And if that Fortune chaunce you up to call
To honours seat, forget not what you be:
For he that of himselfe is most secure
Shall 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 from
blank-verse translations found in Van der Noodt's _Theatre of
Worldlings_, printed in 1569; and the six first of the Visions of
Petrarch (here said to have been "formerly translated") occur almost
word for word in the same publication, where the authorship appears to
be claimed by one Theodore Roest. The Complaints were collected, not by
Spenser, but by Ponsonby, his bookseller, and he may have erred in
ascribing these Visions to our poet. C.]


I.

It was the time when rest, soft sliding downe
From heavens hight into mens heavy eyes,
In the forgetfulnes of sleepe doth drowne
The carefull thoughts of mortall miseries.