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But Pictswall all this while, as though he had been
lost,
Not mention'd by the Muse, began to fret and fume,
That every petty Brooke thus proudly should presume
To talke; and he whom first the Romans did invent,
And of their greatnesse yet, the longest-liv'd monument,
Should this be over-trod; wherefore his wrong to wreake,
In their proud presence thus, doth aged Pictswall
speake.
Me thinks that Offa's ditch in Cambria should
not dare
To thinke himselfe my match, who with such cost and care
The Romans did erect, and for my safeguard set
Their Legions, from my spoyle the proling Pict to
let,
That often In-roads made, our earth from them to win,
By Adrian beaten back, so he to keepe them in,
To Sea from East to West, begun me first a wall
Of eightie myles in length, twixt Tyne and
Edens fall:
Long making mee they were, and long did me maintaine.
Nor yet that Trench which tracts the Westerne
Wiltshire Plaine,
Of Woden, Wansdyke cal'd, should parallel with me,
Comparing our descents, which shall appeare to be
Mere upstarts, baseley borne: for when I was in hand,
The Saxon had not then set foot upon this land,
Till my declining age, and after many a yeare,
Of whose poore petty Kings, those the small labors were.
That on Newmarket-Heath, made up as though but
now,
Who for the Devils worke the vulgar dare avow
Tradition telling none, who truly it began,
Where many a reverent Booke can tell you of my Man,
And when I first decayd, Severus going on,
What Adrian built of turfe, he builded new of
stone,
And after many a time, the Britans me repayr'd,
To keepe me still in plight, nor cost they ever spar'd.
Townes stood upon my length, where Garrisons were laid,
Their limits to defend; and for my greater ay'd,
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