Thus you see,
My loving learned friends, how far respect
Waits often on the ceremonious train
Of base illiterate wealth, whilst men of schools,
Shrouded in poverty, are counted fools.
Pardon, thou reverent German, I have mixed
So slight a jest to the fair entertainment
Of thy most worthy self; for know, Erasmus,
Mirth wrinkles up my face, and I still crave,
When that forsakes me I may hug my grave.
ERASMUS.
Your honor’s merry humor is best physic
Unto your able body; for we learn
Where melancholy chokes the passages
Of blood and breath, the erected spirit still
Lengthens our days with sportful exercise:
Study should be the saddest time of life.
The rest a sport exempt from thought of strife.
MORE.
Erasmus preacheth gospel against physic,
My noble poet.
SURREY.
Oh, my Lord, you tax me
In that word poet of much idleness:
It is a study that makes poor our fate;
Poets were ever thought unfit for state.
MORE.
O, give not up fair poesy, sweet lord,
To such contempt! That I may speak my heart,
It is the sweetest heraldry of art,
That sets a difference ’tween the tough sharp holly
And tender bay tree.
SURREY.
Yet, my lord,
It is become the very logic number
To all mechanic sciences.
MORE.
Why, I’ll show the reason:
This is no age for poets; they should sing
To the loud canon heroica facta;
Qui faciunt reges heroica carmina laudant:
And, as great subjects of their pen decay,
Even so unphysicked they do melt away.
[Enter Master Morris.]
Come, will your lordship in?—My dear Erasmus—
I’ll hear you, Master Morris, presently.—
My lord, I make you master of my house:
We’ll banquet here with fresh and staid delights,
The Muses music here shall cheer our sprites;
The cates must be but mean where scholars sit,
For they’re made all with courses of neat wit.
[Exeunt Surrey, Erasmus, and Attendants.]