_Lord!_ what a coyle is here! and what a puther, To save and get? to scratch and scrape together The Rubbish of the world? and, to acquire Those vanities, which _Fancie_ doth desire? What _Violence_ is used, and what _Cunning_? What nightly _Watchings_, and what daily _Running_? What _sorrowes_ felt? what _difficulties_ entred? What _losses_ hazarded? what _perills_ ventred? And, still, how sottishly, doe wee persever (By all the power, and meanes wee can endeaver) To wheele our selves, in a perpetuall _Round_, In quest of that, which never will be found? In _Objects_, here on _Earth_, we seeke to finde That perfect sollidnesse, which is confinde, To things in _Heaven_, though every day we see, What emptinesse, and faylings, in them be. To teach us better; this, our _Emblem_, here, Assayes to make terrestriall things appeare The same they be, (both to our eares and eyes) That, wee may rightly their Condition prize. The best, which of earths _best things_, wee can say, Is this; that they are _Grasse_, and will be _Hay_. The rest, may be resembled to the _Smoke_, (Which doth but either blind the sight, or choke) Or else, to that uncleanly _Mushrum-ball_, Which, in some Countries, wee a _Puff-foyst_ call; Whose _out-side_, is a nastie rotten _skin_, Containing durt, or smoking-dust, _within_. This is my _mind_; if wrong you thinke I’ve done them, Be _Fooles_; and, at your perils, dote upon them. _I beare, about mee, all my store; And, yet, a =King= enjoyes not more._ [Illustration: OMNIA MEA MECVM PORTO ILLVSTR. XXIIII. _Book. 2_]