XII.
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hen these sad sights were overpast and gone,My spright was greatly moved in her rest,With inward ruth and deare affection,To see so great things by so small distrest.Thenceforth I gan in my engrieved brestTo scorne all difference of great and small,Sith that the greatest often are opprest,And unawares doe into daunger fall.And ye, that read these ruines tragicall,Learne, by their losse, to love the low degree;And if that Fortune chaunce you up to callTo honours seat, forget not what you be:For he that of himselfe is most secureShall finde his state most fickle and unsure. THE VISIONS OF BELLAY.* [* Eleven of these Visions of Bellay (all except the 6th, 8th, 13th,and 14th) differ only by a few changes necessary for rhyme fromblank-verse translations found in Van der Noodt’s _Theatre ofWorldlings_, printed in 1569; and the six first of the Visions ofPetrarch (here said to have been “formerly translated”) occur almostword for word in the same publication, where the authorship appears tobe claimed by one Theodore Roest. The Complaints were collected, not bySpenser, but by Ponsonby, his bookseller, and he may have erred inascribing these Visions to our poet. C.]
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