He knows, below, he shall find plenty of meat;
Thy tables hoard not up for the next day,
Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray
For fire, or lights, or livery; all is there,
As if thou then wert mine, or I reigned here;
There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay.
That found King James, when hunting late, this

way,

With his brave son, the prince, they saw thy fires
Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires
Of thy Penates had been set on flame

To entertain them; or the country came,
With all their zeal, to warm their welcome here.
What (great, I will not say, but) sudden cheer
Didst thou then make 'em! and what praise was

heaped

On thy good lady, then! who therein reaped
The just reward of her high housewifery;
To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,
When she was far; and not a room but dressed
As if it had expected such a guest!
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all.
Thy lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal.
His children thy great lord may call his own;
A fortune in this age but rarely known.
They are, and have been taught religion; thence
Their gentler spirits have sucked innocence.
Each morn and even they are taught to pray,
With the whole household, and may, every day,
Read in their virtuous parents' noble parts

The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see

Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else, May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.

III. TO SIR ROBERT WROTH.7

How blessed art thou, canst love the country, Wroth,

Whether by choice, or fate, or both!

And though so near the city, and the court,
Art ta'en with neither's vice nor sport;
That at great times art no ambitious guest
Of sheriff's dinner, or mayor's feast;

Nor com'st to view the better cloth of state,
The richer hangings, or crown-plate;

Nor throng'st, (when masquing is), to have a sight

Of the short bravery of the night;

To view the jewels, stuffs, the pains, the wit
There wasted, some not paid for yet!

But canst at home, in thy securer rest,

7 The Wroths were seated at Durance, in Middlesex, so far back as the early part of the fifteenth century. Sir Thomas Wroth in the reign of Queen Mary, says Fuller, fled over to Germany for his religion; and yet the name of Wroth was the only one of the gentry of Middlesex that was found surviving in the county one hundred and sixty years afterwards. Sir Robert Wroth was the husband of the lady to whom two previous epigrams are addressed. See ante, pp. 58, 60. — B.

Live with unbought provision blest;

Free from proud porches, or the gilded roofs,
'Mongst lowing herds, and solid hoofs;
Alongst the curled woods, and painted meads
Through which a serpent river leads

To some cool courteous shade, which he calls his,
And makes sleep softer than it is!

Or if thou list the night in watch to break,
Abed canst hear the loud stag speak,

8

In spring, oft roused for thy master's sport,
Who for it makes thy house his court;
Or with thy friends, the heart of all the year
Divid'st, upon the lesser deer;

In autumn, at the partridge mak'st a flight,
And giv'st thy gladder guests the sight;
And in the winter, hunt'st the flying hare,
More for thy exercise, than fare;

While all that follow, their glad ears apply
To the full greatness of the cry;

Or hawking at the river, or the bush,
Or shooting at the greedy thrush,

Thou dost with some delight the day outwear,
Although the coldest of the year!

The whilst the several seasons thou hast seen

8 James I. is said to have been a frequent guest at the house of Sir Robert Wroth.-B.

That is, for the greater game which frequented it. This, which was the afternoon's amusement, is noticed by many of our old writers. Sir Topas was much attached to it, if we may trust Chaucer:

"He couth hunt at the wild dere

And ride an hawking by the rivere."- -G.

Of flowery fields, of copses green,

The mowed meadows, with the fleeced sheep,
And feasts that either shearers keep;

The ripened ears, yet humble in their height,
And furrows laden with their weight;
The apple-harvest, that doth longer last;
The hogs returned home fat from mast;
The trees cut out in log, and those boughs made
A fire now, that lent a shade!

Thus Pan and Sylvan having had their rites,
Comus puts in for new delights,

And fills thy open hall with mirth and cheer,
As if in Saturn's reign it were;

Apollo's harp, and Hermes' lyre resound,
Nor are the muses strangers found.
The rout of rural folk come thronging in,
(Their rudeness then is thought no sin,)
Thy noblest spouse 10 affords them welcome

grace,

And the great heroes of her race

Sit mixed with loss of state, or reverence;
Freedom doth with degree dispense.

The jolly wassail walks the often round,

And in their cups their cares are drowned;

They think not then which side the cause shall

leese,

Nor how to get the lawyer fees.

Such, and no other, was that age of old,

Which boasts t' have had the head of gold;

10 Sidney.

And such, since thou canst make thine own con

tent,

Strive, Wroth, to live long innocent.

Let others watch in guilty arms, and stand
The fury of a rash command,

Go enter breaches, meet the cannon's rage,
That they may sleep with scars in age,
And show their feathers shot, and colors torn,
And brag that they were therefore born.
Let this man sweat, and wrangle at the bar,
For every price, in every jar,

And change possessions oftener with his breath,
Than either money, war, or death;

Let him, than hardest sires, more disinherit,
And each where boast it as his merit

To blow up orphans, widows, and their states;
And think his power doth equal fate's.
Let that go heap a mass of wretched wealth,
Purchased by rapine, worse than stealth,
And brooding o'er it sit, with broadest eyes,
Not doing good, scarce when he dies.
Let thousands more go flatter vice, and win,
By being organs to great sin;

Get place and honor, and be glad to keep
The secrets that shall break their sleep;

And so they ride in purple, eat in plate,
Though poison, think it a great fate.
But thou, my Wroth, if I can truth apply,
Shalt neither that nor this envỳ.

Thy peace is made; and, when man's state is well,