xlvi
Introduction
necessary, that good men are powerful, and euil men weake. Thou runnest rightly (quoth she) and it is (as Physitions are wont to hope) a token of an erected and resisting nature.
In 1664 appeared a free metrical version of the whole work, the prose being rendered in eight-syllable rhyming couplets (the metre of Hudibras), and the verse in quatrains of a peculiar metre, a8 b8 a8 b8. This was written by Harry Coningsby, a Royalist. The copy in the British Museum has a dedication, in the translator's handwriting, to Sir Thomas Hyde.
Book iii, metr. 2.
Kind Nature the whole World does guide
With Gordian knot does bind
Does certain Laws for it provide,
Which now to warble is my mind.'
With Gordian knot does bind
Does certain Laws for it provide,
Which now to warble is my mind.'
Although the Libyan Lions are
With easle fetters bound
And take their meat at hand, and fear
Their angry Master's whip and frown;
With easle fetters bound
And take their meat at hand, and fear
Their angry Master's whip and frown;
Yet if they once do taste of gore,
Their nature then is seen
They hideously do yell and roar
And tear the ground, and fiercely grin.
Their nature then is seen
They hideously do yell and roar
And tear the ground, and fiercely grin.
Then scorning both the whip and call,
Themselves they do unty.
And on their Masters they do fall.
Tearing them piecemeal greedily.
Themselves they do unty.
And on their Masters they do fall.
Tearing them piecemeal greedily.
The bird us'd on the trees to sing,
If he in cage, be penned,
Though best of dainties you him bring,
Yet to his nature he will bend.
If he in cage, be penned,
Though best of dainties you him bring,
Yet to his nature he will bend.
And if that once he do get out,
And in the woods be free.
All your enticements he will flout
And chant his tunes melodiously.
And in the woods be free.
All your enticements he will flout
And chant his tunes melodiously.
If
