Lucasta
by Richard Lovelace · English · Gutenberg #703 · 412,636 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Lucasta
Author: Richard Lovelace
Release date: October 1, 1996 [eBook #703]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/703
Credits: Produced by Gary R. Young
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCASTA ***
Produced by Gary R. Young.
LUCASTA.
By
Richard Lovelace
TO
WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ., OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, A REGISTRAR OF
THE COURT OF BANKRUPTCY IN LONDON,
This Little Volume
IS INSCRIBED AS A SLIGHT TESTIMONY OF THE GREATEST RESPECT,
BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SON, THE EDITOR.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
PAGE
Dedication 3
Verses addressed to the Author 5
I. Poems Addressed or Relating To Lucasta.
Song. To Lucasta. Going beyond the Seas 25
Song. To Lucasta. Going to the Warres 26
A Paradox 27
Song. To Amarantha, that she would Dishevell her Haire 29
Sonnet 31
Ode. To Lucasta. The Rose 31
Love Conquer'd. A Song 33
A Loose Saraband 34
Orpheus to Woods 37
Orpheus to Beasts 37
Dialogue. Lucasta, Alexis 39
Sonnet 41
Lucasta Weeping. Song 42
To Lucasta, from Prison. An Epode 43
Lucasta's Fanne, with a Looking-glasse in it 46
Lucasta, taking the Waters at Tunbridge 48
To Lucasta. Ode Lyrick 50
Lucasta paying her Obsequies to the Chast Memory of my
Dearest Cosin Mrs. Bowes Barne[s] 51
Upon the Curtaine of Lucasta's Picture, it was thus Wrought 53
Lucasta's World. Epode 53
The Apostacy of One, and but One Lady 54
Amyntor from beyond the Sea to Alexis. A Dialogue 56
Calling Lucasta from her Retirement 58
Amarantha, a Pastoral 60
II. Poems Addressed to Ellinda.
To Ellinda, that lately I have not written 74
Ellinda's Glove 75
Being Treated. To Ellinda 76
To Ellinda, upon his late Recovery. A Paradox 79
III. Miscellaneous Poems
To Chloe, courting her for his Friend 81
Gratiana Dauncing and Singing 82
Amyntor's Grove 84
The Scrutinie 89
Princesse Loysa Drawing 90
A Forsaken Lady to her False Servant 92
The Grassehopper. To My Noble Friend,
Mr. Charles Cotton [the elder] 94
An Elegie on the Death of Mrs. Cassandra Cotton 97
The Vintage to the Dungeon. A Song 99
On the Death of Mrs. Elizabeth Filmer. An Elegiacall Epitaph 100
To My Worthy Friend Mr. Peter Lilly 102
The Lady A[nne] L[ovelace]. My Asylum in a Great Extremity 104
A Lady with a Falcon on her Fist. To the Honourable
my Cousin A[nne] L[oveace] 108
A Prologue to the Scholars 110
The Epilogue 111
Against the Love of Great Ones 113
To Althea, from Prison 117
Sonnet. To Generall Goring, after the Pacification at Berwicke 120
Sir Thomas Wortley's Sonnet 122
The Answer 123
A Guiltlesse Lady Imprisoned; after Penanced 124
To His Deare Brother Colonel F[rancis] L[ovelace] 125
To a Lady that desired me I would beare my part with her
in a Song 126
Valiant Love<TOC.1> 131
La Bella Bona Roba. To My Lady H. 133
Sonnet. "I Cannot Tell," &c. 134
A la Bourbon 135
The Faire Begger 136
A Dialogue betwixt Cordanus and Amoret 138
<This is approximately the original location of footnote <TOC.1>.
This footnote has been moved to a position after the poem
'La Bella Bona Roba.'>
IV. Commendatory and Other Verses, prefixed to
Various Publications between 1638 and 1647.
An Elegie. Princesse Katherine Borne, Christened, Buried
in one Day (1638) 140
Clitophon and Lucippe translated. To the Ladies (1638) 143
To My Truely Valiant, Learned Friend; who in his Booke
resolv'd the Art Gladiatory into the Mathematicks (1638) 146
To Fletcher Reviv'd (1647) 148
PART II.
