Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros.
VIRG. Æn. 1. 483.
Even soe dead Hector thrice was triumph’d on
The walls of Troy, thrice slain when Fates had done:
So did the barbarous Greekes before their hoast
Torment his ashes and profane his ghost:
As Henryes vault, his peace, his sacred hearse,
Are torne and batter’d by thine Anniverse.
Was ’t not enough Nature and strength were foes,
But thou must yearly murther him in prose?
Or dost thou thinke thy raving phrase can make
A lowder eccho then the Almanake?
Trust mee, November doth more ghastly looke
In Dade and Hopton’s[59] pennyworth then thy booke;
And sadder record their fixt figure beares
Then thy false-printed and ambitious teares.
For were it not for Christmas, which is nigh,
When spice, fruit eaten, and digested pye
Call for waste paper; no man could make shift
How to employ thy writings to his thrift.
Wherefore forbear, for pity or for shame,
And let some richer penne redeeme his fame
From rottennesse. Thou leave him captive; since
So vile a PRICE ne’ere ransom’d such a Prince.