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260 AN ELEGIE

upon that Honourable and renowned Knight Sir Philip Sidney, who was untimely slain at the Siege of Zutphen Anno, 1586. When England did enjoy her Halsion dayes, Her noble Sidney wore the Crown of Bayes; As well an honour to our British Land, As she that swayed the Scepter with her hand; Mars and Minerva did in one agree, Of Arms and Arts he should a pattern be, Calliope with Terpsichore did sing, Of poesie, and of musick, he was King; His Rhetorick struck Polimina dead, His Eloquence made Mercury wax red; His Logick from Euterpe won the Crown, More worth was his then Clio could set down. Thalia and Melpomene say truth, Witness Arcadia penned in his youth, Are not his tragick Comedies so acted, As if your ninefold wit had been compacted. To shew the world, they never saw before, That this one Volume should exhaust your store; His wiser dayes condemned his witty works, Who knows the spels that in his Rhetorick lurks, But some infatuate fools soon caught therein, Fond Cupids Dame had never such a gin, Which makes severer eyes but slight that story, And men of morose minds envy his glory: But he's a Beetle-head that can't descry A world of wealth within that rubbish lye, And doth his name, his work, his honour wrong, The brave refiner of our British tongue, That sees not learning, valour and morality, Justice, friendship, and kind hospitality, Yea and Divinity within his book, Such were prejudicate, and did not look. In all Records his name I ever see Put with an Epithite of dignity, Which shows his worth was great, his honour such, The love his Country ought him, was as much.