TO NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND BILDEN FOUNDATI

So lovers should their passions choke,

That tho' they burn, they may not smoke.
"Tis like that sturdy thief that stole,

And dragg'd beasts backward into's hole; 430
So love does lovers, and us men
Draws by the tails into his den,
That no impression may discover,
And trace t' his cave the wary lover.
But if you doubt I should reveal
What you entrust me under seal,
I'll prove myself as close and virtuous
As your own secretary, Albertus.'

Quoth she, I grant you may be close
In hiding what your aims propose:

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to keep their wood from blazing when it is in the pit, cover it carefully with turf and mould.

'Tis like that sturdy thief that stole,

And dragg'd beasts backward into's hole ;] Cacus, a noted robber, who, when he had stolen cattle, drew them backward by their tails into his den, lest they should be traced and discovered :

At furiis Caci mens effera, ne quid inausum
Aut intractatum scelerisve dolive fuisset,
Quatuor a stabulis præstanti corpore tauros
Avertit, totidem formâ superante juvencas;
Atque hos, ne qua forent pedibus vestigia rectis,
Cauda in speluncam tractos, versisque viarum
Indiciis raptos, saxo occultabat opaco.

I'll prove myself as close and virtuous

Æneis viii. 205.

As your own secretary, Albertus.] Albertus Magnus was bishop of Ratisbon, about the year 1260, and wrote a book, entitled, De Secretis Mulierum. Hence the poet facetiously calls him the women's secretary. It was printed at Amsterdam, in the year 1643, with another silly book, entitled, Michaelis Scoti de Secretis Naturæ Opus.

Love-passions are like parables,

By which men still mean something else:
Tho' love be all the world's pretence,
Money's the mythologic sense,

The real substance of the shadow,

Which all address and courtship's. made to.
Thought he, I understand your play,
And how to quit you your own way;
He that will win his dame, must do

As Love does, when he bends his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.
I grant, quoth he, wealth is a great
Provocative to am'rous heat:

It is all philtres and high diet,

That makes love rampant, and to fly out:

'Tis beauty always in the flower,

That buds and blossoms at fourscore:

He that will win his dame, must do
As love does, when he bends his bow;

With the one hand thrust his lady from,

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And with the other pull her home.] The Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 530. describes an interview between Perkin Warbeck and lady Katharine Gordon, which may serve as no improper specimen of this kind of dalliance. "If I prevail," says he, "let this kiss "seal up the contract, and this kiss bear witness to the indentures; "and this kiss, because one witness is not sufficient, consummate "the assurance.-And so, with a kind of reverence and fashionable gesture, after he had kissed her thrice, he took her in both his "hands, crosswise, and gazed upon her, with a kind of putting her "from him and pulling her to him; and so again and again re"kissed her, and set her in her place, with a pretty manner of "enforcement."

"Tis that by which the sun and moon,
At their own weapons are out-done :"
That makes knights-errant fall in trances,
And lay about 'em in romances:

"Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call:*
For what is worth in any thing,
But so much money as 'twill bring?
Or what but riches is there known,
Which man can solely call his own;
In which no creature goes his half,
Unless it be to squint and laugh?
I do confess, with goods and land,
I'd have a wife at second hand;

'Tis that by which the sun and moon,

;

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At their own weapons are outdone:] Gold and silver are marked by the sun and moon in chemistry, as they were supposed to be more immediately under the influence of those luminaries. Thus Chaucer, in the Chanones Yemannes Tale, 1. 16293. ed. Tyrwhitt:

The bodies sevene eke, lo hem here anon:

Sol gold is, and Luna silver, we threpe,
Mars iren, Mercurie quicksilver we clepe,
Saturnus led, and Jupiter is tin,

And Venus coper, by my fader kin.

The appropriation of certain metals to the seven planets respectively, may be traced as high as Proclus, in the fifth century, and perhaps is still more ancient. This point is discussed by La Croze. See Fabric. Biblioth. Gr. vol. vi. p. 793. The splendor of gold is more refulgent than the rays of the sun and moon.

▲ 'Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all

That men divine and sacred call:]

Et genus, et formam, regina pecunia donat;
Ac bene nummatum decorat Suadela, Venusque.
Horat. Ep. i. 6. 37.