ibid.

Brought by her jealous husband, to the court,
Some elder courtiers entertaining him,
While others fnatch a favour from his wife;
One ftarts from this door, from that nook another
With gifts and junkets, and with printed phrafe
Steal her employments; fhifting place by place
Still as her husband comes: fo duke Byron
Was woo'd, and worship'd in the arch-duke's court:
And as the affiftance that your majesty
Join'd in commiffion with him, or myself,
Or any other doubted eye appear'd,
He ever vanish'd and as fuch a dame
As we compar'd with him before, being won
To break faith to her husband, lose her fame,
Stain both their progenies, and coming fresh
From underneath the burden of her fhame,
Vifits her husband with as chaft a brow,
As temperate, and confirm'd behaviour,
As fhe came quitted from confession:

So from his 'fcapes, would he prefent a prefence,
The practice of his ftate adultery

I 6

And!

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