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TO THE PIOUS MEMORY OF MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW, MR THOMAS RANDOLPH, by                    
First Line: Readers, prepare your faith; who truly tells
Last Line: But th' great and solid prizes ne'er rise more.
Subject(s): Randolph, Thomas (1605-1634)


READERS, prepare your faith; who truly tells
His history must needs write miracles,
He lisp'd wit worthy the press, as if that he
Had us'd his cradle as a library.
Some of these fruits had birth when other boys
(His elders) played with nuts; books were his toys.
He had not long of plays spectator been,
But his small feet wore socks fit for the scene.
He was not like those costive wits, who blot
A quire of paper to contrive a plot,
And ere they name it, cross it, till it look
Rased with wounds like an old mercer's book:
What pleas'd this year, is next in pieces torn,
It suffers many deaths ere it be born.
For humours to lie leiger they are seen
Oft in a tavern and a bowling-green.
They do observe each place and company
As strictly as a traveller or spy,
And defying dunghills, seem t' adore
The scum of people, watchman, changeling, whore,
To know the vice and ignorance of all.
With any rags they'll drink a pot of ale:
Nay, what is more (a strange, unusual thing
With poets) they will pay the reckoning,
And sit with patience an hour by the heels
To learn the nonsense of the constables.
Such jig-like flim-flams being got to make
The rabble laugh, and nut-cracking forsake,
They go home (if th' have any) and there sit
In gown and nightcap looking for some wit.
Ere they compose, they must for a long space
Be dieted as horses for the race.
They must not bacon, beef, or pudding eat:
A jest may chance be starv'd with such gross meat.
The good hour come, and their brain tun'd, they write
But slow, as dying men their wills indite.
They pen by drachms and scruples: from their quill
Words (although dreggy) flow not, but distil.
They stare and sour their faces; nay, to vent
The brains, they eat their fingers' excrement,
And scratch their heads, as if they were about
(Their wit so hidebound is) to pull it out.
Ev'ry bald speech, though comical it be,
To their rack'd members proves a tragedy.
When they have had the counsel of some friend,
And of their begging epilogue made an end,
Their play salutes the world, and claims the stage
For its inheritance, being now of age.
But while they pump'd their fancy day and night,
He nothing harder found than not to write,
No diet could corrupt or mend his strain;
All tempers were the best to his sure brain.
He could with raptures captivate the king,
Yet not endanger button or bandstring,
Poems from him gush'd out so readily,
As if they'd only been in's memory;
Yet are they with as marble fancies wrought
As theirs whose pen writes for the thirteenth thought.
They err who say things quickly done soon fade!
Nature and he all in an instant made.
Those that do measure fancies by the glass
And dote on such as cost more time, may pass
In rank with gulls, whom folly doth entice
To think that best which has the greatest price.
Who poring on, their spongy brain still squeeze,
Neglect the cream, and only save the lees.
Stopping their flying quill, they clip fame's wing,
Make Helicon a puddle that's a spring.
Nor was his haste hoodwink'd; his rage was wise,
His fury counsel had, his rashness eyes.
Though he (as engine's arrows) shot forth wit,
Yet aim'd with all the proper marks to hit.
His ink ne'er stain'd the surplice; he doth right,
That sometimes takes a care to miss the white.
He turn'd no Scripture-phrase into a jest;
He was inspir'd with raptures, not possess'd.
Some devilish poets think their muse does ill,
Unless their verses do profane or kill.
They boldly write what I should fear to think,
Words that do pale their paper, black their ink.
The titles of their satires fright some more
Than Lord, have mercy writ upon a door.
Although his wit was sharp as others, yet
It never wounded; thus a razor set
In a wise barber's hand tickles the skin,
And leaves a smooth not carbonaded chin.
So sovereign was his fancy, that you'd think
His quick'ning pen did balsam drop, not ink.
Read's elegies, and you will see his praise
Doth many souls 'fore th' Resurrection raise.