I. Poems Addressed or Relating to Lucasta.
Dedication 155
To Lucasta. Her Reserved Looks 157
Lucasta Laughing 157
Night. To Lucasta 158
Love Inthron'd 159
Her Muffe 160
A Black Patch on Lucasta's Face 162
Another 163
To Lucasta 165
To Lucasta 165
Lucasta at the Bath 166
The Ant 168
II. Miscellaneous Poems.
Song. Strive not, &c. 170
In Allusion to the French Song: "N'entendez vous pas
ce Language" 171
Courante Monsieur 173
A Loose Saraband 174
The Falcon 176
Love made in the First Age. To Chloris 180
To a Lady with Child that ask'd an Old Shirt 183
Song. In mine own Monument I lye, &c. 184
Another. I did believe, &c. 184
Ode. You are deceiv'd, &c. 185
The Duell 187
Cupid far gone 188
A Mock Song 190
A Fly caught in a Cobweb 191
A Fly about a Glasse of Burnt Claret 193
Female Glory 196
A Dialogue. Lute and Voice 197
A Mock Charon. Dialogue 198
The Toad and Spyder. A Duell 199
The Snayl 207
Another 209
The Triumphs of Philamore and Amoret 211
Advice to my best Brother, Coll: Francis Lovelace 218
Paris's Second Judgement 221
Peinture. A Panegyrick to the best Picture of Friendship,
Mr. Pet. Lilly 222
An Anniversary on the Hymeneals of my Noble Kinsman,
Thomas Stanley, Esq. 227
On Sanazar's being honoured with 600 Duckets by the
Clarissimi of Venice 229
III. Commendatory Verses, prefixed to Various
Publications between 1652 and 1657.
To My Dear Friend, Mr. E[ldred] R[evett] on his Poems moral
and divine 241
On the Best, Last, and only Remaining Comedy of Mr. Fletcher,
"The Wild-Goose Chase" (1652) 245
To My Noble Kinsman Thomas Stanley, Esq.; on his Lyrick Poems
composed by Mr. John Gamble (1656) 247
To Dr. F. B[eale]; on his Book of Chesse (1656) 249
To the Genius of Mr. John Hall (1657) 250
Translations 253
Elegies on the Death of the Author 279
INTRODUCTION.
There is scarcely an UN-DRAMATIC writer of the Seventeenth Century,
whose poems exhibit so many and such gross corruptions as those
of the author of LUCASTA. In the present edition, which is the
first attempt to present the productions of a celebrated and
elegant poet to the admirers of this class of literature in a
readable shape, both the text and the pointing have been amended
throughout, the original reading being always given in the footnotes;
but some passages still remain, which I have not succeeded
in elucidating to my satisfaction, and one or two which have defied
all my attempts at emendation, though, as they stand, they are
unquestionably nonsense. It is proper to mention that several
rather bold corrections have been hazarded in the course of the
volume; but where this has been done, the deviation from the
original has invariably been pointed out in the notes.
On the title-page of the copy of LUCASTA, 1649, preserved among
the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, the original possessor
has, according to his usual practice, marked the date of purchase,
viz., June 21; perhaps, and indeed probably, that was also
the date of publication. A copy of LUCASTA, 1649, occasionally
appears in catalogues, purporting to have belonged to Anne,
Lady Lovelace; but the autograph which it contains was taken
from a copy of Massinger's BONDMAN (edit. 1638, 4to.), which her
Ladyship once owned. This copy of Lovelace's LUCASTA is bound up
with the copy of the POSTHUME POEMS, once in the possession
of Benjamin Rudyerd, Esq., grandson and heir of the distinguished
Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, as appears also from his autograph
on the title.<1.1>
In the original edition of the two parts of LUCASTA, 1649-59,
the arrangement of the poems appears, like that of the text,
to have been left to chance, and the result has been a total
absence of method. I have therefore felt it part of my duty to
systematise the contents of the volume, and, so far as it lay in my
power, to place the various pieces of which it consisted in their
proper order; all the odes, sonnets, &c. addressed or referring to
the lady who is concealed under the names of LUCASTA and AMARANTHA
have now been, for the first time, brought together; and the copies
of commendatory and gratulatory verses, with one exception prefixed
by Lovelace to various publications by friends during his life-time,
either prior to the appearance of the first part of his own
poems in 1649, or between that date and the issue of his Remains
ten years later, have been placed by themselves, as an act of
justice to the writer, of whose style and genius they are, as is
generally the case with all compositions of the kind, by no means
favourable specimens. The translations from Catullus, Ausonius,
&c. have been left as they stood; they are, for the most part,
destitute of merit; but as they were inserted by the Poet's
brother, when he edited the posthumous volume, I did not think it
right to disturb them, and they have been retained in their full
integrity.
Lovelace's LUCASTA was included by the late S. W. Singer, Esq.,
in his series of "Early English Poets;" but that gentleman,
besides striking out certain passages, which he, somewhat
unaccountably and inconsistently, regarded as indelicate,
omitted a good deal of preliminary matter in the form of
commendatory verses which, though possibly of small worth,
were necessary to render the book complete; it is possible,
that Mr. Singer made use of a copy of LUCASTA which was deficient
at the commencement. It may not be generally known that,
independently of its imperfections in other respects,
Mr. Singer's reprint abounds with the grossest blunders.
