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diff --git a/old/65375-0.txt b/old/65375-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6d71c27..0000000 --- a/old/65375-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6451 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Poems of Richard Corbet, late bishop of -Oxford and of Norwich, by Richard Corbet - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Poems of Richard Corbet, late bishop of Oxford and of Norwich - 4th edition - -Author: Richard Corbet - Octavius Gilchrist - -Release Date: May 18, 2021 [eBook #65375] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/American - Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POEMS OF RICHARD CORBET, LATE -BISHOP OF OXFORD AND OF NORWICH *** - - - - - - THE - POEMS - OF - RICHARD CORBET, - LATE BISHOP OF OXFORD AND OF NORWICH. - - THE FOURTH EDITION, - With considerable Additions. - - TO WHICH ARE NOW ADDED, - “ORATIO IN FUNUS HENRICI PRINCIPIS,” - FROM ASHMOLE’S MUSEUM, - _Biographical Notes, and a Life of the Author_, - BY - OCTAVIUS GILCHRIST, F.S.A. - - London: - PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, - PATERNOSTER-ROW. - 1807. - - Invidebam devio ac solo loco - Opes camœnarum tegi: - At nunc frequentes, atque claros, nee procul, - Quum floreas inter viros. - - AUSONIUS. - - R. TAYLOR, and Co. Shoe Lane. - - - - -TO MY FRIEND THOMAS BLORE, ESQ. THIS VOLUME, UNDERTAKEN AT HIS -SUGGESTION, AND PROMOTED BY HIS ASSISTANCE, IS INSCRIBED BY THE EDITOR. - - - - -THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. - - -The public interest has been of late years so strongly manifested in -favour of the poets of the seventeenth century, that little apology -appears necessary for the republication of the following Poems. It -would, however, be equally vain and foolish in the editor to claim for -the author a place among the higher class of poets, or to exalt his due -praise by depreciating the merits of his contemporaries.—Claiming only -for Cæsar what to Cæsar is due, it may without arrogance be presumed -that these pages will not be found inferior to the poems of others which -have been fortunately republished, or familiarised to the generality of -readers through the popular medium of selections. - -The author of the following poems (an account of whose life may be -considered as a necessary appendage to these pages) is said to have -descended from the antient family of the Corbets in Shropshire. It -were too laborious and pedantic in a work of this nature to trace his -pedigree, but I should be pleased to find any proofs of their attachment -to him: yet as the bishop did not usually “conceal his love,” I suspect -he received no mark of their regard, at least till his elevation -conferred rather than received obligation by acknowledgment. - -Richard Corbet, successively bishop of Oxford and Norwich, was born at -the village of Ewell in Surrey, in the year 1582: he was the only son -of Bennet, or Benedicta, and Vincent Corbet, who, from causes which I -have not discovered, assumed the name of Poynter. His father, a man of -some eminence for his skill in gardening, and who is celebrated by Ben -Jonson in an elegy[1] alike honourable to the subject, the poet, and -the friend, for his many amiable virtues, resided at Whitton, a hamlet -in the parish of Twickenham, where the poet passed his declining days. -Under the will of his father[2] he inherited sundry freehold lands and -tenements lying in St. Augustine’s parish, Watling-street, London, and -five hundred pounds in money, which was directed to be paid him by -Bennet, the father’s wife and sole executrix, upon his attaining the -age of twenty-five years. After receiving the rudiments of education at -Westminster School, he entered in Lent term 1597-8 at Broadgate Hall, -and the year following was admitted a student of Christ-Church College, -Oxford. In 1605 he proceeded Master of Arts, and became celebrated as a -wit and a poet. - -The following early specimen of his humour is preserved in a collection -of “Mery Passages and Jeastes,” Harl. MS. No. 6395: “Ben Jonson was at a -tavern, and in comes bishop Corbet (but not so then) into the next room. -Ben Jonson calls for a quart of _raw_ wine, and gives it to the tapster. -‘Sirrah!’ says he, ‘carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and -tell him I sacrifice my service to him.’ The fellow did, and in those -terms. ‘Friend!’ says bishop Corbet, ‘I thank him for his love; but -pr’ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken, for sacrifices are always -burnt.’” - -In 1612, upon the death of the amiable and accomplished Henry Prince of -Wales, - - “The expectancy and rose of the fair state,” - -and the theme of many a verse; the University, overwhelmed with grief, -more especially as he had been a student of Magdalen College under the -tutorage of Mr. John Wilkinson, (“afterwards the unworthy president of -that house,”) and desirous of testifying their respect for his memory, -deputed Corbet, then one of the proctors, to pronounce a funeral oration; -“who,” to use the words of Antony Wood, “very oratorically speeched it in -St. Maries church, before a numerous auditory[3].” On the 13th of March -in the following year he performed a similar ceremony in the Divinity -School on the interment of sir Thomas Bodley, the munificent founder of -the library known by his name. - -Amid the religious dissensions at this period, encouraged and increased -by James’s suspected inclination to popery, it was scarcely possible to -avoid giving offence to the supporters of the various doctrinal opinions -which in this confusion of faiths divided the people. At the head of the -Church was Dr. George Abbott, a bigoted and captious Puritan: opposed -to this disciple of Calvin was Laud, then growing into fame, who boldly -supported the opinions of Arminius. With the latter Corbet coincided: but -the undisguised publication of his faith had nearly proved fatal to his -future prospects; for, “preaching the Passion sermon at Christ-Church, -(1613,) he insisted on the article of Christ’s descending into hell, -and therein grated upon Calvin’s manifest perverting of the true sense -and meaning of it: for which, says Heylyn, he was so rattled up by the -Repetitioner, (Dr. Robert Abbott, brother of the archbishop,) that if -he had not been a man of a very great courage, it might have made him -afraid of staying in the University. This, it was generally conceived, -was not done without the archbishop’s setting on; but the best was, adds -Heylyn, that none sunk under the burthen of these oppressions, if (like -the camomile) they did not rise the higher by it[4].” - -When James, in 1605[5], visited Oxford in his summer progress, the wits -of the sister University vented their raillery at the entertainment -given to the royal visitor[6]. Cambridge, which had long solicited the -same honour, was in the year 1614-5 indulged with his presence. Many -students from Oxford witnessed the ceremonial of his reception; and the -local histories of the two Universities at that period, are replete -with pasquinades and ballads sufficiently descriptive of their mutual -animosities. An eye-witness declares, “Though I endured a great deal of -penance by the way for this little pleasure, yet I would not have missed -it, for that I see thereby the partiality of both sides—the Cambridge men -pleasing and applauding themselves in all, and the Oxford men as fast -condemning and detracting all that was done; wherein yet I commended -Corbet’s modesty, whilst he was there; who being seriously dealt withal -by some friends to say what he thought, answered, that he had left -his malice and judgment at home, and came there only to commend[7].” -Notwithstanding this conciliatory declaration, the opportunity of -retorting upon the first assailants was too tempting to Corbet’s wit to -be slighted; and immediately upon his return he composed the ballad, page -13, “To the tune of Bonny Nell.”—This humorous narrative excited several -replies; the most curious of which was the one, in Latin and English, -(at page 24,) written, perhaps, by sir Thomas Lake, afterwards secretary -of state, who performed the part of Trico in the Cambridge play of -Ignoramus, and who had a ring bequeathed him by the author, Ruggles[8]. - -Corbet appears, says Headley[9], to have been of that poetical party -who, by inviting Ben Jonson to come to Oxford, rescued him from the arms -of a sister University, who has long treated the Muses with indignity, -and turned a hostile and disheartening eye on those who have added most -celebrity to her name[10]. - -We do not find that Ben expressed any regret at the change of his -situation: companions whose minds and pursuits were similar to his own, -are not always to be found in the gross atmosphere of the muddy Cam, -though easily met with on the more genial banks of the Isis: - - Largior hic campos æther. - -In 1616 he was recommended by the Convocation as a proper person to be -elected to the college which Dr. Matthew Surtclyve, dean of Exeter, -had lately erected at Chelsea, for maintaining polemical Divines to be -employed in opposing the doctrines of Papists and Sectaries. Whether he -obtained his election I have not learned: nor is it of much moment; for -the establishment, as might be naturally foreseen from the circumstances -of the times, soon declined from its original purpose[11]. - -Being now in a situation to indulge his inclinations, he in 1618 made -a trip to France, from whence he wrote an “epistle to sir Thomas -Aylesbury,” in which he gently laughs at his friend’s astronomical -fondness; and composed a metrical description of his journey, from which -we may conclude that he returned less disgusted with his native country, -and less enamoured of the manners and habits of his new acquaintance, -than is usual with the modern visitors of our transmarine neighbours. - -He was now in holy orders; and, in the language of Antony Wood, “became -a quaint preacher, and therefore much followed by ingenious men.” None -of Corbet’s sermons are, I believe, in existence: the modesty that -withheld his poems from the press, during his life, prevented his adding -to the multitude of devotional discourses with which the country was -at this period infested[12]. Those who are at all acquainted with -the ecclesiastical oratory of James’s reign, will be at no loss to -comprehend “honest Antony’s” description; but to those who are not, it -may be sufficient to observe, that, of its peculiar excellencies and -demerits, the sermons of bishop King, his contemporary, (which have been -republished) are a complete “picture in little.” - -About this time he appears, from the following characteristic letter[13], -to have solicited promotion at the hands of Villiers duke of Buckingham: - - “May it please your Grace - - “To consider my two great losses this weeke: one in respect of - his Majesty to whom I was to preach; the other in respect of my - patron whom I was to visit. Yf this bee not the way to repare - the later of my losses, I feare I am in danger to bee utterly - undon. To press too neere a greate man is a meanness; to be put - by, and to stand too far off, is the way to be forgotten: so - Ecclesiasticus. In which mediocrity, could I hitt it, would I - live and dy, my lord. I would neather press neere, nor stand - far off; choosing rather the name of an ill courtier than a - sawsy scholer. - - “I am your Grace’s most humble servant, - - “RICHARD CORBET.” - - Christ’s Church, this 26 Feb. - -“Heer are newes, my noble lord, about us, that, in the point of -alledgeance now in hand, all the Papists are exceeding orthodox; the only -recusants are the Puritans.” - -Of the nature of the object thus supplicated, my inquiries have not -informed me: he was now dean of Christ-Church, vicar of Cassington near -Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and prebendary of Bedminster secunda in the -church of Sarum: it was, perhaps, the appointment of chaplain to the -King, which he received about this time; and if to this period may be -assigned the gratulatory poem at page 83, it should seem that Buckingham -was not solicited in vain. - -In 1619 he sustained a great loss in the decease of his amiable father, -at a very advanced age; whose praise he has celebrated in the most -honourable terms, and whose death he has lamented in the language of -rational and tender regret. - -When James paid a second visit to Oxford in 1621, Corbet, in his office -of chaplain, preached before the monarch[14], who had presented him -(as it seems) with a token of his favour, such as flattered in no -small degree the vanity of the dean. The progress of the court and its -followers is thus ludicrously described in an anonymous poem transcribed -from Antony Wood’s papers[15] in Ashmole’s Museum: - - The king and the court, - Desirous of sport, - Six days at Woodstock did lie; - Thither went the doctors, - And sattin-sleev’d proctors, - With the rest of the learned fry; - - Whose faces did shine - With beere and with wine, - So fat, that it may be thought - University cheere, - With college strong beere, - Made them far better fed than taught. - - A number beside, - With their wenches did ride, - (For scholars are always kind) - And still evermore, - While they rode before, - They were kissing their wenches behind. - - A number on foot, - Without cloak or boot, - And yet with the court go they would; - Desirous to show - How far they could go - To do his high mightiness good. - - The reverend Dean, - With his band starch’d clean, - Did preach before the King; - A ring was his pride - To his bandstrings tied, - Was not this a pretty thing? - - The ring, without doubt, - Was the thing put him out, - And made him forget what was next; - For every one there - Will say, I dare swear, - He handled it more than his text. - -With poetical badinage of this complexion the wits of the University of -Oxford, with Corbet at their head, “who loved this boy’s play to the -last,” abounded. While many of the pasquinades are lost, many, however, -are still preserved among Ashmole’s papers: on most occasions Corbet -was at least a match for his opponents, but this misfortune of the ring -became a standing jest against him: it is alluded to at page 233; and it -is demanded in another poem[16], if - - He would provoke court wits to sing - The _second_ part of bandstrings and the ring. - -Upon the evening of the same Sunday, the students of Christ-Church, -willing to show their respect for the royal visitor, obtained leave to -present a play before the King; and they chose, with no great display of -taste, Barten Holyday’s ΤΕΧΝΟΓΑΜΙΑ, or “The Marriage of the Arts,” which -had been acted in Christ-Church hall the 13th of February, 1617. The play -was so little relished, that the king was with difficulty persuaded to -sit till its conclusion: the “enactors” became subjects of ridicule to -the University; and, though Corbet and King rhymed in their favour, the -laugh went against them. - -Indeed the Oxonians were not more unfortunate in their theatrical -representations on this than on former occasions. Upon the visit of -James, in 1605, two out of three dramatic exhibitions, prepared at great -expense and performed by the students, were, according to the testimony -of an eye-witness, received with tædium, and rewarded with unconcealed -disgust[17]. - -The writers of the poet’s life are silent as to the period of his -marriage; and if I am unable to communicate any information on this -point, it will not, I trust, be attributed to any parsimony of research, -or indifference as to fact when conjecture can be substituted. Those who -have made literary biography their study, know that it is frequently much -easier to write many pages than to ascertain a date, and hence but too -frequently ingenuity supplies the place of labour and inquiry: in the -present instance, every record that suggested a probability of containing -any memorial relative to the family of the subject of this biography has -been inspected personally; but before the passing of the Marriage Act, -nothing is more uncertain than the probable place of the celebration of -that ceremony[18]. - -In this dearth of fact as to dates, I shall presume to suppose he married -about 1625 Alice the only daughter of his fellow-collegian Dr. Leonard -Hutton, a man of some eminence in his day as a divine and an antiquary, -and whose character is thus drawn by Antony Wood with a felicity that -rarely accompanies his pencil: “His younger years were beautified with -all kind of polite learning, his middle with ingenuity and judgment, and -his reverend years with great wisdom in government, having been often -subdean of his college.” - -This union of wit and beauty was not looked upon with indifference, nor -was their epithalamium unsung, or the string touched by the hand of an -unskilful master: - - Come, all ye Muses, and rejoyce - At this your nursling’s happy choyce; - Come, Flora, strew the bridemaid’s bed, - And with a garland crown her head; - Or, if thy flowers be to seek, - Come gather roses at her cheek. - Come, Hymen, light thy torches, let - Thy bed with tapers be beset, - And if there be no fire by, - Come light thy taper at her eye: - In that bright eye there dwells a starre, - And wise-men by it guided are[19]. - -The offspring of this marriage were a daughter named Alice, and a son -born the 10th of November, 1627, towards whom the beautiful poem at page -150 is an undecaying monument of paternal affection. - -Of these descendants of the bishop I lament that I have discovered so -little: if this volume should be fortunate enough to excite attention to -its author, the loss may at some future period be supplied: they were -both living when their grandmother, Anne Hutton, made her will in 1642, -and the son administered to the testament in 1648. - -In 1628 Corbet suffered a severe privation in the loss of his patron -Villiers duke of Buckingham, assassinated by Felton on the 23d of -August, who, whatever were his political crimes, was, like his amiable -and indulgent master, a liberal promoter of literature and science, and -to his death an encourager of Corbet’s studies. If, however, this event -checked his hopes of promotion for a season, it did not leave him without -a patron; for, upon the translation of Hewson to the see of Durham, -(to make way for Dr. Duppa to be dean of that church,) he was elected -bishop of Oxford the 30th of July, was consecrated at Lambeth the 19th of -October, and installed the 3d of November, 1629; “though,” in the opinion -of Wood, “in some respects unworthy of such an office[20].” - -Warned by the many petulant remarks on the poetical character scattered -throughout the account of Oxford writers, one is little surprised at -this churlish remark on the part of honest Antony, who seems to have -considered all poetry as - - ... inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ, - -and its indulgence inconsistent with the clerical profession. Corbet was -certainly no “precisian,” and perhaps his only fault was possessing a -species of talent to which Antony had no pretension. - -The bishopric of Oxford he held but a short time, being translated to -a more active see, that of Norwich, in the month of April 1632; when a -dispute arose as to his right of claim to the glebe sown previous to his -vacating the vicarage: the opinion of the attorney-general, (Noy,) which -is preserved in the Harleian collection of manuscripts[21], was in his -favour, _in as much as the translation was not his own act merely_. - -On the 9th of March, 1633, he preached before the king at Newmarket[22]. - -Scarcely was he seated in the episcopal chair of Norwich when Abbott -died, and Laud, who had long exercised the authority of metropolitan, -was two days afterwards (August 6th, 1633) preferred to the see of -Canterbury. Having now “no rival near his throne,” in the warmth of -his zeal he immediately applied himself to reform abuses and exact -a conformity to the established church, the discipline of which had -exceedingly relaxed during the ascendancy of his calvinistic predecessor. -For this purpose Laud issued certain orders and instructions to the -several bishops, insisting upon a strict examination into the state of -religion and its ceremonies in their several dioceses; the result of -which was transmitted to that prelate, and by him laid before the King. -These representations, many of which are curious, are printed in the -nineteenth volume of Rymer’s Fœdera. On his part, Corbet certified that -he had suppressed the lectures of some factious men, and particularly -that he had suspended one Bridges, curate of St. George’s parish, -Norwich; but, upon submission, he had taken off his suspension. Among -others, he had heard complaint of Mr. Ward[23], of Ipswich, for words in -some sermons of his, for which he was called before the High Commission. - -From the following conciliating epistle I conclude that Ward submitted, -and was restored to his cure: - - “Salutem in Christo. - - “My worthie friend, - - “I thank God for your conformitie, and you for your - acknowledgment: stand upright to the church wherein you - live; be true of heart to her governours; think well of - her significant ceremonyes; and be you assured I shall - never displace you of that room which I have given you in - my affection; proove you a good tenant in my hart, and noe - minister in my diocese hath a better landlord. Farewell! God - Almightie blesse you with your whole congregation. - - “From your faithful friend to serve you in Christ Jesus, - - “RICH. NORWICH[24].” - - Ludham Hall, the 6 of Oct. 1633. - -The zeal of Laud did not rest here: he set sedulously about suppressing -the Dutch and Walloon congregations, of which there were several in -London, Norwich, and other places. - -It will be perhaps necessary to observe, that the Dutch, the Walloons, -and the French, who had continued to refuge in England from the reign -of Edward the Sixth, had obtained many privileges from former kings, -and among others, the liberty of celebrating divine service after -their own, that is, the presbyterian, manner. Their congregations were -scattered over the kingdom; and at this period there was at Norwich one -of the Dutch, and one of the Walloons, the latter of which carried on -an extensive manufacture of woollen cloths, for the vending of which, -they in 1564 obtained a lease of the chapel of St. Mary the Less, which -they fitted up as a hall or market-place for that purpose. Where they -performed divine service before the year 1619 I know not, but in that -year Samuel Harsnet licensed the Walloon congregation to use during his -pleasure the Bishop’s chapel, or chapel of the Virgin Mary[25]. This -indulgence was continued during the government of his successor, Francis -White. But the intolerance of Laud would be content with nothing short -of conformity; Corbet consequently prepared to dislodge them by the -following characteristic letter: - - “To the minister and elders of the French church, - in Norwich, these: - - “Salutem in Christo. - - “You have promised me from time to time to restore my stolen - bell, and to glaze my lettice windows. After three yeeres - consultation (bysides other pollution) I see nothing mended. - Your discipline, I know, care not much for a consecrated place, - and anye other roome in Norwiche that hath but bredth and - length may serve your turne as well as the chappel: wherefore I - say unto you, without a miracle, _Lazare, prodi foras!_ Depart, - and hire some other place for your irregular meetings: you - shall have time to provide for yourselves betwixte this and - Whitsontide. And that you may not think I mean to deale with - you as Felix dyd with St. Paul, that is, make you afraid, to - get money, I shall keepe my word with you, which you did not - with me, and as neer as I can be like you in nothinge. - - “Written by me, Richard Norwich, with myne own hand, Dec. 26, - anno 1634.” - -The congregation remonstrated to Laud, in the February following, -against the commands of their poetical pastor; but the archbishop -insisted that his instructions should stand, and obedience be yielded to -his injunctions[26]. - -While, under the direction of the Archbishop, he was thus severe with -the heterodox, he was equally zealous in supporting the establishment -of which he was a dignitary: exertions were now making by the King, the -Clergy, and indeed all orders of people, for the restoring Saint Paul’s -cathedral, which had remained in ruins since its second destruction by -fire, early in Elizabeth’s reign. In 1631 a special commission was -issued by the King, for the purpose of collecting money, to be applied -to this purpose. The subscription went on tardily till Laud contributed -a hundred pounds, to be renewed annually, and “Corbet bishop of Norwich -(then almoner to the king) giving four hundred pounds, multitudes of -others, says Stowe, for eleven years together brought in their monies -very plentifully[27].” Nor did his liberality stop here: Wood says[28] -that in addition to this contribution, which at the time we speak of was -an enormous bounty, he gave money to many needy ministers, thereby to -excite the donations of their wealthier brethren; and he pronounced the -following admonitory, persuasive and satirical address[29] to the clergy -of his diocese: - -“Saint Paul’s church! One word in the behalf of Saint Paul; he hath -spoken many in ours: he hath raised our inward temples. Let us help to -requite him in his outward. We admire commonly those things which are -oldest and greatest: old monuments, and high buildings, do affect us -above measure: and what is the reason? Because what is oldest cometh -nearest God for antiquity: and what is greatest, comes nearest his works -for spaciousness and magnitude: so that in honouring these we honour -God, whom old and great do seem to imitate. Should I commend Paul’s to -you for the age, it were worth your thought and admiration. A thousand -years, though it should fall now, were a pretty climacterical. See the -bigness, and your eye never yet beheld such a goodly object. It’s worth -the reparation, though it were but for a land mark; but, beloved, it is a -church, and consecrated to God. From Charles to Ethelbert she hath been -the joy of princes. It was once dedicated to Diana (at least some part of -it); but the idolatry lasted not long. And see a mystery in the change: -Saint Paul confuting twice the idol, there in person, where the cry was, -‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians!’ and here: by proxy. Paul installed, -where Diana is thrust out. It did magnify the creation, it was taken -out of the darkness: light is not the clearer for it, but stronger and -more wonderful: and it doth beautify this church, because it was taken -from pollution. The stones are not the more durable, but the happier -for it. It is worthy the standing for the age, the time since it was -built, and for the structure, so stately an edifice is it: it is worthy -to stand for a memorial of it from which it is redeemed, but chiefly for -his house that dwells therein. We are bound to do it, for the service -sake that is done in it. Are we not beholden to it, every man, either to -the body, or the choir: for a walk or a warbling note: for a prayer or -a thorough-path? Some way or other, there is a topick may make room for -your benevolence. - -“It hath twice suffered Martyrdom: and both by fire, in the time of Henry -the Sixth and the third of Elizabeth. - -“Saint Paul complained of Stoning twice; his church of firing: stoning -she wants, indeed, and a good stoning would repair her. - -“Saint Faith holds her up, I confess. Oh that works were sainted to -keep her upright! The first way of building churches was by ways of -benevolence; but then there needed no petition: men came on so fast that -they were commanded to be kept back, but repairing now, needs petition. -Benevolence was a fire once had need to be quenched: it is a spark, now -and needs blowing on it: blow it hard, _and put it out_. Some petitions -there are, for pulling down of such an isle, or changing lead for thack: -so far from reparation, that our suit is to demolish. If to deny this -be persecution, if to repair churches be innovation, I’ll be of that -religion too. - -“I remember a tale in Henry Steevens, in his Apology for Herodotus, or -in some of the Colloquies of Erasmus, which would have us believe that -times were so depraved in popery, that all œconomical discipline was lost -by observing the œcumenical; that if an ingenious person would ask his -father’s blessing, he must get a dispensation and have a licence from the -bishop. - -“Believe me when I match this tale with another. Since Christmas I was -sued to (and I have it under the hands of the minister and the whole -parish) that I would give way to the adorning of the church within and -without, to build a stone wall about the church-yard which till now -had but a hedge. I took it for a flout at first, but it proved a suit -indeed; they durst not mend a fault of forty years, without a licence. -Churchwardens, though they say it not, yet I doubt me most of them think -it, that foul spirits in the Gospel said, ‘O thou Bishop or Chancellor, -what! art thou come to torment us before the time, that all is come down -to the ground?’ The truth went out once in this phrase: ‘Zelus domûs tuæ -exedit ossa mea,’ but now vice versa, it is, ‘Zelus meus exedit domum -tuam.’ I hope I gall none here. - -“Should Christ say that to us now which he said once to the Jews, -‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again:’ we -would quickly know his meaning not to be the material temple. Three years -can scarce promoove three foot. - -“I am verily persuaded, were it not for the pulpit and the pews, (I do -not now mean the altar and the font for the two sacraments, but for the -pulpit and the stools as you call them;) many churches had been down -that stand. Stately pews are now become tabernacles, with rings and -curtains to them. There wants nothing but beds to hear the word of God -on; we have casements, locks and keys, and cushions; I had almost said, -bolsters and pillows: and for those we love the church. I will not guess -what is done within them, who sits, stands, or lies asleep, at prayers, -communion, &c., but this I dare say, they are either to hide some vice or -to proclaim one; to hide disorder, or proclaim pride. - -“In all other contributions justice precedes charity. For the King, -or for poor, as you are rated you must give and pay. It is not so in -benevolence. Here Charity rates herself; her gift is arbitrary, and her -law is the conscience. He that stays till I persuade him, gives not all -his own money: I give half that have procured it. He that comes persuaded -gives his own; but takes off more than he brought, God paying use for -nothing. But now comes your turn to speak, or God in you by your hands: -for so he useth to speak many times by the hands of Moses and Aaron, -and by the hands of Esay and Ezekiel, and by the hands of you his minor -prophets. Now prosper, O Lord! the works of these hands! O prosper Thou -our handy work! Amen.” - -He was not fated, however, to witness the elevation of the temple in -favour of which he was thus active and benevolent; indeed he was then -consuming with lingering disorders. “Corbet, bishop of Norwich,” says the -garrulous correspondent of lord Strafford, “is dying; the best poet of -all the bishops in England. He hath incurable diseases upon him, and hath -been said to be dead[30].” This was written on the 30th of July, 1635, -and he had rested from his labours two days preceding. He was buried in -the cathedral church of his diocese, where a large stone was laid over -his remains, to which a brass plate was affixed, bearing his arms and the -following inscription: - - Ricardus Corbet, Theologiæ Doctor, - Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Christi Oxoniensis - Primum Alumnus, deinde Decanus, exinde - Episcopus, illinc huc translatus, et - Hinc in cœlum Jul. 28. An. 1635. - -By his will “he commits and commends the nurture and maintenance of his -son and daughter to the faythful and loving care of his mother-in-law -Anne Hutton;” from which, and the total silence as to his wife, I -conclude he outlived her—and with a legacy of one thousand pounds to his -daughter Alice, to be paid at her attaining the age of seventeen, or -upon her marriage, he enjoins her not to marry without the consent of her -grandmother. By the further provisions of his testament, his son was to -be joined with Anne Hutton in the administration upon his attaining the -age of seventeen; and in case of the decease of both, the whole was to -devolve upon his daughter Alice. - -Such was the end of this learned and ingenious prelate and poet, of whose -works I have undertaken the revision, and in collecting the scattered -memorials for whose biography, - - et etiam disjecta membra poetæ, - -I have, I hope not unprofitably to myself or others, employed some -leisure hours. - -His person, if we may rely upon a fine portrait of him in the hall of -Christ-Church, Oxford, was dignified, and his frame above the common -size: one of his companions[31] says he had - - A face that might heaven to affection draw: - -and Aubrey says, he had heard that “he had an admirable grave and -venerable aspect.” - -In no record of his life is there the slightest trace of malevolence or -tyranny: “he was,” says Fullers[32], “of a courteous carriage, and no -destructive nature to any who offended him, counting himself plentifully -repaired with a jest upon him.” Benevolent, generous and spirited in his -public character; sincere, amiable, and affectionate in private life; -correct, eloquent, and ingenious as a poet; he appears to have deserved -and enjoyed through life the patronage and friendship of the great, and -the applause and estimation of the good. - -Apology is not necessary for his writings, or it might be urged that -they were not intended for publication by their author. “His merits are -disclosed,” and, at the distance of near a century and a half, are now -again submitted to the censure of the public. - -His panegyric is liberal without grossness, and complimentary without -servility: his satires on the Puritans, a pestilent race which Corbet -fortunately did not live to see ascendant, and which soon after his -decease sunk literature and the arts in “the Serbonian bog” of ignorance -and fanaticism, evince his skill in severe and ludicrous reproof; and -the addresses to his son and his parents, while they are proofs of his -filial and parental regard, bear testimony to his command over the finer -feelings. But the predominant faculty of his mind was wit, which he -employed with most success when directed ironically: of this the address -“to the Ghost of Wisdome,” and “the Distracted Puritane,” are memorable -examples. Indeed he was unable to overcome his talent for humour, even -when circumstance and character concurred to repress its indulgence. Of -this propensity the following anecdotes, copied _verbatim_ from Aubrey’s -MSS. in Mus. Ashmole[33], are curious proofs, and may not improperly -close this account of a character which they tend forcibly to illustrate. - -“After he was doctor of divinity, he sang ballads at the Crosse at -Abingdon; on a market-day he and some of his comrades were at the taverne -by the Crosse, (which, by the way, was then the finest of England; I -remember it when I was a freshman; it was admirable curious Gothicque -architecture, and fine figures in the nitches; ’twas one of those built -by king ... for his queen.) The ballad-singer complayned he had no -custome—he could not put off his ballads. The jolly Doctor puts off his -gowne, and puts on the ballad-singer’s leathern jacket, and being a -handsome man, and a rare full voice, he presently vended a great many, -and had a great audience. - -“After the death of Dr. Goodwin, he was made deane of Christ-Church. He -had a good interest with great men, as you may finde in his poems; and -that with the then great favourite the duke of Bucks, his excellent wit -ever ’twas of recommendation to him. I have forgot the story; but at the -same time Dr. Fell thought to have carried it, Dr. Corbet put a pretty -trick on him to let him take a journey to London for it, when he had -alreadie the graunt of it. - -“His conversation was extreme pleasant. Dr. Stubbins was one of his -cronies; he was a jolly fat doctor, and a very good housekeeper. As -Dr. Corbet and he were riding in Lob-lane in wet weather, (’tis an -extraordinary deepe dirty lane,) the coach fell, and Corbet said, that -Dr. S. was up to the elbows in mud, and he was up to the elbows in -Stubbins. - -“A. D. 1628, he was made bishop of Oxford; and I have heard that he had -an admirable grave and venerable aspect. - -“One time as he was confirming, the country people pressing in to see -the ceremonie, said he, ‘Beare off there! or I’ll confirm ye with my -staffe.’—Another time, being to lay his hand on the head of a man very -bald, he turns to his chaplaine, and said, ‘Some dust, Lushington,’ to -keepe his hand from slipping.—There was a man with a great venerable -beard; said the bishop, ‘You, behind the beard!’ - -“His chaplaine, Dr. Lushington, was a very learned and ingenious man, and -they loved one another. The Bishop would sometimes take the key of the -wine-cellar, and he and his chaplaine would go and lock themselves in -and be merry; then first he layes down his episcopal hood, ‘There layes -the doctor;’ then he putts off his gowne, ‘There layes the bishop;’ then -’twas, ‘Here’s to thee, Corbet;’—‘Here’s to thee, Lushington.’” - -One word on the subject of the former editions; which bear dates 1647, -1648, and 1672. The first and last impressions correspond in their -contents, and the publisher of the latter has also copied, for the most -part, the errors of his predecessor, which are so numerous as to render -the poems not unfrequently unintelligible. I must observe, however, -from the information of Mr. Park, that many copies of the first edition -conclude at page 53. The additions extend the volume to 85 pages. The -only impression with any pretension to accuracy is that of 1648, which, -from its internal evidence, I suspect was published under the eye of the -Bishop’s family; I have therefore retained the Preface. It contains only -twenty-four poems. - -An edition bearing the date of 1663 is cited in Willis’s Cathedrals; but, -it is believed, through mistake. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - -[_Additions to the former Impressions of Corbet’s Poems are distinguished -by an Asterisk, thus_: *] - - Page - - * Life of the Author v - - Preface to the Edition of 1648 lxiii - - * Commendatory Poems lxv - - An Elegie on Dr. Ravis 3 - - * Thomæ Coriato de Odcombe 9 - - To Thomas Coryate 11 - - A certaine Poem, &c. to the tune of “Bonny Nell” 13 - - * An Answer to the former Song, &c. 22 - - * Responsio, &c. 25 - - * Additamenta superiori Cantico 42 - - On the Lady Arabella Stuart 43 - - Upon Mistriss Mallet; an unhandsome gentlewoman who made love - unto him 47 - - In quendam Anniversariorum Scriptorem 52 - - An Answer to the same, by Dr. Price 54 - - In Poetam exauctoratum et emeritum 56 - - * On Francis Beaumont, then newly dead 58 - - An Elegie on the late Lord William Howard of Effingham 59 - - To the Lord Mordaunt, upon his returne from the North 66 - - * To the Prince 82 - - A Newe-Years Gift to my Lorde Duke of Buckingham 83 - - A Letter to Sir Thomas Aylesbury 65 - - Dr. Corbet’s Journey into France 94 - - An Exhortation to Mr. John Hamon 103 - - An Elegie upon the Death of Queen Anne 112 - - An Elegie upon the Death of his owne Father 118 - - An Elegie upon the Death of the Lady Haddington 123 - - On the Christ-Church Play at Woodstock 131 - - A Letter to the Duke of Buckingham, being with the Prince - in Spaine 134 - - On the Earle of Dorset’s Death 142 - - To the Newe-born Prince 146 - - On the Birth of the young Prince Charles 148 - - To his Son Vincent Corbet 149 - - An Epitaph on Dr. Donne, Dean of Pauls 152 - - * Certain few Woordes spoken concerninge one Benet Corbett after - her decease 154 - - Iter Boreale 156 - - On Mr. Rice, the Manciple of Christ-Church in Oxford 205 - - On Henry Bollings 206 - - On John Dawson, Butler of Christ-Church 207 - - On Great Tom of Christ-Church 209 - - R.C. 212 - - A proper new Ballad, entituled The Faeryes Farewell 213 - - * A Non Sequitur 218 - - Nonsence 220 - - * The Country Life 222 - - To the Ghost of Robert Wisdome 228 - - An Epitaph on Thomas Jonce 230 - - To the Ladies of the New Dresse 232 - - * The Ladies’ Answer 233 - - * Corbet’s Reply 234 - - On Fairford Windows 235 - - * Another on the same 239 - - The Distracted Puritane 243 - - * Oratio in Funus Henrici Principis 249 - - * In Obitum Domini Thomæ Bodleii 260 - - - - -TO THE READER. - -(From Edition 1648.) - - -READER, - -I heere offer to view a collection of certaine peices of poetry, which -have _flowne_ from hand to hand, these many yeares, in _private_ papers, -but were never _fixed_ for the _publique_ eie of the worlde to looke -upon, till now[34]. If that witt which runnes in every veyne of them -seeme somewhat _out of fashion_, because tis neither _amorous_ nor -_obscene_, thou must remember that the author, although scarse a _Divine_ -when many of them were written, had not only so _masculine_ but even so -_modest_ a witt also, that he would lett nothing fall from his pen but -what he himselfe might owne, and never blush, when he was a _bishop_; -little imagining the age would ever come, when his calling should prove -more out of fashion than his witt could. As concerning any thing else to -be added in commendation of the author, I shall never thinke of it; for -as for those men who did _knowe him_, or ever _heard of him_, they need -none of _my good opinion_: and as for those who _knew him not_, and never -so much as _heard of him_, I am sure he needs none of _theirs_. - -Farewell. - - - - -COMMENDATORY POEMS. - - -TO THE DEANE, - -(From Flower in Northamptonshire, 1625,) - -NOW THE WORTHY BISHOP OF NORWICH. - -BY ROBERT GOMERSALL[35]. - - Still to be silent, or to write in prose, - Were alike sloth, such as I leave to those - Who either want the grace of wit, or have - Untoward arguments: like him that gave - Life to the flea, or who without a guest - Would prove that famine was the only feast; - Self tyrants, who their braines doubly torment, - Both for their matter and their ornament. - If these do stutter sometimes, and confesse - That they are tired, we could expect no lesse. - But when my matter is prepared and fit, - When nothing’s wanting but an equal wit, - I need no Muse’s help to ayde me on, - Since that my subject is my Helicon. - And such are you: O give me leave, dear sir, - (He that is thankful is no flatterer,) - To speak full truth: Wherever I find worth, - I shew I have it if I set it forth: - You read yourself in these; here you may see - A ruder draft of Corbet’s infancy. - For I professe, if ever I had thought - Needed not blush if publish’d, were there ought - Which was call’d mine durst beare a critic’s view, - I was the instrument, but the author you. - I need not tell you of our health, which here - Must be presum’d, nor yet shall our good cheare - Swell up my paper, as it has done me, - Or as the Mayor’s feast does Stowe’s History: - Without an early bell to make us rise, - Health calls us up and novelty; our eyes - Have divers objects still on the same ground, - As if the Earth had each night walk’d her round - To bring her best things hither: ’tis a place - Not more the pride of shires then the disgrace, - Which I’de not leave, had I my Dean to boot, - For the large offers of the cloven-foot - Unto our Saviour, but you not being here - ’Tis to me, though a rare one, but a shire; - A place of good earth, if compared with worse, - Which hath a lesser part in Adam’s curse: - Or, for to draw a simile from the High’st, - Tis like unto salvation without Christ, - A fairly situate prison: When again - Shall I enjoy that friendship, and that braine? - When shall I once more hear, in a few words, - What all the learning of past times affords? - Austin epitomiz’d, and him that can - To make him clear contract Tertullian. - But I detain you from them: Sir, adieu! - You read their works, but let me study you. - - -ON DR. CORBET’S MARRIAGE. - -(From “Wit Restored,” 8vo. 1658.) - - Come all yee Muses and rejoice - At your Apolloe’s happy choice; - Phœbus has conquer’d Cupid’s charme; - Fair Daphne flys into his arm. - If Daphne be a tree, then mark, - Apollo is become the barke. - If Daphne be a branch of bay, - He weares her for a crowne to-day: - O happy bridegroom! which dost wed - Thyself unto a virgin’s bed. - Let thy love burne with hot desire, - She lacks no oil to feed the fire. - You know not poore Pigmalion’s lot, - Nor have you a mere idol got. - You no Ixion, you no proud - Juno makes embrace a cloud. - Looke how pure Diana’s skin - Appeares as it is shadow’d in - A chrystal streame; or look what grace - Shines in fair Venus’ lovely face, - Whilst she Adonis courts and woos; - Such beauties, yea and more than those, - Sparkle in her; see but her soul, - And you will judge those beauties foul. - Her rarest beauty is within, - She’s fairest where she is not seen; - Now her perfection’s character - You have approv’d, and chosen her. - O precious! she at this wedding - The jewel weares—the marriage ring. - Her understanding’s deep: like the - Venetian duke, you wed the sea; - A sea deep, bottomless, profound, - And which none but yourself may sound. - Blind Cupid shot not this love-dart; - Your reason chose, and not your heart; - You knew her little, and when her - Apron was but a muckender, - When that same coral which doth deck - Her lips she wore about her neck: - You courted her, you woo’d her, not - Out of a window, she was got - And born your wife; it may be said - Her cradle was her marriage-bed. - The ring, too, was layd up for it - Untill her finger was growne fit: - You once gave her to play withal - A babie, and I hope you shall - This day your ancient gift renew, - So she will do the same for you: - In virgin wax imprint, upon - Her breast, your own impression; - You may (there is no treason in ’t) - Coine sterling, now you have a mint. - You are now stronger than before, - Your side hath in it one ribb more. - Before she was akin to me - Only in soul and amity; - But now we are, since shee’s your bride, - In soul and body both allyde: - ’Tis this has made me less to do, - And I in one can honour two. - This match a riddle may be styled, - Two mothers now have but one child; - Yet need we not a Solomon, - Each mother here enjoyes her own. - Many there are I know have tried - To make her their own lovely bride; - But it is Alexander’s lot - To cut in twaine the Gordian knot: - Claudia, to prove that she was chast, - Tyed but a girdle to her wast, - And drew a ship to Rome by land: - But now the world may understand - Here is a Claudia too; fair bride, - Thy spotlesse innocence is tried; - None but thy girdle could have led - Our Corbet to a marriage bed. - Come, all ye Muses, and rejoice - At this your nurslings happy choice: - Come, Flora, strew the bridemaid’s bed, - And with a garland crowne her head; - Or if thy flowers be to seek, - Come gather roses at her cheek. - Come, Hymen, light thy torches, let - Thy bed with tapers be beset, - And if there be no fire by, - Come light thy taper at her eye; - In that bright eye there dwells a starre, - And wise men by it guided are. - In those delicious eyes there be - Two little balls of ivory: - How happy is he then that may - With these two dainty balls goe play. - Let not a teare drop from that eye, - Unlesse for very joy to cry. - O let your joy continue! may - A whole age be your wedding-day! - O happy virgin! is it true - That your deare spouse embraceth you? - Then you from heaven are not farre, - But sure in Abraham’s bosom are. - Come, all ye Muses, and rejoyce - At your Apollo’s happy choice. - - -VERSES IN HONOUR OF BISHOP CORBET, - -Found in a blank leaf of his Poems in MS. - - If flowing wit, if verses writ with ease, - If learning void of pedantry can please; - If much good-humour joined to solid sense, - And mirth accompanied with innocence, - Can give a poet a just right to fame, - Then Corbet may immortal honours claim; - For he these virtues had, and in his lines - Poetic and heroic spirit shines; - Though bright yet solid, pleasant but not rude, - With wit and wisdom equally endued. - Be silent, Muse, thy praises are too faint, - Thou want’st a power this prodigy to paint, - At once a poet, prelate, and a saint. - - J. C. - - -UPON MY GOOD LORD THE BISHOP OF NORWICHE, RICHARD CORBET, _WHO DYED JULY -28, 1635_, AND LYES BURIED IN HIS CATHEDRAL CHURCHE. - -[By Mr. JOHN TAYLOR of NORWICH: From the Cabinet, published there in -1795.] - - Ye rural bardes who haunte the budding groves, - Tune your wilde reeds to sing the wood-larkes loves, - And let the softe harpe of the hawthorn vale - Melt in sweete euloge to the nightingale; - Yet haplie, Drummond, well thy muse might raise - Aires not earth-born to suit my _raven’s_ praise. - - Raven he was, yet was no gloomie fowle, - Merrie at hearte, though innocente of soule; - Where’er he perkt, the birds that came anighe - Constrayned caught the humour of his eye: - Under that shade no spights and wrongs were spred, - Care came not nigh with his uncomlie head. - - Somewhile the thicke embranching trees amonge, - Where Isis doth his waters leade alonge, - Kissinge with modeste lippe the holie soyle, - Reflecting backe each hallowed grove the while; - Here did my raven trie his dulcive note, - Charming old Science with his mellow throat. - - Sometimes with scholiasts deep in anciente lore, - Through learnings long defyles he would explore; - Then with keene wit untie the perplext knot - Of Aristotle or the cunning Scot; - Anon loud laughter shook the arched hall, - For mirth stood redy at his potente call. - - Oxforde, thou couldst not binde his outspred wing, - My raven flew where bade his princelye king; - Norwiche must honours give he did not crave, - Norwiche must lend his palace and his grave: - And that kinde hearte which gave such vertue birth - Must here be shrouded in the greedie earth. - - Ofte hath thy humble lay-clerke led along, - When thou wert by, the eve or matin song; - And oftimes rounde thy marble shall he strole, - To chaunte sad requiems to thy soothed soul;— - Sleep on, till Gabriel’s trump shall break thy sleep, - And thou and I one heavenlie holiday shall keep. - - - - -Bp. Corbet’s Poems. - - - - -DR. THOMAS RAVIS. - - -In the following tribute to the memory of a fellow-collegian, and -predecessor in the deanery of Christ Church, it will not be too much to -conjecture that Corbet was urged by gratitude for kindness experienced -while the latter was young. The “Elegie” was evidently written -immediately upon the interment of its subject, as towards its conclusion -he complains that no tomb was raised over his remains; a complaint which -was soon after obviated, when a fair monument was erected, bearing the -following inscription, which contains all that is necessary to be told -here of the circumstances of his life and character: - - “MEMORIÆ SACRUM. - - Thomas Ravis, claris natalibus Mauldenæ in Suthreia natus, - Regius Alumnus in Schola Westmonasteriensi educatus, in - Academiam Oxoniensem adscitus, omnes academicos honores - consequutus, et magistratibus perfunctus, Decanus Ecclesiæ - Christi ibidem constitutus, et bis Academiæ Pro-Cancellarius. - Unde ob doctrinam, gravitatem, et spectatam prudentiam, à Rege - Jacobo, primum ad Episcopatum Glocestrensem provectus, deinde - ad Londinensem translatus, et demum à Christo, dum Ecclesiæ, - Patriæ, Principi vigilaret, in cœlestem patriam evocatus, - placide pieque emigravit, et quod mortale fuit, certa spe - resurgendi, hic deposuit, die 14 Decembris, An. salutis 1609.” - - - - -AN ELEGIE WRITTEN UPON THE DEATH OF DR. RAVIS, BISHOP OF LONDON. - - - When I past Paules, and travell’d in that walke - Where all oure Brittaine-sinners sweare and talk[36]; - Ould Harry-ruffians, bankerupts, southsayers, - And youth, whose cousenage is as ould as theirs; - And then beheld the body of my lord - Trodd under foote by vice that he abhorr’d; - It wounded me the Landlord of all times - Should let long lives and leases to their crimes, - And to _his_ springing honour did afford - Scarce soe much time as to the prophet’s gourd. - Yet since swift flights of virtue have apt ends, - Like breath of angels, which a blessing sends, - And vanisheth withall, whilst fouler deeds - Expect a tedious harvest for bad seeds; - I blame not fame and nature if they gave, - Where they could give no more, their last, a grave. - And wisely doe thy greived freinds forbeare - Bubbles and alabaster boyes to reare - On thy religious dust: for men did know - Thy life, which such illusions cannot show: - For thou hast trod among those happy ones - Who trust not in their superscriptions, - Their hired epitaphs, and perjured stone, - Which oft belyes the soule when shee is gon; - And durst committ thy body, as it lyes, - To tongues of living men, nay unborne eyes. - What profits thee a sheet of lead? What good - If on thy coarse a marble quarry stood? - Let those that feare their rising purchase vaults, - And reare them statues to excuse their faults; - As if, like birds that peck at painted grapes, - Their judge knew not their _persons_ from their _shapes_. - Whilst thou assured, through thy easyer dust - Shall rise at first; they would not though they must. - Nor needs the Chancellor boast, whose pyramis - Above the host and altar reared is[37]; - For though thy body fill a viler roome, - Thou shalt not change _deedes_ with him for his _tombe_. - - - - -THOMÆ CORIATO DE ODCOMBE. - - -The following panegyric on the hero of Odcombe, Thomas Coryate, a -pedantic coxcomb, with just brains enough to be ridiculous, to whom the -world is much more indebted for becoming “the whetstone of the wits” -than for any doings of his own, and the particulars of whose life and -peregrinations may be found in every collection of biography, is printed -in the Odcombian Banquet, 1611, 4to. sign. I. 3. - -The Latin lines have been omitted in the former impressions of Bishop -Corbet’s poems. - - - - -SPECTATISSIMO, PUNCTISQUE OMNIBUS DIGNISSIMO, THOMÆ CORIATO DE ODCOMBE, -PEREGRINANTI, PEDESTRIS ORDINIS, EQUESTRISQUE FAMÆ. - - - Quod mare transieris, quod rura urbesque pedester, - Jamque colat reduces patria læta pedes: - Quodque idem numero tibi calceus hæret, et illo - Cum _corio_ redeas, quo _Coriatus_ abis: - Fatum omenque tui miramur nominis, ex quo - Calcibus et soleis fluxit aluta tuis. - Nam quicunque cadem vestigia tentat, opinor - Excoriatus erit, ni _Coriatus_ eat. - - -IN LIBRUM SUUM. - - De te pollicitus librum es, sed in te - Est magnus tuus hic liber libellus. - - - - -TO THOMAS CORYATE. - - - I do not wonder, Coryate, that thou hast - Over the Alpes, through France and Savoy past, - Parch’d on thy skin, and founder’d in thy feete, - Faint, thirstie, lowsy, and didst live to see ’t. - Though these are Roman sufferings, and do shew - What creatures back thou hadst could carry so, - All I admire is thy returne, and how - Thy slender pasterns could thee beare, when now - Thy observations with thy braine ingendered, - Have stuft thy massy and voluminous head - With mountaines, abbies, churches, synagogues, - Preputial offals, and Dutch dialogues: - A burthen far more grievous then the weight - Of wine or sleep; more vexing than the freight - Of fruit and oysters, which lade many a pate, - And send folks crying home from Billingsgate. - No more shall man with mortar on his head - Set forwards towards Rome: No! thou art bred - A terror to all footmen, and all porters, - And all laymen that will turne Jews exhorters, - To flie their conquered trade. Proud England then - Embrace this luggage[38], which the Man of men - Hath landed here, and change thy well-a-day! - Into some homespun welcome roundelay. - Send of this stuffe thy territories thorough - To Ireland, Wales, and Scottish, Eddenborough. - There let this booke be read and understood, - Where is no theame nor writer halfe so good. - - - - -A CERTAIN POEM, - -_As it was presented in Latine by Divines and others before His Majesty -in Cambridge, by way of Enterlude, styled ~Liber novus de Adventu Regis -ad Cantabrigiam~. Faithfully done into English, with some liberal -Additions. Made rather to be sunge than read, to the Tune of Bonny Nell._ - -(The Notes are from a MS. copy in the Editor’s possession.) - - - It is not yet a fortnight since - Lutetia[39] entertain’d our prince, - And vented hath a studied toy - As long[40] as was the siege of Troy: - And spent herself for full five days - In speeches, exercise, and plays. - - To trim the town, great care before - Was tane by th’ lord vice-chancellor; - Both morn and even he cleans’d the way, - The streets he gravelled thrice a day: - One strike of March-dust for to see - No proverb[41] would give more than he. - - Their colledges were new be-painted, - Their founders eke were new be-sainted; - Nothing escap’d, nor post, nor door, - Nor gate, nor rail, nor bawd, nor whore: - You could not know (Oh strange mishap!) - Whether you saw the _town_ or _map_. - - But the pure house of _Emanuel_[42] - Would not be like proud _Jesabel_, - Nor shew her self before the king - An hypocrite, or _painted_ thing: - But, that the ways might all prove fair, - Conceiv’d a tedious mile of prayer. - - Upon the look’d-for seventh[43] of _March_, - Outwent the townsmen all in starch, - Both band and beard, into the field, - Where one a speech could hardly wield; - For needs he would begin his stile, - The king being from him half a mile. - - They gave the king a piece of plate, - Which they hop’d never came too late; - But cry’d, Oh! look not in, great king, - For there is in it just nothing: - And so prefer’d with tune and gate, - A speech as empty as their plate. - - Now, as the king came neer the town, - Each one ran crying up and down, - Alas poor _Oxford_, thou’rt undone, - For now the king’s past _Trompington_, - And rides upon his brave gray dapple, - Seeing the top of _Kings-Colledge_ chappel. - - Next rode his lordship[44] on a nag, - Whose coat was blue[45], whose ruff was shag, - And then began his reverence - To speak most eloquent non-sense: - See how (quoth he) most mighty prince, - For very joy my horse doth wince. - - What cryes the town? What we? (said he) - What cryes the University? - What cry the boys? What ev’ry thing? - Behold, behold, yon comes the king: - And ev’ry period he bedecks - With _En & Ecce venit Rex_. - - Oft have I warn’d (quoth he) our dirt - That no silk stockings should be hurt; - But we in vain strive to be fine, - Unless your graces sun doth shine; - And with the beams of your bright eye, - You will be pleas’d our streets to dry. - - Now come we to the wonderment - Of _Christendom_, and eke of _Kent_, - The _Trinity_; which to surpass, - Doth deck her spokesman[46] by a glass: - Who, clad in gay and silken weeds, - Thus opes his mouth, hark how he speeds. - - I wonder what your grace doth here, - Who have expected been twelve year, - And this your son, fair _Carolus_, - That is so _Jacobissimus_[47]: - Here’s none, of all, your grace refuses, - You are most welcome to our Muses. - - Although we have no bells to jangle, - Yet can we shew a fair quadrangle, - Which, though it ne’re was grac’d with king, - Yet sure it is a goodly thing: - My warning’s short, no more I’le say, - Soon you shall see a gallant play. - - But nothing was so much admir’d, - As were their plays so well attir’d; - Nothing did win more praise of mine, - Then did their actors most divine[48]: - So did they drink their healths divinely; - So did they dance and skip so finely. - - Their plays had sundry grave wise factors, - A perfect diocess of actors - Upon the stage; for I am sure that - There was both bishop, pastor, curat: - Nor was their labour light, or small, - The charge of some was pastoral. - - Our plays were certainly much worse, - For they had a brave hobby-horse, - Which did present unto his grace - A wondrous witty ambling pace: - But we were chiefly spoyl’d by that - Which was six hours of _God knows what_[49]. - - His lordship then was in a rage, - His lordship lay upon the stage, - His lordship cry’d, All would be marr’d: - His lordship lov’d a-life the guard, - And did invite those mighty men, - To what think you? Even to a _Hen_. - - He knew he was to use their might - To help to keep the door at night, - And well bestow’d he thought his hen, - That they might Tolebooth[50] _Oxford_ men: - He thought it did become a lord - To threaten with that bug-bear word. - - Now pass we to the civil law, - And eke the doctors of the spaw, - Who all perform’d their parts so well, - Sir _Edward Ratcliff_[51] bore the bell, - Who was, by the kings own appointment, - To speak of spells, and magick oyntment. - - The doctors of the civil law - Urg’d ne’re a reason worth a straw; - And though they went in silk and satten, - They _Thomson_-like[52] clip’d the kings Latine; - But yet his grace did pardon then - All treasons against _Priscian_. - - Here no man spake ought to the point, - But all they said was out of joint; - Just like the chappel ominous - I’ the colledge called _God with us_: - Which truly[53] doth stand much awry, - Just north and south, _yes verily_. - - Philosophers did well their parts, - Which prov’d them masters of their arts; - Their moderator was no fool, - He far from _Cambridge_ kept a school: - The country did such store afford, - The proctors might not speak a word. - - But to conclude, the king was pleas’d, - And of the court the town was eas’d: - Yet _Oxford_ though (dear sister) hark yet, - The king is gone but to _New-market_, - And comes again e’re it be long, - Then you may make another song. - - The king being gone from _Trinity_, - They make a scramble for degree; - Masters of all sorts, and all ages, - Keepers, subcizers, lackeyes, pages, - Who all did throng to come aboard, - With _Pray make me_ now, _Good my lord_. - - They prest his lordship wondrous hard, - His lordship then did want the guard; - So did they throng him for the nonce, - Until he blest them all at once, - And cryed, _Hodiissimè_: - _Omnes Magistri estote_. - - Nor is this all which we do sing, - For of your praise the world must ring: - Reader, unto your tackling look, - For there is coming forth a book - Will spoyl _Joseph Barnesius_ - The sale of _Rex Platonicus_. - - - - -AN ANSWER TO THE FORMER SONG, IN LATIN AND ENGLISH, BY ⸺ LAKES. - -(From an Autograph in the Editor’s possession.) - - - A ballad late was made, - But God knowes who ’es the penner, - Some say the rhyming sculler, - And others say ’twas Fenner[54]: - But they that know the style - Doe smell it by the collar, - And do maintaine it was the braine - Of some yong Oxford scholler. - - And first he rails on Cambridge, - And thinkes her to disgrace, - By calling her _Lutetia_, - And throws dirt in her face: - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For all the world must grant, - If Oxford be thy mother, - Then Cambridge is thy aunt. - - Then goes he to the town, - And puts it all in starch, - For other rhyme he could not find - To fit the seventh of March: - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For I must vail the bonnet, - And cast the caps at Cambridge - For making song and sonnet. - - Thence goes he to their present, - And there he doth purloyne, - For looking in their plate - He nimmes away their coyne: - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For ’tis a dangerous thing - To steal from corporations - The presents of a king. - - Next that, my lord vice-chancellor - He brings before the prince, - And in the face of all the court - He makes his horse to wince. