Note 9 — LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS (continued 2)

‘Replete with strange hermetic powder,

That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder.’

‘His tawny beard was th’ equal grace

Both of his wisdom and his face;

In cut and die so like a tile,

A sudden view it would beguile:

The upper part thereof was whey,

The nether orange mixed with grey.

This hairy meteor did denounce

The fall of sceptres and of crowns;

With grisly type did represent

Declining age of government;

And tell with hieroglyphic spade

Its own grave and the state’s were made.’

‘This sword a dagger had his page,

That was but little for his age;

And therefore waited on him so,

As dwarfs upon knight errants do.’