Lest some quick Lyncist with a piercing eye,

Should the young footsteps of a truth espy,

Yet something, I confess, was born of late

40Which makes me age it with an ancient date,

But let no antic-hunter post to Stow,

To trace out truth upon his even snow.

Annals are dumb of such and such a lord,

Nor of our amorous pair speak half a word,

Monastic writs do not Bellama limn,

Nor abbey-rolls do teem a line of him,