Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

His healthy limbs in quiet slumber hushes;—

——all self-private, serving God, he writes

Fearless, and sings but what his heart indites,

'Till Death, dread Servant of the Eternal Judge,

Comes very late to his sole-seated Lodge.—

Let me, Good Lord! among the Great unkenn'd,

My rest of days in the calm country end:

My company, pure thoughts, to work thy will,

My court, a cottage on a lowly hill."[654:A]

So popular was this version in the early part of the seventeenth century, that Jonson, no indiscriminate encomiast, exclaims, in an epigram to the translator,