Chapter XXVII

They turn’d their Authors o’re, to try,
What help, what cure, what remedy
All Natures stores against this Plague supply,
And though besides they shunn’d it every where,
They search’d it in their books, and fain would meet it there.
They turn’d the Records of the antient times,
And chiefly those that were made famous by their crimes;
To find if men were punish’d so before,
But found not the Disease nor cure.
Nature alas! was now surpriz’d,
And all her Forces seiz’d,
Before she was how to resist advis’d:
So when the Elephants did first affright
The _Romans_ with unusual fight,
They many battels lose,
Before they knew their foes,
Before they understood such dreadful troops t’oppose.