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,

Mens 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,

Then 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.

Source. Bodleian MS Tanner 299, fol. 12v

D14

¹   Monster of nature: this refers to Cecil’s physical deformity. <back>

²   God his belly was: i.e. he was a glutton. <back>