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That holy cross, whence thy salvation came,

On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die! For in that sacred object is much pleasure, And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure.

To thee, O Jesu! I direct my eyes;

To Thee my hands, to Thee my humble knees; To Thee my heart shall offer sacrifice;

To Thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees: To Thee myself,-myself and all I give;

To Thee I die; to Thee I only live!

IGNOTO.

XXII.

THE WORLD.1

(By Lord Bacon.)

'HE world's a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span;

In his conception wretched, from the

womb,

So to the tomb;

"Rel. Wotton." Signed as below in all editions after the first, where it is marked "Ignoto." Ascribed to Lord Bacon in Farnaby's "Florilegium," 1629, p. 10. Compare Spedding's edit. of Bacon's "Works," vol. vii. p. 269. In MS. Rawl. Poet. 117, fol. 161, it was first entitled "The Bubble, by R. W.;" (? H. W.) altered to "by ye Lord Bacon." In MS. Ashm. 38, p. 2, the first title " On was, Man's Mortality, by Doctor Donn;" altered to Sr Fran. Bacon." In a MS. belonging to the late Mr. Pickering the title is, "Upon the Misery of Man;" the first signature is Henry Harrington," altered to "Ld Verulam Viscount St. Alban's.'

66

Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet, whilst with sorrow here we live oppressed,
What life is best?

Courts are but only superficial schools,
To dandle fools;

The rural part is turned into a den
Of savage men ;

And where's a city from foul vice so free
But may be termed the worst of all the three ?

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
Or pains his head:

Those that live single take it for a curse,
Or do things worse:

These would have children; those that have them moan,

Or wish them gone,

What is it, then, to have or have no wife,
But single thraldom or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please
Is a disease;

To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Peril and toil;

Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease,
We're worse in peace:

What then remains, but that we still should cry For being born, and, being born, to die?

FRA. LORD BACON.

XXIII.

VERSES MADE BY MR. FRA. BACON.1

HE man of life upright, whose guiltless heart is free

From all dishonest deeds, and thoughts of vanity;

That man whose silent days in harmless joys are

spent,

Whom hopes cannot delude, nor fortune discontent; That man needs neither tower nor armour for

defence,

Nor secret vaults to fly from thunder's violence.
He only can behold with unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep and terrors of the skies.
Thus, scorning all the care that fate or fortune

brings,

He makes the heaven his book, his wisdom heavenly things,

Good thoughts his only friends, his wealth a well

spent age;

The earth his sober inn,-a quiet pilgrimage.

FRA. BACON.

1 Printed from a Brit. Mus. MS. by Park, "Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors," vol. ii. p. 217, and Spedding, "Bacon's Works," vol. vii. p. 269. I have corrected one or two words from an anonymous copy in Chetham MS. 8012, p. 79, which, however, omits lines 7 and 8.

XXIV.

I.

DE MORTE.1

(Author unknown.)

AN'S life's a tragedy: his mother's womb,
From which he enters, is the tiring room;

M

This spacious earth the theatre; and the

stage

That country which he lives in: passions, rage,
Folly, and vice are actors; the first cry,
The prologue to the ensuing tragedy;

The former act consisteth of dumb shows;
The second, he to more perfection grows;
I' the third he is a man, and doth begin
To nurture vice, and act the deeds of sin;
I' the fourth, declines; I' the fifth, diseases clog
And trouble him; then death's his epilogue.

IGNOTO.

II.

EPIGRAM.2

(Author unknown.)

F breath were made for every man to

buy,

The poor man could not live,—rich would not die.

1 "Rel. Wotton." Claimed without authority for Raleigh

by Brydges and the Oxford editors.

2" Rel. Wotton."

XXV.

SPECIMENS OF EPIGRAMS BY
JOHN HOSKINS.

I. JOHN HOSKINS TO HIS LITTLE CHILD BENJAMIN,
FROM THE TOWER.1

WEET Benjamin, since thou art young.
And hast not yet the use of tongue,
Make it thy slave, while thou art free;
Imprison it, lest it do thee.

Ad Filiolum suum Benjamin.2

Duм puer es, vanæ nescisque incommoda vocis, Vincula da linguæ, vel tibi lingua dabit.

II. VERSES PRESENTED TO THE KING BY MRS. HOSKINS, IN THE BEHALF OF HER

HUSBAND, PRISONER.3

HE worst is told; the best is hid:
Kings know not all; I would they did:
What though my husband once have
erred?

Men more to blame have been preferred.

"Rel. Wotton." edit. 1672. Often found in MSS. with the Latin version here appended.

2 MS. Malone 19, p. 141; Mr. Pickering's MS. fol. 151, &c.

3 MS. Malone 16, p. 20; in other MSS. in a longer form.

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