The old orthography has been preserved intact in this edition;
but with respect to the employment of capitals, the entirely
arbitrary manner in which they are introduced into the book as
originally published, has made it necessary to reduce them, as well
as the singularly capricious punctuation, to modern rules. At the
same time, in those cases where capitals seemed more characteristic
or appropriate, they have been retained.
It is a singular circumstance, that Mr. Singer (in common with
Wood, Bliss, Ellis, Headley, and all other biographers,) overlooked
the misprint of ARAMANTHA for AMARANTHA, which the old compositor
made, with one or two exceptions, wherever the word occurred. In
giving a correct representation of the original title-page, I have
been obliged to print ARAMANTHA.
In the hope of discovering the exact date of Lovelace's birth
and baptism, I communicated with the Rev. A. J. Pearman, incumbent
of Bethersden, near Ashford, and that gentleman obligingly examined
the registers for me, but no traces of Lovelace's name are to be
found.
W. C. H.
Kensington, August 12, 1863.
<1.1> Mr. B. R. was a somewhat diligent collector of books,
both English and foreign. On the fly-leaves of his copy
of Rosse's MYSTAGOGUS POETICUS, 1648, 8vo., he has written
the names of a variety of works, of which he was at the time
seemingly in recent possession.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
With the exception of Sir Egerton Brydges, who contributed to the
GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for 1791-2 a series of articles on the life
and writings of the subject of the present memoir, all the
biographers of Richard Lovelace have contented themselves with
following the account left by Anthony Wood of his short and unhappy
career. I do not think that I can do better than commence, at
least, by giving word for word the narrative of Wood in his own
language, to which I purpose to add such additional particulars in
the form of notes or otherwise, as I may be able to supply. But
the reader must not expect much that is new: for I regret to say
that, after the most careful researches, I have not improved, to
any large extent, the state of knowledge respecting this elegant
poet and unfortunate man.
"Richard Lovelace," writes Wood, "the eldest son of Sir William
Lovelace<2.1> of Woollidge in Kent, knight, was born in that
country [in 1618], educated in grammar learning in
Charterhouse<2.2> School near London, became a gent. commoner of
Gloucester Hall in the beginning of the year 1634,<2.3> and in that
of his age sixteen, being then accounted the most amiable and
beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate
modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but
especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired
and adored by the female sex. In 1636, when the king and queen
were for some days entertained at Oxon, he was, at the request of a
great lady belonging to the queen, made to the Archbishop of
Canterbury [Laud], then Chancellor of the University, actually
created, among other persons of quality, Master of Arts, though but
of two years' standing; at which time his conversation being made
public, and consequently his ingenuity and generous soul
discovered, he became as much admired by the male, as before by the
female, sex. After he had left the University, he retired in great
splendour to the court, and being taken into the favour of Lord
George Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, was by him adopted a
soldier, and sent in the quality of an ensign, in the Scotch
expedition, an. 1639. Afterwards, in the second expedition, he was
commissionated a captain in the same regiment, and in that time
wrote a tragedy called THE SOLDIER, but never acted, because the
stage was soon after suppressed. After the pacification of
Berwick, he retired to his native country, and took possession [of
his estate] at Lovelace Place, in the parish of Bethersden,<2.4> at
Canterbury, Chart, Halden, &c., worth, at least, <pounds>500 per
annum. About which time he [being then on the commission of the
peace] was made choice of by the whole body of the county of Kent
at an assize, to deliver the Kentish petition<2.5> to the House of
Commons, for the restoring the king to his rights, and for settling
the government, &c. For which piece of service he was committed
[April 30, 1642] to the Gatehouse at Westminster,<2.6> where he
made that celebrated song called, STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE,
&c. After three or four months' [six or seven weeks'] imprisonment,
he had his liberty upon bail of <pounds>40,000 [<pounds>4000?]
not to stir out of the lines of communication without a pass from
the speaker. During the time of this confinement to London,
he lived beyond the income of his estate, either to keep up
the credit and reputation of the king's cause by furnishing
men with horses and arms, or by relieving ingenious men in want,
whether scholars, musicians, soldiers, &c. Also, by furnishing
his two brothers, Colonel Franc. Lovelace, and Captain William
Lovelace (afterwards slain at Caermarthen)<2.7> with men and
money for the king's cause, and his other brother, called Dudley
Posthumus Lovelace, with moneys for his maintenance in Holland,
to study tactics and fortification in that school of war. After
the rendition of Oxford garrison, in 1646, he formed a regiment
for the service of the French king, was colonel of it, and
wounded at Dunkirk;<2.8> and in 1648, returning into England, he,
with Dudley Posthumus before mentioned, then a captain under him,
were both committed prisoners to Peter House,<2.9> in London, where
he framed his poems for the press, entitled, LUCASTA: EPODES, ODES,
SONNETS, SONGS, &c., Lond. 1649, Oct. The reason why he gave that
title was because, some time before, he had made his amours to a
gentlewoman of great beauty and fortune, named Lucy Sacheverell,
whom he usually called LUX CASTA; but she, upon a stray report that
Lovelace was dead of his wound received at Dunkirk, soon after
married.<2.10> He also wrote ARAMANTHA [Amarantha], A PASTORAL,
printed with LUCASTA.<2.11> Afterwards a musical composition of two
parts was set to part of it by Henry Lawes,<2.12> sometimes servant
to king Charles I., in his public and private music.
