HUGO.

I eat secure, I drink secure, I sleep secure, even i tho' I had passed the day of death, avoided the day judgment, and escaped the torments of hell fire: I pla and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in th kingdom of heaven.

EPIG. 7.

Get up, my soul; redeem thy slavish eyes
From drowsy bondage: O beware; be wise:
Thy foe's before thee; thou must fight, or fly..
Life lies most open in a closed eye.

TH

HE world's a popular disease, that reigns
Within the froward heart and frantic brains
Of poor distemper'd mortals, oft arising

From ill digestion, through th' unequal poising
Of ill-weigh'd elements, whose light directs.
Malignant humours, to malign effects:
One raves and labours with a boiling liver;"
Rends hair by handfulls, cursing Cupid's quiver:
Another, with a bloody flux of oaths,

*

Vows deep revenge: one doats; the other loathes:
One frisks and sings, and cries, A flaggon more.
To drench dry cares, and make the welkin roar:
Another droops the sun-shine makes him sad;
Heav'n cannot please: one's mope'd; the other's mad;

• Welkin, an old word for sky.

One

Tis thus the World her Votaries beguiles
With fair appearances; and kills with Smiles.

One hugs his gold; another lets it fly:
He knowing not, for whom; nor t'other, why.
One spends his day in plots, his night in play's
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:
One laughs at this thing; t'other cries for that:
Wonder of wonders! what we ought t' evite, *
And our disease, we hug as our delight:
'Tis held a symptom of approaching danger,
When disacquainted sense becomes a stranger,
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;
But when a noisom grief begins to please,
The unresisting sense, it is a fear

That death has parly'd, and compounded there
As when the dreadful Thund'rer's awful hand
Pours forth a vial on th' infected land,
At first th' affrighted mortals quake and fear;
And ev'ry noise is thought the Thunderer
But when the frequent soul-departing bell
Has pav'd their ears with her familiar knell,
It is reputed but a nine day's wonder,

They neither fear the Thund'rer, nor his thunder.
So when the world (a worse disease!) began
To smart for sin, poor new-created man
Could seek for shelter, and his gen'rous son
Knew by his wages what his hands had done:
But bold-fac'd mortals in our blushless times
Can sing and smile, and make a sport of crimes,
Transgress of custom, and rebel in ease:
We false-joy'd fool's can triumph in disease,
And (as the careless pilgrim, being bit
By the Tarantula, begins a fit

Of life-concluding laughter) waste our breath
In lavish pleasure, till we laugh to death.
But neither one nor t'other knows for what.

Evite, i. e. to shun or avoid.

C 2

HUGO.

HUGO.

What profit is there in vain-glory, momentary mirth, the world's power, the flesh's pleasure, full riches, noble descent, and great desires? Where is their laughter ? where is their mirth? where their insolence ? their arro

gance? From how much joy, to how much sadness! After how much mirth, how much misery! From how great glory are they fallen, to how great torment! What hath fallen to them, may befal thee, because thou art a man : thou art of earth; thou livest of earth; thou shalt return to earth. Death expecteth thee every where; be wise, therefore, and expect death every where.

EPIG. 8.

What ails the fool to langh? Does something please
His vain conceit? Or is't a mere disease?

Fool, giggle on, and waste thy wanton breath;
Thy morning laughter breeds an ev'ning death.

IX.

1 JOHN ii. 17.

The world passeth away, and all the lusts thereof.

D

1.

[light

RAW near, brave sparks, whose spirits scorn to
Your hallow'd tapers but at honour's flame;

You, whose heroic actions take delight

To varnish over a new painted name;

Whose high-bred thoughts disdain to take their flight But on th' Icarian wings of babbling fame;

Behold, how tott'ring are your high-built stories Of earth, whereon you trust the ground work of your

[glories.

And