When I past Paules, and travell’d in that walke Where all oure Brittaine-sinners sweare and talk[36]; Ould Harry-ruffians, bankerupts, southsayers, And youth, whose cousenage is as ould as theirs; And then beheld the body of my lord Trodd under foote by vice that he abhorr’d; It wounded me the Landlord of all times Should let long lives and leases to their crimes, And to _his_ springing honour did afford Scarce soe much time as to the prophet’s gourd. Yet since swift flights of virtue have apt ends, Like breath of angels, which a blessing sends, And vanisheth withall, whilst fouler deeds Expect a tedious harvest for bad seeds; I blame not fame and nature if they gave, Where they could give no more, their last, a grave. And wisely doe thy greived freinds forbeare Bubbles and alabaster boyes to reare On thy religious dust: for men did know Thy life, which such illusions cannot show: For thou hast trod among those happy ones Who trust not in their superscriptions, Their hired epitaphs, and perjured stone, Which oft belyes the soule when shee is gon; And durst committ thy body, as it lyes, To tongues of living men, nay unborne eyes. What profits thee a sheet of lead? What good If on thy coarse a marble quarry stood? Let those that feare their rising purchase vaults, And reare them statues to excuse their faults; As if, like birds that peck at painted grapes, Their judge knew not their _persons_ from their _shapes_. Whilst thou assured, through thy easyer dust Shall rise at first; they would not though they must. Nor needs the Chancellor boast, whose pyramis Above the host and altar reared is[37]; For though thy body fill a viler roome, Thou shalt not change _deedes_ with him for his _tombe_. THOMÆ CORIATO DE ODCOMBE. The following panegyric on the hero of Odcombe, Thomas Coryate, a pedantic coxcomb, with just brains enough to be ridiculous, to whom the world is much more indebted for becoming “the whetstone of the wits” than for any doings of his own, and the particulars of whose life and peregrinations may be found in every collection of biography, is printed in the Odcombian Banquet, 1611, 4to. sign. I. 3. The Latin lines have been omitted in the former impressions of Bishop Corbet’s poems. SPECTATISSIMO, PUNCTISQUE OMNIBUS DIGNISSIMO, THOMÆ CORIATO DE ODCOMBE, PEREGRINANTI, PEDESTRIS ORDINIS, EQUESTRISQUE FAMÆ. Quod mare transieris, quod rura urbesque pedester, Jamque colat reduces patria læta pedes: Quodque idem numero tibi calceus hæret, et illo Cum _corio_ redeas, quo _Coriatus_ abis: Fatum omenque tui miramur nominis, ex quo Calcibus et soleis fluxit aluta tuis. Nam quicunque cadem vestigia tentat, opinor Excoriatus erit, ni _Coriatus_ eat. IN LIBRUM SUUM.