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For sure that jest did faile, - Unless you clapt a nettle - Under his horse’s taile. - - Then aimes he at our orator, - And at his speech he snarles, - Because he forced a word, and called - The prince “most Jacob-Charles.” - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For he did it compose - That puts you down as much for tongue - As you do him for nose. - - Then flies he to our comedies, - And there he doth professe - He saw among our actors - A perfect diocess. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - ’Twas no such witty fiction, - For since you leave the vicar out, - You spoile the jurisdiction. - - Next that he backes the hobby-horse, - And with a scholler’s grace, - Not able to endure the trott, - He’d bring him to the pase: - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - For you will hardly do it, - Since all the riders in your muse - Could never bring him to it. - - Polonia land can tell, - Through which he oft did trace, - And bore a fardell at his back, - He nere went other pace. - But leave him, scholler, leave him, - He learned it of his sire, - And if you put him from his trott - Hee’l lay you in the myre. - - Our horse has thrown his rider; - But now he meanes to shame us, - And in the censuring of our play - Conspires with Ignoramus. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - And call ’t not “God knows what,” - Your head was making ballads - When you should mark the plot. - - His fantasie, still working, - Finds out another crotchet; - Then runs he to the bishop, - And rides upon his rotchet. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - And take it not in snuff, - For he that weares no picadell - By law may weare a ruffe. - - Next that he goes to dinner, - And, like an hardy guest, - When he had cramm’d his belly full - He railes against the feast. - But leave it, scholler, leave it; - For, since you eat his roast, - It argues want of manners - To raile upon the host. - - Now listen, masters, listen, - That tax us for our riot, - For here two men went to a ken, - So slender was the diet. - Then leave him, scholler, leave him, - He yieldes himself your debtor, - And next time he’s vice-chancellor - Your table shall be better. - - Then goes he to the Regent-house, - And there he sits and sees - How lackeys and subsisers press - And scramble for degrees. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - ’Twas much against our mind, - But when the prison doors are ope - Noe thief will stay behind. - - Behold, more anger yet: - He threatens us ere long, - When as the king comes back againe, - To make another song. - But leave it, scholler, leave it, - Your weakness you disclose; - For “Bonny Nell” doth plainly tell - Your wit lies all in prose. - - Nor can you make the world - Of Cambridge praise to singe, - A mouth so foul no market eare - Will stand to hear it sing. - Then leave it, scholler, leave it, - For yet you cannot say, - The king did go from you in March - And come again in May. - - - - -RESPONSIO, &c. PER ⸺ LAKES. - - - Facta est cantilena, - Sed nescio quo autore; - An fluxerit ex remige, - An ex Fenneri ore. - Sed qui legerunt, contendunt, - Esse hanc tenelli - Oxoniensis nescio cujus - Prolem cerebelli. - - Nam primò Cantabrigiam - Convitiis execravit, - Quod vocitat Lutetiam, - Et luto conspurcavit. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Nam istud nihil moror, - Quum hujus academiæ - Oxonia sit soror. - - Tunc oppidanos miseros - Horrendo cornu petit, - De quibus dixit, nescio quid, - Et rythmum sic effecit. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Bardos Oxonienses - In canticis non vicimus - Jam Cantabrigienses. - - Jam inspicit cratera - Quæ regi dono datur, - Et aurum ibi positum - Subripere conatur. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Nam scelus istud lues, - Si fraudes sodalitia, - Ad crucem cito rues. - - Dein pro-cancellarium - Produxit equitantem, - In equum valde agilem - Huc et illuc saltantem: - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Nam tibi vix credetur - Si non sub ejus cauda, - Urtica poneretur. - - Tunc evomit sententiam - In ipsum oratorem - Qui dixit Jacobissimum, - Præter Latinum morem. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Orator exit talis - Qui magis pollet lingua - Quam ipse naso vales. - - Adibat ad comœdiam - Et cuncta circumspexit, - Actorum diocesin - Completam hic detexit - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Hæc cogitare mente - Non valet jurisdictio - Vicario absente. - - Fictitio equo subdidit - Calcaria, sperans fore - Ut eum ire cogeret - Gradu submissiore: - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Hoc non efficietur - Si iste stabularius - Habenis moderetur. - - Testis est Polonia, - Quam sæpe is transivit, - Et oneratus sarcina - Eodem gradu ivit. - Tam parce, precor, parcito, - Et credas hoc futurum, - Si Brutum regat Asinus - Gradatim non iturum. - - Comœdiam Ignoramus - Eum spectare libet, - Et hujus delicatulo - Structura non arridet. - At parce, precor, parcito, - Tum aliter versatus - In faciendis canticis - Fuisti occupatus. - - Tum pergit maledicere - Cicestriensi patri, - Et vestes etiam vellicat - Episcopi barbati. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Et nos tu sales pone, - Ne tanti patris careas - Benedictione. - - Tum cibo se ingurgitans - Abunde saginatur, - Et venter cum expletus est, - Danti convitiatur. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Nam illud verum erit, - Quicquid ingrato infecerit - Oxoniensi, perit. - - At ecce nos videmur - Tenaces nimis esse, - Gallinam unam quod spectasset - Duos comedisse. - O parce, precor, parcito, - Hæc culpa corrigetur - Cum rursus Cantabrigia - Episcopo regetur. - - Sed novo in sacello - Pedissequos aspexit, - Quos nostra Academia - Honoribus erexit. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Nam ipse es expertus, - Effugiunt omnes protinus - Cum carcer est apertus. - - At nobis minitatur, - Si rex sit rediturus, - Tunc iste (Phœbo duce) est - Tela resumpturus. - Sed parce, precor, parcito, - Piscator ictus sapit, - Fugatus namque miles iners - Arma nunquam capit. - - Et Cantabrigiam non - Lædi hinc speramus, - Ex ore tam spurcidico - Nil damni expectamus. - O parce, ergo, parcito, - Oxonia nunquam dicit, - Cum Martio princeps abiens - In Maio nos revisit. - - - - -ADDITAMENTA SUPERIORI CANTICO. - - - Ingenij amplitudinem - Jam satis ostendisti, - Et eloquentiæ fructus - Abundè protulisti: - Sed parce, tibi, parcito, - Ne omne absumatur, - Ne tandem tibi arido - Nil suavi relinquatur. - - Jam satis oppugnasti, - O Polyphemi proles! - Et tanquam taurus gregis - Nos oppugnare soles. - Sed parce, tandem, parcito, - Tuis laudatus eris, - Et nunc inultus tanquam stultus - A nobis dimitteris. - - - - -LADY ARABELLA STUART. - - -The circumstances of the life of this accomplished and persecuted lady, - - “From kings descended, and to kings allied,” - -are familiar to every reader of biographical history. In Lodge’s -Illustrations of British History are some letters which convey an exalted -idea of her mental abilities; and the editor has proved, in opposition to -the assertion of the authors of the Biographia Britannica, that she was -far from deficient in personal beauty. - -She was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, (uncle to -James the First, and great-grandson to Henry VII.) by Elizabeth, daughter -of sir William Cavendish, of Hardwick; was born about the year 1578, and -brought up in privacy under the care of her grandmother, the old countess -of Lennox, who had for many years resided in England. Her double -relation to royalty was equally obnoxious to the jealousy of Elizabeth -and the timidity of James, and they secretly dreaded the supposed danger -of her leaving a legitimate offspring. The former, therefore, prevented -her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir to the titles and -estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her for listening to -some overtures from the son of the earl of Northumberland: the latter, -by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of marriage, unwarily -encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders. Thus circumscribed, she -renewed a childish connection with William Seymour, grandson to the -earl of Hertford, which was discovered in 1609; when both parties were -summoned to appear before the privy council, and received a severe -reprimand. This mode of proceeding produced the very consequence which -James meant to avoid; for the lady, sensible that her reputation had -been wounded by this inquiry, was in a manner forced into a marriage; -which becoming publicly known in the course of the next spring, she was -committed to close custody in the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, -and Mr. Seymour to the Tower. In this state of separation, however, they -concerted means for an escape, which both effected on the same day, June -3, 1611; and Mr. Seymour got safely to Flanders: but the poor lady was -re-taken in Calais road, and imprisoned in the Tower; where the sense of -these undeserved oppressions operating too severely on her high spirit, -she became a lunatic, and languished in that wretched state, augmented by -the horrors of a prison, till her death on the 27th Sept. 1615.[55] - - - - -ON THE LADY ARABELLA. - - - How do I thanke thee, Death, and blesse thy power - That I have past the guard, and scaped the Tower! - And now my _pardon_ is my _epitaph_, - And a small coffin my poore carkasse hath. - For at thy charge both soule and body were - Enlarged at last, secured from hope and feare; - That among saints, this amongst kings is laid, - And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid. - - - - -UPON MISTRIS MALLET[56], AN UNHANDSOME GENTLEWOMAN, WHO MADE LOVE UNTO -HIM. - - - Have I renounc’t my faith, or basely sold - Salvation, and my loyalty, for gold? - Have I some forreigne practice undertooke - By poyson, shott, sharp-knife, or sharper booke - To kill my king? have I betrayd the state - To fire and fury, or some newer fate, - Which learned murderers, those grand destinies, - The Jesuites, have nurc’d? if of all these - I guilty am, proceed; I am content - That Mallet take mee for my punishment. - For never sinne was of so high a rate, - But one nights hell with her might expiate. - Although the law with Garnet[57], and the rest, - Dealt farr more mildly; hanging’s but a jest - To this immortall torture. Had shee bin then - In Maryes torrid dayes engend’red, when - Cruelty was witty, and Invention free - Did live by blood, and thrive by crueltye, - Shee would have bin more horrid engines farre - Than fire, or famine, racks, and halters are. - Whether her witt, forme, talke, smile, tire I name, - Each is a stock of tyranny, and shame; - But for her breath, spectatours come not nigh, - That layes about; God blesse the company! - The man, in a beares skin baited to death, - Would chose the doggs much rather then her breath; - One kisse of hers, and eighteene wordes alone - Put downe the _Spanish Inquisition_. - Thrice happy wee (quoth I thinking thereon) - That see no dayes of persecution; - For were it free to kill, this grisly elfe - Wold martyrs make in compass of herselfe: - And were shee not prevented by our prayer, - By this time shee corrupted had the aire. - And am I innocent? and is it true, - That thing (which poet Plinye never knew, - Nor Africk, Nile, nor ever Hackluyts eyes - Descry’d in all his _East, West-voyages_; - That thing, which poets were afrayd to feigne, - For feare her shadowe should infect their braine; - This spouse of Antichrist, and his alone, - Shee’s drest so like the Whore of Babylon;) - Should doate on mee? as if they did contrive - The devill and she, to damne a man alive. - Why doth not _Welcome_ rather purchase her, - And beare about this rare familiar? - Sixe markett dayes, a wake, and a fayre too ’t, - Would save his charges, and the ale to boot. - No tyger’s like her; shee feedes upon a man - Worse than a tygresse or a leopard can. - Let mee go pray, and thinke upon some spell, - At once to bid the devill and her farwell. - - - - -HENRY PRINCE OF WALES. - - -Upon the death of the promising Henry (Nov. 6, 1612), a prince, according -to Arthur Wilson[58], as eminent in nobleness as in blood, and who fell -not without suspicion of foul play, the poets his cotemporaries, whom he -liberally patronised, poured forth by reams their tributary verses. - -Corbet, as it has been before observed, pronounced his funeral oration at -Oxford. - -Nor was this all: while his bones were perishing and his flesh was -rottenness, Dr. Daniel Price, his chaplain during his life, continued to -commemorate his dissolution by preaching an anniversary sermon. Neither -the practice nor its execution was agreeable to Corbet, who, after a -triennial repetition, thus attacked the anniversarist. - - - - -IN QUENDAM ANNIVERSARIORUM SCRIPTOREM. - - Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros. - - VIRG. Æn. 1. 483. - - - Even soe dead Hector thrice was triumph’d on - The walls of Troy, thrice slain when Fates had done: - So did the barbarous Greekes before their hoast - Torment his ashes and profane his ghost: - As Henryes vault, his peace, his sacred hearse, - Are torne and batter’d by thine Anniverse. - Was ’t not enough Nature and strength were foes, - But thou must yearly murther him in prose? - Or dost thou thinke thy raving phrase can make - A lowder eccho then the Almanake? - Trust mee, November doth more ghastly looke - In Dade and Hopton’s[59] pennyworth then thy booke; - And sadder record their fixt figure beares - Then thy false-printed and ambitious teares. - For were it not for Christmas, which is nigh, - When spice, fruit eaten, and digested pye - Call for waste paper; no man could make shift - How to employ thy writings to his thrift. - Wherefore forbear, for pity or for shame, - And let some richer penne redeeme his fame - From rottennesse. Thou leave him captive; since - So vile a PRICE ne’ere ransom’d such a Prince. - - - - -AN ANSWER, BY DR. PRICE[60]. - - - So to dead Hector boys may do disgrace, - That durst not look upon his living face; - So worst of men behind their betters’ back - May stretch mens names and credit on the rack. - Good friend, our general tie to him that’s gone - Should love the man that yearlie doth him moane: - The author’s zeal and place he now doth hold, - His love and duty makes him be thus bold - To offer this poor mite, his anniverse - Unto his good great master’s sacred hearse; - The which he doth with privilege of name, - Whilst others, ’midst their ale, in corners blame. - A pennyworth in print they never made, - Yet think themselves as good as Pond or Dade. - One anniverse, when thou hast done thus twice, - Thy words among the best will be of PRICE. - - - - -IN POETAM EXAUCTORATUM ET EMERITUM. - - - Nor is it griev’d, grave youth, the memory - Of such a story, such a booke as hee, - That such a copy through the world were read; - _Henry yet lives, though he be buried_. - It could be wish’d that every eye might beare - His eare good witnesse that he still were here; - That sorrowe ruled the yeare, and by that sunne - Each man could tell you how the day had runne: - O ’twere an honest boast, for him could say - I have been busy, and wept out the day - Remembring him. An epitaph would last - Were such a trophee, such a banner placed - Upon his corse as this: _Here a man lyes_ - _Was slaine by Henrye’s dart, not Destinie’s_. - Why this were med’cinable, and would heale, - Though the whole languish’d, halfe the commonweale. - But for a _Cobler_ to goe burn his cappe, - And cry, The Prince, the Prince! O dire mishappe! - Or a Geneva-bridegroom, after grace, - To throw his spouse i’ th’ fire; or scratch her face - To the tune of the Lamentation; or delay - His _Friday_ capon till the _Sabbath_ day: - Or an old Popish lady half vow’d dead - To fast away the day in gingerbread: - For him to write such annals; all these things - Do open laughter’s and shutt up griefe’s springs. - Tell me, what juster or more congruous peere - Than Ale, to judge of workes begott of beere? - Wherefore forbeare—or, if thou print the next, - Bring better notes, or take a meaner text. - - - - -ON MR. FRANCIS BEAUMONT, THEN NEWLY DEAD. - - -(The following lines, which have hitherto been omitted in the bishop’s -poems, are found in the collected dramas of the - - “twin stars that run - Their glorious course round Shakespeare’s honoured sun.” - -Beaumont was born 1585, and was buried the ninth of March 1615, in the -entrance of St. Bennet’s chapel, Westminster abbey.) - - He that hath such acuteness and such wit - As would aske ten good heads to husband it; - He that can write so well, that no man dare - Refuse it for the best, let him beware: - Beaumont is dead! by whose sole death appears - Wit’s a disease consumes men in few yeares. - - - - -WILLIAM LORD HOWARD, OF EFFINGHAM, - - -the subject of the succeeding poem, was the eldest son of Charles Howard, -earl of Nottingham, (lord high admiral of England, and defeater of the -Spanish Armada in the reign of Elizabeth, a nobleman of high estimation -during greater part of the reign of her successor,) by Catharine, -daughter of Henry Carey, lord Hunsdon; celebrated for concealing the ring -by which the life of the earl of Essex might have been saved, and upon -whose death-bed discovery of the concealment Elizabeth told her, “God may -forgive you, but I never can.” - -Lord Howard makes no conspicuous figure in the page of history: he was -summoned by writ to several parliaments during his father’s life, whom -he accompanied on his embassy to the court of Spaine (1604), but died -before him 10th Dec. 1615, and was buried at Chelsea. - -He married in 1597 Anne, daughter and sole heiress to John lord St. John -of Bletsoe, by whom he left one daughter, who became the wife of John -lord Mordaunt, afterwards earl of Peterborough. - - - - -AN ELEGIE[61] ON THE LATE LORD WILLIAM HOWARD, BARON OF EFFINGHAM. - - - I did not know thee, lord, nor do I strive - To win access, or grace, with lords alive: - The dead I serve, from whence nor faction can - Move me, nor favour; nor a greater man. - To whom no vice commends me, nor bribe sent, - From whom no penance warns, nor portion spent; - To these I dedicate as much of me, - As I can spare from my own husbandry: - And till ghosts walk as they were wont to do, - I trade for some, and do these errands too. - But first I do enquire, and am assur’d, - What tryals in their journeys they endur’d; - What certainties of honour and of worth - Their most uncertain life-times have brought forth; - And who so did least hurt of this small store, - He is my patron, dy’d he rich or poor. - First I will know of Fame (after his peace, - When flattery and envy both do cease) - Who rul’d his actions: Reason, or my lord? - Did the whole man rely upon a word, - A badge of title? or, above all chance, - Seem’d he as ancient as his cognizance? - What did he? Acts of mercy, and refrain - Oppression in himself, and in his train? - Was his essential table full as free - As boasts and invitations use to be? - Where if his russet-friend did chance to dine, - Whether his satten-man would fill him wine? - Did he think perjury as lov’d a sin, - Himself forsworn, as if his slave had been? - Did he seek regular pleasures? Was he known - Just husband of one wife, and she his own? - Did he give freely without pause, or doubt, - And read petitions ere they were worn out? - Or should his well-deserving _client_ ask, - Would he bestow a tilting, or a masque - To keep need vertuous? and that done, not fear - What lady damn’d him for his absence there? - Did he attend the court for no man’s fall? - Wore he the ruine of no hospital? - And when he did his rich apparel don, - Put he no widow, nor an orphan on? - Did he love simple vertue for the thing? - The king for no respect but for the king? - But, above all, did his religion wait - Upon God’s throne, or on the chair of state? - He that is guilty of no _quæry_ here, - Out-lasts his epitaph, out-lives his heir. - But there is none such, none so little bad; - Who but this negative goodness ever had? - Of such a lord we may expect the birth, - He’s rather in the womb, than on the earth. - And ’twere a crime in such a public fate, - For one to live well and degenerate: - And therefore I am angry, when a name - Comes to upbraid the world like _Effingham_. - Nor was it modest in thee to depart - To thy eternal home, where now thou art, - Ere thy reproach was ready; or to die, - Ere custom had prepar’d thy calumny. - Eight days have past since thou hast paid thy debt - To sin, and not a libel stirring yet; - Courtiers that scoff by patent, silent sit, - And have no use of slander or of wit; - But (which is monstrous) though against the tyde, - The watermen have neither rayl’d nor ly’d. - Of good or bad there’s no distinction known, - For in thy praise the good and bad are one. - It seems, we all are covetous of fame, - And, hearing what a purchase of good name - Thou lately mad’st, are careful to increase - Our title, by the holding of some lease - From thee our landlord, and for that th’ whole crew - Speak now like tenants, ready to renew. - It were too sad to tell thy pedegree, - Death hath disordered all, misplacing thee; - Whilst now thy herauld, in his line of heirs, - Blots out thy name, and fills the space with tears. - And thus hath conqu’ring Death, or Nature rather, - Made thee prepostrous ancient to thy father, - Who grieves th’ art so, and like a glorious light - Shines ore thy hearse. - He therefore that would write - And blaze thee throughly, may at once say all, - _Here lies the anchor of our admiral_. - Let others write for glory or reward, - Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard. - - - - -LORD MORDAUNT. - - -The lord Mordaunt to whom this poem is addressed was John fifth baron -Mordaunt of Turvey, in the county of Bedford, who was afterwards (in -1628) created earl of Peterborough by king Charles the First. He married -Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William baron Howard of Effingham, (son -and heir apparent of Charles earl of Nottingham,) by Anne his wife, -daughter and heir of John baron St. John of Bletsoe. He was brought up -in the Roman Catholic religion, but converted to that of the established -church by a disputation at which he was present between a Jesuit and -the celebrated Dr. Usher, (afterwards) bishop of Armagh. In 1642 he was -general of the ordnance, and colonel of a regiment of foot in the army, -raised for the service of the Parliament, commanded by the earl of -Essex, and died the same year. - -In order to understand the following poem, it will be necessary to -remember, that James, in the year 1617, paid a visit to his native -country, whither the lord Mordaunt accompanied him; and the ceremony of -installing the knights of the garter was consequently deferred from St. -George’s day to that of Holyrood. - - - - -TO THE LORD MORDANT, UPON HIS RETURNE FROM THE NORTH. - - - My lord, I doe confesse at the first newes - Of your returne towards home, I did refuse - To visit you, for feare the northerne winde - Had peirc’t into your manners and your minde; - For feare you might want memory to forget - Some arts of Scotland which might haunt you yet. - But when I knew you were, and when I heard - You were at Woodstock seene, well sunn’d and air’d, - That your contagion in you now was spent, - And you were just lord Mordant, as you went, - I then resolv’d to come; and did not doubt - To be in season, though the bucke were out. - Windsor the place; the day was Holy roode; - Saint George my muse: for be it understood, - For all Saint George more early in the yeare - Broke fast and eat a bitt, hee dined here: - And though in Aprill in redd inke he shine, - Know twas September made him redd with wine. - To this good sport rod I, as being allow’d - To see the king, and cry him in the crowd; - And at all solemne meetings have the grace - To thrust, and to be trodde on, by my place. - - Where when I came, I saw the church besett - With tumults, as if all the Brethren mett - To heare some silenc’t teacher of that quarter - Inveigh against the order of the garter: - And justly might the weake it grieve and wrong, - Because the garter prayes in a strange tongue; - And doth retaine traditions yet, of Fraunce, - In an old _Honi soit qui mal y pense_. - Whence learne, you knights that order that have t’ane, - That all, besides the buckle, is profane. - But there was noe such doctrine now at stake, - Noe starv’d precisian from the pulpit spake: - And yet the church was full; all sorts of men, - Religions, sexes, ages, were there then: - Whilst he that keepes the quire together locks - Papists and Puritans, the Pope and Knox: - Which made some wise-ones feare, that love our nation, - This mixture would beget a toleration; - Or that religions should united bee, - When they stay’d service, these the letany. - But noe such hast; this dayes devotion lyes - Not in the hearts of men, but in their eyes; - They that doe see St. George, heare him aright; - For hee loves not to parly, but to fight. - Amongst this audience (my lord) stood I, - Well edified as any that stood by; - And knew how many leggs a knight letts fall, - Betwixt the king, the offering, and his stall: - Aske mee but of their robes, I shall relate - The colour and the fashion, and the state: - I saw too the procession without doore, - What the poore knightes, and what the prebends wore. - All this my neighbors that stood by mee tooke, - Who div’d but to the garment, and the looke; - But I saw more, and though I have their fate - In face and favour, yet I want their pate: - Mee thought I then did those first ages know, - Which brought forth knightes soo arm’d and looking soe, - Who would maintaine their oath, and bind their worde - With these two seales, an altar and a sworde. - Then saw I George new-sainted, when such preists - Wore him not only on, but in their breasts. - Oft did I wish that day, with solemne vow, - O that my country were in danger now! - And twas no treason; who could feare to dye, - When he was sure his rescue was so nigh? - - And here I might a just digression make, - Whilst of some foure particular knightes I spake, - To whome I owe my thankes; but twere not best, - By praysing two or three, t’ accuse the rest; - Nor can I sing that order, or those men, - That are aboue the maistery of my pen; - And private fingers may not touch those things - Whose authors princes are, whose parents kings: - Wherefore unburnt I will refraine that fire, - Least, daring such a theame, I should aspire - T’ include my king and prince, and soe rehearse - Names fitter for my prayer then my verse: - “Hee that will speake of princes, let him use - More grace then witt, know God’s aboue his muse.” - Noe more of councell: Harke! the trumpetts sound, - And the grave organ’s with the antheme drown’d - The Church hath said amen to all their rites, - And now the Trojan horse sets loose his knightes; - The triumph moues: O what could added bee, - Save your accesse, to this solemnitye? - Which I expect, and doubt not but to see ’t, - When the kings favour and your worth shall meete. - I thinke the robes would now become you soe, - St. George himselfe could scarce his owne knights know - From the lord Mordant: Pardon mee that preach - A doctrine which king James can only teach; - To whome I leaue you, who alone hath right - To make knightes lords, and then a lord a knight. - Imagine now the sceane lyes in the hall; - (For at high noone we are recusants all) - The church is empty, as the bellyes were - Of the spectators, which had languish’d there: - And now the favorites of the clarke of th’ checke, - Who oft haue yaun’d, and strech’t out many a neck - Twixt noone and morning; the dull feeders on - Fresh patience, and raisins of the sunne, - They, who had liv’d in th’ hall seaven houres at least, - As if twere an arraignment, not a feast; - And look’t soe like the hangings they stood nere, - None could discerne which the true pictures were; - These now shall be refresh’t, while the bold drumme - Strikes up his frollick, through the hall they come. - Here might I end, my lord, and here subscribe - Your honours to his power: But Oh, what bribe, - What feare or mulct can make my muse refraine, - When shee is urg’d of nature and disdaine? - Not all the guard shall hold mee, I must write, - Though they should sweare and lye how they would fight, - If I procede: nay, though the captaine say, - Hold him, or else you shall not eate to day; - Those goodly yeomen shall not scape my pen; - ’Twas dinner-time, and I must