He creeps, he goes, he stands ; yea who can tell Of all his postures ? Yet there 's none of these Will make him master of what Fowls he please. Yea, he must Pipe and Whistle to catch this ; Yet, if he does so, that Bird he will miss. 5 If that a Pearl may in a Toad's-head dwell, And may be found too in an Oister-shell ; If things that promise nothing do contain What better is then Gold ; who will disdain, That have an inkling of it, there to look, 10 That they may find it ? Now my little Book (Though void of all those Paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take) Is not without those things that do excel What do in brave, but empty notions dwell. 15 Well, yet I am not fully satisfied, That this your Book will stand, when soundly try'd. Why, what 's the matter ? It is dark. What tho ? But it is feigned. What of that I tro ? Some men, by feigning words as dark as mine, 20 Make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine. But they want solidness. Speak man thy mind. They drownd the weak ; Metaphors make us blind. Solidity indeed becomes the Pen Of him that writeth things Divine to men ; 25 But must I needs want solidness, because By Metaphors I speak ? Was not God's Laws, His Gospel-Laws, in oldertime held forth By Types, Shadows, and Metaphors ? Yet loth Will any sober man be to find fault so With them, lest he be found for to assault The highest Wisdom. No, he rather stoops,
6. Shakespeare's lines in As You Like It concerning the " uses of adversity " have embalmed this superstition, one of the commonplaces of mediaeval zoology.
9. Then = than; both spellings are found in Bunyan, but then is the more common.
