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.
B10 Who doubts of Providence, or God denyes
Notes. Ralegh’s History of the World was first printed in 1614. We include this poem, written in the form of a commendatory verse but circulated in manuscript culture, as evidence at once of the rehabilitation of Ralegh’s image during his long imprisonment and of the use of that refurbished image as a weapon to criticize other, unreformed, courtiers. The most likely author, of a number of known writers bearing the name Thomas Scott, is the man who, in 1616, published the politically charged collection of poetic fables, Philomythie, or, Philomythologie. (He spelled his name “Scot”.)
“Mr Thomas Scott sent these verses, by the hand of Dr John White,1 to Sir Walter Raleigh; upon the settinge forth of his Booke of the History of the World”
Who doubts of Providence, or God denyes;
Let hym thy Booke read, & thy Life advise.
Thy booke doth shew, nothinge directly can
(Save grace infus’d from heaven) informe a man.
Thy life doth likewise shew, that as the Devill
5Drawes bad from good, God still drawes good from evill.
That at his set and fore-appointed tyme;
Hee to our good, t’ his prayse, converts each crime.
That o’re the greatest favorites of Kings
The greatest danger hangs on smallest strings.
10In Greatnes thow art lost, as in a wood;
Treadinge the paths of flattery, falshood, blood.
The way to heaven neglected, thow did’st stray
As others now doe in thy Politick way.
But now thow’st found thy selfe; & wee have found
15That sicknes taught thee Art to make men sound.
For had’st thow never fall’ne, th’hadst never writt:
Nor hadst thow cleer’d, but clouded us with witt.
But now thy falshood hath the truth so showne,
That a true World from a false World is knowne.
20Source. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 6v
Other known sources. Ralegh, Poems 188
B10
1 Dr John White: probably the noted contemporary clergyman and preacher. <back>
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