speake of men; - So to the hall made I, with little care - To praise the dishes, or to tast the fare; - Much lesse t’ endanger the least tart, or pye - By any waiter there stolne, or sett by; - But to compute the valew of the meate, - Which was for glory, not for hunger eate; - Nor did I feare, (stand back) who went before - The presence, or the privy-chamber doore. - And woe is mee, the guard, those men of warre, - Who but two weapons use, beife, and the barre, - Began to gripe mee, knowing not in truth, - That I had sung John Dory in my youth; - Or that I knew the day when I could chaunt - Chevy, and Arthur, and the Seige of Gaunt. - And though these be the vertues which must try - Who are most worthy of their curtesy, - They profited mee nothing: for no notes - Will move them now, they’re deafe in their new coates: - Wherefore on mee afresh they fall, and show - Themselves more active then before, as though - They had some wager lay’d, and did contend - Who should abuse mee furthest at armes end. - One I remember with a grisly beard, - And better growne then any of the heard; - One, were he well examin’d, and made looke - His name in his owne parish and church booke, - Could hardly prove his christendome; and yet - It seem’d he had two names, for there were writt - On a white canvasse doublett that he wore, - Two capitall letters of a name before; - Letters belike which hee had spew’d and spilt, - When the great bumbard leak’t, or was a tilt. - This Ironside tooke hold, and sodainly - Hurled mee, by judgment of the standers by, - Some twelve foote by the square; takes mee againe, - Out-throwes it halfe a bar; and thus wee twaine - At this hot exercise an hower had spent, - Hee the feirce agent, I the instrument. - My man began to rage, but I cry’d, Peace, - When he is dry or hungry he will cease: - Hold, for the Lords sake, Nicholas, lest they take us, - And use us worse then Hercules us’d Cacus. - - And now I breath, my lord, now have I time - To tell the cause, and to confesse the crime: - I was in black; a scholler straite they guest; - Indeed I colour’d for it at the least. - I spake them faire, desir’d to see the hall, - And gave them reasons for it, this was all; - By which I learne it is a maine offence, - So neere the clark of th’ check to utter sense: - Talk of your emblemes, maisters, and relate - How Æsope hath it, and how Alciate; - The Cock and Pearle, the Dunghill and the Jemme, - This passeth all to talke sence amongst them. - Much more good service was committed yet, - Which I in such a tumult must forget; - But shall I smother that prodigious fitt, - Which pass’d Heons invention, and pure witt? - As this: A nimble knave, but something fatt, - Strikes at my head, and fairly steales my hatt: - Another breakes a jest, (well, Windsor, well, - What will ensue thereof there’s none can tell, - When they spend witt, serve God) yet twas not much, - Although the clamours and applause were such, - As when salt Archy or Garret doth provoke them[62], - And with wide laughter and a cheat-loafe choake them. - What was the jest doe you aske? I dare repeate it, - And put it home before you shall entreat it; - He call’d mee Bloxford-man: confesse I must - ’Twas bitter; and it griev’d mee, in a thrust - That most ungratefull word (Bloxford) to heare - From him, whose breath yet stunk of Oxford beere: - But let it passe; for I have now passd throw - Their halberds, and worse weapons, their teeth, too: - And of a worthy officer was invited - To dine; who all their rudeness hath requited: - Where wee had mirth and meat, and a large board - Furnish’t with all the kitchin could afford. - But to conclude, to wipe of from before yee - All this which is noe better then a story; - Had this affront bin done mee by command - Of noble Fenton[63], had their captaines hand - Directed them to this, I should beleive - I had no cause to jeast, but much to greive: - Or had discerning Pembrooke[64] seene this done, - And thought it well bestow’d, I would have run - Where no good man had dwelt, nor learn’d would fly, - Where noe disease would keepe mee company, - Where it should be preferment to endure - To teach a schoole, or else to starve a cure. - - But as it stands, the persons and the cause - Consider well, their manners and their lawes, - Tis no affliction to mee, for even thus - Saint Paul hath fought with beasts at Ephesus, - And I at Windsor. Let this comfort then - Rest with all able and deserving men: - Hee that will please the guard, and not provoke - Court-witts, must suite his learning by a cloake: - “For at all feasts and masques the doome hath bin, - “A man thrust out and a gay cloake let in.” - - _Quid immerentes hospites vexas canis,_ - _Ignavus adversus lupos?_ - - - - -TO THE PRINCE. - -(AFTERWARDS CHARLES THE FIRST.) - -Born at Dumferling, November the 19th, 1600; crowned 27th March 1625; -beheaded 30th January 1648-9. - -(From a Manuscript in Ashmole’s Museum.) - - - For ever dear, for ever dreaded prince, - You read some verse of mine a little since, - And so pronounced each word and every letter - Your gratious reading made my verse the better: - Since that your highness doth by gifte exceeding - Make what you read the better for your reading, - Let my poor muse thus far your grace importune - To leave to reade my verse, and read my fortune. - - - - -A NEW-YEARES GIFT TO MY LORDE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. - -(Born 28th August 1592; assassinated by Felton, 23d August 1628.) - - - When I can pay my parents, or my king, - For life, or peace, or any dearer thing; - Then, dearest lord, expect my debt to you - Shall bee as truly paid, as it is due. - But, as no other price or recompence - Serves them, but love, and my obedience; - So nothing payes my lord, but whats above - The reach of hands, ’tis vertue, and my love. - “For, when as goodnesse doth so overflow, - “The conscience bindes not to restore, but owe:” - Requitall were presumption; and you may - Call mee ungratefull, while I strive to pay. - Nor with a morall lesson doe I shift, - Like one that meant to save a better gift; - Like very poore, or counterfeite poore men, - Who, to preserve their turky or their hen, - Doe offer up themselves: No; I have sent - A kind of guift, will last by being spent, - Thankes sterling: far above the bullion rate - Of horses, hangings, jewells, or of plate. - O you that know the choosing of that one, - Know a true diamond from a Bristow stone: - You know, those men alwaies are not the best - In their intent, that lowdest can protest: - But that a prayer from the convocation, - Is better than the commons protestation. - Trust those that at the test their lives will lay, - And know no arts, but to deserve, and pray: - Whilst they, that buy preferment without praying, - Begin with broyles, and finish with betraying. - - - - -SIR THOMAS AYLESBURY, - - -A Londoner born, was second son of William Aylesbury by Anne his wife, -daughter of John Poole, esq., and from Westminster School removed to -Christ-Church, Oxford, in 1598, where he became a fellow-student with -Corbet, and where, on the 9th of June 1605, they took the degree of -master of arts together. - -Aylesbury, after he had left Oxford, became secretary to Charles Howard, -earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England, and in 1618, when the -latter resigned his office, was continued in the same employment under -Howard’s successor, George Villiers, then marquis, and afterwards duke -of Buckingham. Under the patronage of Villiers he was appointed one of -the masters of the requests, and on the 19th of April 1627 created a -baronet, and soon afterwards obtained the office of master of the mint. -He retained his places until the breaking out of the civil wars in 1642, -and faithfully adhering to the cause of Charles the First, retired with -his family, in 1649, after the execution of that unfortunate monarch, to -Antwerp in Brabant, and continued there until 1652, when he removed to -Breda, where he died in 1657, aged 81, and was buried in the great church. - -He was “a learned man, and as great a lover and encourager of learning -and learned men, especially of mathematicians, (he being one himself) as -any man in his time.” - -He had a son, William, who was a man of learning, and tutor to the two -sons of his father’s patron, Villiers, but died issueless in Jamaica in -the service of Cromwell in the same year with his father: and a daughter, -Frances, (sole heir of her father and brother) who, in 1634, became the -wife of Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, and was grandmother to -queen Mary the Second, and to queen Anne. - -I have been the more particular in noticing what relates to sir Thomas -Aylesbury, since bishop Corbet’s advancement at court followed, though -it trode close upon the heels of, that of Aylesbury, which leads me to -presume that the latter was in some degree Corbet’s patron as well as -friend and companion. - - - - -A LETTER SENT FROM DR. CORBET TO SIR THOMAS AILESBURY, December the 9th, -1618. ON THE OCCASION OF A BLAZING STAR. - - - My brother and much more, hadst thou been mine, - Hadst thou in one rich present of a line - Inclos’d sir Francis, for in all this store - No gift can cost thee less, or binde me more; - Hadst thou (dear churle) imparted his return, - I should not with a tardy welcome burn; - But had let loose my joy at him long since, - Which now will seem but studied negligence: - But I forgive thee, two things kept thee from it, - First such a friend to gaze on, next a comet; - Which comet we discern, though not so true - As you at Sion, as long tayl’d as you; - We know already how will stand the case, - With Barnavelt[65] of universal grace, - Though Spain deserve the whole star, if the fall - Be true of Lerma duke and cardinal[66]: - Marry, in France we fear no blood, but wine; - Less danger’s in her sword, than in her vine. - And thus we leave the blazers coming over, - For our portents are wise, and end at Dover: - And though we use no forward censuring, - Nor send our learned proctors to the king, - Yet every morning when the star doth rise, - There is no black for three hours in our eyes; - But like a Puritan dreamer, towards this light - All eyes turn upward, all are zeal and white: - More it is doubtful that this prodigy - Will turn ten schools to one astronomy: - And the analysis we justly fear, - Since every art doth seek for rescue there; - Physicians, lawyers, glovers on the stall, - The shopkeepers speak mathematics all; - And though men read no gospels in these signes, - Yet all professions are become divines; - All weapons from the bodkin to the pike, - The masons rule and taylors yard alike - Take altitudes, and th’ early fidling knaves - On fluits and hoboyes made them Jacobs-staves; - Lastly of fingers, glasses we contrive, - And every fist is made a prospective: - Burton to Gunter cants[67], and Burton hears - From Gunter, and th’ exchange both tongue and ears - By carriage: thus doth mired Guy complain, - His waggon in their letters bears Charles-Wain, - Charles-Wain, to which they say the tayl will reach; - And at this distance they both hear and teach. - Now, for the peace of God and men, advise - (Thou that hast where-withal to make us wise) - Thine own rich studies, and deep Harriots mine[68], - In which there is no dross, but all refine: - O tell us what to trust to, lest we wax - All stiff and stupid with his parallax: - Say, shall the old philosophy be true? - Or doth he ride above the moon, think you? - Is he a meteor forced by the sun? - Or a first body from creation? - Hath the same star been object of the wonder - Of our forefathers? Shall the same come under - The sentence of our nephews? Write and send, - Or else this star a quarrel doth portend. - - - - -DR. CORBET’S JOURNEY INTO FRANCE. - - - I went from England into France, - Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance, - Nor yet to ride or fence; - Nor did I go like one of those - That do return with half a nose - They carried from hence. - - But I to Paris rode along, - Much like John Dory in the song[69], - Upon a holy tide. - I on an ambling nag did jet, - I trust he is not paid for yet; - And spur’d him on each side. - - And to Saint Dennis fast we came, - To see the sights of Nostre Dame, - The man that shews them snaffles: - Where who is apt for to beleeve, - May see our Ladies right-arm sleeve, - And eke her old pantofles; - - Her breast, her milk, her very gown - That she did wear in Bethlehem town, - When in the inn she lay. - Yet all the world knows that’s a fable, - For so good clothes ne’re lay in stable - Upon a lock of hay. - - No carpenter could by his trade - Gain so much coyn as to have made - A gown of so rich stuff. - Yet they, poor fools, think, for their credit, - They may believe old Joseph did it, - ’Cause he deserv’d enough. - - There is one of the crosses nails, - Which whoso sees, his bonnet vails, - And if he will, may kneel. - Some say ’twas false, ’twas never so, - Yet, feeling it, thus much I know, - It is as true as steel. - - There is a lanthorn which the Jews, - When Judas led them forth, did use, - It weighs my weight downright: - But to believe it, you must think - The Jews did put a candle in ’t, - And then ’twas very light. - - There’s one saint there hath lost his nose; - Another’s head, but not his toes, - His elbow and his thumb. - But when that we had seen the rags - We went to th’ inn and took our nags, - And so away did come. - - We came to Paris on the Seine, - ’Tis wondrous fair, ’tis nothing clean, - ’Tis Europes greatest town. - How strong it is I need not tell it, - For all the world may easily smell it, - That walk it up and down. - - There many strange things are to see, - The Palace and great Gallery, - The Place Royal doth excel: - The New Bridge, and the Statues there, - At Nostre Dame, Saint Q. Pater, - The Steeple bears the bell. - - For learning, th’ Universitie; - And for old clothes, the Frippery; - The House the Queen did build. - Saint Innocents, whose earth devours - Dead corps in four and twenty hours, - And there the King was kill’d: - - The Bastile and Saint Dennis-street, - The Shafflenist, like London-Fleet, - The Arsenal, no toy. - But if you’ll see the prettiest thing, - Go to the court and see the King, - O ’tis a hopeful boy. - - He is of all his dukes and peers - Reverenc’d for much wit at ’s years, - Nor must you think it much; - For he with little switch doth play, - And make fine dirty pyes of clay, - O never king made such! - - A bird that can but kill a fly, - Or prate, doth please his majesty, - ’Tis known to every one. - The duke of Guise gave him a parret, - And he had twenty cannons for it - For his new galeon. - - O that I ere might have the hap - To get the bird which in the map - Is called the Indian Ruck! - I’de give it him, and hope to be - As rich as Guise, or Livine, - Or else I had ill luck. - - Birds round about his chamber stand, - And he them feeds with his own hand; - ’Tis his humility. - And if they do want any thing, - They need but whistle for their king, - And he comes presently. - - But now then, for these parts he must - Be enstiled Lewis the Just[70], - Great Henry’s lawful heir; - When to his stile to add more words, - They’d better call him King of Birds, - Than of the great Navarre. - - He hath besides a pretty quirk, - Taught him by Nature, how to work - In iron with much ease. - Sometimes to the forge he goes, - There he knocks, and there he blows, - And makes both locks and keys: - - Which puts a doubt in every one, - Whether he be Mars or Vulcan’s son, - Some few believe his mother. - But let them all say what they will, - I came resolv’d, and so think still, - As much the one as th’ other. - - The people, too, dislike the youth, - Alledging reasons, for, in truth, - Mothers should honour’d be: - Yet others say, he loves her rather - As well as ere she lov’d his father, - And that’s notoriously. - - His queen, a pretty little wench, - Was born in Spain, speaks little French, - She’s nere like to be mother: - For her incestuous house could not - Have children which were not begot - By uncle or by brother. - - Now why should Lewis, being so just, - Content himself to take his lust - With his Lucina’s mate; - And suffer his little pretty queen, - From all her race that yet hath been, - So to degenerate? - - ’Twere charity for to be known - To love others children as his own, - And why? It is no shame; - Unless that he would greater be - Than was his father Henery, - Who, men thought, did the same. - - - - -JOHN HAMMON. - - -John Hammon, M.A., to whom the following “Exhortation” is addressed, -was instituted to the rectory of Bibbesford and chapel of Bewdley in -Worcestershire the 2d of March 1614, on the presentation of sir William -Cook. The new zeal with which he was inspired arose most probably from -the intrusion of the “Book of Sports,” by James, in 1618[71], in which -the king’s pleasure is declared, “that, after the end of divine service, -our good people be not disturbed, letted or discouraged from any lawfull -recreation; such as dauncing, either men or women; archerie for men, -leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmlesse recreation; nor from -having of May games, Witson ales, and Morris dances, and the _setting up -of Maypoles and other sports therein used_; and that women shall have -leave to carry rushes to the church for the decoring of it, according to -their old custome.” - - - - -AN EXHORTATION TO MR. JOHN HAMMON, MINISTER IN THE PARISH OF BEWDLY, - -_For the battering downe of the Vanityes of the Gentiles, which are -comprehended in a Maypole_. - -Written by a Zealous Brother from the Black-fryers. - - - The mighty zeale which thou hast new put on, - Neither by prophet nor by prophetts sonne - As yet prevented, doth transport mee so - Beyond my selfe, that, though I ne’re could go - Farr in a verse, and all rithmes have defy’d - Since Hopkins and old Thomas Sternhold dy’de, - (Except it were that little paines I tooke - To please good people in a prayer-booke - That I sett forth, or so) yet must I raise - My spirit for thee, who shall in thy praise - Gird up her loynes, and furiously run - All kinde of feet, save Satans cloven one. - Such is thy zeale, so well dost thou express it, - That, (wer ’t not like a charme,) I’de say, Christ blesse it. - I needs must say ’tis a spirituall thing - To raile against a bishopp, or the king; - Nor are they meane adventures wee have bin in, - About the wearing of the churches linnen; - But these were private quarrells: this doth fall - Within the compass of the generall. - Whether it be a pole painted, and wrought - Farr otherwise, then from the wood ’twas brought, - Whose head the idoll-makers hand doth croppe, - Where a lew’d bird, towring upon the topp, - Lookes like the calfe at Horeb; at whose roots - The unyoak’t youth doth exercise his foote; - Or whether it reserve his boughes, befreinded - By neighb’ring bushes, and by them attended: - How caust thou chuse but seeing it complaine, - That Baalls worship’t in the groves againe? - Tell mee how curst an egging, what a sting - Of lust do their unwildy daunces bring? - The simple wretches say they meane no harme, - They doe not, surely; but their actions warme - Our purer blouds the more: for Sathan thus - Tempts us the more, that are more righteous. - Oft hath a Brother most sincerely gon, - Stifled in prayer and contemplation, - When lighting on the place where such repaire, - He viewes the nimphes, and is quite out in ’s prayer. - Oft hath a Sister, grownded in the truth, - Seeing the jolly carriage of the youth, - Bin tempted to the way that’s broad and bad; - And (wert not for our private pleasures) had - Renounc’t her little ruffe, and goggle eye, - And quitt her selfe of the Fraternity. - What is the mirth, what is the melody, - That setts them in this Gentiles vanity? - When in our sinagogue wee rayle at sinne, - And tell men of the faults which they are in, - With hand and voice so following our theames, - That wee put out the side-men from their dreames. - Sounds not the pulpett, which wee then be-labour, - Better, and holyer, then doth the tabour? - Yet, such is unregenerate mans folly, - Hee loves the wicked noyse, and hates the holy. - Routes and wilde pleasures doe invite temptation, - And this is dangerous for our damnation; - Wee must not move our selves, but, if w’ are mov’d, - Man is but man; and therefore those that lov’d - Still to seeme good, would evermore dispence - With their owne faults, so they gave no offence. - If the times sweete entising, and the blood - That now begins to boyle, have thought it good - To challenge Liberty and Recreation, - Let it be done in holy contemplation: - Brothers and Sisters in the feilds may walke, - Beginning of the Holy Worde to talke, - Of David, and Uriahs lovely wife, - Of Thamar, and her lustfull brothers strife; - Then, underneath the hedge that woos them next, - They may sitt down; and there act out the text. - Nor do wee want, how ere wee live austeere, - In winter Sabbath-nights our lusty cheere; - And though the pastors grace, which oft doth hold - Halfe an howre long, make the provision cold, - Wee can be merry; thinking ’t nere the worse - To mend the matter at the second course. - Chapters are read, and hymnes are sweetly sung, - Joyntly commanded by the nose and tongue; - Then on the Worde wee diversly dilate, - Wrangling indeed for heat of zeale, not hate: - When at the length an unappeased doubt - Feircely comes in, and then the light goes out; - Darkness thus workes our peace, and wee containe - Our fyery spiritts till we see againe. - Till then, no voice is heard, no tongue doth goe, - Except a tender Sister shreike, or so. - Such should be our delights, grave and demure, - Not so abominable, not so impure, - As those thou seek’st to hinder, but I feare - Satan will bee too strong; his kingdome’s here: - Few are the righteous now, nor do I know - How wee shall ere this idoll overthrow; - Since our sincerest patron is deceas’t, - The number of the righteous is decreast. - But wee do hope these times will on, and breed - A faction mighty for us; for indeede - Wee labour all, and every Sister joynes - To have regenerate babes spring from our loynes: - Besides, what many carefully have done, - Getting the unrighteous man, a righteous sonne. - Then stoutly on, let not thy flocke range lewdly - In their old vanity, thou lampe of Bewdly. - One thing I pray thee; do not too much thirst - After Idolatryes last fall; but first - Follow this suite more close, let it not goe - Till it be thine as thou would’st have ’t: for soe - Thy successors, upon the same entayle, - Hereafter, may take up the Whitson-ale. - - - - -ANNE, WIFE OF JAMES THE FIRST, - -Daughter of Frederick the Second, king of Denmark, died of a dropsy the -2d of March 1619. - - -On the 18th of November 1618, a comet (as alluded to in a foregoing poem) -was seen in Libra, which continued visible till the 16th of December; and -the vulgar, who think - - Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus æther, - -considered it indicative of great misfortunes; and the death of the queen -which closely followed, the first object of its portentous mission. - -“The queen was in her great condition,” says Wilson, “a good woman, not -tempted from that height she stood on to embroyl her spirit much with -things below her, only giving herself content in her own house with such -recreations as might not make time tedious unto her; and though great -persons’ actions are often pried into, and made envy’s mark, yet nothing -could be fixed upon her that left any great impression, but that she may -have engraven upon her monument a character of virtue.” - - - - -AN ELEGY UPON THE DEATH OF QUEENE ANNE. - - - Noe; not a quatch, sad poets; doubt you, - There is not greife enough without you? - Or that it will asswage ill newes, - To say, Shee’s dead, that was your muse? - Joine not with Death to make these times - More grievous then most grievous rimes. - - And if ’t be possible, deare eyes, - The famous Universityes, - If bold your eyes bee matches, sleepe; - Or, if you will be loyall, weepe: - For-beare the press, there’s none will looke - Before the mart for a new booke. - - Why should you tell the world what witts - Grow at New-parkes, or Campus-pitts? - Or what conceipts youth stumble on, - Taking the ayre towards Trumpington? - Nor you, grave tutours, who doe temper - Your long and short with _que_ and _semper_; - O doe not, when your owne are done, - Make for my ladyes eldest sonne - Verses, which he will turne to prose, - When he shall read what you compose: - Nor, for an epithite that failes, - Bite off your unpoëticke nailes. - Unjust! Why should you in these vaines, - Punish your fingers for your braines? - - Know henceforth, that griefes vitall part - Consists in nature, not in art: - And verses that are studied - Mourne for themselves, not for the dead. - - Heark, the Queenes epitaph shall bee - Noe other then her pedigree: - For lines in bloud cutt out are stronger - Then lines in marble, and last longer: - And such a verse shall never fade, - That is begotten, and not made. - - “Her father, brother, husband, ... kinges; - Royall relations! from her springes - A prince and princesse; and from those - Faire certaintyes, and rich hope growes.” - Here’s poetry shall be secure - While Britaine, Denmarke, Rheine endure: - Enough on earth; what purchase higher, - Save heaven, to perfect her desire? - And as a straying starr intic’t - And governd those wise-men to Christ, - Ev’n soe a herauld-starr this yeare - Did beckon to her to appeare: - A starr which did not to our nation - Portend her death, but her translation: - For when such harbingers are seene, - God crownes a saint, not kills a queene. - - - - -VINCENT CORBET, - - -Who, from causes which I have not conclusively ascertained, assumed the -name of Poynter, was one of those by whose experience and information -sir Hugh Platt, at a period when the horticultural arts in this country -were in their infancy, was enabled to publish his “Garden Of Eden.” The -beautiful “Epitaph” of Ben Jonson, and the following “Elegy,” are high -testimonials of his amiable and virtuous disposition. - -His father’s name I have not learned; but his mother, whose name was -Rose, was buried at Twickenham, September the 13th, 1611, and the -register of the same parish proves that her son pursued her path the 29th -April, 1619. - -Among other legacies, he bequeathed to the poor of Twickenham forty -shillings, to be paid immediately after his decease; and four loads -of charcoal, to be distributed at the discretion of the churchwardens. -These bequests are overlooked by Ironside and Lysons, and I am happy -in recording the father of bishop Corbet as a benefactor to my native -village. - - Nescis quâ natale solum dulcedine captos - Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui. - - - - -AN ELEGIE UPON THE DEATH OF HIS OWNE FATHER. - - - Vincent Corbet, farther knowne - By Poynters name, then by his owne, - Here lyes ingaged till the day - Of raising bones, and quickning clay. - Nor wonder, reader, that he hath - Two surnames in his epitaph; - For this one did comprehend - All that two familyes could lend: - And if to know more arts then any - Could multiply one into many, - Here a colony lyes, then, - Both of qualityes and men. - Yeares he liv’d well nigh fourscore; - But count his vertues, he liv’d more; - And number him by doeing good, - He liv’d their age beyond the Flood. - Should wee undertake his story, - Truth would seeme fain’d, and plainesse glory: - Beside, this tablet were too small, - Add to the pillers and the wall. - Yet of this volume much is found, - Written in many a fertill ground; - Where the printer thee affords - Earth for paper, trees for words. - He was Natures factour here, - And legier lay for every sheire; - To supply the ingenious wants - Of some spring-fruites, and forraigne plants. - Simple he was, and wise withall; - His purse nor base, nor prodigall; - Poorer in substance then in freinds; - Future and publicke were his endes; - His conscience, like his dyett, such - As neither tooke nor left too much: - Soe that made lawes were uselesse growne - To him, he needed but his owne. - Did he his neighbours bid, like those - That feast them only to enclose? - Or with their rost meate racke their rents, - And cozen them with their consents? - Noe; the free meetings at his boord - Did but one litterall sence afforde; - Noe close or aker understood, - But only love and neighbourhood. - His alms were such as Paul defines, - Not causes to be said, but signes; - Which alms, by faith, hope, love, laid down, - Laid up what now he wears ... a crown. - Besides his fame, his goods, his life, - He left a greiv’d sonne, and a wife; - Straunge sorrow, not to be beleiv’d, - Whenas the sonne and heire is greiv’d. - Reade then, and mourne, what ere thou art - That doost hope to have a part - In honest epitaphs; least, being dead, - Thy life bee written, and not read. - - - - -THE LADY HADDINGTON - - -Was first wife of John Ramsey, viscount Haddington in Scotland, and -daughter of Robert Radcliffe, earl of Sussex. Her marriage was celebrated -by Ben Jonson, in a masque presented at court on the Shrove-Tuesday at -night (1608)[72]; and here is her monody by Corbet. - -She had two sons, Charles and James, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who all -died young. Her father died without surviving issue, September 22d, 1629. - -Her husband, who was a great favourite with king James, survived her, -and was created baron of Kingston upon Thames, and earl of Holderness, -22 Jan. 1620-1. He had a second wife, daughter of sir William Cockayne, -alderman of London[73]: - -But his first lady, the subject of the present article, was evidently -dead before his elevation to the English peerage. - - - - -AN ELEGIE UPON THE DEATH OF THE LADY HADDINGTON, WHO DYED OF THE SMALL -POX. - - - Deare losse, to tell the world I greive were true, - But that were to lament my selfe, not you; - That were to cry out helpe for my affaires, - For which nor publick thought, nor private, cares: - No, when thy fate I publish amongst men, - I should have power, and write with the States pen: - I should in naming thee force publicke teares, - And bid their eyes pay ransome for their cares. - First, thy whole life was a short feast of witt, - And Death th’ attendant which did waite on it: - To both mankind doth owe devotion ample, - To that their first, to this their last example. - And though ’twere praise enough (with them whose fame - And vertue’s nothing but an ample name) - That thou wert highly borne, (which no man doubtes) - And so mightst swath base deedes in noble cloutes; - Yet thou thy selfe in titles didst not shroud, - And being noble, wast nor foole, nor proud; - And when thy youth was ripe, when now the suite - Of all the longing court was for thy fruit, - How