A corpulent relique: marry and 't is sinne
Some Puritan gets not his face call'd in;
Amongst leane brethren it may scandall bring,
Who seeke for parity in every thing.
For us, let him enjoy all that God sends,
Plenty of flesh, of livings, and of freinds.

Imagine here us ambling downe the street, Circling in Flower, making both ends meet: Where we fare well foure dayes, and did complain, Like harvest folkes, of weather and the raine: And on the feast of Barthol' mew we try What revells that saint keepes at Banbury 20. In th' name of God, amen First to begin, The altar was translated to an inne; We lodged in a chappell by the signe, But in a banquerupt taverne by the wine: Besides, our horses usage made us thinke 'T was still a church, for they in coffins drinke 21; As if 't were congruous that the ancients lye Close by those alters in whose faith they dye. Now ye beleeve the church hath good varietye Of monuments, when inns have such satiety; But nothing lesse: ther's no inscription there, But the church-wardens' names of the last yeare: Instead of saints in windowes and on walls, Here bucketts hang, and there a cobweb falls : Would you not sweare they love antiquity, Who brush the quire for perpetuity? Whilst all the other pavement and the floore Are supplicants to the surveyor's power Of the high wayes, that he would gravell keepe; For else in winter sure it will be deepe. If not for God's, for Mr. Wheatlye's sake Levell the walkes; suppose these pittfalls make Him spraine a lecture, or misplace a joynt In his long prayer, or his fiveteenth point: Thinke you the dawes or stares can sett him right?

Surely this sinne upon your heads must light. And say, beloved, what unchristian charme Is this? you have not left a legg or arme Of an apostle: think you, were they whole, That they would rise, at least assume a soule? If not, 't is plaine all the idolatry Lyes in your folly, not th' imagery. "T is well the pinnacles are falne in twaine; For now the Divell, should he tempt againe, Hath noe advantage of a place soe high: Fooles, he can dash you from your gallery, Where all your medly meete; and doe compare, Not what you learne, but who is longest there; The Puritan, the Anabaptist, Brownist, Like a grand sallet: Tinkers, what a towne ist? The crosses also, like old stumps of trees, Are stooles for horsemen that have feeble knees; Carry noe heads above ground: they which tell, That Christ hath nere descended into Hell, But to the grave, his picture buried have In a far deeper dungeon thau a grave: That is, descended to endure what paines The Divell can think, or such disciples' braines. No more my greife, in such prophane abuses Good whipps make better verses then the Muses. Away, and looke not back; away, whilst yet The church is standing, whilst the benefitt

Of seeing it remaines; ere long you shall
Have that rac't downe, and call'd apocryphal,
And in some barne heare cited many an author,
Kate Stubbs, Anne Askew, or the Ladye's daughter;
Which shall be urg'd for fathers. Stopp Disdaine,
When Oxford once appears, Satyre refraine.
Neighbours, how hath our anger thus out gon's?
Is not St. Giles's this, and that St. John's?
We are return'd; but just with soe much ore
As Rawleigh from his voyage, and noe more.

Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,
Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet.
Hor. lib. i. sat. 4.

ON MR. RICE,

THE MANCIPLE OF CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD.

WHO can doubt, Rice, but to th' eternall place Thy soule is fledd, that did but know thy face? Whose body was soe light, it might have gone To Heav'ne without a resurrection.

Indeed thou wert all type; thy limmes were signes, Thy arteryes but mathematicke lines:

As if two soules had made thy compound good, That both should live by faith, and none by blood.

ON HENRY BOLINGS.

IF gentleness could tame the Fates, or wit
Deliver man, Bolings had not di'd yet;
But One which over us in judgment sits,
Doth say our sins are stronger than our wits.

ON JOHN DAWSON,

BUTLER OF CHRIST-CHURCH.

DAWSON the butler's dead: although I think
Poets were ne're infus'd with single drink,
I'll spend a farthing, Muse; a watry verse
Will serve the turn to cast upon his herse
If any cannot weep amongst us here,
Take off his cup, and so squeeze out a tear.
Weep, O ye barrels! let your drippings fall
In trickling streams; make waste more prodigal
Than when our beer was good, that John may float
To Styx in beer, and lift up Charon's boat
With wholsome waves: and, as the conduits ran
With claret at the coronation,

So let your channels flow with single tiff,
For John, I hope, is crown'd: take off your whiff,
Ye men of rosemary, and drink up all,"
Remembring 't is a butler's funeral:
Had he been master of good double beer,
My life for his, John Dawson had been here.

ON

GREAT TOM OF CHRIST-CHURCH.

