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And yet are with their princes: fill them full Of your Moravian horse, Venetian bull;

Tell them what parts you've ta'en, whence run away,

What states you've gulled, and which yet keeps you' in pay;

Give them your services, and embassies
In Ireland, Holland, Sweden, pompous lies!
In Hungary, and Poland, Turkey too;
What at Ligorne, Rome, Florence you did do;
And, in some year, all these together heaped,
For which there must more sea and land be leaped,
If but to be believed you have the hap,

Then can a flea at twice skip i' the map.
Give your young statesmen (that first make you
drunk,

And then lie with you, closer than a punk,
For news) your Villeroys, and Silleries,
Janins, your Nuncios, and your Tuileries,
Your Archdukes' agents, and your Beringhams,
That are your words of credit. Keep your names
Of Hannow, Shieter-huissen, Popenheim,
Hans-spiegle, Rotteinberg, and Boutersheim,

For
your next meal; this you are sure of. Why
Will you part with them here, unthriftily?
Nay, now you puff, tusk, and draw up your chin,
Twirl the poor chain you run a feasting in:
Come, be not angry, you are Hungry, eat;
Do what you come for, captain, there's your

meat.

CVIII. TO TRUE SOLDIERS.86

Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view,
Such as are miscalled captains, and wrong you,
And your high names; I do desire that thence
Be nor put on you, nor you take offence.

I swear by your true friend, my Muse, I love
Your great profession, which I once did prove,87
And did not shame it with my actions then
No more than I dare now do with my pen.
He that not trusts me, having vowed thus much,
But's angry
for the captain still, is such.88

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Who now calls on thee, Nevil, is a muse

That serves nor fame nor titles; but doth choose Where virtue makes them both, and that's in thee,

Where all is fair beside thy pedigree.

86 Antithetical to the preceding. It also occurs in the Address to the Reader at the close of Jonson's Poetaster, where a similar character is satirized.

66

87 In his service in the Low Countries," Drummond records, "he [Jonson] had, in the face of both the camps, killed one enemy, and taken opima spolia from him."

88 That is, is such as Captain Hungry.

89 Whalley says that this Sir Henry Nevil was a son of Lord Abergavenny; but Gifford thinks this a mistake, and that the person intended was a son of Sir Henry Nevil, of Billingham, a distinguished statesman, much employed by the Queen, to whom he was introduced by Cecil. The epigram is not sufficiently distinct in its personal allusions to determine the identity. - B.

Thou art not one seek'st miseries with hope,
Wrestlest with dignities, or feign'st a scope
Of service to the public, when the end

Is private gain, which hath long guilt to friend.
Thou rather striv'st the matter to possess,
And elements of honor, than the dress;

To make thy lent life good against the Fates;
And first to know thine own state, then the
State's;

To be the same in root thou art in height, And that thy soul should give thy flesh her weight.

Go on, and doubt not what posterity,

Now I have sung thee thus, shall judge of thee. Thy deeds unto thy name will prove new wombs, Whilst others toil for titles to their tombs.

CX. TO CLEMENT EDMONDS,

ON HIS CÆSAR'S COMMENTARIES OBSERVED, AND TRANSLATED.
Not Cæsar's deeds, nor all his honors won,
In these west parts; nor, when that war was done,

90 This piece was originally prefixed to the work it commends. Clement Edmonds, son of Sir Thomas Edmonds, born in 1566, held the office of secretary to Queen Elizabeth for the French language, and was afterwards appointed Remembrancer of the City of London, Master of the Requests, and one of the clerks of the Council. He was knighted in 1617, and died in 1622. Edmonds was a man of learning and general attainments, particularly in the "art military,” as we are informed by his epitaph. He published his observations on Cæsar's Commentaries in three parts, the first two in 1600, and the third in 1609. - B.

The name of Pompey for an enemy,
Cato's to boot, Rome, and her liberty,

All yielding to his fortune; nor, the while,
To have engraved these acts with his own style,
And that so strong and deep, as't might be
thought,

He wrote with the same spirit that he fought;
Nor that his work lived in the hands of foes
Unargued then, and yet hath fame from those;
Not all these, Edmonds, or what else put to,
Can so speak Cæsar as thy labors do.

For where his person lived scarce one just age,
And that midst envy and parts, then fell by rage;
His deeds too dying, but in books (whose good
How few have read! how fewer understood!)
Thy learned hand, and true Promethean art,
(As by a new creation,) part by part,
In every counsel, stratagem, design,
Action, or engine, worth a note of thine,
T'all future time not only doth restore
His life, but makes that he can die no more.

CXI. TO THE SAME, ON THE SAME. Who, Edmonds, reads thy book, and doth not

see

What th' antique soldiers were, the modern be?
Wherein thou show'st how much the latter are
Beholding to this master of the war;
And that in action there is nothing new,

More than to vary what our elders knew;

Which all but ignorant captains will confess;
Nor to give Cæsar this, makes ours the less.
Yet thou, perhaps, shalt meet some tongues will
grutch

That to the world thou shouldst reveal so much,
And thence deprave thee and thy work: to those
Cæsar stands up, as from his urn late rose
By thy great help, and doth proclaim by me,
They murder him again that envy thee.

CXII. TO A WEAK GAMESTER IN POETRY.

With thy small stock why art thou vent'ring still

At this so subtle sport, and play'st so ill? Think'st thou it is mere fortune that can win? Or thy rank setting? that thou dar'st put in Thy all, at all; and whatsoe'er I do,

Art still at that, and think'st to blow me' up too?
I cannot for the stage a drama lay,

Tragic or comic, but thou writ'st the play.
I leave thee there, and, giving way, intend
An epic poem; thou hast the same end.

I modestly quit that, and think to write,
Next morn, an ode; thou mak'st a song ere
night.

I pass to elegies; thou meet'st me there;
To satires, and thou dost pursue me. Where,
Where shall I 'scape thee? In an epigram?
"Oh," thou criest out, "that is my proper game."
Troth, if it be, I pity thy ill luck;

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