"After the murther of king Charles I. Lovelace was set at liberty,
and, having by that time consumed all his estate,<2.13> grew
very melancholy (which brought him at length into a consumption),
became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity,
went in ragged cloaths (whereas when he was in his glory he wore
cloth of gold and silver), and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty
places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of
servants, &c. After his death his brother Dudley, before
mentioned, made a collection of his poetical papers, fitted them
for the press, and entitled them LUCASTA: POSTHUME POEMS, Lond.
1659,<2.14> Oct., the second part, with his picture before
them.<2.15> These are all the things that he hath extant; those
that were never published were his tragedy, called THE SOLDIER or
SOLDIERS, before mentioned; and his comedy, called THE
SCHOLAR,<2.16> which he composed at sixteen years of age, when he
came first to Gloucester hall, acted with applause afterwards in
Salisbury Court. He died in a very mean lodging in Gunpowder
Alley,<2.17> near Shoe Lane,<2.18> and was buried at the west-end
of the church of S. Bride, alias Bridget, in London, near to the
body of his kinsman Will. Lovelace, of Gray's Inn, Esq., in sixteen
hundred fifty and eight,<2.19> having before been accounted by all
those that well knew him to have been a person well versed in the
Greek<2.20> and Latin<2.21> poets, in music, whether practical or
theoretical, instrumental or vocal, and in other things befitting a
gentleman. Some of the said persons have also added, in my
hearing, that his common discourse was not only significant and
witty, but incomparably graceful, which drew respect from all men
and women. Many other things I could now say of him, relating
either to his most generous mind in his prosperity, or dejected
estate in his worst state of poverty, but for brevity's sake I
shall now pass them by. At the end of his Posthume Poems are
several elegies written on him by eminent poets of that time,
wherein you may see his just character."
Such is Wood's account; it is to be regretted that that writer
did not supply the additional information, which he tantalizes us
by saying that he possessed, and could have published, had he not
been afraid of being tedious. His love of brevity is, in this
case, most provoking.
As might be expected, the Journals of Parliament cast additional
light on the personal connexion of Lovelace with the Kentish
Petition of 1642, which was for the GENERAL redress of existing
grievances, not, as the editor of the VERNEY PAPERS seems to have
considered, merely for the adjustment of certain points relative to
the Militia. Parliamentary literature has not a very strong
fascination for the editors of old authors, and the biographers of
Lovelace have uniformly overlooked the mine of information which
lies in the LORDS' AND COMMONS' JOURNALS. The subject was
apparently introduced, for the first time, into Parliament on the
28th March, 1642, when a conference of both Houses took place,
respecting "a petition from Kent, which, praying for a Restoration
of the Bishops, Liturgy and Common Prayer, and other constitutional
measures, was voted seditious and against privilege and the peace
of the kingdom;" on the same occasion, Lord Bristol and Mr. Justice
Mallett were committed to the Tower for having in their possession
a copy of the document. On the 7th April it was ordered by both
Houses, that the Kentish Petition should be burned by the hands of
the common hangman.
On the 28th April, the Commons acquainted the Upper House,
by Mr. Oliver Cromwell, "that a great meeting was to be held
next day on Blackheath, to back the rejected Kentish
Petition."<2.22>
Two days later, a strange scene occurred at Westminster.
Let the Commons' Journals tell the story in their own language:--
"30 April, 1642. The House being informed that divers gentlemen
of the county of Kent were at the door, that desired to present
a petition to the House;
"They were called in, presented their Petition, and withdrew.
"And their Petition was read, and appeared to be the same
that was formerly burnt, by order of both Houses, by the hands
of the common hangman. Captain LEIGH reports that, being at
the Quarter Sessions held at MAIDSTONE, he observed certain
passages which he delivered in writing.
"Captain Lovelace, who presented the Petition, was called in;
and Mr. Speaker was commanded to ask him, from whose hand
he had this Petition, and who gave him warrant to present it.
"'Mr. GEO. CHUTE delivered him [he replied] the Petition the next
day after the Assizes.'
"'The gentlemen [he continued], that were assembled at BLACKHEATH,
commanded him to deliver it.'
"[The Speaker then inquired] whether he knew that the like was
burnt by the order of this House, and that some were here
questioned for the business.
"'He understood a general rumour, that some gentlemen were
questioned.
"'He had heard a fortnight since, that the like Petition was burned
by the hand of the common hangman.
