For when fate found, what nature late had done, How much from heauen, she for the earth had won 50 By thy deare birth; said, that it could not be In so yong yeares, what it perceiu'd in thee, But nature sure, had fram'd thee long before; And as Rich Misers of their mighty store, Keepe the most precious longst, so from times past, She onely had reserued thee till the last; So did thy wisedome, not thy youth behold, And tooke thee hence, in thinking thou wast old. Thy shape and beauty often haue to me Bin highly praysed, which I thought might be, 60 Truely reported, for a spirit so braue, Which heauen to thee so bountifully gaue; Nature could not in recompence againe, In some rich lodging but to entertaine. Let not the world report then, that the Peake, Is but a rude place only vast and bleake; And nothing hath to boast of but her Lead, When she can say that happily she bred Thee, and when she shall of her wonders tell Wherein she doth all other Tracts excell, 70 Let her account thee greatst, and still to time Of all the rest, accord thee for the prime. To Master WILLIAM IEFFREYS, Chaplaine to the Lord Ambassa_dour in Spaine_ My noble friend, you challenge me to write To you in verse, and often you recite, My promise to you, and to send you newes; As 'tis a thing I very seldome vse, And I must write of State, if to _Madrid_, A thing our Proclamations here forbid, And that word State such Latitude doth beare, As it may make me very well to feare To write, nay speake at all, these let you know Your power on me, yet not that I will showe 10 The loue I beare you, in that lofty height, So cleere expression, or such words of weight, As into _Spanish_ if they were translated, Might make the Poets of that Realme amated; Yet these my least were, but that you extort These numbers from me, when I should report In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words The newes our wofull _England_ vs affords. The Muses here sit sad, and mute the while A sort of swine vnseasonably defile 20 Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill Dropt their pure _Nectar_ into euery quill; In this with State, I hope I doe not deale, This onely tends the Muses common-weale. What canst thou hope, or looke for from his pen, Who liues with beasts, though in the shapes of men, And what a poore few are we honest still, And dare to be so, when all the world is ill. I finde this age of our markt with this Fate, That honest men are still precipitate 30 Vnder base villaines, which till th' earth can vent This her last brood, and wholly hath them spent, Shall be so, then in reuolution shall