Must noble Hastings immaturely die, The honour of his ancient family, Beauty and learning thus together meet, To bring a winding for a wedding-sheet? Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she, With him expiring, feel mortality? Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art Make us more learned, only to depart? If merit be disease; if virtue, death; To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath Himself to discipline? who'd not esteem Labour a crime? study self-murder deem? Our noble youth now have pretence to be Dunces securely, ignorant healthfully. Rare linguist, whose worth speaks itself, whose praise, Though not his own, all tongues besides do raise: Than whom great Alexander may seem less, Who conquered men, but not their languages. In his mouth nations spake; his tongue might be Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy. His native soil was the four parts o'the earth; All Europe was too narrow for his birth. A young apostle; and,--with reverence may I speak't,--inspired with gift of tongues, as they. Nature gave him, a child, what men in vain Oft strive, by art though furthered, to obtain. His body was an orb, his sublime soul Did move on virtue's and on learning's pole; Whose regular motions better to our view, Than Archimedes' sphere, the heavens did shew. Graces and virtues, languages and arts, Beauty and learning, filled up all the parts. Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear Scattered in others, all, as in their sphere, Were fixed, conglobate in his soul, and thence Shone through his body, with sweet influence; Letting their glories so on each limb fall, The whole frame rendered was celestial. Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make, If thou this hero's altitude can'st take: But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all, Could we but prove thus astronomical. Lived Tycho now, struck with this ray which shone[78] More bright i'the morn, than others beam at noon, He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere. Replenished then with such rare gifts as these, Where was room left for such a foul disease? The nation's sin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds Our day-spring in so sad benighting clouds. Heaven would no longer trust its pledge, but thus Recalled it,--rapt its Ganymede from us. Was there no milder way but the small-pox, The very filthiness of Pandora's box? So many spots, like næves on Venus' soil, One jewel set off with so many a foil; Blisters with pride swelled, which through's flesh did sprout Like rose-buds, stuck i'the lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit; Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin, The cabinet of a richer soul within? No comet need foretel his change drew on,