BE, dumb, ye infant-chimes, thump not your mettle, That ne're out-ring a tinker and his kettle;

Cease, all you petty larums; for, to day
Is young Tom's resurrection from the clay :
And know, when Tom rings out his knells,
The best of you will be but dinner-bells.
Old Tom's grown young again, the fiery cave
Is now his cradle, that was erst his grave:
He grew up quickly from his mother Earth,
For, all you see was but an hour's birth;
Look on him well, my life I dare engage,
You ne're saw prettier baby of his age.
Some take his measure by the rule, some by
The Jacob's staff take his profundity,

And some his altitude; but some do swear
Young Tom's not like the old: but, Tom, ne're fear
The critical geometrician's line,

If thou as loud as e're thou did ring'st nine.
Tom did no sooner peep from under-ground,
But straight St. Marie's tenor lost his sound.
O how this may-pole's heart did swell
With full main sides of joy, when that crackt bell
Choakt with annoy, and's admiration,
Rung like a quart-pot to the congregation.
Tom went his progress lately, and lookt o're
What he ne're saw in many years before;
But when he saw the old foundation,
With some like hope of preparation,

He burst with grief; and lest he should not have
Due pomp, he's his own bell-man to the grave:
And that there might of him be still some mention,
He carried to his grave a new invention.
They drew his brown-bread face on pretty gins,
And made him stalk upon two rolling-pins;
But Sander Hill swore twice or thrice by Heaven,
He ne're set such a loaf into the over
And Tom did Sanders vex, his Cyclops maker,
As much as he did Sander Hill, the baker;
Therefore, loud thumping Tom, be this thy pride,
When thou this motto shalt have on thy side:
"Great world! one Alexander conquer'd thee,
And two as mighty men scarce conquer'd me.”
Brave constant spirit, none could make thee turn,
Though hang'd, drawn, quarter'd, till they did thee
burn:

Yet not for this, nor ten times more be sorry,
Since thou was martyr'd for the churche's glory;
But for thy meritorious suffering,
Thou shortly shalt to Heaven in a string :
And though we griev'd to see thee thump'd and

bang’d,

We'll all be glad, Great Tom, to see thee hang'd.

THE COUNTRY LIFE'.

THRICE and above blest (my soul's halfe!) art thou
In thy though last yet better vowe,
Canst leave the cyttye with exchange to see
The country's sweet simplicitie,

And to knowe and practise, with intent
To growe the sooner innocent,

By studdyinge to knowe vertue, and to ayme
More at her nature than her name.

The last is but the least, the first doth tell
Wayes not to live, but to live well.
And both are knowne to thee, who now canst live,
Led by thy conscience, to give
Justice to soon pleas'd Nature, and to showe
Wisdome and she togeather goe,

And keepe one center: this with that conspires
To teach man to confine's desires;

To knowe that riches have their proper stint

In the contented minde, not mint;

And canst instruct, that those that have the itch [prevent

Of cravinge more, are never rich. These thinges thou knowst to th' height, and dost

The mange, because thou art content

With that Heaven gave thee with a sparinge hand,
More blessed in thy brest than land,

To keepe but Nature even and upright,
To quench not cocker appetite.

The first is Nature's end; this doth impart
Least thankes to Nature, most to Art.
But thou canst tersely live, and satisfie
The bellye only, not the eye;
Keepinge the barkinge stomache meanly quiet
With a neat yet needfull dyett.
But that which most creates thy happy life,
Is the fruition of a wife,
Whom (starres consentinge with thy fate) thou hast
Gott, not so beautifull as chast.

1 This poem, of which the leading features seem to be copied from the 10th epistle of the 1st book of Horace, has been printed in The Antient and Modern Miscellany, by Mr. Waldron, from a manuscript in his possession, and it is consequently retained in this edition of Corbet's Poems; to whose acknowledged productions it bears no resemblance, at the same time that it is attributed (in Ashmole's MSS. No. 38, fol. 91.) to Robert Heyrick, the author of Hesperides. G.

2 Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam, Et quantum natura petat.

Lucan, iv. ver. 377.

By whose warm'd side thou dost securely sleepe,
Whilst Love the centinell doth keepe
With those deeds done by day, which ne'er affright
The silken slumbers in the night;

Nor hath the darkenesse power to usher in

Feare to those sheets that knowe no sinne: But still thy wife, by chast intention led,

Gives thee each night a maidenhead. For where pure thoughts are led by godly feare, Trew love, not lust at all, comes there; And in that sense the chaster thoughts commend Not halfe so much the act as end:

That, what with dreams in sleepe of rurall blisse,
Night growes farre shorter than she is.
The damaske meddowes, and the crawlinge streames,
Sweeten, and make soft thy dreams.

The purlinge springes, groves, birdes, and wellweav'd bowers,

With fields enamelled with flowers,
Present thee shapes, whilst phantasye discloses
Millions of lillyes mixt with roses.

Then dreame thou hear'st the lambe with many a bleat

Woo'd to come sucke the milkey teate; Whilst Faunus, in the vision, vowes to keepe From ravenouse wolfe the woolley sheepe; With thowsand such enchantinge dreames, which

meet

ΤΟ

THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOME'.

THOU, once a body, now but aire,
Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer,
From Carfax come;
And patch me up a zealous lay,
With an old ever and for ay,
Or, all and some.