"'He knew nothing of the bundle of printed petitions.'
"He likewise said, 'that there was a petition at the Quarter
Sessions, disavowed by all the Justices there, which he tore.'
"Sir William Boteler was likewise called in, [and] asked when he
was at Yorke.
"[He] answered, 'On Wednesday last was sevennight, he came from
Yorke, and came to his house in London.
"'He heard of a petition that was never delivered.
"'He never heard of any censure of the Parliament.
"'He heard that a paper was burnt for being irregularly burnt
[?presented].
"'He had heard that the Petition, that went under the name of
the Kentish Petition, was burnt by the hands of the common hangman.
"'He never heard of any order of either, [or] of both, the Houses
concerning [the Petition].
"'He was at Hull on Thursday or Friday was a sevennight: as he
came from Yorke, he took Hull in the way. He had heard, that
Sir Roger Twisden was questioned for the like Petition.
"'He was yesterday at BLACKHEATH.'
"Resolved, upon the question, that Captain Lovelace shall be
presently Committed prisoner to the Gatehouse.
"Resolved, upon the question, that Sir William Boteler shall be
presently committed prisoner to the Fleet.
"Ordered, that the sergeant shall apprehend them, and carry them
in safe custody, and deliver them as prisoners to the several
prisons aforesaid."
On the 4th May, 1642, the House of Commons ordered Mr. Whittlock
and others to prepare a charge against Mr. Lovelace and Sir William
Boteler with all expedition; but nothing further is heard of the
matter till the 17th June, When Lovelace<2.23> and Boteler
petitioned the House separately for their release from custody.
Hereupon Sir William was discharged on finding personal bail to the
extent of <pounds>10,000, with a surety for <pounds>5000; and in
the case of his companion in misfortune it was ordered, on the
question, that "he be forthwith bailed upon GOOD security." This
"good security," surely, did not reach the sum mentioned by Wood,
namely, <pounds>40,000; but it is likely that the author of the
ATHENAE is ONLY wrong by a cypher, and that the amount fixed was
<pounds>4000, as it has been already suggested. Thus Lovelace's
confinement did not exceed seven weeks in duration, and the
probability, is that the sole inconvenience, which he subsequently
experienced, was the loss of the bail.
The description left by Wood and Aubrey of the end of Lovelace
can only be reconciled with the fact, that his daughter and heiress
conveyed Kingsdown, Hever,<2.24> and a moiety of Chipsted,
to the Cokes by marriage with Mr. Henry Coke, by presuming that
those manors were entailed; while Lovelace Place, as well perhaps
as Bayford and Goodneston, not being similarly secured, were sold
to defray the owner's incumbrances. At any rate it is not,
upon the whole, very probable that he died in a hovel, in a state
of absolute poverty;<2.25> that he received a pound a week
(equal to about <pounds>4 of our money) from two friends,
Cotton and another, Aubrey himself admits; and we may rest
satisfied that, however painful the contrast may have been between
the opening and close of that career, the deplorable account given
in the ATHENAE, and in the so-called LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, is much
exaggerated and overdrawn.
It has not hitherto been remarked, that among the Kentish gentry
who, from time to time, elected to change the nature of their
tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces
themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace,<2.26> who, by Act of
Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several
other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was
not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn
in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much
reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the
precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William
Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who died in 1576, and who was great-grandfather
to the author of LUCASTA. The circumstance that the real property
of Thomas Lovelace aforesaid, situated in Kent, was released by Act
of Parliament, 2 and 3 Edw. VI. from the operations of gavelkind tenure
(assuming, as is most likely to have been the case, that he was of the
same stock as the poet, though not an immediate ancestor,) seems to
explain the following allusion by Dudley Lovelace in the verses
prefixed by him to LUCASTA, 1649:--
"Those by the landed have been writ,
Mine's but a younger-brother wit."
As well as the subjoined lines by Lovelace in the poem entitled,
"To Lucasta, from Prison," (see p. 44 of present edition):--
"Next would I court my LIBERTY,
And then my birthright, PROPERTY."
There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms
with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly
relations with many of them--such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and
particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author
of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him
some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad.
In 1643, Henry Glapthorne, a celebrated dramatist and poet
of the same age, dedicated to Lovelace his poem of WHITEHALL,
printed in that year in a quarto pamphlet, with elegies
on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester.<2.27> The pages
of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author
with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of
CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius
(or rather probably from a Latin version of the original),
and with other<2.28> members of the University.<2.29>
Although it is stated by Wood that LUCASTA was prepared for the
press by Lovelace himself, on his return from the Continent in
1648, it is impossible to believe that any care was bestowed on the
correction of the text, or on the arrangement of the various pieces
which compose the volume: nor did his brother Dudley Posthumus, who
edited the second part of the book in 1659, perform his task in any
degree better. In both instances, the printer seems to have been
suffered to do the work in his own way, and very infamously he has
done it. To supply all the short-comings of the author and his
literary executor at this distance of time, is, unfortunately, out
of the power of any editor; but in the present republication I have
taken the liberty of rearranging the poems, to a certain extent in
the order in which it may be conjectured that they were written;
and where Lovelace contributed commendatory verses to other works,
either before or after the appearance of the first portion of
LUCASTA, the two texts have been collated, and improved readings
been occasionally obtained.