wisely didst thou choose! Foure blessed eyes, - The kings and thine, had taught thee to be wise. - Did not the best of men thee virgin give - Into his handes, by which himselfe did live? - Nor didst thou two yeares after talke of force, - Or, lady-like, make suit for a divorce: - Who, when their owne wilde lust is falsely spent, - Cry out, “My lord, my lord is impotent.” - Nor hast thou in his nuptiall armes enjoy’d - Barren imbraces, but wert girl’d and boy’d: - Twice-pretty-ones thrice worthier were their youth - Might shee but bring them up, that brought them forth: - Shee would have taught them by a thousand straines, - (Her bloud runns in their manners, not their veines) - That glory is a lye; state a grave sport; - And country sicknesse above health at court. - Oh what a want of her loose gallants have, - Since shee hath chang’d her window for a grave; - From whence shee us’d to dart out witt so fast, - And stick them in their coaches as they past! - Who now shall make well-colour’d vice looke pale? - Or a curl’d meteor with her eyes exhale, - And talke him into nothing? Who shall dare - Tell barren braines they dwell in fertill haire? - Who now shall keepe ould countesses in awe, - And, by tart similyes, repentance draw - From those, whome preachers had given ore? Even such - Whome sermons could not reach, her arrowes touch. - Hereafter, fooles shall prosper with applause, - And wise men smile, and no man aske the cause: - Hee of fourescore, three night capps, and two haires, - Shall marry her of twenty, and get heyres - Which shall be thought his owne; and none shall say - But tis a wondrous blessing, and he may. - Now (which is more then pitty) many a knight, - Which can doe more then quarrell, less then fight, - Shall choose his weapons, ground; draw seconds thither, - Put up his sword, and not be laught at neyther. - Oh thou deform’d unwoeman-like disease, - That plowst up flesh and bloud, and there sow’st pease, - And leav’st such printes on beauty, that dost come - As clouted shon do on a floore of lome; - Thou that of faces hony-combes dost make, - And of two breasts two cullenders, forsake - Thy deadly trade; thou now art rich, give ore, - And let our curses call thee forth no more. - Or, if thou needs will magnify thy power, - Goe where thou art invoked every houre - Amongst the gamsters, where they name thee thicke - At the last maine, or the last pocky nicke. - Get thee a lodging neare thy clyent, dice, - There thou shalt practice on more then one vice. - There’s wherewithall to entertaine the pox, - There’s more then reason, there’s rime for ’t, the box. - Thou who hast such superfluous store of game, - Why struckst thou one whose ruine is thy shame? - O, thou hast murdred where thou shouldst have kist; - And, where thy shaft was needfull, there it mist. - Thou shouldst have chosen out some homely face, - Where thy ill-favour’d kindnesse might adde grace, - That men might say, How beauteous once was shee! - Or, What a peece, ere shee was seaz’d by thee! - Thou shouldst have wrought on some such ladyes mould - That ne’re did love her lord, nor ever could - Untill shee were deform’d, thy tyranny - Were then within the rules of charity. - But upon one whose beauty was above - All sort of art, whose love was more then love, - On her to fix thy ugly counterfett, - Was to erect a pyramide of jett, - And put out fire to digg a turfe from hell, - And place it where a gentle soule should dwell: - A soule which in the body would not stay, - When twas noe more a body, nor good clay, - But a huge ulcer. O thou heav’nly race, - Thou soule that shunn’st th’ infection of thy case, - Thy house, thy prison, pure soule, spotless, faire, - Rest where no heat, no cold, no compounds are! - Rest in that country, and injoy that ease, - Which thy frayle flesh deny’de, and her disease! - - - - -ON THE CHRIST-CHURCH PLAY. - - -The failure of success in the representation of this play has been -detailed in the Life of the Bishop: indeed it seems to have subjected -the Oxonians to much ridicule, which the elegant bishop King[74] joined -with Corbet in retorting. One of the numerous banters on this occasion is -recorded by Wood, and deserves to be preserved: - - “At Christ-Church ‘Marriage,’ done before the king, - Lest that those mates should want an offering, - The king himself did offer—What? I pray. - He offer’d twice or thrice to go away.” - - - - -ON CHRIST-CHURCH PLAY AT WOODSTOCK. - - - If wee, at Woodstock, have not pleased those, - Whose clamorous judgments lye in urging noes, - And, for the want of whifflers, have destroy’d - Th’ applause, which wee with vizards hadd enjoy’d, - Wee are not sorry; for such witts as these - Libell our windowes oft’ner then our playes; - Or, if their patience be moov’d, whose lipps - Deserve the knowledge of the proctorships, - Or judge by houses, as their howses goe, - Not caring if their cause be good or noe; - Nor by desert or fortune can be drawne - To credit us, for feare they loose their pawne; - Wee are not greatly sorry; but if any, - Free from the yoake of the ingaged many, - That dare speake truth even when their head stands by, - Or when the seniors spoone is in the pye; - Nor to commend the worthy will forbeare, - Though he of Cambridge, or of Christ-church were, - And not of his owne colledge; and will shame - To wrong the person, for his howse, or name; - If any such be greiv’d, then downe proud spirit; - If not, know, number never conquer’d merit. - - - - -THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. - - -Of the romantic expedition to Spain of “Baby Charles and Stennie” an -account is given by Clarendon, and a more minute narrative by Arthur -Wilson in his Life of James. The voyage was conducted with great secrecy, -and very few attendants: but it is worthy remark, that Archee “the -princes fool-man” was one of the party. Howell, who was at Madrid at the -time, says, “Our cousin Archy hath more privilege than any, for he often -goes with his fool’s-coat where the _Infanta_ is with her Meninas and -ladies of honour, and keeps a blowing and blustering amongst them, and -flurts out what he list.” One of his “flurts” at the Spaniards is related -in the same page[75]. - -The poem, as far as it describes the various rumours during the absence -of the parties, a period of great consternation, is curious: the report -of Buckingham’s “difference with the Cond’ Olivares” rests upon better -authority than the then opinion of the poet. - -They left the court Feb. 17th, and returned to England the 5th Oct. 1623. - - - - -A LETTER TO THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, BEING WITH THE PRINCE IN SPAINE. - - - I’ve read of ilands floating and remov’d - In Ovids time, but never heard it prov’d - Till now: that fable, by the prince and you, - By your transporting England, is made true. - Wee are not where wee were; the dog-starr raignes - No cooler in our climate, then in Spaines; - The selfe-same breath, same ayre, same heate, same burning, - Is here, as there; will be, till your returning: - Come, e’re the card be alter’d, lest perhaps - Your stay may make an errour in our mapps; - Lest England should be found, when you shall passe, - A thousand miles more southward then it was. - Oh that you were, my lord, oh that you were - Now in Blackfryers, in a disguis’d haire; - That you were Smith againe, two houres to bee - In Paules next Sunday, at full sea at three; - There you should heare the legend of each day, - The perills of your inne, and of your way; - Your enterprises, accidents, untill - You did arrive at court, and reach Madrill. - There you should heare how the State-grandees flout you, - With their twice-double diligence about you; - How our environ’d prince walkes with a guard - Of Spanish spies, and his owne servants barr’d; - How not a chaplaine of his owne may stay - When hee would heare a sermon preach’d, or pray. - You would be hungry, having din’d, to heare - The price of victuailes, and the scarcity, there; - As if the prince had ventur’d there his life - To make a famine, not to fetch a wife. - Your eggs (which might be addle too) are deare - As English capons; capons as sheepe, here; - No grasse neither for cattle; for they say - It is not cutt and made, grasse there growes hay: - That ’tis soe seething hott in Spaine, they sweare - They never heard of a raw oyster there: - Your cold meate comes in reaking, and your wine - Is all burnt sack, the fire was in the vine; - Item, your pullets are distinguish’t there - Into foure quarters, as wee carve the yeare, - And are a weeke a wasting: Munday noone - A wing; at supper something with a spoone; - Tuesday a legg, and soe forth; Sunday more, - The liver and a gizard betweene foure: - And for your mutton, in the best houshoulder - ’Tis felony to cheapen a whole shoulder. - Lord! how our stomackes come to us againe, - When wee conceive what snatching is in Spaine! - I, whilst I write, and doe the newes repeate, - Am forc’t to call for breakfast in, and eate: - And doe you wonder at the dearth the while? - The flouds that make it run in th’ middle ile, - Poets of Paules, those of duke Humfryes messe, - That feede on nought but graves and emptinesse. - But heark you, noble sir, in one crosse weeke - My lord hath lost a thowsand pound at gleeke; - And though they doe allow but little meate, - They are content your losses should be great. - False, on my deanery! falser then your fare is; - Or then your difference with _Cond’ de Olivares_, - Which was reported strongly for one tyde, - But, after six houres floating, ebb’d and dyde. - If God would not this great designe should be - Perfect and round without some knavery, - Nor that our prince should end this enterprize, - But for soe many miles, soe many lyes: - If for a good event the Heav’ns doe please - Mens tongues should become rougher then the seas, - And that th’ expence of paper shall be such, - First written, then translated out of Dutch: - Corantoes, diets, packets, newes, more newes, - Which soe much innocent whitenesse doth abuse; - If first the Belgicke[76] pismire must be seene, - Before the Spanish lady be our queene; - With such successe, and such an end at last, - All’s wellcome, pleasant, gratefull, that is past. - And such an end wee pray that you should see, - A type of that which mother Zebedee - Wisht for her sonnes in heav’n; the prince and you - At either hand of James, (you need not sue) - Hee on the right, you on the left, the king - Safe in the mids’t, you both invironing. - Then shall I tell my lord, his word and band - Are forfeit, till I kisse the princes hand; - Then shall I tell the duke, your royall friend - Gave all the other honours, this you earn’d; - This you have wrought for; this you hammer’d out - Like a strong Smith, good workman and a stout. - In this I have a part, in this I see - Some new addition smiling upon mee: - Who, in an humble distance, claime a share - In all your greatnesse, what soe ere you are. - - - - -RICHARD, THE THIRD EARL OF DORSET, - - -Is described by his wife, the celebrated lady Anne Clifford, daughter of -George earl of Cumberland, in the manuscript memoirs of her life, as a -man “in his own nature of a just mind, of a sweet disposition, and very -valiant in his own person. He had a great advantage in his breeding, by -the wisdom and devotion of his grandfather, Thomas Sackville, earl of -Dorset, and lord high treasurer of England, who was then held one of -the wisest of that time; by which means he was so good a scholar in all -manner of learning, that, in his youth, when he was at the university, -there was none of the young nobility then students there that excelled -him. He was also a good patriot to his country, and generally well -beloved in it; much esteemed in all the parliaments that sat in his -time, and so great a lover of scholars and soldiers, as that, with an -excessive bounty towards them, or indeed any of worth that were in -distress, he did much diminish his estate; and also with excessive -prodigality in house-keeping, and other noble ways at court, as tilting, -masking, and the like; prince Henry being then alive, who was much -addicted to those noble exercises, and of whom he was much beloved.” He -died at the age of 35, March 28th, 1624. - -I should be very unwilling to deprive Corbet of the praise due to a poem -of so much intrinsic merit; but as the following epitaph is printed among -the poems of his contemporary, King, bishop of Chichester, and again -attributed to the latter in MS. Ashmole, A 35, Corbet’s claim to the -composition of it is rendered very disputable. - - - - -ON THE EARL OF DORSETS DEATH. - - - Let no prophane, ignoble foot tread here, - This hallowed piece of earth, Dorset lyes there: - A small poor relique of a noble spirit, - Free as the air, and ample as his merit: - A soul refin’d, no proud forgetting lord, - But mindful of mean names, and of his word: - Who lov’d men for his honour, not his ends, - And had the noblest way of getting friends - By loving first, and yet who knew the court, - But understood it better by report - Than practice: he nothing took from thence - But the kings favour for his recompence. - Who, for religion or his countreys good, - Neither his honour valued, nor his blood. - Rich in the worlds opinion, and mens praise, - And full in all we could desire, but days. - He that is warn’d of this, and shall forbear - To vent a sigh for him, or shed a tear, - May he live long scorn’d, and unpitied fall, - And want a mourner at his funeral! - - - - -TO THE NEW-BORNE PRINCE, AFTERWARDS CHARLES II. - -(Born May 29th[77], 1630; died 6th of February, 1684-5.) - -UPON THE APPARITION OF A STARR, AND THE FOLLOWING ECCLYPSE. - - - Was heav’ne afray’d to be out-done on earth - When thou wert borne, great prince, that it brought forth - Another light to helpe the aged sunn, - Lest by thy luster he might be out-shone? - Or were th’ obsequious starres so joy’d to view - Thee, that they thought their countlesse eyes too few - For such an object; and would needes create - A better influence to attend thy state? - Or would the Fates thereby shew to the earth - A Cæsars birth, as once a Cæsars death? - And was ’t that newes that made pale Cynthia run - In so great hast to intercept the sunn; - And, enviously, so shee might gaine thy sight, - Would darken him from whome shee had her light? - Mysterious prodigies yet sure they bee, - Prognosticks of a rare prosperity: - For, can thy life promise lesse good to men, - Whose birth was th’ envy, and the care of heav’ne? - - - - -ON THE BIRTH OF THE YOUNG PRINCE CHARLES. - - - When private men gett sonnes they get a spoone[78], - Without ecclypse, or any starr at noone: - When kings gett sonnes, they get withall supplyes - And succours, farr beyond all subsedyes. - Wellcome, Gods loane! thou tribute to the State, - Thou mony newly coyn’d, thou fleete of plate! - Thrice happy childe! whome God thy father sent - To make him rich without a parliament! - - - - -VINCENT CORBET, - - -The only son of the poet, was born (if the authority of a manuscript -in the Harleian collection may be relied upon, in which this pathetic -address appears,) on the 10th of November, 1627. From the following -injunction in the bishop’s will[79], it seems he was educated at one -of the universities: “I commit and commend the nurture and maintenance -of my sonne and daughter unto the faythfull and loving care of my -mother-in-law, declaring my intent, &c., that my sonne be placed at -Oxford or Cambridge, where I require him, upon my blessing, to apply -himself to his booke studiously and industriously.” - -In 1648 he administered to the will[80] of his grandmother Anne Hutton; -and of the further circumstances of his life I am ignorant. - - - - -TO HIS SON, VINCENT CORBET, - -On his BIRTH-DAY, November 10, 1630, being then Three Years old. - - - What I shall leave thee none can tell, - But all shall say I wish thee well; - I wish thee, Vin, before all wealth, - Both bodily and ghostly health: - Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, - So much of either may undo thee. - I wish thee learning, not for show, - Enough for to instruct, and know; - Not such as gentlemen require, - To prate at table, or at fire. - I wish thee all thy mothers graces, - Thy fathers fortunes, and his places. - I wish thee friends, and one at court, - Not to build on, but support; - To keep thee, not in doing many - Oppressions, but from suffering any. - I wish thee peace in all thy ways, - Nor lazy nor contentious days; - And when thy soul and body part, - As innocent as now thou art[81]. - - - - -AN EPITAPH ON DR. DONNE, DEAN OF PAULS. - -Born in 1573; died March 31, 1631. - - - - He that would write an epitaph for thee, - And do it well, must first begin to be - Such as thou wert; for none can truly know - Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath liv’d so. - He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down - Enough to keep the gallants of the town; - He must have learning plenty, both the laws - Civil and common, to judge any cause; - Divinity great store, above the rest, - Not of the last edition, but the best. - He must have language, travel, all the arts, - Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts: - He must have friends the highest, able to do, - Such as Mecænas and Augustus too. - He must have such a sickness, such a death, - Or else his vain descriptions come beneath. - Who then shall write an epitaph for thee, - He must be dead first; let ’t alone for me. - - - - -CERTAIN FEW WOORDES SPOKEN CONCERNINGE ONE BENET CORBETT AFTER HER -DECEASE. - -She died October the 2d, Anno 1634. - -(From MS. Harl. No. 464.) - - - Here, or not many feet from hence, - The virtue lies call’d Patience. - Sickness and Death did do her honour - By loosing paine and feare upon her. - Tis true they forst her to a grave, - That’s all the triumph that they have.... - A silly one.... Retreat o’er night - Proves conquest in the morning-fight: - She will rise up against them both.... - All sleep, believe it, is not sloth. - And, thou that read’st her elegie, - Take something of her historie: - She had one husband and one sonne; - Ask who they were, and then have doone. - - - - -ITER BOREALE - - -Seems a sort of imitation of Horace’s Brundusian journey. Davenant has “a -journey into Worcestershire” (page 215. fol. edit.) in a similar vein, -says Headley. If the popularity of this poem may be estimated by the -frequency of manuscript copies in the public libraries, we may conclude -it was valued very highly, as the transcripts of it are very numerous. - -Misled by one of these, I considered this poem, the longest and most -celebrated of bishop Corbet’s productions, to have been written in -1625: subsequent examination has induced me to place the date of its -composition considerably earlier: the reasons on which this opinion is -grounded, will be detailed in the following analysis of the Tour. - -Our author commences his journey from Oxford in a company consisting -of four persons, two of whom then were, and two of whom wished to be, -doctors: but there is nothing in the course of the tour to show us -which of the classes he belonged to, unless we are to suppose, from the -shortness of cash which discovers itself before the termination of his -adventures, that he was rather one of those who had wealth in expectancy -than in possession. - -[Sidenote: 30] - -[Sidenote: 12] - -They set off on the 10th of August, and, long as the days are about that -period, had a good chance of sharpening their appetites by their first -half-day’s ride, thirty miles before dinner, when they sat down to dine -with Dr. Christopher Middleton, at his rectory of Ashton on the Wall in -Northamptonshire, about eight miles north of Banbury; where we learn that -their entertainment was better than the looks of their host, whom they -left in the evening, and rode to Flore, about twelve miles north-east, -and took up their lodgings for the night. - -At Flore they were entertained by a country surgeon, or (in the vulgar -phrase) bone-setter, the tenant of Dr. Leonard Hutton, the rector of -Flore and dean of Christ-Church, who fed them upon venison. - -[Sidenote: 5] - -The third morning they set off for Daventry, about five miles. Here it -happened to be the market- and lecture-day: and after having washed down -the dust which their throats had acquired in the ride, one of them was -summoned by the serjeant at mace to deliver the lecture; for which they -were all rewarded with thanks and wine. - -[Sidenote: 16] - -[Sidenote: 13] - -The fourth morning they rode to Lutterworth in Leicestershire, about -sixteen miles. This was once the benefice of Wickliffe, the father of -English reformers; and here the tourist very properly remarks on the -double injustice done to that venerable character, first by the Papists -in burning his body, and afterwards by the Puritans in destroying the -sacred memorial of the interment of his ashes. At Lutterworth they were -met by a parson, who though well-beneficed was better-mannered, and was -their guide to his dwelling within a mile of Leicester. A note on the -older editions of Corbet calls this gentleman the Parson of Heathcot: -but there is no place of the name of Heathcot in that neighbourhood; -and as, by comparison with other parts of the tour in which miles are -mentioned, one mile will be invariably found to signify one and a half at -the least; and as less than two reputed miles is accounted only one mile -in the distance of places, I presume it was Ayleston, and not Heathcot, -where the party rested, and were regaled with stale beer. At length they -arrived at Leicester, thirteen miles north of Lutterworth, where, passing -over six steeples and two hospitals, (“one hospital twice told,”) -which he refers to the eye of Camden, he censures the ignorance of the -alms-man, who, notwithstanding it was written on the walls that Henry -of Grisemont laid the foundation, told them it was John of Gaunt. Henry -Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, was the first founder of the hospital -in the Newark at Leicester in the year 1330, which was considerably -enlarged and improved, and converted into a college by his son Henry, the -good duke of Lancaster, in 1355; but there is a more general sense in -which the word Founder is used, namely, that in which it is extended to -all those who inherit, either by descent or by purchase, the patronage -under the original founder. And in this sense it may be applied to John -of Gaunt, the second duke of Lancaster, who married his near kinswoman -the heiress of the former duke, and perfected both in buildings and -endowments what the others had commenced. The other hospital alluded to, -is that founded by William Wigston, merchant of the Staple, about 1520. - -The tourist next observes on the extortion of the innkeeper, who, -reckoning by the number of his guests rather than the goodness of his -provision, charged them seven shillings and sixpence for bread and beer; -but, after a kindly caution to the publican to forbear such cozenage upon -Divines in future, lest they should be suspected of drinking as freely -as he charges them, turns from a subject so unworthy of his Pegasus in -disgust, and inquires if this be not the burial-place of Richard the -Third; and, finding that there is no memorial for him, moralizes upon the -neglected state in which he lies, as the eventual fate of all greatness: -then from Richard proceeds to Wolsey, who was also buried at Leicester, -and produces similar reflections; and from Wolsey, to William the ostler -of the inn, who outdoes the company in years as well as drink, and calls -them to horse as imperiously as if he had a warrant from the earl of -Nottingham. - -The earl of Nottingham here glanced at was Charles lord Howard of -Effingham, lord high admiral of England under queen Elizabeth and king -James the First. He died in 1624. - -[Sidenote: 25] - -From Leicester to Nottingham (twenty-five miles) the travellers pass -without noticing any thing on their way, until approaching the latter -place they cross the Trent, pray to St. Andrew as they ride up hill, into -the town, and observe that the people burrow, like conies, in caverns, -from whence the smoke ascends at the feet of the woman who stands on the -surface watching, down the chimney, the cooking of her dinner. The part -of the town at which they enter is described as the Rocky Parish, higher -than the rest; and the church of St. Mary, as embracing her Baby in her -arms. From hence they proceed to the Castle, which is described as a -ruin, with two statues of giants at the gates, whom the tourist severely -censures for their negligence in permitting their charge to come to ruin, -and reproaches them with the fidelity of the giants at Guildhall and -Holmeby, who had carefully kept the buildings committed to their charge -when the founders were dead. The poet might still compliment the giants -at Guildhall; but of Holmeby (Holdenby House, Northamptonshire, built -by queen Elizabeth’s lord chancellor, sir Christopher Hatton,) not one -stone remains upon another: nay, the very memory of the giants might have -perished but for the Iter Boreale. - -The travellers then go to dinner at the Bull’s Head, where the archbishop -of York had been before them, and where their discontent with bed and -diet was answered by a reference to the satisfaction which _he_ had -received; and where the aged landlord, formerly an ostler, is noticed as -a rare example to those who have an itch for gold. - -[Sidenote: 20] - -Their next stage was to Newark, (about twenty miles, or, according to -the reckoning of the poet, twelve), which is spoken of as no journey, -but only a walk; and the banks of the Trent as so fertile and beautiful, -that the English river takes away the palm from the celebrated Meander. -The pleasure of this part of their journey was not diminished by their -reception at Newark, where they met with a friend, out of respect to whom -the town united as a family to give the travellers a hearty welcome; and -even the landlord of one inn did not repine that they had passed his -house to go to another, and the landlord of the inn where they rested -was more solicitous of their approbation than his own profit. The very -beggars rather prayed for their friend than begged of his guests, and the -Puritans were willing to “let the organs play,” if the visitors would -tarry. - -From Newark they saw Bever (Belvoir) and Lincoln, and would fain have -gone there but for the limitation on their purse and horses. At three -o’clock they set off, with twenty (thirty) miles to ride, (probably to -Melton Mowbray); and having neither guide, nor horse of speed, after -losing their way, two hours after sun-set blundered upon a village, from -whence they obtained a guide to Loughborough. From thence they set off -next morning for Bosworth, (eighteen miles,) but in their way thither -are lost in Charley Forest, and ask their way from the travellers they -meet about the coal-mines at Coalorton, without receiving an answer; when -William, their attendant, seeing a man approach, imagines himself to be -in Fairyland. But the party are agreeably surprised by finding him one of -the keepers of the forest, who conducts them within view of Bosworth. - -At Bosworth they meet with far better treatment than the appearance -of the place had promised; and, when their host there, who was their -guide the next morning, brought them near to the field on which the -battle of Bosworth was fought, are greatly amused by his romantic -description of the battle. The guide seems to leave them at Nuneaton in -Warwickshire, six miles (about nine) from Bosworth; from whence they -proceed to Coventry, nine miles; and from thence, having scarcely had -time to dine, depart for Kenilworth, five miles, where they are offended -by the indecency of an aged parson, who attended the servant of the -lord Leicester, it is presumed, to show them the Castle. The Castle of -Kenilworth was once the splendid residence of Robert Dudley, earl of -Leicester, one of the favourites of queen Elizabeth, and on his death, -in 1588, passed to his son, Robert Dudley, who used the title of earl -of Leicester,—but by a decree of the Star-Chamber was declared to be -illegitimate, and from disgust at that sentence retired into Italy, under -a license for three years; and being summoned by the privy-council, at -the instigation of his enemies, to return into England, and refusing to -obey the summons, the Castle of Kenilworth was, for his contumacy, seized -by the Crown under the statute of Fugitives; and Henry prince of Wales, -in the year 1611, purchased a release of the inheritance of it from sir -Robert Dudley, who was to have the constableship of the Castle, under -prince Henry, for life. It does not appear, however, that sir Robert -Dudley resided at Kenilworth afterwards: he probably had little regard -for a place of which he had been compelled to relinquish the inheritance. -This may account for the neglected state in which it was found by our -poet and his companions. - -From Kenilworth they proceed to Warwick, three (five) miles, noticing -in their way the Cave of the celebrated hero of English romance, Guy -earl of Warwick, as also his Pillar: and at Warwick we have a humorous -description of the landlady of the inn. From the inn they proceed to the -Castle, where they are received by “the lord of all this frame, the -honourable Chancellor,” whose politeness and elegance of manners receive -favourable notice. Sir Fulk Greville obtained a grant of Warwick Castle -from king James the First, in the second year of his reign, (1604,) -and was about the same time appointed chancellor of the exchequer; and -resigned his office of chancellor, on being elevated to the peerage by -the title of lord Brooke, 19th of January, 1620-21. It may be observed, -that the author of the Iter notices him as an honourable chancellor, not -as noble lord; which he certainly would have done if the Iter had not -been of an earlier date than 1621. - -With sir Fulk Greville they found a prelate of the church, an archdeacon, -whom a note in the old editions calls archdeacon Burton. This, I presume, -was Samuel Burton, A. M. of Christ-Church, Oxford, who paid first-fruits -for the archdeaconry of Gloucester, in the cathedral of Gloucester, the -9th of May, 1607, and died the 14th of June, 1634, and was buried at -Dry-Drayton in Gloucestershire. He is described as sufficiently corpulent -to deserve the displeasure of the Puritans, whom our author never loses -an opportunity of lashing. - -From Warwick they arrive at Flore, (about twenty-one miles,) having been -able to make both ends (of their purse) meet; and, after staying there -four days, arrive at Banbury on St. Bartholomew’s day, (24th of August,) -desirous to see what sport the saint would produce there. At this place -(where they rested at the sign of the Altar-Stone) the tourist finds -the altar converted into an inn, and, judging by the sign, lodged in a -chapel, but, by the wine, in a bankrupt tavern; and yet, by the coffins -converted into horse-troughs, a church. But though you may judge, by what -is found at the inn, that the church is full of monuments, you will be -disappointed; for there was not an inscription in the church except the -names of the last year’s churchwardens,—with buckets and cobwebs hanging, -instead of painted saints, in the windows. In short, the town seems to -have been a strange collection of sectaries differing from each other. - -From hence he returns to Oxford, twenty-two miles, with as little coin in -his purse as sir Walter Raleigh brought from his unsuccessful expedition -to Guiana in 1618; between which period and 1621 it is clear the poem was -written. - - - - -ITER BOREALE. - - - Foure clerkes of Oxford, doctours two, and two - That would be doctors, having lesse to do - With Augustine then with Galen in vacation, - Chang’d studyes, and turn’d bookes to recreation: - And on the tenth of August, northward bent - A journey, not so soon conceiv’d as spent. - The first halfe day they rode, they light upon - A noble cleargy host, Kitt Middleton[82]; - Who, numb’ring out good dishes with good tales, - The major part o’ th’ cheere weigh’d downe the scales: - And though the countenance makes the feast, (say bookes,) - Wee nere found better welcome with worse lookes. - Here wee pay’d thankes and parted; and at night - Had entertainement, all in one mans right[83], - At Flore, a village; where our tenant shee, - Sharp as a winters morning, feirce yet free, - With a leane visage, like a carved face - On a court cupboard, offer’d up the place. - Shee pleas’d us well; but, yet, her husband better; - A harty fellow, and a good bone-setter[84]. - Now, whether it were providence or lucke, - Whether the keepers or the stealers bucke, - There wee had ven’son; such as Virgill slew - When he would feast Æneas and his crew. - Here wee consum’d a day; and the third morne - To Daintry with a land-wind were wee borne. - It was the market and the lecture-day, - For lecturers sell sermons, as the lay - Doe sheep and oxen; have their seasons just - For both their marketts: there wee dranke downe dust. - In th’ interim comes a most officious drudge[85], - His face and gowne drawne out with the same budge; - His pendant pouch, which was both large and wide, - Lookt like a letters-patent by his side: - He was as awfull, as he had bin sent - From Moses with th’ elev’nth commandement; - And one of us he sought; a sonne of Flore - He must bid stand, and challendge for an hower. - The doctors both were quitted of that feare, - The one was hoarce, the other was not there; - Wherefore him of the two he seazed, best - Able to answere him of all the rest: - Because hee neede but ruminate that ore - Which he had chew’d the Sabbath-day before. - And though he were resolv’d to doe him right, - For Mr. Balyes sake, and Mr. Wright[86], - Yet he dissembled that the mace did erre; - That he nor deacon was, nor minister. - No! quoth the serjeant; sure then, by relation, - You have a licence, sir, or toleration: - And if you have no orders ’tis the better, - So you have Dods Præcepts, or Cleavers Letters[87]. - Thus looking on his mace, and urging still - Twas Mr. Wrights and Mr. Bayleyes will - That hee should mount; at last he condiscended - To stopp the gapp; and so the treaty ended. - The sermon pleas’d, and, when we were to dine, - Wee all had preachers wages, thankes and wine. - Our next dayes stage was Lutterworth[88], a towne - Not willing to be noted or sett downe - By any traveller; for, when w’ had bin - Through at both ends, wee could not finde an inne: - Yet, for the church sake, turne and light wee must, - Hoping to see one dramme of Wickliffs dust[89]; - But wee found none: for underneath the pole - Noe more rests of his body then his soule. - Abused martyr! how hast thou bin torne - By two wilde factions! First, the Papists burne - Thy bones for hate; the Puritans, in zeale, - They sell thy marble, and thy brasse they steale. - A parson[90] mett us there, who had good store - Of livings, some say, but of manners more; - In whose streight chearefull age a man might see - Well govern’d fortune, bounty wise and free. - He was our guide to Leister, save one mile, - There was his dwelling, where wee stay’d awhile, - And dranke stale beere, I thinke was never new, - Which the dun wench that brought it us did brew. - And now wee are at Leister, where wee shall - Leape ore six steeples, and one hospitall - Twice told; but those great landmarkes I referr - To Camdens eye, Englands chorographer. - Let mee observe that almesmans heraldrye, - Who being ask’d, what Henry that should be - That was their founder, duke of Lancaster, - Answer’d: Twas John of Gaunt, I assure you, sir; - And so confuted all the walles, which sayd - Henry of Grisemond this foundation layd. - The next thing to be noted was our cheere, - Enlarg’d, with seav’ne and sixpence bread and beere! - But, oh you wretched tapsters as you are, - Who reckon by our number, not your ware, - And sett false figures for all companyes, - Abusing innocent meales with oathes and lyes; - Forbeare your coos’nage to Divines that come, - Least they be thought to drinke up all your summe. - Spare not the Laity in your reckoning thus, - But sure your theft is scandalous to us. - Away, my muse, from this base subject, know - Thy Pegasus nere strooke his foote soe low. - Is not th’ usurping Richard buryed here, - That king of hate, and therefore slave of feare; - Dragg’d from the fatall feild Bosworth, where hee - Lost life, and, what he liv’d for,—cruelty? - Search; find his name: but there is none. Oh kings! - Remember whence your power and vastnesse springs; - If not as Richard now, so shall you bee; - Who hath no tombe, but scorne and memorye. - And though that Woolsey from his store might save - A pallace, or a colledge for his grave, - Yet there he lyes interred as if all - Of him to be remembred were his fall. - Nothing but earth to earth, no pompeous waight - Upon him, but a pibble or a quaite. - If thou art thus neglected, what shall wee[91] - Hope after death, who are but shreads of thee? - Hold! William calls to horse; William is hee, - Who, though he never saw threescore and three, - Ore-reckons us in age, as he before - In drink, and will baite nothing of foure score: - And he commands, as if the warrant came - From the great earle himselfe of Nottingham. - There wee crost Trent, and on the other side - Prayd to Saint Andrew; and up hill wee ride. - Where wee observ’d the cunning men, like moles, - Dwell not in howses, but were earth’t in holes; - So did they not builde upwards, but digg thorough, - As hermitts caves, or conyes do their borough: - Great underminers sure as any where; - Tis thought the Powder-traitors practis’d there. - Would you not thinke the men stood on their heads, - When gardens cover howses there, like leades; - And on the chymneyes topp the mayd may know - Whether her pottage boyle or not, below; - There cast in hearbes, and salt, or bread; their meate - Contented rather with the smoake then heate? - This was the Rocky-Parish; higher stood - Churches and houses, buildings stone and wood; - Crosses not yet demolish’t; and our Ladye - With her armes on, embracing her whole Baby[92]. - Where let us note, though those are northerne parts, - The Crosse finds in them more then southerne hearts. - The Castle’s next; but what shall I report - Of that which is a ruine, was a fort? - The gates two statues keepe, which gyants[93] are, - To whome it seemes committed was the care - Of the whole downfall. If it be your fault; - If you are guilty; may king Davids vault[94], - Or Mortimers darke hole[95], contain you both[96]! - A just reward for so prophane a sloth. - And if hereafter tidings shall be brought - Of any place or office to be bought, - And the left lead, or unwedg’d timber yet - Shall pass by your consent to purchase it; - May your deformed bulkes endure the edge - Of axes, feele the beetle and the wedge! - May all the ballads be call’d in and dye, - Which sing the warrs of Colebrand and sir Guy! - Oh you that doe Guild-hall and Holmeby keepe - Soe carefully, when both the founders sleepe, - You are good giants, and partake no shame - With those two worthlesse trunkes of Nottinghame: - Looke to your severall charges; wee must goe, - Though greiv’d at heart to leave a castle so. - The Bull-head[97] is the word, and wee must eate; - Noe sorrow can descend soe deepe as meate: - So to the inne wee come; where our best cheere - Was, that his grace of Yorke had lodged there: - Hee was objected to us when wee call, - Or dislike ought: “My lords grace” answers all: - “Hee was contented with this bed, this dyett.” - That keepes our discontented stomackes quiett. - The inne-keeper was old, fourescore allmost, - Indeede an embleme rather then an host; - In whome wee read how God and Time decree - To honour thrifty ostlers, such as hee. - For in the stable first he did begin; - Now see hee is sole lord of the whole inne: - Mark the encrease of straw and hay, and how, - By thrift, a bottle may become a mow. - Marke him, all you that have the golden itch, - All whome God hath condemned to be rich[98]. - Farwell, glad father of thy daughter Maris, - Thou ostler-phœnix, thy example rare is. - Wee are for Newarke after this sad talke; - And whither tis noe journey, but a walke. - Nature is wanton there, and the high-way - Seem’d to be private, though it open lay; - As if some swelling lawyer, for his health, - Or frantick usurer, to tame his wealth, - Had chosen out ten miles by Trent, to trye - Two great effects of art and industry. - The ground wee trodd was meddow, fertile land, - New trimm’d and levell’d by the mowers hand; - Above it grew a roke, rude, steepe, and high, - Which claimes a kind of reverence from the eye: - Betwixt them both there glides a lively streame, - Not loud, but swifte: Mæander was a theame - Crooked and rough; but had the poetts seene - Straight, even Trent, it had immortall bin. - This side the open plaine admitts the sunne - To halfe the river; there did silver runne: - The other halfe ran clowdes; where the curl’d wood - With his exalted head threaten’d the floude. - Here could I wish us ever passing by - And never past; now Newarke is too nigh: - And as a Christmas seemes a day but short, - Deluding time with revells and good sport; - So did these beauteous mixtures us beguile, - And the whole twelve, being travail’d, seem’d a mile. - Now as the way was sweet, soe was the end; - Our passage easy, and our prize a friend[99], - Whome there wee did enjoy; and for whose sake, - As for a purer kinde of coyne, men make - Us liberall welcome; with such harmony - As the whole towne had bin his family. - Mine host of the next inne did not repine - That wee preferr’d the Heart, and past his signe: - And where wee lay, the host and th’ hostesse faine - Would shew our love was aym’d at, not their gaine: - The very beggars were s’ ingenious, - They rather prayd for him, then begg’d of us. - And, soe the Doctors friends will please to stay, - The Puritans will let the organs play. - Would they pull downe the gallery, builded new, - With the church-wardens seat and Burleigh-pew, - Newarke, for light and beauty, might compare - With any church, but what cathedralls are. - To this belongs a vicar[100], who succeded - The friend I mention’d; such a one there needed; - A man whose tongue and life is eloquent, - Able to charme those mutinous heads of Trent, - And urge the Canon home, when they conspire - Against the crosse and bells with swords and fire. - There stood a Castle, too; they shew us here - The roome where the King slep’t[101], the window where - He talk’t with such a lord, how long he staid - In his discourse, and all, but what he said. - From hence, without a perspective, wee see - Bever and Lincolne, where wee faine would bee; - But that our purse and horses both are bound - Within the circuite of a narrower ground. - Our purpose is all homeward, and ’twas time - At parting to have witt, as well as rime; - Full three a clock, and twenty miles to ride, - Will aske a speedy horse, and a sure guide; - Wee wanted both: and Loughborow may glory, - Errour hath made it famous in our story. - Twas night, and the swifte horses of the Sunne - Two houres before our jades their race had runn; - Noe pilott moone, nor any such kinde starre - As governd those wise men that came from farre - To holy Bethlem; such lights had there bin, - They would have soone convay’d us to an inne; - But all were wandring-starrs; and wee, as they, - Were taught noe course, but to ride on and stray. - When (oh the fate of darknesse, who hath tride it) - Here our whole fleete is scatter’d and divided; - And now wee labour more to meete, then erst - Wee did to lodge; the last cry drownes the first: - Our voyces are all spent, and they that follow - Can now no longer track us by the hollow; - They curse the formost, wee the hindmost, both - Accusing with like passion, hast, and sloth. - At last, upon a little towne wee fall, - Where some call drinke, and some a candle call: - Unhappy wee, such stragglers as wee are - Admire a candle offner then a starre: - Wee care not for those glorious lampes a loofe, - Give us a tallow-light and a dry roofe. - And now wee have a guide wee cease to chafe, - And now w’ have time to pray the rest be safe. - Our guide before cryes Come, and wee the while - Ride blindfold, and take bridges for a stile: - Till at the last wee overcame the darke, - And spight of night and errour hitt the marke. - Some halfe howre after enters the whole tayle, - As if they were committed to the jayle: - The constable, that tooke them thus divided, - Made them seeme apprehended, and not guided: - Where, when wee had our fortunes both detested, - Compassion made us friends, and so wee rested. - ’Twas quickly morning, though by our short stay - Wee could not find that wee had lesse to pay. - All travellers, this heavy judgement heare: - “A handsome hostesse makes the reckoning deare;” - Her smiles, her wordes, your purses must requite them, - And every wellcome from her, adds an item. - Glad to be gon from thence at any rate, - For Bosworth wee are horst: Behold the state - Of mortall men! Foule Errour is a mother, - And, pregnant once, doth soone bring forth an other; - Wee, who last night did learne to loose our way, - Are perfect since, and farther out next day. - And in a forrest[102] having travell’d sore, - Like wandring Bevis ere hee found the bore; - Or as some love-sick lady oft hath donne, - Ere shee was rescued by the Knight of th’ Sunne: - Soe are wee lost, and meete no comfort then - But carts and horses, wiser then the men. - Which is the way? They neyther speake nor point; - Their tongues and fingers both were out of joynt: - Such monsters by Coal-Orton bankes there sitt, - After their resurrection from the pitt. - Whilst in this mill wee labour and turne round - As in a conjurers circle, William found - A menes for our deliverance: Turne your cloakes, - Quoth hee, for Puck is busy in these oakes: - If ever yee at Bosworth will be found, - Then turne your cloakes, for this is Fayry-ground. - But, ere this witchcraft was perform’d, wee mett - A very man, who had no cloven feete; - Though William, still of little faith, doth doubt - Tis Robin, or some sprite that walkes about: - Strike him, quoth hee, and it will turne to ayre; - Crosse your selves thrice and strike it: Strike that dare, - Thought I, for sure this massy forrester - In stroakes will prove the better conjurer. - But twas a gentle keeper, one that knew - Humanity, and manners where they grew; - And rode along soe farr till he could say, - See yonder Bosworth stands, and this your way. - And now when wee had swett ’twixt sunn and sunn, - And eight miles long to thirty broad had spun; - Wee learne the just proportion from hence - Of the diameter and circumference. - That night yet made amends; our meat and sheetes - Were farr above the promise of those streetes; - Those howses, that were tilde with straw and mosse, - Profest but weake repaire for that dayes losse - Of patience: yet this outside lets us know, - The worthyest things make not the bravest show: - The shott was easy; and what concernes us more, - The way was so; mine host doth ride before. - Mine host was full of ale and history; - And on the morrow when hee brought us nigh - Where the two Roses[103] joyn’d, you would suppose, - Chaucer nere made the Romant of the Rose. - Heare him. See yee yon wood? There Richard lay, - With his whole army: Looke the other way, - And loe where Richmond in a bed of gorsse - Encampt himselfe ore night, and all his force: - Upon this hill they mett. Why, he could tell - The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell: - Besides what of his knowledge he could say, - He had authenticke notice from the Play; - Which I might guesse, by’s mustring up the ghosts, - And policyes, not incident to hosts; - But cheifly by that one perspicuous thing, - Where he mistooke a player for a king. - For when he would have sayd, King Richard dyed, - And call’d—A horse! a horse!—he, Burbidge cry’de[104]. - Howere his talke, his company pleas’d well; - His mare went truer then his chronicle; - And even for conscience sake, unspurr’d, unbeaten, - Brought us six miles, and turn’d tayle at Nuneaton. - From thence to Coventry, where wee scarcely dine; - Our stomackes only warm’d with zeale and wine: - And then, as if wee were predestin’d forth, - Like Lot from Sodome, fly to Killingworth. - The keeper of the castle was from home, - Soe that halfe mile wee lost; yet when wee come - An host receiv’d us there, wee’l nere deny him, - My lord of Leisters man; the parson by him, - Who had no other proofe to testify - He serv’d the Lord, but age and baudery[105]. - Away, for shame, why should foure miles devide - Warwicke and us? They that have horses ride. - A short mile from the towne, an humble shrine[106] - At foote of an high rock consists, in signe - Of Guy and his devotions; who there stands - Ugly and huge, more then a man on ’s hands: - His helmett steele, his gorgett mayl, his sheild - Brass, made the chappell fearefull as a feild. - And let this answere all the Popes complaints; - Wee sett up gyants though wee pull downe saintes. - Beyond this, in the roadway as wee went, - A pillar stands, where this Colossus leant; - Where he would sigh and love, and, for hearts ease, - Oftimes write verses (some say) such as these: - “Here will I languish in this silly bower, - Whilst my true love triumphes in yon high tower.” - No other hinderance now, but wee may passe - Cleare to our inne: Oh there an hostesse was, - To whome the Castle and the Dun Cow are - Sights after dinner; shee is morning ware. - Her whole behaviour borrowed was, and mixt, - Halfe foole, halfe puppet, and her pace betwixt - Measure and jigge; her court’sy was an honour; - Her gate, as if her neighbour had out-gon her. - Shee was barrd up in whale-bones which doe leese - None of the whales length; for they reach’d her knees: - Off with her head, and then shee hath a middle: - As her wast stands, shee lookes like the new fiddle, - The favorite Theorbo, (truth to tell yee,) - Whose neck and throat are deeper then the belly[107]. - Have you seene monkyes chain’d about the loynes, - Or pottle-potts with rings? Just soe shee joynes - Her selfe together: A dressing shee doth love - In a small print below, and text above. - What though her name be King, yet tis noe treason, - Nor breach of statute, for to aske the reason - Of her brancht ruffe, a cubit every poke: - I seeme to wound her, but shee strook the stroke - At our departure; and our worshipps there - Pay’d for our titles deare as any where: - Though beadles and professors both have done, - Yet every inne claimes augmentation. - Please you walke out and see the Castle[108]? Come, - The owner saith, it is a schollers home; - A place of strength and health: in the same fort, - You would conceive a castle and a court. - The orchards, gardens, rivers, and the aire, - Doe with the trenches, rampires, walls, compare: - It seemes nor art nor force can intercept it, - As if a lover built, a souldier kept it. - Up to the tower, though it be steepe and high, - Wee doe not climbe but walke; and though the eye - Seeme to be weary, yet our feet are still - In the same posture cozen’d up the hill: - And thus the workemans art deceaves our sence, - Making those rounds of pleasure a defence. - As wee descend, the lord of all this frame, - The honorable Chancellour, towards us came[109]. - Above the hill there blew a gentle breath, - Yet now we see a gentler gale beneath. - The phrase and wellcome of this knight did make - The seat more elegant; every word he spake - Was wine and musick, which he did expose - To us, if all our art could censure those. - With him there was a prelate[110], by his place - Arch-deacon to the byshopp, by his face - A greater man; for that did counterfeit - Lord abbot of some covent standing yet, - A corpulent relique: marry and tis sinne - Some Puritan gets not his face call’d in; - Amongst leane brethren it may scandall bring, - Who seeke for parity in every thing. - For us, let him enjoy all that God sends, - Plenty of flesh, of livings, and of freinds. - Imagine here us ambling downe the street, - Circling in Flower, making both ends meet: - Where wee fare well foure dayes, and did complain, - Like harvest folkes, of weather and the raine: - And on the feast of Barthol’mew wee try - What revells that saint keepes at Banbury[111]. - In th’ name of God, Amen! First to begin, - The altar was translated to an inne; - Wee lodged in a chappell by the signe, - But in a banquerupt taverne by the wine: - Besides, our horses usage made us thinke - Twas still a church, for they in coffins drinke[112]; - As if twere congruous that the ancients lye - Close by those alters in whose faith they dye. - Now yee beleeve the Church hath good varietye - Of monuments, when inns have such satiety; - But nothing lesse: ther’s no inscription there, - But the church-wardens names of the last yeare: - Instead of saints in windowes and on walls, - Here bucketts hang, and there a cobweb falls: - Would you not sweare they love antiquity, - Who brush the quire for perpetuity? - Whilst all the other pavement and the floore - Are supplicants to the surveyors power - Of the high wayes, that he would gravell keepe; - For else in winter sure it will be deepe. - If not for Gods, for Mr. Wheatlyes sake - Levell the walkes; suppose these pittfalls make - Him spraine a lecture, or misplace a joynt - In his long prayer, or his fiveteenth point: - Thinke you the dawes or stares can sett him right? - Surely this sinne upon your heads must light. - And say, beloved, what unchristian charme - Is this? you have not left a legg or arme - Of an apostle: think you, were they whole, - That they would rise, at least assume a soule? - If not, ’tis plaine all the idolatry - Lyes in your folly, not th’ imagery. - Tis well the pinnacles are falne in twaine; - For now the divell, should he tempt againe, - Hath noe advantage of a place soe high: - Fooles, he can dash you from your gallery, - Where all your medly meete; and doe compare, - Not what you learne, but who is longest there; - The Puritan, the Anabaptist, Brownist, - Like a grand sallet: Tinkers, what a towne ist? - The crosses also, like old stumps of trees, - Are stooles for horsemen that have feeble knees; - Carry noe heads above ground: They which tell, - That Christ hath nere descended into hell, - But to the grave, his picture buried have - In a far deeper dungeon then a grave: - That is, descended to endure what paines - The divell can think, or such disciples braines. - No more my greife, in such prophane abuses - Good whipps make better verses then the muses. - Away, and looke not back; away, whilst yet - The church is standing, whilst the benefitt - Of seeing it remaines; ere long you shall - Have that rac’t downe, and call’d Apocryphal, - And in some barne heare cited many an author, - Kate Stubbs, Anne Askew, or the Ladyes daughter[113]; - Which shall be urg’d for fathers. Stopp Disdaine, - When Oxford once appears, Satyre refraine. - Neighbours, how hath our anger thus out gon ’s? - Is not Saint Giles’s this, and that Saint Johns? - Wee are return’d; but just with soe much ore - As Rawleigh from his voyage, and noe more. - - _Non recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus,_ - _Non ubivis, coramve quibuslibet._ - - HOR. lib. i. sat. 4. - - - - -ON MR. RICE, THE MANCIPLE OF CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD. - - - Who can doubt, Rice, but to th’ eternall place - Thy soule is fledd, that did but know thy face? - Whose body was soe light, it might have gone - To heav’ne without a resurrection. - Indeed thou wert all type; thy limmes were signes, - Thy arteryes but mathematicke lines: - As if two soules had made thy compound good, - That both should live by faith, and none by blood. - - - - -ON HENRY BOLINGS. - - - If gentleness could tame the Fates, or wit - Deliver man, Bolings had not di’d yet; - But One which over us in judgment sits, - Doth say our sins are stronger than our wits. - - - - -ON JOHN DAWSON, BUTLER OF CHRIST-CHURCH. - - - Dawson the butler’s dead: Although I think - Poets were ne’re infus’d with single drink, - I’ll spend a farthing, muse; a watry verse - Will serve the turn to cast upon his herse. - If any cannot weep amongst us here, - Take off his cup, and so squeeze out a tear. - Weep, O ye barrels! let your drippings fall - In trickling streams; make waste more prodigal - Than when our beer was good, that John may float - To Styx in beer, and lift up Charons boat - With wholsome waves: and, as the conduits ran - With claret at the Coronation, - So let your channels flow with single tiff, - For John, I hope, is crown’d: Take off your whiff, - Ye men of rosemary[114], and drink up all, - Remembring ’tis a butlers funeral: - Had he been master of good double beer, - My life for his, John Dawson had been here. - - - - -ON GREAT TOM OF CHRIST-CHURCH. - - - Be dumb, ye infant-chimes, thump not your mettle, - That ne’re out-ring a tinker and his kettle; - Cease, all you petty larums; for, to-day - Is young Tom’s resurrection from the clay: - And know, when Tom rings out his knells, - The best of you will be but dinner-bells. - Old Tom’s grown young again, the fiery cave - Is now his cradle, that was erst his grave: - He grew up quickly from his mother earth, - For, all you see was but an hours birth; - Look on him well, my life I dare engage, - You ne’re saw prettier baby of his age. - Some take his measure by the rule, some by - The Jacobs-staff take his profundity, - And some his altitude; but some do swear - Young Tom’s not like the Old: But, Tom, ne’re fear - The critical geometricians line, - If thou as loud as e’re thou did ring’st nine. - Tom did no sooner peep from under-ground, - But straight Saint Maries tenor lost his sound. - O how this may-poles heart did swell - With full main sides of joy, when that crackt bell - Choakt with annoy, and ’s admiration, - Rung like a quart-pot to the congregation. - Tom went his progress lately, and lookt o’re - What he ne’re saw in many years before; - But when he saw the old foundation, - With some like hope of preparation, - He burst with grief; and lest he should not have - Due pomp, he’s his own bell-man to the grave: - And that there might of him be still some mention, - He carried to his grave a new invention. - They drew his brown-bread face on pretty gins, - And made him stalk upon two rolling-pins; - But Sander Hill swore twice or thrice by heaven, - He ne’re set such a loaf into the oven. - And Tom did Sanders vex, his Cyclops maker, - As much as he did Sander Hill, the baker; - Therefore, loud thumping Tom, be this thy pride, - When thou this motto shalt have on thy side: - “Great world! one Alexander conquer’d thee, - And two as mighty men scarce conquer’d me.” - Brave constant spirit, none could make thee turn, - Though hang’d, drawn, quarter’d, till they did thee burn: - Yet not for this, nor ten times more be sorry, - Since thou was martyr’d for the Churches glory; - But for thy meritorious suffering, - Thou shortly shalt to heaven in a string: - And though we griev’d to see thee thump’d and bang’d, - We’ll all be glad, Great Tom, to see thee hang’d. - - - - -R. C. - - - When too much zeal doth fire devotion, - Love is not love, but superstition: - Even so in civil duties, when we come - Too oft, we are not kind, but troublesome. - Yet as the first is not idolatry, - So is the last but grieved industry: - And such was mine, whose strife to honour you - By overplus, hath rob’d you of your due. - - - - -A PROPER NEW BALLAD, INTITULED THE FAERYES FAREWELL; OR, GOD-A-MERCY WILL. - - -To be sung or whiseled to the Tune of “The Meddow Brow,” by the Learned; -by the Unlearned, to the Tune of “Fortune.” - - Farewell rewards and Faeries, - Good houswives now may say, - For now foule slutts in daries - Doe fare as well as they. - And though they sweepe theyr hearths no less - Then maydes were wont to doe, - Yet who of late for cleaneliness, - Finds sixe-pence in her shoe? - - Lament, lament, old abbies, - The Faries lost command; - They did but change priests babies, - But some have changd your land: - And all your children sprung from thence - Are now growne Puritanes; - Who live as changelings ever since - For love of your demaines. - - At morning and at evening both - You merry were and glad, - So little care of sleepe or sloth - These prettie ladies had; - When Tom came home from labour, - Or Ciss to milking rose, - Then merrily merrily went theyre tabor, - And nimbly went theyre toes. - - Wittness those rings and roundelayes - Of theirs, which yet remaine, - Were footed in queene Maries dayes - On many a grassy playne; - But since of late, Elizabeth, - And later, James came in, - They never daunc’d on any heath - As when the time hath bin. - - By which wee note the Faries - Were of the old profession; - Theyre songs were Ave Maryes; - Theyre daunces were procession: - But now, alas! they all are dead, - Or gone beyond the seas; - Or farther for religion fled, - Or elce they take theyre ease. - - A tell-tale in theyre company - They never could endure, - And whoe so kept not secretly - Theyre mirth was punisht sure; - It was a just and christian deed - To pinch such blacke and blew: - O how the common welth doth need - Such justices as you! - - Now they have left our quarters - A register they have, - Who looketh to theyre charters, - A man both wise and grave; - An hundred of theyre merry prancks - By one that I could name - Are kept in store, conn twenty thanks - To William for the same. - - I marvell who his cloake would turne - When Pucke had led him round[115], - Or where those