A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
D14 Reader, if that desert may make the stay
Notes. Although Cecil is not explicitly identified in this poem, the sole extant copy is transcribed as part of a collection of anti-Cecil verse, and the charges made are common to many attacks on the late Lord Treasurer.
Reader, if that desert may make the stay;
Heere pause awhile, these read, passe on thy way.
This still speakes truth; God & the world doth know,
Hee heere enterr’d was (as these lines doe show)
Monster of nature,1 earths unhappy treader,
5Mens hatred, lawes corrupter, a seducing leader.
Honesties cutthroat, æquities suppressor,
Poore mens undoer, & the widdowes oppressor.
Villanous plotter, & Chaos of evill.
Religions scoffer, Charities foe, mischeifes nurse,
10Then whom the world ne’re had a worse.
Bawderies mouth, hells portion: but letting all passe,
Il’e say noe more, but ’s God his belly was.2
Impartiall death was heerein just, & true,
In giving at last, though late, the devill his due.
15Source. Bodleian MS Tanner 299, fol. 12v
D14
1 Monster of nature: this refers to Cecil’s physical deformity. <back>
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