And here, peradventure, my witless youth may be taxed with a margent note of presumption, for offering to put up any motion of applause in the behalf of so excellent a poet (the least syllable of whose name sounded in the ears of judgment, is able to give the meanest line he writes, a dowry of immortality) yet those that observe how jewels oftentimes come to their hands that know not their value; and that the coxcombs of our days, like Æsop's cock, had rather have a barley kernel wrapt up in a ballet, than they will dig for the wealth of wit in any ground that they know not; I hope will also hold me excused, though I open the gate to his glory, and invite idle ears to the admiration of his melancholy.
Quid petitur sacris nisi tantutn farna poetis.
Which although it be oftentimes imprisoned in ladies caskets, and the precedent books of such as cannot see without another man's spectacles; yet, at length, it breaks forth in spite of his keepers, and useth some private pen, instead of a pick-lock, to procure his violent enlargement.
The sun, for a time, may mask his golden head in a cloud; yet in the end, the thick veil doth vanish and his embellished blandishment appears. Long hath ASTROPHEL—England's sun—withheld the beams of his spirit from the common view of our dark sense; and night hath hovered over the gardens of the Nine Sisters: while ignis fatuus, and gross fatty flames (such as commonly arise out of dunghills) have taken occasion, in the midst eclipse of his shining perfections, to wander abroad with a wisp of paper at their tails, like hobgoblins; and lead men up and down, in a circle of absurdity a whole week, and they never know where they are. But now that cloud of sorrow is dissolved, which fiery Love exhaled from
