Each little pimple had a tear in it,
To wail the fault its rising did commit,
Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife,
Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin,
The cabinet of a richer soul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whose corpse might seem a constellation."
This is exactly in the tone of Bishop Corbet's invective against the
same disease:
"Oh thou deformed unwoman-like disease,
Thou plough'st up flesh and blood, and there sow'st pease;
And leav'st such prints on beauty that dost come,
As clouted shoon do on a floor of loam.
Thou that of faces honey-combs dost make,
And of two breasts two cullenders, forsake
Thy deadly trade; now thou art rich, give o'er,
And let our curses call thee forth no more."[32]
After leaving the university, our author entered the world, supported by
friends, from whose character, principles, and situation, it might have
been prophesied, with probability, that his success in life, and his
literary reputation, would have been exactly the reverse of what they
actually proved. Sir Gilbert Pickering was cousin-german to the poet,
and also to his mother; thus standing related to Dryden in a double
connection.[33] This gentleman was a staunch puritan, and having set out
as a reformer, ended by being a regicide, and an abettor of the tyranny
of Cromwell.
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