No venom's in his book; his very snake
You may as safely as a flower take;
There's none needs fear to surfeit with his phrase,
He has no giant raptures to amaze
And torture weak capacities with wonder:
He (by his laurel guarded) ne'er did thunder
As those strong bombast wits, whose poetry
Sounds like a charm, or Spanish pedigree,
Who with their fancy to ring 'bove the sun,
Have in their style Babel's confusion.
If puny eyes do read their verses, they
Will think 'tis Hebrew, writ the English way.
His lines do run smooth as the feet of Time;
Each leaf, though rich, swells not with gouty rhyme;
Here is no thrum or knot; Arachne ne'er
Weav'd a more even web; and as they are
Listed for smoothness, so in this again
That each thread's spun, and warp'd by his own brain.
We have some poetasters who, although
They ne'er beyond the writing-school did go,
Sit at Apollo's table, when as they
But midwives are, not parents, to a play.
Were they betray'd, they'd be each cobbler's scoff,
Laugh'd at, as one whose periwig's blown off.
Their brains lie all in notes; Lord! how they'd look
If they should chance to lose their table-book!
Their bays, like ivy, cannot mount at all
But by some neighbouring tree or joining wall.
With what an ecstasy shall we behold
This book! which is no ghost of any old
Wormeaten author: here's no jest or hint,
But had his head both for its ore and mint.
Were't not for some translations, none could know
Whether he had e'er look'd in book or no.
He could discourse of any subject, yet
No cold, premeditated sense repeat;
As he that nothing at the table talks
But what was cook'd in's study or the walks.
Whose wit (like a sundial) only can
Go true in this or that meridian.
Each climate was to him his proper sphere;
You'd think he had been brought up everywhere.
Was he at Court? his compliments would be
Rich-wrought with fancy's best embroidery,
Which the spruce gallants, echo-like, would speak
So oft as they'd be threadbare in a week.
They lov'd even his abuses, the same jeer
(So witty 'twas) would sting and please their ear.
Read's flow'ry pastorals, and you will swear
He was not Jonson's only, but Pan's heir.
His smooth Amyntas would persuade even me
To think he always liv'd in Sicily.
Those happier groves, that shaded him, were all
As trees of knowledge, and prophetical:
Dodon's were but the type of them, leaves were
Books in old time, but became scholars here.
Had he liv'd till Westminster Hall was seen
In forest towns, perhaps he fined had been.
Whilst others made trees Maypoles, he could do
As Orpheus did, and make them dancers too.
But these were the light sports of his spare time,
He was as able to dispute as rhyme.
And all (two gifts ne'er join'd before) outwent
As well in syllogism as compliment.
Who looks within his clearer glass will say
At once he writ an ethic, tract, and play.
When he in Cambridge schools did moderate
(Truth never found a subtler advocate),
He had as many auditors as those
Who preach, their mouths being silenc'd, through the
The grave divines stood gazing, as if there [nose.
In words was colour, or in th' eye an ear:
To hear him they would penetrate each other,
Embrace a throng, and love a noisome smother.
Though plodding pates much time and oil had spent
In beating out an obscure argument,
He could untie, not break, the subtlest knot
Their puzzling art could weave; nay, he had got
The trick on't so, as if that he had been
Within each brain, and the nice folding seen.
Who went to th' school's peripatetics, came,
If he disputed, home in Plato's name.
His oppositions were as text; some, led
With wonder, thought he had not urg'd, but read.
Nor was his judgment all philosophy;
He was in points of deep divinity
Only not doctor; his true catholic brain
The learning of a council did contain.
But all his works are lost, his fire is out;
These are but's ashes, which were thrown about,
And now rak'd up together; all we have
With pious sacrilege snatch'd from his grave
Are a few meteors, which may make it said
That Tom is yet alive, but Randolph's dead.
Thus when a merchant posting o'er the sea
With his rich-loaden ship is cast away,
Some light, small wares do swim unto the shore,
But th' great and solid prizes ne'er rise more.





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