Poem by Thomas Urquhart

Epigrams. The First Booke. ¹ 38. How Fortune oftentimes most praeposterously pond'ring the aections of men, with a great deale of injustice bestoweth her favours

FOrtune with wealth, and honour at her feet:
And holding in her hand a ballance, sits
Weighing human desert, as she thinks fit:
One of the scales whereof the learn'dest wits,
Most vertuous, and of choisest parts containes:
The other being appointed for such, as
Are vicious, light, and destitute of Braines.
The light are mounted up into the place,
Where riches, and preferment lye exposed
To those, can reach them: while the other scale,
By th'only weight of worth, therein inclosed
Is more submissively deprest, then all
That hangs on Fortunes ballance: and the higher,
That hair-brain'd heads b'advanc'd above the states
Of others in this world: so much the higher
To want, and bondage are the wiser pates;
Of such things then, as to the disposition
Of Fortune doe pertaine, let no man wonder,
While the most wicked gaine the acquisition,
That by their meanes, the good be brought at under;
For wheresoever vice is most respected:
The greatest vertues are the more rejected.

1. Epigrams. The Second Booke. ¹ 25. That vertue is of greater worth, then knowledge. to a speculative Philosopher
2. Epigrams. The Third Booke. ¹ 12. An vprightly zealous, and truly devout man is strong enough against all temptations
3. Epigrams. The Third Booke. ¹ 35. To a Gentleman, who was extreamly offen∣ded at the defamatory speeches of a base detractor
4. Epigrams. The Second Booke. ¹ 34. The misery of such, as are doubtfull, and suspi∣cious of their VVives chastitie
5. Epigrams. The Third Booke. ¹ 42. An encouragement to those of meane Parentage, not to be hindered by the Obscurity of their ex∣traction, from the undertaking of glo∣rious enterprises

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