Hail Reverend Salmon, whose sweet candid mind
Sure from my birth I was to love design'd,
And fate in our so late acquaintance meant
By slow degrees to husband my content,
Ordaining (to compleat it) I should bee
Now from all else retir'd, Neighbour to thee
That, when involv'd in scruples made by those
Who more entangle what they should Compose,
And in Philosophy (as schoolmen spin
The Notion in Divinity so thin
They lose the Substance) take an envious pride
The light they cannot see themselves, to hide,
I might receave at thy Coricean Cell
The answer of a doubtlesse Oracle.
Tis my delight, though envy I have none,
That thy great Merit is so little known,
Which should some worthier habitation find,
But that the Age is as ingrate as blind;
Else wer't not policy in me t'expose
Thy praise, by which I might the owner lose.
Yet well I cannot do't; where florid Wit
Is to a solid Judgment firmly knit
On the deep Bassis of sound Learning rais'd,
Tis easily admir'd, but hardly prais'd.
Twere to detract, to give thee lesse then due,
Who gives as much, must be as Learned too;
Yeild to the Mulct, which you unjustly lay,
Who charge the World with more then it can pay.

O Friendship, sacred friendship! then our sight
More dear, and farr more cheerfull then the light;
Grief into easy shares thou dost divide,
And Joies are by the union Multiply'd;
The dross of souls is by thy fire Calcin'd
And passions into vertues are refin'd
Which, better'd mutually by kind remove,
Like fruits engrafted on new stocks, improve.
Soul of the soul! first kindled in the heart,
Entire throughout, entire in every part;
Who, like the seat, where thy Grand Empire lies,
Art still the first that lives, the last that dies.
Thus on thy Alter I my offerings lay,
Offerings, which none could with more duty pay:
Forgive this boast, if envious powers there bee;
Though none I envy, all might envy mee,
Who have so long, so happily possest
The love of the most learned and the best.