How many paltry, foolish, painted things, That now in coaches trouble every street, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet! Where I to thee eternity shall give, When nothing else remaineth of these days, And queens hereafter shall be glad to live Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise; Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes, Shall be so much delighted with thy story, That they shall grieve they lived not in these times, To have seen thee, their sex's only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song. M. DRAYTON. ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. 'Vain man,' said she, 'that dost in vain essay A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.' 'Not so,' quoth I; 'let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name: Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.' E. SPENSER. WELL I REMEMBER HOW YOU SMILED Well I remember how you smiled To see me write your name upon The soft sea-sand--'O! _what a child!_ _You think you're writing upon stone!_' I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide And find Ianthe's name again. W. S. LANDOR. THE MULTIPLICITY OF BOOKS Solomon saith truly, Of making many books there is no end, so insatiable is the thirst of men therein; as also endless is the desire of many in buying and reading them. But we come to our rules. 1. _It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning, by getting a great library._ As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well-furnished armoury. I guess good housekeeping by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them, built merely for uniformity, are without chimneys, and more without fires. Once a dunce void of learning but full of books flouted a libraryless scholar with these words: _Salve doctor sine libris._ But the next day the scholar coming into this jeerer's study, crowded with books; _Salvete libri_, saith he, _sine doctore_.