The few poems, on which the fame of Lovelace may be said to rest,
are emanations not only of the stirring period in which he lived,
but of the peculiar circumstances into which he was thrown
at different epochs of his life. Lovelace had not the melodious
and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power
of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson).
Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but,
in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in
grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace
has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of
those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets
would not have been ashamed to own. Winstanley was so far right in
instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is
hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English
literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with
any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how
differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what
Herrick would have made of it; it would have furnished the theme
for one more invocation to Julia. From Suckling we should have had
a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited
to the subject. Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the
position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal
stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking
too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and
preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his
inspiration had evaporated), to pour out his feelings to Lady
Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song, "Shall I wasting in
Despair," is certainly superior to the SONG TO ALTHEA. Wither was
frequently equal to Lovelace in poetical imagery and sentiment, and
he far excelled him in versification. The versification of
Lovelace is indeed more rugged and unmusical than that of any other
writer of the period, and this blemish is so conspicuous throughout
LUCASTA, and is noticeable in so many cases, where it might have
been avoided with very little trouble, that we are naturally led to
the inference that Lovelace, in writing, accepted from indolence or
haste, the first word which happened to occur to his mind. Daniel,
Drayton, and others were, it is well known, indefatigable revisers
of their poems; they "added and altered many times," mostly
for the better, occasionally for the worse. We can scarcely
picture to ourselves Lovelace blotting a line, though it would
have been well for his reputation, if he had blotted many.
In the poem of the LOOSE SARABAND (p. 34) there is some resemblance
to a piece translated from Meleager in Elton's SPECIMENS OF CLASSIC
POETS, i. 411, and entitled by Elton "Playing at Hearts."
"Love acts the tennis-player's part,
And throws to thee my panting heart;
Heliodora! ere it fall,
Let desire catch swift the ball:
Let her in the ball-court move,
Follow in the game with love.
If thou throw me back again,
I shall of foul play complain."
And an address to the Cicada by the same writer, (IBID. i. 415)
opens with these lines:--
"Oh, shrill-voiced insect that, with dew-drops sweet
Inebriate, dost in desert woodlands sing."
In the poem called "The Grasshopper" (p. 94), the author speaks
of the insect as
"Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear,
Dropped thee from heaven."----
The similarity, in each case, I believe to have been entirely
accidental: nor am I disposed to think that Lovelace was under any
considerable or direct obligations to the classics. I have taken
occasion to remark that Lovelace seems to have helped to furnish
a model to Cleveland, who carried to an extraordinary length that
fondness for words and figures derived from the alchymist's
vocabulary; but as regards the author of LUCASTA himself, it may
be asserted that there are few writers whose productions exhibit
less of book-lore than his, and even in those places, where he has
employed phrases or images similar to some found in Peele,
Middleton, Herrick, and others, there is great room to question,
whether the circumstance can be treated as amounting to more than
a curious coincidence.
The Master of Dulwich College has obligingly informed me,
that the picture of ALTHEA, as well as that of Lovelace himself,
bequeathed by Cartwright the actor to Dulwich College in 1687,
bears no clue to date of composition, or to the artist's name,
and that it does not assist in the identification of the lady.
This is the more vexatious, inasmuch as it seems probable that
ALTHEA, whoever she was, became the poet's wife, after LUCASTA'S
marriage to another. The CHLOES, &c. mentioned in the following
pages were merely more or less intimate acquaintances of Lovelace,
like the ELECTRA, PERILLA, CORINNA, &c. of Herrick. But at the
same time an obscurity has hitherto hung over some of the persons
mentioned under fictitious names in the poems of Lovelace,
which a little research and trouble would have easily removed.
For instance, no one who reads "Amarantha, a Pastoral,"
doubts that LUCASTA and AMARANTHA are one and the same person.
ALEXIS is Lovelace himself. ELLINDA is a female friend of
the poet, who occasionally stayed at her house, and on one
occasion (p. 79) had a serious illness there. ELLINDA marries
AMYNTOR, under which disguise, I suspect, lurks the well known
Maecenas of his time, Endymion Porter. If Porter be AMYNTOR, of
course ELLINDA must be the Lady Olivia Porter, his wife. ARIGO
(see the poem of AMYNTOR'S GROVE) signifies Porter's friend,
Henry Jermyn. It may be as well to add that the LETTICE mentioned
at p. 121, was the Lady Lettice Goring, wife of Lovelace's friend,
and third daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. This lady
died before her husband, to whom she brought no issue.
