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.
D25 Oh that such wisdome that could steere a state
Notes. This poem, one of four extant defences of Robert Cecil, is discussed and partly quoted in Croft (“Reputation” 64).
Oh that such wisdome that could steere a state,
Should now bee valued at so cheape a rate!
The burden that this one so easely bore
Was deemed waight enough for thousands more
As Envy blusht in all that understoode
5Who from a crime surmised1 his fame redeemd
So nobly, that it now for vertue seem’d,
Fate of our age! See how this dead man ly’s
Bitten and stung by Court and Cittie flyes2
His wisdomes questioned, and now all can find
10And scoff at to greate vices in his mind.
Att this greate Pillars fall when all thus laugh,
Dreads not the whole world the nexte Epitaph
Source. Folger MS V.a.103, fol. 5r-v
Other known sources. Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. e.14, fol. 96r; Nottingham MS Portland PW V 37, p. 9
D25
1 a crime surmised: probably a reference to Cecil’s alleged role in engineering the destruction of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. <back>
2 Court and Cittie flyes: Cecil’s critics and libellers. <back>
Web Marketing & Design
by FourSquare Innovations 
