Again, the after incidents of life are alluded to, in the poems; Castara has a fever but she recovers, she mourns over the loss of friends, and the like: while, the brightness and fancifulness of this earlier poesy but reflect the happiness of the Poet's home.
7. There are also songs of Friendship. As where he reproaches his bosom friend Talbot for not having seen him for three days, at p. [39], or where he consoles him for the hard usage he has received from that jilt Astrodora, at p. [82]: and most of all, in the eight passionate Elegies over his decease.
8. Occasionally there is a bit of lashing satire, as that against the cravings of Poets, at p. [50]: or of dry humour, as in
Come therefore blest even in the Lollards zeale
Who canst with conscience safe, 'fore hen and veale
Say grace in Latine, while I faintly sing
A Penitentiall verse in oyle and Ling. p. [64].
9. Lastly: strangely intermingled are Requiems over the mortality of Man, the vanity and uncertainty of all things; leading almost to a disgust with life. Of this he thus gives the key-note in saying at p. [114], 'When the necessities of nature returne him downe to earth, he esteemes it a place he is condemned to.... To live he knows a benefit, and the contempt of it ingratitude, and therefore loves, but not doates on life.' To this frame of thought may be opposed the keen wise saying of a great contemporary: Selden.
"Whilst you are upon Earth enjoy the good things that are here (to that end were they given) and be not melancholly, and wish yourself in Heaven. If a King should give you the keeping of a Castle, with all things belonging to it, Orchards, Gardens, &c., and bid you use them; withal promise you that after twenty years to remove you to Court, and to make you a Privy Councellor. If you should neglect your Castle, and refuse to eat of those fruits, and sit down, and whine, and wish you were a Privy Councellor, do you think the King would be pleased with you?"—Table Talk, p. 84. Ed. 1867.
Our wisdom is to recognise the representations of Habington, and to live in the spirit of Selden: thus 'using the world as not abusing it.'