The following lines are prefixed to FONS LACHRYMARUM, &c.
by John Quarles, 1648, 8vo., and are subscribed, as will be seen,
R. L.; they may be from the pen of Lovelace; but, if so,
it is strange that they were not admitted, with other productions
of a similar character, into the volume published by the poet
himself in 1649, or into that edited by his brother in 1659.
TO MY DEAR FRIEND THE AUTHOR.
The Son begins to rise, the Father's set:
Heav'n took away one light, and pleas'd to let
Another rise. Quarles, thy light's divine,
And it shall teach Darkness it self to shine.
Each word revives thy Father's name, his art
Is well imprinted in thy noble heart.
I've read thy pleasing lines, wherein I find
The rare Endeavors of a modest mind.
Proceed as well as thou hast well begun,
That we may see the Father by the Son.
R. L.
Arms of Lovelace of Bethersden: Gules, on a chief indented argent,
three martlets sable.
<2.1> Pedigree of the family of Richard Lovelace, the poet.
Richard Lovelace, of Queenhithe (temp. Hen. VI.).
!
Lancelot Lovelace.
!
-----------------------------------------------
! ! !
Richard Lovelace, William Lovelace John (ancestor of the
d. s. p. (ob. 1501). Lords Lovelace, of
! Hurley (co. Berks).
!
---------------------------
! !
John William Lovelace.
!
William Lovelace, Serjeant at Law, ob. 1576.
!
------------------------
!
Sir William Lovelace, ob.1629===Elizabeth, daughter of
(according to Berry). ! Edward Aucher, Esq., of
! Bishopsbourne.
!
---------------------
!
Sir William Lovelace===Anne, daughter and heir of
! Sir William Barnes, of Woolwich.
!
-----------------------------------------------------
! ! ! ! ! !
Richard===? Althea. ! William. ! Dudley.===Mary Johanna===Robert
Lovelace,! ! ! ! Lovelace, ! Caesar
born ! Francis. Thomas. ! (? his ! Esq.
1618 ! ! cousin). !
! ! !
! A daughter, !
! b. 1678. !
! !
Margaret===Henry Coke, Esq. 5th -------------------
! son of the Chief ! ! !
! Justice, and ancestor Anne. Juliana. Johanna.
! of the Earls of Leicester.
!
-------------------------------------
! ! ! !
Richard. Ciriac. . . . . . . . .
The above has been partly derived from a communication to the
GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for Dec. 1791, by Sir Egerton Brydges,
who chiefly compiled it from Hasted, compared with Berry's
KENT GENEALOGIES, 474, where there are a few inaccuracies.
It is, of course, a mere skeleton-tree, and furnishes no
information as to the collateral branches, the connexion between
the houses of Stanley and Lovelace, &c. Sir Egerton Brydges'
series of articles on Lovelace in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, with
the exception of that from which the foregoing table is taken,
does not contain much, if anything, that is new. On the 3rd of
May, 1577, Henry Binneman paid "vi<pence> and a copie" to the
Stationers' Company for the right to print "the Briefe Course of
the Accidents of the Deathe of Mr. Serjeant Lovelace;" and on the
30th of August following, Richard Jones obtained a licence to print
"A Short Epitaphe of Serjeant Lovelace." This was the same person
who is described in the pedigree as dying in 1576. His death
happened, no doubt, like that of Sir Robert Bell and others, at the
Oxford Summer assizes for 1576. See Stow's ANNALES, fol. 1154.
In 1563, Barnaby Googe the poet dedicated his EGLOGS, EPITAPHES,
AND SONNETTES, NEWLY WRITTEN, to "the Ryght Worshypfull M. Richard
Lovelace, Esquier, Reader of Grayes Inne."
The following is a list of the members of the Lovelace family
who belonged to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn from 1541
to 1646:--
Thomas Lovelace, admitted 1541.
William Lovelace, " 1548. Called to the bar in 1551.
Richard Lovelace, " 1557. Reader in 1563. Barnaby Googe's
friend.
Lancelot Lovelace, " 1571.
William Lovelace, " 1580.
Lancelot Lovelace, " 1581. Recorder of Canterbury,
ob. 1640, aet. 78.
Francis Lovelace, " 1609. Perhaps the same who was Recorder
of Canterbury in 1638.
Francis Lovelace " 1640. Probably the poet's younger
(of Canterbury), brother.
William Lovelace, " 1646.
For these names and dates I am indebted to the courtesy
of the Steward of Gray's Inn.
