it had plummets hung on to suppresse It’s too luxuriant growing mightinesse:  Till as that tree which scornes to bee kept downe, Thou grewst to govern the whole Stage alone.  In which orbe thy throng’d light did make the star, Thou wert th’ Intelligence did move that Sphere.  Thy Fury was composed; Rapture no fit That hung on thee; nor thou far gone in witt As men in a disease; thy Phansie cleare, Muse chast, as those frames whence they tooke their fire; No spurious composures amongst thine Got in adultery ’twixt Witt and Wine.  And as th’ Hermeticall Physitians draw From things that curse of the first-broken Law, That Ens Venenum, which extracted thence Leaves nought but primitive Good and Innocence:  So was thy Spirit calcined; no Mixtures there But perfect, such as next to Simples are.  Not like those Meteor-wits which wildly flye In storme and thunder through th’ amazed skie; Speaking but th’Ills and Villanies in a State, Which fooles admire, and wise men tremble at, Full of portent and prodigie, whose Gall Oft scapes the Vice, and on the man doth fall.  Nature us’d all her skill, when thee she meant A Wit at once both Great and Innocent. 
  Yet thou hadst Tooth; but ’twas thy judgement, not
For mending one word, a whole sheet to blot.  Thou couldst anatomize with ready art And skilfull hand crimes lockt close up i’th heart.  Thou couldst unfold darke Plots, and shew that path By which Ambition climbed to Greatnesse hath. Thou couldst the rises, turnes, and falls of States, How neare they were their Periods and Dates; Couldst mad the Subject into popular rage, And the grown seas of that great storme asswage, Dethrone usurping Tyrants, and place there The lawfull Prince and true Inheriter; Knewst all darke turnings in the Labyrinth Of policie, which who but knowes he sinn’th, Save thee, who un-infected didst walke in’t As the great Genius of Government.  And when thou laidst thy tragicke buskin by To Court the Stage with gentle Comedie, How new, how proper th’ humours, how express’d In rich variety, how neatly dress’d In language, how rare Plots, what strength of Wit Shin’d in the face and every limb of it!  The Stage grew narrow while thou grewst to be In thy whole life an Exc’llent Comedie.
  To these a Virgin-modesty which first met
Applause with blush and feare, as if he yet Had not deserv’d; till bold with constant praise His browes admitted the unsought for Bayes.  Nor would he ravish fame; but left men free To their owne Vote and Ingenuity.  When His faire Shepherdesse on the guilty Stage, Was martir’d betweene Ignorance and Rage; At which the impatient Vertues of those few Could judge, grew high, cri’d Murther; though he knew The innocence and beauty of his Childe, Hee only, as if unconcerned, smil’d.  Princes have gather’d since each scattered grace, Each line and beauty of that injur’d face; And on th’united parts breath’d such a fire As spight of Malice she shall ne’re expire. 
  Attending, not affecting, thus the crowne
Till every hand did help to set it on, Hee came to be sole Monarch, and did raign In Wits great Empire, absolute Soveraign.

JOHN HARRIS.