In whom, since all the five are intermixed, Oh now that Scaliger would prove his sixt! Thou man of mouth, that canst not name a she Unless all Nature pay a subsidy, Whose language is a tax, whose musk-cat verse Voids nought but flowers, for thy Muse's hearse 70 Fitter than Celia's looks, who in a trice Canst state the long disputed Paradise, And (what Divines hunt with so cold a scent) Canst in her bosom find it resident; Now come aloft, come now, and breathe a vein, And give some vent unto thy daring strain. Say the astrologer who spells the stars, In that fair alphabet reads peace and wars, Mistakes his globe and in her brighter eye Interprets Heaven's physiognomy. 80 Call her the Metaphysics of her sex, And say she tortures wits as quartans vex Physicians; call her the square circle; say She is the very rule of Algebra. What e'er thou understand'st not, say 't of her, For that 's the way to write her character. Say this and more, and when thou hopest to raise Thy fancy so as to inclose her praise-- Alas poor Gotham, with thy cuckoo-hedge! Hyperboles are here but sacrilege. 90 Then roll up, Muse, what thou hast ravelled out, Some comments clear not, but increase the doubt. She that affords poor mortals not a glance Of knowledge, but is known by ignorance; She that commits a rape on every sense, Whose breath can countermand a pestilence; She that can strike the best invention dead Till baffled poetry hangs down the head-- She, she it is that doth contain all bliss, And makes the world but her periphrasis. 100 [_The Hecatomb to his Mistress._] (_1651_.) This poem is perhaps the best text to prove (or endeavour to prove) that Cleveland's object was really burlesque.] [Line: 1 you] 'ye' _1651_, _1653_.] [Line: 2 _1651_, _1653_ read 'the' for 'your', and 'splaid': 'spade' _1677_. 'Spay' or 'splay' to destroy the reproductive powers of a female.] [Line: 3 the bastard] _1677_ again alters 'the' to 'your', which does not seem good.] [Line: 5 sacrilege] sacrifice _1677_.] [Line: 6 your] their _1653_, &c.] [Line: 7 postillers] The word means glossers or commentators on Scripture, and has acquired in several languages a contemptuous meaning from the frequently commonplace and trivial character of such things. 'ye fantastic' _1653_.] [Line: 9 _1651_, _1653_ have 'his' for 'her', and in the next line 'his self' for 'herself'. The poem is particularly badly printed in this group, and I think the _1677_ editors, in trying to mend it, have mistaken some places. Thus in ...]