What function is so noble as to be
Embassador to God and Destiny?
To open life, to give kingdoms to more
Than kings give dignities; to keep heaven's door?
Mary's prerogative was to bear Christ; so
'Tis preachers' to convey him, for they do,
As angels out of clouds, from pulpits speak,
And bless the poor beneath, the lame, the weak.
If then th' astronomers, whereas they spy
A new-found star, their optics magnify,
How brave are those who with their engine can
Bring man to heav'n, and heav'n again to man?
These are thy titles and pre-eminences,
In whom must meet God's graces, men's offences; 50
And so the heav'ns, which beget all things here,
And th' earth, our mother, which these things doth
Both these in thee are in thy calling knit,
And make thee now a blest hermaphrodite.
MR. THO. CORYAT'S CRUDITIES.
OH! to what height will love of greatness drive
Thy learned spirit, sesqui-superlative?
Venice' vast lake thou hast seen, and wouldst seek then
Some vaster thing and foundst a courtezan.
That inland sea having discovered well
A cellar-gulf, where one might sail to hell
From Heydelberg, thou long'st to see; and thou
This book, greater than all producest now.
Infinite work! which doth so far extend,
That none can study it to any end.
'Tis no one thing; it is not fruit nor root,
Nor poorly limited with head or foot..
If man be therefore man, because he can
Reason and laugh, thy book doth half make man.
One half being made, thy modesty was such,
That thou on th' other half wouldst never touch.
When wilt thou be at full, great Lunatic!
Not till thou' exceed the world? Canst thou be like
A prosperous nose-born wen, which sometimes grows
To be far greater than the mother nose ?
Go, then; and as to thee, when thou didst go,
Munster did towns, and Gesner authors, show;
Mount now to Gallo-Belgicus; appear
As deep a statesman as a garretteer.
UPON MR. THO. CORYAT'S CRUDITIES.
Homely and familiarly, when thou com'st back,
Talk of Will. Conqueror and Prester Jack.
Go, bashful man! lest here thou blush to look
Upon the progress of thy glorious book,
To which both Indies sacrifices send;
The West sent gold, which thou didst freely spend, 30
Meaning to see 't no more upon the press;
The East sends hither her deliciousness;
And thy leaves must embrace what comes from hence,
The myrrh, the pepper, and the franckincense.
This magnifies thy leaves; but if they stoop
To neighbour wares, when merchants do unhoop
Voluminous barrels; if thy leaves do then
Convey these wares in parcels unto men;
If for vast tuns of currants and of figs,
Of med'cinal and aromatic twigs,
Thy leaves a better method do provide,
Divide to pounds, and ounces subdivide.
If they stoop lower yet, and vent our wares,
Home-manufactures to thick popular fairs;
If omni-pregnant there, upon warm stalls
They hatch all wares for which the buyer calls,
Then thus thy leaves we justly may commend,
That they all kind of matter comprehend.
Thus thou, by means which the Ancients never took,
A pandect mak'st and universal book.
The bravest heroes for their country's good,
Scatter'd in divers lands their limbs and blood;
Worst malefactors, to whom men are prize,
Do public good cut in anatomies;
So will thy book in pieces for a lord
Which casts at Portescue's, and all the board.
Provide whole books; each leaf enough will be
For friends to pass time and keep company,
Can all carouse up thee? no, thou must fit
Measures, and fill out for the half-pint wit.
Some shall wrap pills, and save a friend's life so;
Some shall stop muskets, and so kill a foe.
Thou shalt not ease the critics of next age
So much, as once their hunger to assuage;
Nor shall wit-pirates hope to find thee lye
All in one bottom in one library.
Some leaves may paste strings there in other books,
And so one may, which on another looks,
Pilfer, alas! a little wit from you,
But hardly much; and yet I think this true.
As Sybil's was, your book is mystical,
For every piece is as much worth as all:
Therefore mine impotency I confess,
The healths which my brain bears must be far less:
The giant-wit o'erthrows me; I am gone;
And rather than read all I would read none.
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