Or such a spirit lend me,

As may a hymne downe send me,
To purge my braine:
So, Robert, looke behinde thee,
Least Turke or Pope doe find thee,
And goe to bed againe.

AN

EPITAPH ON THOMAS JONCE.

HERE, for the nonce,
Came Thomas Jonce,

In St. Giles church to lye. None Welsh before, None Welshman more, Till Shon Clerk die.

I'll tole the bell
I'll ring his knell;
He died well,
He's sav'd from Hell;
And so farwel
Tom Jonce.

TO THE

LADYES OF THE NEW DRESSE,

THAT WEARE THEIR GORGETS AND RAYLES DOWNE TO THEIR WASTES.

LADYES, that weare black cipress-vailes
Turn'd lately to white linnen-rayles,
And to your girdle weare your bands,
And shew your armes instead of hands;
What can you doe in Lent so meet
As, fittest dress, to weare a sheet ?
T' was once a band, 't is now a cloake,
An acorne one day proves an oke:
Weare but your linnen to your feet,
And then your band will prove a sheet.
By which devise, and wise excesse,
You'l doe your penance in a dresse;
And none shall know, by what they see,
Which lady's censur'd, and which free.

4 See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. iii. p. 170, 171. G. He contributed some of the Psalms in the Old Version. C.

5 A clergyman, and inhabitant of St. Giles's parish, Oxford. His proper name was Jones. G.

THE LADIES' ANSWER.

(HARL. MSS. NO. 6396.)

BLACKE Cypresse vailes are shroudes on night,
White linnen railes are raies of light,
Which though we to the girdles weare,
We've hands to keep your hands off there.
A fitter dresse we have in Lent,

To shew us trewly penitent.

Whoe makes the band to be a cloke
Makes John-a-style of John-an-oake.
We weare our garments to the feet,
Yet neede not make our bandes a sheet:
The clergie weare as long as we,

Yet that implies conformitie.

Be wise, recant what you have writt,
Least you doe penuance for your witte;
Love's charm hath power to weare a stringe,
To tye you as you tied your ringe;
There by love's sharpe but just decree
You may be censured, we go free.

CORBET'S REPLY.

(ASHMOLE'S MUSeum, a. 38. fol. 66.) YFF nought but love-charmes power have Your blemisht creditt for to save; Then know your champion is blind, And that love-nottes are soon untwinde. But blemishes are now a grace, And add a lustre to your face; Your blemisht credit for to save, You needed not a vayle to have; The rayle for women may be fitte, Because they daylie practice ytt. And, seeing counsell can you not reforme, Read this reply-and take ytt not in scorne.

UPON FAIRFORD WINDOWS'.

TELL
me, you anti-saints, why brass
With you is shorter lived than glass?
And why the saints have scap't their falls
Better from windows than from walles?
is it, because the brethren's fires
Maintain a glass-house at Blackfryars?
Next which the church stands north and south,
And east and west the preacher's mouth.
Or is 't, because such painted ware
Resembles something that you are,
Soe py'de, soe seeming, soe unsound
In manners, and in doctrine, found,
That, out of emblematick witt,
You spare yourselves in sparing it?
If it be soe, then, Faireford, boast
Thy church hath kept what all have lost;
And is preserved from the bane
Of either warr, or puritane:
Whose life is colour'd in thy paint,
The inside drosse, the outside saint.

As you may think each picture was
Some visage in a looking-glass;
Not a glass window face, unless
Such as Cheapside hath, where a press
Of painted gallants, looking out,
Bedeck the casement rounde about.
But these have holy phisnomy;
Each paine instructs the laity
With silent eloquence; for heere
Devotion leads the eie, not eare,
To note the cathechisinge paint,
Whose easie phrase doth soe acquainte
Our sense with gospell, that the creede
In such an hand the weake may reade.
Such tipes e'en yett of vertue bee,
And Christ as in a glass we see-
When with a fishinge rod the clarke
St. Peter's draught of fish doth marke,
Such is the scale, the eie, the finn,
You'd thinke they strive and leape within;
But if the nett, which holdes them, brake,
He with his angle some would take.
But would you walke a turn in Paul's,
Looke up, one little pane inrouls.
A fairer temple. Flinge a stone,
The church is out at the windowe flowne.
Consider not, but aske your eies,
And ghosts at mid-day seem to rise,
The saintes there seemeing to descend,
Are past the glass, and downwards bend.
Look there! The Devil! all would cry,
Did they not see that Christ was by.
See where he suffers for thee! See
His body taken from the tree!
Had ever death such life before?
The limber corps, be-sully'd o'er
With meagre paleness, does display
A middle state 'twixt flesh and clay.
His armes and leggs, his head and crown,
Like a true lambskin dangle downe:
Whoe can forbeare, the grave being nigh,
To bringe fresh ointment in his eye?
The wond'rous art hath equall fate,
Unfixt, and yet inviolate.

The Puritans were sure deceav'd

Whoe thought those shaddowes mov'd and heav'd,