Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/59

 ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER

��For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavour- ing art,

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart

Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;

Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble, with too much con- ceiving;

And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

��ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER

Who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London by reason of the Plague

(1631)

Thomas Hobson, the University carrier or " expressman," was a -well-known figure in Cambridge during Milton's undergraduateship. For more than half a century he had driven a coach between the university and the Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate Street, London, carrying let- ters, parcels, and passengers. In the spring of 1630 the plague, which was then raging in various parts of England, broke out in the col- leges so violently that all academic exercises had to be suspended. As a precaution against the spread of the disease, the coach commu- nication with London was stopped, and old Hobson, at the age of 86, found his occupation gone. When the colleges opened in November the plague had abated, but Hobson was unable to resume his journeys ; he died on the 1st of January, 1631, killed, Milton humorously sup- poses, by the tedium of his enforced idleness. In connection with his coaching, Hobson kept a stable of horses, which he let out to the stu- dents and officers of the University. These he assigned by rotation, never allowing the per- sonal preference of a customer to determine his mount ; hence arose the phrase " Hobson's choice."

HERE lies old Hobson. Death hath broke his girt,

And here, alas ! hath laid him in the dirt;

Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one

He 's here stuck in a slough, and over- thrown.

'T was such a shifter that, if truth were known,

��Death was half glad when he had got him

down;

For he had any time this ten years full Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and

The Bull.

And surely Death could never have pre- vailed, Had not his weekly course of carriage

failed; 10

But lately, finding him so long at home, And thinking now his journey's end was

come,

And that he had ta'en up his latest Inn, In the kind office of a Chamberlin Showed him his room where he must lodge

that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the

light.

If any ask for him, it shall be said, " Hobson has supped, and 's newly gone to

bed."

��ANOTHER ON THE SAME

HERE lieth one who did most truly prove

That he could never die while he could move;

So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot;

Made of sphere-metal, never to decay

Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers Motion, yet (without a crime

'Gainst old truth) Motion numbered out his time;

And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,

His principles being ceased, he ended straight. 10

Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,

And too much breathing put him out of breath;

Nor were it contradiction to affirm

Too long vacation hastened on his term.

Merely to drive the time away he sick- ened,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened.

" Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed out- stretched,

" If I may n't carry, sure I '11 ne'er be fetched,

�� �