walking-fires would burne, - Where Cureton would be found; - How Broker would appeare to be, - For whom this age doth mourne; - But that theyre spiritts live in thee, - In thee, old William Chourne. - - To William Chourne of Stafford shire - Give laud and prayses due, - Who every meale can mend your cheare - With tales both old and true: - To William all give audience, - And pray yee for his noddle, - For all the Faries evidence - Were lost, if that were addle. - - - - -A NON SEQUITUR. - -(From “Wit Restored,” 8vo. 1658.) - - - Marke! how the lanterns clowd mine eyes, - See where a moon-drake ’gins to rise; - Saturne crawls much like an iron catt, - To see the naked moone in a slipshott hatt. - Thunder-thumping toadstools crock the pots - To see the mermaids tumble; - Leather cat-a-mountaines shake their heels, - To heare the gosh-hawke grumble. - The rustic threed - Begins to bleed, - And cobwebs elbows itches; - The putrid skyes - Eat mulsacke pyes, - Backed up in logicke breches. - Munday trenchers made good hay, - The lobster weares no dagger; - Meale-mouthed she-peacocke powle the starres, - And made the lowbell stagger. - Blew crocodiles foame in the toe, - Blind meale-bagges do follow the doe; - A ribb of apple braine spice - Will follow the Lancashire dice. - Harke! how the chime of Plutoes pispot cracks, - To see the rainbowes wheele-gann made of flax. - - - - -NONSENCE. - -(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 37.) - - - Like to the thundring tone of unspoke speeches, - Or like a lobster clad in logicke breeches, - Or like the graye-furre of a crimson catt, - Or like the moone-calfe in a slip-shodde hatt: - Even such is hee who never was begotten - Untill his children were both dead and rotten. - - Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage, - Or like a crabbe-louse with its bag and baggage, - Or like the four square circle of a ring, - Or like to hey dinge, dingea dingea dinge: - Even such is he who spake, and yet no doubt - Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out. - - Like to a fairs, fresh, faiding, withered rose, - Or lyke to rhyming verse that runs in prose, - Or lyke the stumbles of a tynder box, - Or lyke a man that’s sound yet hath the pox: - Even such is he who dyed, and yet did laugh - To see these lines writt for his epitaph. - - - - -THE COUNTRY LIFE[116]. - - - Thrice and above blest (my souls halfe!) art thou - In thy though last yet better vowe, - Canst leave the Cyttye with exchange to see - The Country’s sweet simplicitie, - And to knowe and practise, with intent - To growe the sooner innocent, - By studdyinge to knowe vertue, and to ayme - More at her nature than her name. - The last is but the least, the first doth tell - Wayes not to live, but to live well. - And both are knowne to thee, who now canst live, - Led by thy conscience, to give - Justice[117] to soon pleas’d Nature, and to showe - Wisdome and she togeather goe, - And keepe one center: this with that conspires - To teach man to confine’s desires; - To knowe that riches have their proper stint - In the contented minde, not mint; - And canst instruct, that those that have the itch - Of cravinge more, are never rich. - These thinges thou knowst to th’ height, and dost prevent - The mange, because thou art content - With that Heaven gave thee with a sparinge hand, - More blessed in thy brest than land, - To keepe but Nature even and upright, - To quench not cocker appetite. - The first is Nature’s end; this doth impart - Least thankes to Nature, most to Art. - But thou canst tersely live, and satisfie - The bellye only, not the eye; - Keepinge the barkinge stomache meanly quiet - With a neat yet needfull dyett. - But that which most creates thy happy life, - Is the fruition of a wife, - Whom (starres consentinge with thy fate) thou hast - Gott, not so beautifull as chast. - By whose warm’d side thou dost securely sleepe, - Whilst Love the centinell doth keepe - With those deeds done by day, which ne’er affright - The silken slumbers in the night; - Nor hath the darkenesse power to usher in - Feare to those sheets that knowe no sinne: - But still thy wife, by chast intention led, - Gives thee each night a maidenhead. - For where pure thoughts are led by godly feare, - Trew love, not lust at all, comes there; - And in that sense the chaster thoughts commend - Not halfe so much the act as end: - That, what with dreams in sleepe of rurall blisse, - Night growes farre shorter than shee is. - The damaske meddowes, and the crawlinge streames, - Sweeten, and make soft thy dreams. - The purlinge springes, groves, birdes, and well-weav’d bowers, - With fields enamelled with flowers, - Present thee shapes, whilst phantasye discloses - Millions of lillyes mixt with roses. - Then dreame thou hear’st the lambe with many a bleat - Woo’d to come sucke the milkey teate; - Whilst Faunus, in the vision, vowes to keepe - From ravenouse wolfe the woolley sheepe; - With thowsand such enchantinge dreames, which meet - To make sleepe not so sound as sweet. - Nor can these figures in thy rest endeere, - As not to up when chanticleere - Speaks the last watch, but with the dawne dost rise - To worke, but first to sacrifice: - Makinge thy peace with Heaven for some late fault, - With holy meale and cracklinge salt. - That done, thy painfull thumbe this sentence tells us, - God for our labour all thinges sells us. - Nor are thy daylye and devout affayres - Attended with those desperate cares - Th’ industriouse marchant hath, who for to finde - Gold, runneth to the furthest Inde[118], - And home againe tortur’d with fear doth hye, - Untaught to suffer povertye. - But you at home blest with securest ease, - Sitt’st and beleev’st that there are seas, - And watrye dangers; but thy better hap - But sees these thinges within thy mapp, - And viewinge them with a more safe survaye, - Makst easy Feare unto thee say, - A heart thrice wall’d with oake and brass that man - Had, first durst plough the ocean. - But thou at home, without or tyde or gale, - Canst in thy mapp securely sayle, - Viewinge the parted countryes, and so guesse - By their shades their substances; - And from their compasse borrowing advise, - Buy’st travayle at the lowest price. - Nor are thy eares so seald but thou canst heare - Far more with wonder than with feare. - - —_Cætera desiderantur._ - - - - -ROBERT WISDOM - - -Was rector of Settrington in Yorkshire, and was presented to the -archdeaconry of Ely by Elizabeth the 27th of February 1559-60. In bishop -Cox’s Certificatorium (MS. Bennet Col. Lib.) he is returned to the -archbishop as “a priest and B. D. usually residing upon his living of -Wilberton, appropriated to the archdeaconry, was qualified for preaching, -and licensed thereunto by the Queen’s majesty.” - -He died, and was buried at Wilberton the 20th of September, 1568. - -He is chiefly memorable for his metrical prayer intended to be sung in -the church against the Pope and the Turk, of whom he seems to have had -the most alarming apprehensions; and in consequence of which he has been -ridiculed by sir John Denham, Corbet, Butler, and others. - - - - -TO THE GHOST OF ROBERT WISDOME[119]. - - - Thou, once a body, now but aire, - Arch-botcher of a psalme or prayer, - From Carfax come; - And patch mee up a zealous lay, - With an old _ever and for ay_, - Or, _all and some_. - Or such a spirit lend mee, - As may a hymne downe send mee, - To purge my braine: - So, Robert, looke behind thee, - Least Turke or Pope doe find thee, - And goe to bed againe. - - - - -THOMAS JONCE. - - -The name of this man, (Jones,) which Corbet, for the sake of the rhyme, -has corrupted, sufficiently denotes his extraction; and I would have -ascertained the time of his death, but the register was not to be found -upon application for that purpose. - -Antony à Wood says, in his History of the City of Oxford, “Thomas Jonce, -a clergyman and inhabitant of this place, (St. Giles’s parish, Oxford,) -desiring here to lay his bones, was of note sufficient to excite bishop -Corbet to write an epitaph on him.” - -‘Say’st thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?’ - - - - -AN EPITAPH ON THOMAS JONCE. - - - Here, for the nonce, - Came Thomas Jonce, - In St. Giles church to lye. - - None Welsh before, - None Welshman more, - Till Shon Clerk die. - - I’ll tole the bell, - I’ll ring his knell; - He died well, - He’s sav’d from hell; - And so farwel - Tom Jonce. - - - - -TO THE LADYES OF THE NEW DRESSE, THAT WEARE THEIR GORGETS AND RAYLES -DOWNE TO THEIR WASTES. - - - Ladyes, that weare black cipress-vailes - Turn’d lately to white linnen-rayles, - And to your girdle weare your bands, - And shew your armes instead of hands; - What can you doe in Lent so meet - As, fittest dress, to weare a sheet? - ’Twas once a band, ’tis now a cloake, - An acorne one day proves an oke: - Weare but your linnen to your feet, - And then your band will prove a sheet. - By which devise, and wise excesse, - You’l doe your penance in a dresse; - And none shall know, by what they see, - Which lady’s censur’d, and which free. - - - - -THE LADIES’ ANSWER. - -(Harl. MS. No. 6396.) - - - Blacke cypresse vailes are shroudes on night, - White linnen railes are raies of light, - Which though we to the girdles weare, - We’ve hands to keep your hands off there. - A fitter dresse we have in Lent, - To shew us trewly penitent. - Whoe makes the band to be a cloke - Makes John-a-style of John-an-oake. - We weare our garments to the feet, - Yet neede not make our bandes a sheet: - The clergie weare as long as we, - Yet that implies conformitie. - Be wise, recant what you have writt, - Least you doe pennance for your witte; - Love’s charm hath power to weare a stringe, - To tye you as you tied your ringe[120]; - There by love’s sharpe but just decree - You may be censured, we go free. - - - - -CORBET’S REPLY. - -(Ashmole’s Museum, A. 38. Fol. 66.) - - - Yff nought but love-charmes power have - Your blemisht creditt for to save; - Then know your champion is blind, - And that love-nottes are soon untwinde. - But blemishes are now a grace, - And add a lustre to your face; - Your blemisht credit for to save, - You needed not a vayle to have; - The rayle for women may be fitte, - Because they daylie practice ytt. - And, seeing counsell can you not reforme, - Read this reply—and take ytt not in scorne. - - - - -FAIRFORD WINDOWS - - -Are much admired, says the provincial historian of Glocestershire, -for their excellent painted glass. There are twenty-eight large -windows, which are curiously painted with the stories of the Old and -New Testament: the middle windows in the choir, and on the west side -of the church, are larger than the rest; those in the choir represent -the history of our Saviour’s Crucifixion; the window at the west end -represents Hell and Damnation; those on the side of the church, and over -the body, represent the figures in length of the prophets, apostles, -fathers, martyrs and confessors, and also the persecutors of the church. -The painting was designed by Albert Durer, an eminent Italian Master: the -colours are very lively, especially in the drapery: some of the figures -are so well finished, that sir Anthony Vandyke affirmed that the pencil -could not exceed them. This curious painting was preserved from zealous -fury in the great rebellion, by turning the glass upside down. - -John Tame, esq. founded this church in the year 1493. He was a merchant, -and took a prize-ship bound for Rome, in which was this painted glass: he -brought both the glass and workmen into England, built the church for the -sake of the glass, and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary. - - Atkyns’s Hist. of Glocestershire, p. 226. 1768. fol. - -It is to be observed that the tradition of the famous Albert Durer having -furnished the drawings will not, as Mr. Dallaway justly observes, bear -the test of chronology; for he was not twenty years of age when these -windows were put up; nor is it probable that he had then attained to such -proficiency—to say nothing of the time necessary for the perfecting such -works. - - - - -UPON FAIRFORD WINDOWS. - - - Tell me, you anti-saints, why brass - With you is shorter lived than glass? - And why the saints have scap’t their falls - Better from windows than from walles? - Is it, because the Brethrens fires - Maintain a glass-house at Blackfryars? - Next which the church stands North and South, - And East and West the preacher’s mouth. - Or is ’t, because such painted ware - Resembles something that you are, - Soe py’de, soe seeming, soe unsound - In manners, and in doctrine, found, - That, out of emblematick witt, - You spare yourselves in sparing it? - If it be soe, then, Faireford, boast - Thy church hath kept what all have lost; - And is preserved from the bane - Of either warr, or puritane: - Whose life is colour’d in thy paint, - The inside drosse, the outside saint. - - - - -UPON FAIREFORD WINDOWES[121]. - -(Misc. MS. Poems, Mus. Brit. Bib. Sloan. No. 1446.) - - - I knowe no painte of poetry - Can mend such colour’d imag’ry - In sullen inke, yet (Fayreford) I - May rellish thy fair memory. - Such is the echoe’s fainter sound, - Such is the light when the sunn’s drown’d, - So did the fancy look upon - The work before it was begun. - Yet when those showes are out of sight, - My weaker colours may delight. - Those images doe faithfullie - Report true feature to the eie, - As you may think each picture was - Some visage in a looking-glass; - Not a glass window face, unless - Such as Cheapside hath, where a press - Of painted gallants, looking out, - Bedeck the casement rounde about. - But these have holy phisnomy; - Each paine instructs the laity - With silent eloquence; for heere - Devotion leads the eie, not eare, - To note the cathechisinge paint, - Whose easie phrase doth soe acquainte - Our sense with Gospell, that the Creede - In such an hand the weake may reade. - Such tipes e’en yett of vertue bee, - And Christ as in a glass we see— - When with a fishinge rod the clarke - St. Peter’s draught of fish doth marke, - Such is the scale, the eie, the finn, - You’d thinke they strive and leape within; - But if the nett, which holdes them, brake, - Hee with his angle some would take. - But would you walke a turn in Paules, - Looke up, one little pane inrouls - A fairer temple. Flinge a stone, - The church is out at the windowe flowne. - Consider not, but aske your eies, - And ghosts at mid-day seem to rise, - The saintes there seemeing to descend, - Are past the glass, and downwards bend. - Look there! The Devill! all would cry, - Did they not see that Christ was by. - See where he suffers for thee! See - His body taken from the tree! - Had ever death such life before? - The limber corps, be-sully’d o’er - With meagre paleness, does display - A middle state ’twixt flesh and clay. - His armes and leggs, his head and crown, - Like a true lambskin dangle downe: - Whoe can forbeare, the grave being nigh, - To bringe fresh ointment in his eye? - The wond’rous art hath equall fate, - Unfixt, and yet inviolate. - The Puritans were sure deceav’d - Whoe thought those shaddowes mov’d and heav’d, - So held from stoninge Christ; the winde - And boysterous tempests were so kinde, - As on his image not to prey, - Whome both the winde and seas obey. - At Momus’ wish bee not amaz’d; - For if each Christian’s heart were glaz’d - With such a windowe, then each brest - Might bee his owne evangelist. - - - - -THE DISTRACTED PURITANE. - - - Am I madd, O noble Festus, - When zeale and godly knowledge - Have put me in hope - To deal with the Pope, - As well as the best in the Colledge? - Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, - Miters, copes, and rotchets: - Come heare mee pray nine times a day, - And fill your heads with crotchets. - - In the house of pure Emanuel - I had my education; - Where my friends surmise - I dazeled mine eyes - With the Light of Revelation. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - They bound mee like a bedlam, - They lash’t my foure poore quarters; - Whilst this I endure, - Faith makes mee sure - To be one of Foxes martyrs. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - These injuryes I suffer - Through Anti-Christs perswasions: - Take off this chaine, - Neither Rome nor Spaine - Can resist my strong invasions. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - Of the Beasts ten hornes (God blesse us!) - I have knock’t off three already: - If they let mee alone, - I’ll leave him none; - But they say I am too heady. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - When I sack’d the Seaven-hill’d Citty - I mett the great redd Dragon: - I kept him aloofe - With the armour of proofe, - Though here I have never a rag on. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - With a fiery sword and targett - There fought I with this monster: - But the sonnes of pride - My zeale deride, - And all my deedes misconster. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - I unhorst the whore of Babel - With a launce of inspirations: - I made her stinke, - And spill her drinck - In the cupp of abominations. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - I have seene two in a vision, - With a flying booke betweene them: - I have bin in dispaire - Five times a yeare, - And cur’d by reading Greenham[122]. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - I observ’d in Perkins Tables[123] - The black lines of damnation: - Those crooked veines - Soe struck in my braines, - That I fear’d my reprobation. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - In the holy tongue of Chanaan - I plac’d my chiefest pleasure: - Till I prickt my foote - With an Hebrew roote, - That I bledd beyond all measure. - Boldly I preach, &c. - - I appear’d before the arch-bishopp, - And all the high commission: - I gave him noe grace, - But told him to his face - That he favour’d superstition. - Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, - Miters, copes, and rotchets: - Come heare mee pray nine times a day, - And fill your heads with crotchets. - - - - -ORATIO DOMINI DOCTORIS CORBET, EX ÆDE CHRISTI, IN FUNUS HENRICI PRINCIPIS. - -(Mus. Ashm. No. 1153.) - - -Quam sit semper vobis facile, et pronum, justo servire, sobriisque -lachrimis obtemperare, ipsi mihi vos dixistis modo, qui egregio oratori, -et invicto argumento fideliter cessistis, mihi tantum post consumptum -humorem, et historiæ, meæ fidem vestram et suspiria præstituri. Si qua -autem unquam ageretur causa quæ suis viribus staret, neque patrono -aliquo, aut oratore indigeret, hæc ipsa profecto hodierna est, quæ nec -adversarium infestum habet, nec facilem auditorem postulat; hæc ipsa -est, quæ in omni familia versata, vexata, compressa, ad forum postea, -et cœlum provocat, humano generi se dat obviam, et una Britannia nunc -orbem replet. Tam multa, variaque unius mors est, ut ubique moriatur; -tam frequens dolor ut humanitatem omnem hac ipsa cogitatione imbuat. -Nescit enim domestica esse aut paucorum fama, pervia simul et ambitiosa, -utrumque simul minatur polum, rumpetque mœnia aut transibit caprificus: -ideoque facti repetitione aliqua opus est; ad metus vestros, et -necessitates descendite, affectus vestros interrogate, quis desiderii -modus aut finis. Dicite tandem utrum timere quicquid possitis, aut amare -sine Henrico, sitque ille miseriæ vestræ vera causa, qui felicitati -vestræ sola spes emicuit—quare aures ego hodie vestras non appello, sed -oculos, neque auditores ut olim neque censores alloquar, sed homines, -sed Britannos. Adeste igitur, Anglosissimi Academici, lassi, queruli, -mihique per hunc mensem a primo hujus nuncio ruinæ, non tacito sed muto -post lachrimas jam deliberatas aspirate, et dolorem illum, quem vel -vita nostra vincere non possumus, data quasi opera dolendo leniamus. -Exanimat enim possessorem ægrum luctus longus, et prodigus mentem sine -sensu vulnerat, et quasi jam humanitas potius aut natura, quæ morbus -dici vellet, lachrimarum suarum epulis impleri gaudet, et imperiosa -consuetudine satiatur. Quare redeat jam ad se oculus unusquisque vestrûm, -animamque in oculos arripiat. Henricum cogitet sive principem sive -nostrum et vincet, credo ratio, aut suadebit pietas, ut omnes hodie -simus Heracliti sive enim ad majorum sepulchra et imagines, proavosque -ejus multum remotissimos revertimur, honor est et crescit acervus, -nec sine centum regibus potest prodire, si patremque matremque jam -superstites, quod sæpius proferre juvat jam superstites, jam supra -cyathum, et cultrum, pyram flammamque jam superstites, et si quid -votis nostris precibusque jam litare possumus, sero superstaturos. Hos -si repetimus Deus est in utroque parente. Si cunabula respicimus, et -Lucinam ejus, quid in illa infantia non debuit esse plus quam mortale, -quæ a sponsoribus Belgiis et immortali Elizabetha Christo initiata, et -æternitati, pueritiam autem nullam habuit, qui annum ... unum excessit -ex ephebis, et tanquam tempus præcipitare mallet, quam expectare, annos -non ætate sed virtute æstimat, neque hominem se longævum esse sed virum -cupit. In omni actione, rebusque gestis se juvenem præbuit, solum in -affectu senem, et suos annos sic explevit, ut nonagenarium esse illum -vellet quis libenter agnoscere. Senectutem pariter nec habuit nec -exoptavit, neque exhæreditavit eum morbus, sed industriam, vitæque -suum patrimonium reliquum aut laboribus vendidit, aut studio decoxit. -Diuturnioris spem vitæ ei natura dederat, dare melioris non poterat; -indicium prorsus quod illum cæca fortuna non vidisset maximum; mens -pariter condidisset optimum, adeone raro succumbit tenuiori, et æternum -elementum gloriæ perituræ auræ infeliciter serviet? Adeone virtus qua -vivimus minor erit vilissimo illius aeris haustu, quo vivendum est. Atqui -redeat in Chaos unde prognatum est, ingratum illud aeris elementum, -si malis tantum indulgeat, invideat bonis, si inutili populo spiret, -principibus lateat, principibus huic. Ecquis mihi vestrûm hanc Syntaxim -imputat, illum ut dicam principibus, qui et multus erat, virtutemque -in aliis fractam et remissam, totam sibi suisque imperiis mancipasset; -unaque sua anima effecit præstantissima, ut si veteres philosophos -interrogamus, infinitum animarum exercitum in hoc uno extitisse -crederent? Sed consulite memoriæ vestræ et officio, historiam revocate, -narrate Principem; quisquamne melior? quisquamne major? Deo scilicet et -cœlo stirpeque sua animoque proximus: non tamen ideo humani oneris, aut -terreæ vicinitatis immemor, Deumque immortalem quem metu subditissimo -coluit, semper et admiratus est; precibus imperatoriis, et quasi libera -servitute quotidie vincit; movet hortatu, docet Salomonis æmulus -familiam sensu, populum fama concitat, prælucet ipse omnibus pietate, -neque autoritate bonos sed exemplo facit. Irasci aliquando, neque potuit, -neque vellet, neque pœna cujusque, sed pœnitentia contentus est, credo -itaque ut qui sine felle viveret, sine sanguine imperaret. Neque amabilis -magis, et mansuetus quam domesticus et frugalis; servorum nomina, studia, -vitæque instituta cognovit, in domo sua mensaque ipse paterfamilias, -nimirum ut qui Œcumenicus esse debuit, Œconomicus quandoque esse posset. -Studia sua et exercitia corporis, (quam cœli et Decembris patientissimus -erat) campestria plerumque et in sole fuerunt. - - Gaudet equis, canibusque, et aprici gramine campi, - -et quo longius a luxuria, oppidoque decessit, eo proxime accessit famæ -et probitati. Rei militaris non tam studiosus, quam peritus fuit, eoque -timore simul a transmarinis optimè ... redde Deo populum suum, I, curre -per Alpes, Romamque diu personatam et histrionicam aut vero cultu -induas, aut falso spolies. Hoc unum restat faciendum, tuisque illud -artibus permissum est, et in tua solius sæcula servatum opus. Nec male -præsagiebat Roma præstigiatrix illa famelica, quæ longo te jejunio et -siti petiit, quæ ferro et igni liberalem dat operam, morti principum -plus quam scientiæ et religioni incumbit, et quasi jam virtuti morbus -adhæreret, potius quam invidiæ, nullam non pyxidem, herbamque eruit, quo -suis exorcismis, et impudicæ nequitiæ superstes non fiat. Tu vero quam -facile illudis ... ejus, et crudelem industriam antevertis, ni virtus -ipsa pro Jesuita, et febris pro veneno est. His tu remediis hac demum -medicina sanaris (H. P.) et dum medicus ... studium, gloria tua, et -proprium meritum interficiunt, unus Peleo juveni non sufficit, Henrico -sufficeret (ut transeam finitimos) Sabaudia et Hispania ab utraque India -timeris, nec audet vexisse tuam Oceanus carinam, atque iisdem non ita -pridem ægrotavit Henricus magnus ille Galliæ rex, qui ferro et hostili -parricidio transfixus Henricis omnibus mortem propinavit. - - Credamus tragicis quicquid de Colchide torva - Dicitur et Progne: nam clamat Roma peregi, - Confiteor, puerisque meis aconita paravi, - Quæ deprensa patent; facinus tamen ipsa peregi. - Tune duos unâ sævissima vipera cœnâ? - Tune duos?—Septem, septem si forte fuissent[124]. - -Verum credo nihil horum est (Academici) orationis meæ horribilius est -non religionis. Egoque cæsus olim pulvere Novembris, hodie cæcubio, -hodie insanio. Nos utinam vani: Totus igitur est in apparatu Henricus -noster quem quærimus, jamque aut equo insidet, aut choræis hasta vel -gladio dominatur, ipse Hymenæus etiam et nuptias coronat, ovant et -triumphant una dulcissima mortalium, pax, Anna et Jacobus, et fervet -annis nitentibus fratri Carolus et totus in illos. Invitant, properant, -parant Fredericus et Elizabetha, et ver illud perpetuum et poeticum hac -solum in regione deprehenditur. Æstate prima Woodstochiam suam cogitat -Henricus, et vicinam academiam adventu primo, scholaresque (quos vocat -suos) accersit, ut habeat convivas musas, et si placuerit, convictores; -juvat et meminisse potestis, qualis ibi tum in scena prodierit, in qua -ipse erat pro triumpho, ipse pro spectaculo. Quotus illa nocte adest -Henricus?—Quotus princeps, quam magnificus, quam innocens, cui vel -esuriens Jesuita potuit ignoscere. O dementiam suavem, gratissimum -errorem, et religiosum delirium, in vobis redivivum Principem, Britanni, -jubilate Henricum, O beatum impostorem. - -Qui istud nec audiunt, nec credunt malum, nos miseros, qui in illa -hostium multitudine et via fortunæ viximus, et nescire dolorem non -minus sit difficile, quam cognitum extinguere. Quod si vox populi, -quæ aliquando Dei esse dicitur, eadem potuisset de morte tua et fama -decernere, caruisses hodie lachrimis, et longo nostrorum funeri -superfuisses. In te enim non tam morientis fatum, quam pacis, quam -reipublicæ situm est; non peris sed destruis, neque mors hæc dat, -sed confusio; diluvium est, nec caret prodigio. Oraculum est, nec -sine sacerdote aut pontifice potest intelligi. Quam non mortalis eras -Henricus, mortalis; adeone nonus esse nunquam potes, et nullus esses, -brevis est quia bonus, minorque quia melior. - -Nobis interim quod reliquum, quam ut festinetis juvenes, animamque -principis fugitivam, per silentium et solitudinem sequamini: ut -longitudinem vitamque inimicis posthac exoptetis, sociisque vestris, -fratribusque suadeatis, quam sit senectus post fatum principis vilis -et ignominiosa. Nos interim viri, qui in longiori ludibrio constituti -sumus, consulamus huic vitio, facinusque ætatis lachrimis expiemus; -et experiamur modo utrum anima principis excellens, quæ palatio sui -corporis clarissimo valedixit, in nostris animis et hisce lachrimarum -insulis habitare velit, certemus invicem pietate, et ingenioso luctu -contendamus, summus ne dolor feriet non volentem satis, nec viventem -minus. Dixi. - - - - -IN OBITUM DOMINI THOMÆ BODLEII. - -(Ex Libro cui Titulus “Bodleiomnema; seu, Carmina et Orationes in Obitum -ejus.” Oxon. 1613. 4to.) - - - Obrue Bodleium saxis, prosterne colossis, - Adde libros oneri, dimidiasque scholas, - Aut lacrymis manes lassa, aut ululante papyro, - Quæ solet afflictis incubuisse rogis; - Non tamen efficies, quin summo in culmine victor - Imperet, et molem perforet ille suam; - Nam famæ cedunt lapides, et tecta sepulchris - Dum memorant dominos hæc monumenta suos. - - - - -CORRECTIONS. - - - Page 36, verse 11, _for_ ken _read_ hen. - 50, ” 7, _dele_ a. - 80, ” 10, _for_ consider _read_ consider’d. - 94, note, _for_ brought _read_ bought. - 100, ” _for_ Guynes _read_ Luyne. - 119, line 7, _for_ Nescis _read_ Nescio. - 137, verses 4 and 5. It should have been observed, that the - Prince and Buckingham on their journey wore false - beards for disguises, and assumed the names of Jack - and Tom Smith. - 144. The two first lines of this beautiful poem are here - printed as they are found in the editions of 1647 - and 1672; but they stand much better in Bishop King’s - Poems, page 51, edit. 1657: - - Let no profane ignoble foot tread _neer_ - This hallow’d peece of earth, _Dorset lies here_. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] An EPITAPH on Master VINCENT CORBET. - - I have my piety too, which, could - It vent itself but as it would, - Would say as much as both have done - Before me here, the friend and son: - For I both lost a friend and father, - Of him whose bones this grave doth gather: - Dear Vincent Corbet, who so long - Had wrestled with diseases strong, - That though they did possess each limb, - Yet he broke them, ere they could him, - With the just canon of his life; - A life that knew nor noise nor strife: - But was by sweetning so his will, - All order and composure still. - His mind as pure, and neatly kept - As were his nourseries, and swept - So of uncleanness or offence, - That never came ill odour thence! - And add his actions unto these, - They were as specious as his trees. - ’Tis true, he could not reprehend, - His very manners taught t’ amend, - They were so even, grave, and holy; - No stubbornness so stiff, nor folly - To licence ever was so light, - As twice to trespass in his sight; - His looks would so correct it, when - It chid the vice, yet not the men. - Much from him, I profess, I won, - And more, much more, I should have done, - But that I understood him scant: - Now I conceive him by my want; - And pray, who shall my sorrows read, - That they for me their tears will shed: - For truly, since he left to be, - I feel I’m rather dead than he. - Reader, whose life and name did e’er become - An epitaph, deserv’d a tomb: - Nor wants it here through penury or sloth, - Who makes the one, so it be first, makes both. - - JONSON’S Underwoods. - -[2] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. Parker, 49.—Vincent Corbet left his -copyholds in Twickenham and Thistleworth (or Isleworth) to his wife, and -legacies to various others. See page 118. - -[3] Wood’s Annals of Oxford, vol. ii. p. 312. ed. Gutch, 4to. 1796. - -[4] Heylyn’s Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 68. fol. 1668. - -[5] See a curious account of the proceedings on this occasion by an eye -witness, in Leyland’s Collectanea, vol. ii. 626. ed. Hearne, 1770. - -[6] One of the ballads written on this occasion is (through the kindness -of my friend John Dovaston, esq.) in a manuscript in my possession, -beginning, - - To Oxenford our king is gone - With all his noble peers.