full
   Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull,
   And surely Death could never have prevailed
   Had not his weekly course of carriage failed: 
   But lately, finding him so long at home,
   And thinking now his journey’s end was come,
   And that he had ta’en up his latest inn,
   In the kind office of a chamberlin
   Showed him his room where he must lodge that night,
   Pulled off his boots, and took away the light. 
   If any ask for him, it shall be said,
   “Hobson has supped, and’s newly gone to bed.”

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

   Here lieth one that did most truly prove
   That he could never die while he could move;
   So hung his destiny, never to rot
   While he might still jog on and keep his trot;
   Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
   Until his revolution was at stay. 
   Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
   ’Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time;
   And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
   His principles being ceased, he ended straight. 
   Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
   And too much breathing put him out of breath;
   Nor were it contradiction to affirm
   Too long vacation hastened on his term. 
   Merely to drive the time away he sickened,
   Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened. 
   “Nay,” quoth he, on his swooning-bed outstretched,
   “If I mayn’t carry, sure I’ll ne’er be fetched,
   But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
   For one carrier put down to make six bearers.” 
   Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,
   He died for heaviness that his cart went light. 
   His leisure told him that his time was come,
   And lack of load made his life burdensome,
   That even to his last breath (there be that say’t)
   As he were pressed to death, he cried.  “More weight!”
   But, had his doings lasted as they were,
   He had been an immortal carrier. 
   Obedient to the moon he spent his date
   In course reciprocal, and had his fate
   Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas;
   Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase. 
   His letters are delivered all and gone,
   Only remains the superscription.

How very sure we should all be that Milton did not write these pieces, if he had not given them a place among his published works!  Returning to the crowd of Character-writers we find in 1631, the year of Milton’s writing upon Hobson,

WYE SALTONSTALL,