No More Learning

<' Self-preservation, nature's first great law,
All the creation, except man, does awe :
'Twas in him fixed, till lying priests defaced
His heaven-bom mind, and nature's tablets

rased.
Tell me, ye forging crew, what law revealed
By God, to kings iha jus dluinum sealed?
If to do good, yeju9 divtmcm call.
It is the grand pi^erogative of all :
If to do ill, unpunished^ be their right,
Such power's not granted that great king of

night.
Man's life moves on the poles of hope and fear,
Keward and pain all ordei*s do revere.
But if your dear lord sovereign you would spare,
Admonish him in his blood-thii*sty heir.
So when the royal lion does offend,
The beaten cur*s example makes him mend. *'
This said, poor Hodge, then in a broken tone.
Cried out, "Oh Charles! thy life, thy life, thy
crown !

♦ Edwards, then lorJ-mayor.



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OF MARVELL. 277

Ambitious James, and bloody priests conspire,
Plots, papists, murders, massacres, and fire ;
Poor Protestants ! " with that his eyes did roll,
His body fell, out fled his frighted soul.



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278 THE POEMS



CLARENDON'S HOUSE-WABMING.
When Clarendon had discerned beforehand
(As the cause can easily foretell the effect)

At once three deluges threatening our land,*
'Twas the season, he thought, to turn architect

Us Mars, and Apollo, and Vulcan consume ;
While he the betrayer of England and
Flanders,
Like the kingfisher chooseth to build in the
broom,
And nestles in flames like the salamander.

But observing that mortals run oflen behind,
(So unreasonable are the rates they buy at)

His omnipotence therefore much rather designed.
How he might create a house with a fiat

He had read of Rhodope, a lady of Thrace,
Who was digged up so often ere she did marry ;

* The Dutch war, the plague, and the fire of London.



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OP MARYELL. 279

And wished that his daughter had had as much
grace,
To erect him a pyramid out of her quarry.

But then recollecting how the harper Aniphion
Made Thebes dance aloft while he fiddled and
sung.
He thought, as an instrument he was most free on,
To build with the Jew's-trump of his own tongue.

Yet a precedent fitter in Virgil he found,

Of African Poultney, and Tyrian Dide ;
That he begged for a palace so much of his
ground,*
As might carry the measure and name of a
Hyde.

Thus daily his gouty inventions him pained,
And all for to save the expenses of brickbat ;

That engine so fatal which Denham had brained.
And too much resembled this wife's chocolate.

But while these devices he all doth compare.
None solid enough seemed for his strong castor ;

He himself would not dwell in a castle of air.
Though he had built full many a one for his
master.

* The Enii of Clarendon hud a grant from Khig Charles
the Second, for a piece of ground near St. James's, to build
% house on.



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280 THE POEMS

Already he had got all our money and cattle,
To buy us for slaves and purcliase our lands

What Joseph by famine, lie wrought by sea battle ;
Nay, scarce the priest's portion could 'scape
from his hands.