Renownèd Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learnèd Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
On Shakespeare. W. BASSE.
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
Old mother-wit and nature gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;
In Spenser and in Jonson art
Of slower nature got the start;
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happiest share;
To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own.
Elegy on Cowley. SIR J. DENHAM.
EARL OF MARLBOROUGH.
[Lord President of the Council to King James I. Parliament was
dissolved March 10, and he died March 14, 1628.]
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him….
Killed with report that old man eloquent.
To the Lady Margaret Ley. MILTON.
JOHN WICKLIFFE.
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold Teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Part II. xvii. To Wickliffe. W. WORDSWORTH.
[Bartlett quotes, in this connection, the following:]
"Some prophet of that day said:
'The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be.'"
From Address before the "Sons of New Hampshire" (1849). D. WEBSTER.