—&c. - -[7] Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. 394. 4to. 1778. - -[8] A William Lake, who was M. A. and a fellow of Clare Hall in 1619, had -also a ring bequeathed him by Ruggles, and might have been the author. -See Hawkins’s edition of Ignoramus. Utrum horum mavis accipe. - -[9] Biographical Sketches, vol. i. p. 38. - -[10] Spencer, whose college disappointments forced him from the -University. Milton is reported to have received corporal punishment -there. Dryden has left a testimony, in a prologue spoken at Oxford, much -against his own University. The incivility, not to give it a harsher -appellation, which Gray met with, is well known. That Alma Mater has not -remitted her wonted illiberality, is to be fairly presumed from a passage -in her late most poetical son, Mr. Mason: - - Science there - Sat musing; and to those that loved the lore - Pointed, with mystic wand, to truths involved - In geometric symbols, scorning those - Perchance too much, who woo’d the thriftless Muse. - - English Garden. - -[11] See Lysons’s Environs, vol. ii. p. 148 et seq. - -[12] The forwardness of the clergy to publish their labours is thus -ludicrously satyrized by Robert Burton: “Had I written divinitie -positively, there be so many bookes in that kinde, so many commentators, -treatises, pamphlets, sermons, expositions, that whole teams of oxen -cannot draw them: and had I beene as forward and ambitious as some -others, I might haply have printed a sermon at Paules Crosse, a sermon -in Saint Maries Oxon, a sermon in Christ-Church, or a sermon before the -Right Honourable, Right Reverend, a sermon before the Right Worshipful, a -sermon in Latin, in English, a sermon with a name, without, a sermon, a -sermon, &c.” - - Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 15. fol. 1632. - -[13] Harl. MSS. No. 7000. Cabala, p. 220. fol. 1663. - -[14] On the 26th of August. - -[15] It occurs, with some variations, in a scarce poetical miscellany -called Wit Restored, 8vo. 1658, the use of which, in common with many -other volumes of still greater rarity and value, I owe to the liberality -of Thomas Hill, esq. - -[16] MS. Ashmole, A 37. - -[17] Martis, 27 Aug. 1605. “The comedy began between nine and ten, and -ended at one; the name of it was Alba, whereof I never saw reason; it -was a pastoral, much like one which I have seen in King’s College in -Cambridge. In the acting thereof they brought in five or six men almost -naked, which were much disliked by the queen and ladies, and also many -rustical songes and dances, which made it very tedious, insomuch that if -the chancellors of bothe the Universities had not intreated his majesty -earnestly, he would have been gone before half the comedy had been -ended.” Leyland’s Collectanea, vol. ii. p. 637. edit. 1770. - -Mercurii, 28 Aug. 1605. “After supper, about nine of the clock, they -began to act the tragedy of Ajax Flagellifer, _wherein the stage varied -three times_; they had all goodly antique apparell; but, for all that, -it was not so well acted by many degrees as I have seen it in Cambridge. -_The king_ was very weary before he came thither, but much more wearied -by it, and _spoke many words of dislike_.” Ibid. p. 639. - -[18] Although the register of Flore, the residence of Dr. Hutton, was -preserved from an early date during the lifetime of Brydges, an early one -is not now to be found. That of Christ-Church, Oxford, is not so old as -the death of the bishop: his name is not found in that of Twickenham. - -[19] Wit Restored, 8vo. 1658. - -[20] Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. col. 736. - -[21] Harl. Catalogue, 464. fol. 3. He appears to have conceded a -portion of the patronage attending his elevation, as in the Museum -is “Carta Ricardi Corbet episcopi Norwicensis, qua concedit Georgio -Abbot, archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, preximam advocationem, nominationem, -præsentationem, liberam dispositionem, et jus patronatus archidiaconatus -Norfolciæ, dat. 15 Maii, an. 8 R. Caroli 1.” Harl. MSS. No. 464. Fol. 3. - -[22] Strafford State Papers and Dispatches, vol. i. p. 221. folio. - -[23] He was author of a curious sermon, printed in 1627, 4to. under the -title of “Woe to Drunkards,” which was republished with king James’s -Counterblast, and other philippics against _tobacco_ and _coffee_; -4to. 1672. Upon the intrusion of the Book of Sports, Ward told his -congregation that “the Church of England was ready to ring changes on -religion, and that the Gospel stood on tip-toe ready to be gone.” For -these words he was suspended. - -[24] Harl. MS. No. 464. fol. 13. - -[25] Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 522. fol. - -[26] Notwithstanding these harsh measures, which originated with -Laud—for, to the praise of our amiable prelate, he had not a grain of -persecution in his disposition—“the Walloon company in 1637 having -undertaken to repayre and make fit the church of Little St. Maryes to -be used for God’s worship by the said congregation, and also to repayre -the yard on the northside, had a lease for forty years. Which lease hath -been renewed, and now it is the church of the French congregation.” -Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. ii. 57. fol. 1739. - -[27] Strype’s edition of Stowe’s Survey, book iii. page 151. edit. fol. -1720. - -Perhaps his fellow-collegian Cartwright intended an immediate compliment -to Corbet in the following lines: - - Two sacred things were thought, by judging souls, - Beyond the kingdom’s power, Christ-Church and Pauls, - Till by a light from heaven shewn the one - Did gain his second renovation. - - Poems, 188, 8vo. 1651. - -[28] Ath. Oxon. vol. i. p. 601. edit. 1721. - -[29] Harl. MS. No. 750. Malcolm’s Londinum Redivivum, vol. iii. p. 80. It -occurs, also, with some difference, in Mus. Ashm. No. 1153. - -[30] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. 97. Sadler. - -[31] Gomersall, in an epistle to Barten Holiday. See his poems, p. 7. -edit. 1633. - -[32] Fuller’s Worthies, page 83. fol. 1662. - -[33] Headley, i. 38. - -[34] From hence it should seem that the edition 1647 was not published at -the time this preface was written. - -[35] Robert Gomersall was entered of Christ-Church, Oxford, in 1614, at -the age of fourteen, where, in 1621, he proceeded M. A. In 1625 he took -refuge from the plague at Flore in Northamptonshire, of which the editor -of the Biographia Dramatica erroneously supposed he was rector. He was -afterwards vicar of Thorncombe in Devonshire, and died in 1646. His -poems, which are rather easy than correct, were published with Lodwick -Sforza, a tragedy, in 1633 and 1638, from which the above epistle is -transcribed. - -[36] Saint Paul’s cathedral was in Corbet’s time the resort of the idle -and profligate of all classes: the author, _quisquis ille fuit_, of -“A Sixefold Politycian,” 4to. 1609. attributed to _Milton’s father_, -describes its frequenters as “superstitious idolaters of St. Paul (and -yet they never think of Paul nor any apostle) and many of them have that -famous monument in that account as Diogenes had _Jovis porticus_ in -Athens; who to them which wondered that he had no house nor corner to eat -his meat in, pointing at the gallerie or walking-place that was called -Jovis Porticus, said, that the people of Athens had builded that to his -use, as a royal mansion for him, wherein he might dine and sup, and take -his repast. - -“And soe these make Paules like Euclides or Platoes school, as Diogenes -accounted it, κατατριβην, a mispending of much good labour and time, -and worthily many times meet with Diogenes’ fare, and are faithful and -frequent guests of Duke Humphray.” P. 8. - -[37] This was not the first censure of sir Christopher Hatton’s -extravagant monument; as, according to Stowe, some poet had before -complained on the part of Sydney and Walsingham, that - - “Philip and Francis have no tomb, - For great Christopher takes all the room.” - -[38] “Coryate’s Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travels in -France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some parts of High Germany, and -the Netherlands.” 4to. 1611. Re-printed in 3 vols. 8vo. 1776. - -[39] Quia valde lutosa est Cantabrigia. - -[40] Ludus per spatium 6 horarum infra. - -[41] “A bushel of March dust is worth a king’s ransom.” - -[42] Coll. Eman. abundat puritanis. - -[43] The king entered Cambr. 7 Mar. 1614-5. - -[44] Samuel Harsnett, then bp. of Chichester. - -[45] Vestis indicat virum. - -[46] Nethersoli Cant. orator, qui per speculum seipsum solet ornari. - -[47] Orator hoc usus est vocabulo in oratione ad regem. - -[48] Actores omnes fuere theologi. - -[49] Ludus dicebatur “Ignoramus,” qui durabat per spatium sex horarum. - -[50] Idem quod Bocardo apud Oxon. - -[51] Insigniss. stultus. - -[52] Paulus Tompsonus, qui nuper laesæ majest. reus ob aurum decurtat. - -[53] Decorum quia Coll. est puritanorum plenum: scil. Emanuel. - -[54] The former is Taylor, the celebrated water-poet: the latter, William -Fenner, a puritanical poet and pamphleteer of that period, was educated -at Pembroke-hall, Oxford. He was preferred to the rectory of Rochford, in -Essex, by the earl of Warwick. He died about 1640. - -Archbishop Laud in his annual account to the king 1636, page 37, mentions -one Fenner, a principal ringleader of the Separatists, with their -conventicles, at and about Ashford in Kent. - -[55] See Lodge’s Illustrations of British History, 4to. vol. iii. p. 178; -Brydges’s Peers of the Reign of James the First, vol. i.; and Winwood’s -Memorials. - -[56] For this vehement attack upon the weakness of an infatuated woman, -the author must be screened under the example of Horace, Ep. 8 and 12. - -[57] Henry Garnet, provincial of the order of Jesuits in England, who was -arraigned and executed at the west end of St. Paul’s, for his connivance -at, rather than for any active participation in, the Gunpowder Plot, May -3, 1605. See State Trials. - -[58] Wilson’s Hist. of James I, Pa. 62. fol. 1653. - -[59] Two manufacturers of almanacks and prognostics. The latter was, -however, of some note as to family, being the fifth son of sir Arthur -Hopton by Rachael, daughter of Edmund Hall, of Greatford in Lincolnshire; -nor was his fame in learning unequal to his birth. In 1604 he was entered -a gentleman commoner of Lincoln college, Oxon, and in 1607 was admitted -bachelor of arts. He was held in high estimation by Selden for his -mathematical knowledge, but died in the prime of life in the month of -Nov. 1614. - -[60] Dr. Daniel Price was the eldest son of Thomas Price, vicar of -Saint Chad’s, Shrewsbury, in which borough he was born and educated. -From St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he was entered in 1594, he removed to -Exeter college, where he took the degree of master of arts, and entered -into holy orders. He afterwards became dean and residentiary canon of -Hereford, rector of Worthyn in Shropshire, and of Lantelos in Cornwall; -for which counties, as well as that of Montgomery, he officiated as -magistrate. He was author of many works, wholly devotional, and died at -Worthyn the 23d September 1631, and was buried there in the chancel of -the church. - -[61] This poem, for what reason does not appear, is printed before some -of the later editions of sir Thomas Overbury’s “Wife.” - -[62] These reverend gentlemen were jesters to James the First. The name -of the former was Archibald Armstrong, of whom and of whose jests an -account may be found in Granger, vol. ii. p. 399. ed. 1775. 8vo. They are -again joined in a manuscript poem (_penes me_) by Peter Heylin, written -in derision of Barten Holiday’s play already mentioned in the life of the -bishop, of which the following are the introductory lines: - - “Whoop Holyday! why then ’twill ne’er be better, - Why all the guard, that never saw more letters - Than those upon their coates; whose wit consists - In Archy’s bobs and Garret’s sawcy jests, - Deride our Christ-church scene.” - -[63] Thomas Ereskine, earl of Fenton. - -[64] William, earl of Pembroke, a poet himself, and an universal patron -of learning, whose character is so admirably drawn by Clarendon. - -[65] The compass of a note is too confined for an account of this great -negociator and general, who fell by the jealousy of the Prince of Orange -the 13th March 1619. He was born at Amersfort, in the province of -Utrecht, was five times employed as ambassador to England and France, -and had long the command of the armies of the United Provinces. De Thou -says, “que c’étoit un homme très accrédité par les charges qu’il avoit -remplies, et par sa grande expérience dans les affaires:”—And Moreri -concludes an account of his character, and his death, which he met with -an undaunted spirit, in the following words: “Barneveldt, ayant été pris, -eut la tête tranchée à l’age de 72 ans, sous prétexte d’avoir voulu -livrer le pays aux Espagnols, quoiqu’il le niat constamment, et qu’en -effet on n’en ait trouvé aucune preuve dans ses papiers. Son crime étoit -d’avoir refusé d’entrer dans le complot, à la faveur du quel le prince -Maurice vouloit a ce qu’on dit se rendre maître des Pays Bas, et d’avoir -défendu la liberté de sa patrie avec trop de zèle.” Tom. ii. p. 78. - -[66] No minister ever exerted his power with less tyranny and more -benignity than the favourite of Philip the Third: he fell “from his high -estate” by the intrigues of his son, and an ungrateful monk whom he had -raised to be confessor to the king, and who abandoned the friend that had -elevated him as soon as the smiles of sovereignty were transferred to -another. On the 4th of October 1618, he retired to his paternal estate -from the capricious favour of the court, where he passed the remainder of -his days in peace and privacy. - -[67] William Burton is said, by Antony à Wood, to have been a _pretender_ -to astronomy, of which he published an Ephemeris in 1655.—Edmund -Gunter, a mathematician of greater eminence, was astronomical professor -of Gresham College, and eminent for his skill in the sciences: his -publications were popular in his day. He died in Gresham College, 1626. - -[68] Thomas Hariot, styled by Camden “Mathematicus Insignis,” was a -pensioner and companion of sir Walter Raleigh in his voyage to Virginia -(1584), of which upon his return he published an account. He was held in -high estimation by the earl of Northumberland, sir Thomas Aylesbury, and -others, for his mathematical knowledge, but, like his patron, Raleigh, -was a deist in religion.—Ob. 1621. See Wood’s Athenæ, vol. i. p. 460. ed. -1721. - -[69] Of this popular song, which is reprinted from “Deuteromelia,” -1609, in Hawkins’s History of Music, and in Ritson’s Antient Songs, the -following is the introductory stanza: - - “As it fell upon a holyday - And upon a holy-tide-a, - John Dory brought him an ambling nag - To Paris for to ride-a.” - -[70] Louis the XIIIth, for no superior virtues surnamed “Le Juste.” -I have seen it somewhere observed that he chose his ministers for -extraordinary reasons: Richlieu, because he could not govern his kingdom -without him; Des Noyers, for psalm-singing; and le duc de Zuynes, for -being an expert bird-catcher. - -The satire of Corbet seems to justify the remark. - -He was born 1601; married Anne of Austria 1615; and died at St. Germain’s -1643. - -[71] Upon a similar declaration being issued by Charles in 1633, “one -Dr. Dennison,” says lord Strafford’s garrulous correspondent, “read it -here (London), and presently after read the ten commandments; then said, -‘Dearly beloved, you have now heard the commandments of God and man: obey -which you please.’” - - Strafford Papers, vol. i. 166. fol. - -[72] Whalley’s Ben Jonson, vol. v. 299. - -[73] Dugdale’s Baronage, vol. ii. p. 444. - -[74] See his Poems, p. 1657. - -[75] Howell’s Letters, p. 64. ed. 1650. This fool, _quasi_ knave, whose -surname was Armstrong, had his coat pulled over his ears, and was -discharged of his office, for indignity to archbishop Laud. - - See Rushworth’s Collections, vol. ii. p. 471. - -[76] This refers to a popular tract published in 1622, under that title, -in favour of the Low Countries, and for the purpose of prejudicing the -people of England against the marriage which Villiers was negotiating -when this poem was addressed to him. The negotiation was not only -disgraceful, but unsuccessful: - - —αισχρον γαρ ἡμιν, και προς αισχυνη κακον. - -[77] “On the 29th of May,” says sir Richard Baker, “the queen was brought -to bed of a young son, which was baptized at St. James’s on the 27th of -June, and named Charles. It is observed that at his nativity, at London, -was seen a star about noon-time: what it portended, good or ill, we leave -to the astrologers.” Baker’s Chronicle, p. 497. 1660. fol. - -[78] If any one is at this time ignorant of the practice alluded to in -this line, of the sponsors at christenings giving spoons to the child -as a baptismal present, it is not the fault of the commentators on -Shakespeare, who have multiplied examples of the custom in their notes on -Henry the Eighth, vol. xv. p. 197. edit. 1803. - -[79] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. Sadler 97. - -[80] Ibid. Rivers 18. - -[81] Cartwright has not unhappily imitated this poem in his address “To -Mr. W. B. at the Birth of his first Child:” a few lines may be given: - - I wish religion timely be - Taught him with his A B C. - I wish him good and constant health, - His father’s learning, but more wealth, - And that to use, not hoard; a purse - Open to bless, not shut to curse. - May he have many and fast friends - Meaning good will, not private ends!—&c. - - Poem, p. 208. 8vo. 1651. - -[82] At Aston on the Wall, in Northamptonshire, where Christopher -Middleton, as rector, accounted for the first-fruits Oct. 12th, 1612; and -was buried Feb. 5th, 1627. - -[83] By the right of Dr. Leonard Hutton, a man of some note in his day, -the fellow-collegian and subsequent father-in-law of bishop Corbet. -Hutton passed from Westminster School to Christ-Church, of which he -afterwards became a canon. It was in his residence at Oxford most -probably, and not, as the editors of the Biographia Britannica have -conjectured, upon this tour, that Corbet first became acquainted with -Hutton’s daughter. By the dean and canons he was presented to the rectory -of Flore in Northamptonshire, where he accounted for the first-fruits -Aug. 6th, 1601, and to the vicarage of Weedon in the same county in 1602. -Having lived to the age of 75 years, he died the 17th of May, 1632, and -was buried in the divinity chapel of Christ Church, where a monument -remains to his memory. - -[84] A note in the old copies informs us that his name was “Ned Hale.” - -[85] A sergeant. Edit. 1648. - -[86] These are said in the old copies to be “the ministers of Daventry;” -but as no such names occur in the list of incumbents, it is probable they -officiated for Thomas Mariat, the then vicar, who must have been very -old, as he was inducted to the living in 1560. - -[87] Dod and Cleaver, thus honourably introduced to our notice, were -united by the strong ties of puritanism and authorship. - - Ambo animis, ambo insignes præstantibus armis; - _Hic_ pietate prior. - -The latter has fallen into oblivion, but the superior zeal of John -Dod has preserved his memory. He was born at Shottledge in Cheshire, -where his family had territorial possessions, and was educated at Jesus -College, Cambridge. “He was,” says Fuller, “by nature a witty, by -industry a learned, by grace a godly, divine.” He had good preferment -in the church, but was silenced for non-conformity, though afterwards -restored. He died and was buried at Fawesly in Northamptonshire, of which -he was vicar, Aug. 19th, 1645. - -They were again joined in derision by Cartwright, in his “Chambermaid’s -Posset.” - - Next Cleaver and Doddism both mixed and fine, - With five or six scruples of conscience cases.—&c. - - Poems, p. 231. 8vo. 1651. - -[88] In Leicestershire. - -[89] A note in Tanner’s Bibliotheca Brit.-Hibernica thus relates the -indignity offered to the remains of this parent of the Reformation, -after he had been ‘quietly inurned’ during the space of forty-one years: -“Magister Johannes Wicliff Anglicus per D. Thomam Arundel. archiepiscopum -Cantuar. fuit post mortem suam excommunicatus, et postea fuit exhumatus, -et ossa ejus combusta, et cineres in aquam juxta Lutterworth projecti -fuerunt, ex mandato P. Martini V.” - -[90] Parson of Heathcot, Edit. 1672. It has been observed in the -Introduction that there is no village of this name in this situation: -the copy 1648 says Parson Heathcote, which was probably the name of the -parson of Ayleston, who was their conductor. - -[91] Students of Christ-Church College, Oxford, which, as well as -Whitehall, the “palace” before mentioned, was founded by Wolsey. - -[92] The figure in these lines is taken from the fine church of St. -Mary’s, Nottingham, in which the long chancel and nave with the tower -in the midst resemble the object of the bishop’s metaphor. The castle -mentioned in the succeeding lines has “perished ’mid the wreck of things -that were.” - -[93] Guy and Colebrand. - -[94] Where David king of the Scots was kept prisoner. - -[95] Which is within the Castle. - -[96] Every part of Corbet’s account of Nottingham Castle corresponds so -closely with the relation of Leyland, in his Itinerary, vol. iii. p. 105, -&c., that it would be superfluous to transcribe it. See also Speed’s -Chronicle, p. 540; and Holinshed’s Chronicle, p. 349. - -[97] In Nottinghame. - -[98] “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.” Proverbs -xxviii. ver. 20. - -[99] Dr. Jucks. - -[100] Mr. Edward Mason.—MS. 1625. - -[101] “The 25th of April, 1603, being Thursday, his highnesse (James -the First) tooke his way towards New-warke upon Trent, where that night -he lodged in the Castle, being his owne house, where the aldermen of -New-warke presented his Majestie with a faire gilt cup, manifesting their -duties and loving hearts to him; which was kindly received.” - - “The true Narration of his Majesty’s Journey from Edenbrough, &c.” 1603. - -[102] Leister forrest. - -[103] Bosworth field. Edit. 1648. - -[104] From this passage we learn that Richard Burbage, the _alter -Roscius_ of Camden, was the original representative of Shakespeare’s -Richard the Third. - -He was buried in the parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, as Mr. Chalmers -discovered, on the 16th of March, 1618-19. - -[105] The clerical profligate thus gibbeted for the example of posterity -was John Bust, inducted the 8th of April, 1611. He seems to have been a -worthy prototype of the Natta of antiquity: - - Non pudet ad morem discincti vivere Nattæ? - Sed stupet hic vitio, et fibris increvit opimum - Pingue; caret culpa; nescit quid perdat, et alto - Demersus, summa rursum non bullit in unda. - - Persius, iii. 31. - -[106] Guyes cliff. Edit. 1648. The cliff and chapel are engraved in -Dugdale’s Warwickshire, vol. i. 274. Ed. 1730. - -[107] Of the Theorbo, or Cithara bijuga, so called from its having two -necks, which appears from Kircher as well as the bishop’s poetry to have -been highly esteemed in Corbet’s time, a graphical representation may be -found in Hawkins’s History of Music, vol. iv. p. 111. 4to. 1776. - -[108] Warwick Castle. Edit. 1648. - -[109] Fulke Greville, lord Brooke. - -[110] Arch-deacon Burton. Edit. 1648. - -[111] At the signe of the Alter-stone. Edit. 1648. - -[112] Which serve for troughs in the backside. Ibid. - -[113] Three dames, - - “Well known and like esteemed.” - -“A discourse of the godly life and Christian death of Mistriss Katharine -Stubbs, who departed this life at Burton on Trent, 14th of December,” -(1592.) was written by her brother, the sanctimonious author of “The -Anatomie of Abuses.” - -Anne Askew, burned in 1546 for her rigid adherence to her faith, wrote “a -balade which she sang when she was in Newgate;” printed by Bale. A long -account of her examination and subsequent martyrdom may be seen in Foxe’s -“Actes and Monuments,” vol. ii. p. 1284. edit. 1583. bl. let. - -With the last I am less intimately acquainted; but I take her to be the -same “lady” of whom the favourite son of Mrs. Merrythought sings, in the -last act of “The Knight of the Burning Pestle.” - -[114] It is almost superfluous to observe, that rosemary was supposed by -our forefathers to be very efficacious in strengthening the retentive -faculties; and, by being always borne at funerals, was calculated -to perpetuate the remembrance of the deceased. “Here is a strange -alteration: for, the rosemary that was washt in sweet water to set out -the bridall, is now wet in teares to furnish her burial.”—Decker’s -Wonderfull Yeare 1603. - -[115] The belief that the turning of the cloak, or glove, or any garment, -solved the benighted traveller from the spell of the Fairies, is alluded -to in the Iter Boreale, (see p. 191,) and is still retained in some of -the western counties. - -[116] This poem, of which the leading features seem to be copied from -the 10th epistle of the 1st book of Horace, has been printed in “The -Antient and Modern Miscellany,” by Mr. Waldron, from a manuscript in his -possession, and it is consequently retained in this edition of Corbet’s -Poems; to whose acknowledged productions it bears no resemblance, at the -same time that it is attributed (in Ashmole’s MSS., No. 38, fol. 91.) to -Robert Heyrick, the author of “Hesperides.” - -[117] - - Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam, - Et quantum natura petat. - - LUCAN, iv. ver. 377. - -[118] - - Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos, - Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per saxa, per ignes. - - HOR. Epist. I. - -[119] See Warton’s Hist. of Engl. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 170, 171. - -[120] See the Life of the Bishop. - -[121] This poem, which is in some manuscripts attributed to William -Stroude, has already been printed in the Topographer of my very -intelligent friend, Samuel Egerton Brydges, esq. vol. ii. p. 112. - -[122] Richard Greenham was educated at Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge, and -became minister of Dry-Drayton, three miles distant; where it should -seem, from a rhyming proverb, that his success in the ministry was not -proportionate to his zeal: - - Greenham had pastures green, - But sheep full lean. - -“What,” says Fuller (Church Hist. lib. ix. 220.), “was Dry-Drayton but a -bushel to hide,—London an high candlestick to hold up the brightness of -his parts?” Thither he repaired; and, after an ‘erratical and planetary -life,’ settled himself at Christ-Church, where he ended his days in 1592. - -“His master-piece,” says Fuller, “was in comforting wounded -consciences.”—Quid multis! - -[123] “Tous les tempéramens,” say our neighbours, “ne se ressemblent -pas.” The Divine thus satyrized by Corbet is lauded by Fuller in high -strains of eulogy. He was born at Marston near Coventry, and was educated -at Christ College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. Having -obtained the living of St. Andrew’s parish in that university, he resided -there till his death.—“He would pronounce the word _damme_ with such -an emphasis,” says Fuller, (Holy State, p. 80. fol. 1652.) “as left a -doleful echo in his auditors’ ears a good while after.” This passage is -of itself a sufficient illustration of the poet. His works were published -in three volumes, folio, 1612. The first in the collection is, “A Golden -Chaine, containing the Order of the Causes of Salvation and Damnation, -&c., in the tables annexed.” - -[124] Juvenal. Sat. vi. - - - - -_Printed for LONGMAN, HURST, REES, and ORME, Paternoster-Row._ - - -I. SPECIMENS OF THE EARLY ENGLISH POETS. To which is prefixed an -Historical Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the ENGLISH POETRY and -LANGUAGE. - -By GEORGE ELLIS, Esq. - -The Third Edition, corrected. In 3 vols. crown 8vo. Price 1l. 11s. 6d. in -boards. - - -II. SPECIMENS OF EARLY ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES, chiefly written during -the early Part of the Fourteenth Century. To which is prefixed, an -Historical Introduction, intended to illustrate the Rise and Progress of -Romantic Composition in France and England. - -By GEORGE ELLIS, Esq. - -In 3 vols. crown 8vo. Price 1l. 7s. in boards. - - -III. SPECIMENS OF THE LATER ENGLISH POETS, with Preliminary Notices, to -the Conclusion of the last Century; intended as a Continuation of Mr. -Ellis’s Specimens of the Early English Poets. - -By ROBERT SOUTHEY. - -In 3 vols. crown 8vo. Price 1l. 11s. 6d. in boards. - - -IV. SIR TRISTREM, a Metrical Romance of the Thirteenth Century. By THOMAS -of ERCILDOUNE, called the Rhymer. Edited from the Auchinleck MS. - -By WALTER SCOTT, Esq. - -The Second Edition. In One large Volume, Octavo, printed by Ballantyne. -Price 15s. in extra boards. - -Also written by Mr. SCOTT: - -1. _The Lay of the Last Minstrel._ A Poem. The Fourth Edition. Price 10s. -6d. in boards. - -2. _Ballads and Lyrical Pieces_; consisting of Glenfinlas, or Lord -Ronald’s Coronach.—The Eve of St. John.—Cadyow Castle.—The Grey -Brother.—Thomas the Rhymer, Parts 1, 2, and 3.—The Fire King.—Frederick -and Alice.—The Wild Huntsmen.—War Song.—The Norman Horse Shoe.—The Dying -Bard.—The Maid of Toro.—Hellvellyn. In 1 vol. 8vo. Second Edition. Price -7s. 6d. in boards. - -⁂ These Two Works contain the whole of Mr. Scott’s original Poetry. - -3. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_; consisting of historical and -romantic Ballads, collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; with a -few of a modern Date, founded upon local Tradition. With an Introduction -and Notes by the Editor. The Third Edition, in 3 vols. 8vo. Price 1l. -16s. in boards. - - -V. THE WORKS OF WALTER SCOTT, ESQ. - -Elegantly printed on fine yellow wove paper, by Ballantyne, in 5 vols. -royal 8vo. Price Five Guineas in extra boards. - -Vols. 1, 2, and 3, contain the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; Vol. 4, -Sir Tristrem, a Metrical Romance; Vol. 5, The Lay of the last Minstrel, -with Ballads and Lyrical Pieces. - - -VI. THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR DAVID LYNDSAY OF THE MOUNT, LION KING AT -ARMS, UNDER JAMES V. A new Edition, corrected and enlarged, with a Life -of the Author, Prefatory Dissertations, and an Appropriate Glossary. - -By GEORGE CHALMERS, F.R.S. S.A. - -In 3 vols. crown 8vo. Price 1l. 16s. in boards. - -“We must now conclude our remarks, with expressing our satisfaction at -being presented with a new edition of ‘Lyndsay’s Works,’ which throw -so much light on the manners of the age in which they were written.” -_Literary Journal._ - - -_R. 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