[Line: 29 Priscian's head may not have bled here before it was broken by Butler; but the dates of the _writing_ of _Hudibras_ are quite uncertain.] [Line: 31 oaded] This singular word is in all the editions I have seen. _1699_ makes it 'loaded', with no sense that I can see in this passage. Can it be 'oathèd'--be sworn either to the commission of the peace or something else that gave the title 'Esquire'? 'Oad', however, = woad; cf. Minsheu, _Guide into Tongues_, 1617 'Oade, _an hearbe_. Vide _Woade_'. This would certainly suit the next line.] On the memory of Mr. Edward King, drowned in the Irish Seas. I like not tears in tune, nor do I prize His artificial grief who scans his eyes. Mine weep down pious beads, but why should I Confine them to the Muse's rosary? I am no poet here; my pen 's the spout Where the rain-water of mine eyes run out In pity of that name, whose fate we see Thus copied out in grief's hydrography. The Muses are not mermaids, though upon His death the ocean might turn Helicon. 10 The sea's too rough for verse; who rhymes upon 't With Xerxes strives to fetter th' Hellespont. My tears will keep no channel, know no laws To guide their streams, but (like the waves, their cause) Run with disturbance, till they swallow me As a description of his misery. But can his spacious virtue find a grave Within th' imposthumed bubble of a wave? Whose learning if we sound, we must confess The sea but shallow, and him bottomless. 20 Could not the winds to countermand thy death With their whole card of lungs redeem thy breath? Or some new island in thy rescue peep To heave thy resurrection from the deep, That so the world might see thy safety wrought With no less wonder than thyself was thought? The famous Stagirite (who in his life Had Nature as familiar as his wife) Bequeathed his widow to survive with thee, Queen Dowager of all philosophy. 30 An ominous legacy, that did portend Thy fate and predecessor's second end. Some have affirmed that what on earth we find, The sea can parallel in shape and kind. Books, arts, and tongues were wanting, but in thee Neptune hath got an university. We'll dive no more for pearls; the hope to see Thy sacred reliques of mortality Shall welcome storms, and make the seamen prize His shipwreck now more than his merchandise. 40 He shall embrace the waves, and to thy tomb As to a Royaller Exchange shall come. What can we now expect? Water and fire, Both elements our ruin do conspire. And that dissolves us which doth us compound: One Vatican was burnt, another drowned. We of the gown our libraries must toss To understand the greatness of our loss; Be pupils to our grief, and so much grow In learning, as our sorrows overflow. 50