Page:Lewesdon Hill, a poem (IA lewesdonhillpoem00crowiala).pdf/35
With crafty blood-hounds lurching for thy life
Whileas they feign'd to chace thee fairly down:
And that foul Scot, the minion-kissing king,
Pursued with havoc in the tyrannous hunt.
The Tor of Glastonbury! Even but now
Plymouth and the Court [as many times he did upon no small employments) this Castle being right in the way, he cast such an eye upon it as Ahab did upon Naboth's Vineyard. And, once above the rest, being talking of it (of the commodiousness of the place, of the strength of the seat, and how easily it might be got from the Bishopric) suddenly over and over came his horse, that his very face (which was then thought a very good face) plowed up the earth where he fell. This fall was ominous I make no question; and himself was apt to construe it so. But his brother Adrian would needs have him interpret it as a conqueror, that his fall presaged the quiet possession of it. And accordingly for the present it so fell out. So that with much labor, cost, envy, and obloquy he got it habendum et tenendum to him and his heirs. But see what became of him. In the public joy and jubile of the whole realm (when favor, peace, and pardon, were offered even to offenders) he who in wit, in wealth, in courage was inferior to few, fell suddenly (I cannot tell how) into such a downfall of despair; as his greatest enemy would not have wished him so much harm, as he would have done himself. Can any man be so wilfully blind, as not to see and say, Digitus Dei hic est!" Harrington's Breif View, p. 88.
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