Thus close my rhymes; this all that can be said, This wonder never can be flatterèd. 20 _To Perfection.--A Sonnet._ Oft have I gazèd with astonish'd eye At monstrous issues of ill-shapèd birth, When I have seen the midwife to old Earth, Nature, produce most strange deformity. So have I marvell'd to observe of late Hard-favour'd feminines so scant of fair, That masks so choicely shelter'd of the air, As if their beauties were not theirs by fate. But who so weak of observation, Hath not discern'd long since how virtues wanted, 10 How parsimoniously the Heavens have scanted Our chiefest part of adoration? But now I cease to wonder, now I find The cause of all our monstrous penny-shows; Now I conceit from whence wit's scarcety grows, Hard favour'd features, and defects of mind. Nature long time hath stor'd up virtue, fairness, Shaping the rest as foils unto this Rareness. _Perfectioni Hymnus._ What should I call this Creature, Which now is grown unto maturity? How should I blaze this feature As firm and constant as eternity? Call it perfection? Fie! 'Tis perfecter than brightest names can light it; Call it Heaven's mirror? Ay, Alas! best attributes can never right it. Beauty's resistless thunder? All nomination is too straight of sense. 10 Deep contemplation's wonder? That appellation give this excellence. Within all best confined, (Now, feebler Genius, end thy slighter rhyming), No suburbs,[622]--all is _mind_,-- As far from spot as possible defining. JOHN MARSTON. [621] The verses are from the appendix to _Love's Martyr_. The appendix has a separate title--_Hereafter Follow Diverse Poeticall Essaies on the former Subiect; viz.: the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest of our moderne writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes: neuer before extant, &c._ Marston's verses follow Shakespeare's _Phoenix and Turtle_. [622] "Differentia Deorum et Hominum, apud Senecam; Sic habet nostri melior pars animum, in illis nulla pars extra animum."--Marginal note in old ed. THE MOUNTEBANK'S MASQUE. _THE MOUNTEBANK'S MASK._ It is with some diffidence that I include this piece among Marston's Works. Mr. J. P. Collier printed it in 1848 for the Shakespeare Society from a MS. in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire; and he stated that Marston's name is pencilled on the cover of the MS. in a handwriting of the time. This MS. appears to have been mislaid, for I can find no mention of it in the catalogue of His Grace's dramatic collection.