make that Night, which is as bright as Day.
For if they once but wring, and skrew their mouth,
Cock up their Hats, and set the point Du-South,
Armes all a kimbo, and with belly strut,
As if they had Parnassus in their gut:
These are the Symtomes of the murthering fall
Of my poor Infant, and his burial.
Say he should miss thee, and some ign’rant Asse
Should find thee out, as he along doth pass,
It were all one, he’d look into thy Tayle,
To see if thou wert Feminine or Male;
When he’d half starv’d thee, for to satisfie
His peeping Ign’rance, he’d then let thee lie;
And vow by’s wit he ne’re could understand,
The Heathen dresses of another Land:
Well, ’tis no matter, wherever such as he
Knows one grain, more than his simplicity.
Now, how the pulses of my senses beat,
To think the rigid Fortune thou wilt meet; {29}
Asses and captious Fools, not six in ten
Of thy Spectators will be real men,
To Umpire up the badness of the cause,
And screen my weakness from the rav’nous Laws,
Of those that will undoubted sit to see
How they might blast this new-born Infancy:
If they should burn him, they’d conclude hereafter,
’Twere too good death for him to dye a Martyr;
And if they let him live, they think it will
Be but a means for to encourage ill,
And bring in time some strange Antipod’ans,
A thousand Leagues beyond Philippians,
To storm our Wits; therefore he must not rest,
But shall be hang’d, for all he has been prest:
Thus they conclude.—My Genius comforts give,
In Resurrection he will surely live.
To my Friend Mr. GEORGE ALSOP, on his Character of MARY-LAND.
Who such odd nookes of Earths great mass describe,
Prove their descent from old Columbus tribe:
Some Boding augur did his Name devise,
Thy Genius too cast in th’ same mould and size;
His Name predicted he would be a Rover,
And hidden places of this Orb discover;
He made relation of that World in gross,
Thou the particulars retail’st to us:
By this first Peny of thy fancy we
Discover what thy greater Coines will be;
This Embryo thus well polisht doth presage,
The manly Atchievements of its future age.
Auspicious winds blow gently on this spark,
Untill its flames discover what’s yet dark;
Mean while this short Abridgement we embrace,
Expecting that thy busy soul will trace
Some Mines at last which may enrich the World,
And all that poverty may be in oblivion hurl’d.
Zoilus is dumb, for thou the mark hast hit,
By interlacing History with Wit:
Thou hast described its superficial Treasure,
Anatomiz’d its bowels at thy leasure;
That MARY-LAND to thee may duty owe,
Who to the World dost all her Glory shew;
Then thou shalt make the Prophesie fall true,
Who fill’st the World (like th’ Sea) with knowledge new.
WILLIAM BOGHERST. (See note No. 9.)
To my Friend Mr. GEORGE ALSOP, on his Character of MARY-LAND.
This plain, yet pithy and concise Description
Of Mary-Lands plentious and sedate condition,
With other things herein by you set forth,
To shew its Rareness, and declare its Worth;
Compos’d in such a time, when most men were
Smitten with Sickness, or surpriz’d with Fear,
Argues a Genius good, and Courage stout,
In bringing this Design so well about:
Such generous Freedom waited on thy brain,
The Work was done in midst of greatest pain;
And matters flow’d so swiftly from thy source,
Nature design’d thee (sure) for such Discourse.
Go on then with thy Work so well begun,
Let it come forth, and boldly see the Sun;
Then shall’t be known to all, that from thy Youth
Thou
