The character of a London-diurnall with severall select poems / by the same author.

On the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I Need no Muse to give my passion vent, He brewes his teares that studies to lament. Verse chymically weeps; that pious raine, Distill'd with Art, is but the sweat o'th braine. Who ever sob'd in numbers? can a groane Be quaver'd out by soft division? 'Tis true; for common formall Elegies, Not Bushells Wells can wash a Poets eyes In wanton water-works: hee'l tune his teares From a Geneva Jig up to the Spheares. But when he mournes at distance, weeps aloof, Now that the Conduit-head is our own roof: Now that the fate is publike, we may call It Britains Vespers, Englands Funerall. Who hath a Pensill to expresse the Saint, But he hath eyes too, washing off the paint? There is no learning, but what teares surround, Like to Seths Pillars, in the deluge drown'd. There is no Church, Religion is growne From much of late, that she's increast to none; Like an hydropick body, full of Rheumes, First swells into a bubble, then consumes. The Law is dead, or cast into a trance, And, by a Law dough-bak'd, and Ordinance. The Liturgie, whose doom was voted next, Died, as a Comment upon him the Text. There's nothing lives; life is (since he is gone) But a Nocturnall Lucubration.

Thus you have seen deaths inventory read In the sum to••all—Canterburie's dead. A sight would make a Pagan to baptize Himselfe a Convert in his bleeding eyes. Would thaw the rabble that fierce beast of ours, (That which Hyaena-like weeps and devoures) Tears that ••low brackish from their soules within, Not to repent, but pickle up their sin Meane time no squallid griefe his looke defiles, He guilds his sadder fate with noble smiles. Thus the worlds eye with reconciled streames Shines in his showers as if he wept his beames. How could successe such villanies applaud? The S••ate in Strafford fell, the Church in Laud: The twins of publike rage adjudg'd to dye, For Treasons they should act by Prophecy. The f••cts were done before the Lawes were made, The trump turn'd up after the game was plai'd. Be dull g••eat spirits and forbeare to climbe, For worth is sin, and eminence a crime. No Church-man can be innocent and high, 'Tis height makes Gran••ham steeple stand awry.