Sir William Lovelace, the poet's grandfather who, according to
Berry, died in 1629, was a correspondent of Sir Dudley Carleton
(see CALENDARS OF STATE PAPERS, DOMESTIC SERIES, 1611-18, pp. 443,
521, 533; Ibid. 1618-23, p. 17). It appears from some Latin lines
before the first portion of LUCASTA, that the poet's father served
with distinction in Holland, and probably it was this circumstance
which led to Lovelace himself turning his attention in a similar
direction: for the latter was on service in the Low Countries,
perhaps under his father (of whose death we do not know the date,
though Hasted intimates that he fell at the Gryll), when his friend
Tatham, afterwards the city poet, addressed to him some verses
printed in a volume entitled OSTELLA (printed in 1650).
<2.2> Mr. A. Keightley, Registrar of the Charterhouse, with his
usual kindness, examined for me the books of the institution,
in the hope of finding the date of Lovelace's admission, &c.,
but without success. Mr. Keightley has suggested to me that
perhaps Lovelace was not on the foundation, which is of course
highly probable, and which, as Mr. Keightley seems to think,
may account for the omission of his name from the registers.
<2.3> "He was matriculated at Gloucester Hall, June 27, 1634, as
"filius Gul. Lovelace de Woolwich in
Com. Kant. arm. au. nat. 16.'"--Dr. Bliss,
in a note on this passage in his edition of the ATHENAE.
<2.4> Bethersden is a parish in the Weald of Kent, eastward
of Smarden, near Surrenden. "The manor of Lovelace," says Hasted
(HISTORY OF KENT, iii. 239), "is situated at a very small distance
SOUTH-WESTWARD from the church [of Bethersden]. It was in early
times the property of a family named Grunsted, or Greenstreet,
as they were sometimes called; the last of whom, HENRY DE GRUNSTED,
a man of eminent repute, as all the records of this county testify,
in the reigns of both King Edward II. and III., passed away this
manor to KINET, in which name it did not remain long; for WILLIAM
KINET, in the 41st year of King Edward III., conveyed it by sale
to JOHN LOVELACE, who erected that mansion here, which from hence
bore his name in addition, being afterwards styled BETHERSDEN-LOVELACE,
from which sprang a race of gentlemen, who, in the
military line, acquired great reputation and honour, and by their
knowledge in the municipal laws, deserved well of the Commonwealth;
from whom descended those of this name seated at BAYFORD in
SITTINGBORNE, and at KINGSDOWN in this county, the Lords Lovelace
of Hurley, and others of the county of Berks." The same writer,
in his HISTORY OF CANTERBURY, has preserved many memorials
of the connexion of the Lovelaces from the earliest times
with Canterbury and its neighbourhood. William Lovelace,
in the reign of Philip and Mary, died possessed of the mansion
belonging to the abbey of St. Lawrence, near Canterbury;
after the death of his son William, it passed to other hands.
In 1621, Lancelot Lovelace, Esq., was Recorder of Canterbury;
in 1638, Richard Lovelace, Esq., held that office; and in the
year of the Restoration, Richard Lovelace, the poet's brother, was
Recorder. In the Public Library at Plymouth, there is a folio MS.
(mentioned in Mr. Halliwell's catalogue, 1853), containing
"Original Papers of the Molineux and LOVELACE Families." I regret
that I have not had an opportunity of inspecting it. Mr. Halliwell
does not seem to have examined the volume; at all events, that
gentleman does not furnish any particulars as to the nature of the
contents, or as to the period to which the papers belong. This
information, in the case of a MS. deposited in a provincial library
in a remote district, would have been peculiarly valuable. It is
possible that the documents refer only to the Lovelaces of Hurley,
co. Berks.
<2.5> "The Humble Petition of the Gentry, Ministers, and
Commonalty, for the county of Kent, agreed upon at the General
Assizes for that county." See JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, iv.
675-6-7. The "framers and contrivers" of this petition were Sir
Edward Dering, Bart., of Surrenden-Dering; Sir Roger Twysden, the
well-known scholar; Sir George Strode, and Mr. Richard Spencer. On
the 21st May, 1641, Dering had unsuccessfully attempted to bring in
a bill for the ABOLITION of church government by bishops,
archbishops, &c., whereas one of the articles of the petition of
1642 (usually known as DERING'S PETITION) was a prayer for the
restoration of the Liturgy and the maintenance of the episcopal
bench in its integrity. A numerously signed petition had also
been addressed to both Houses by the county in 1641, in which
the strongest reasons were given for the adoption of Dering's
proposed act. From 1641 to 1648, indeed, the Houses were
overwhelmed by Kentish petitions of various kinds. This portion
of Wood's narrative is confirmed by Marvell's lines prefixed to
LUCASTA, 1649:--
"And one the Book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent."
"Sir William Boteler, of Kent, returning about the beginning of
APRIL 1642, from his attendance (being then Gentleman Pentioner)
on the king at YORKE, then celebrating St. GEORGE'S feast,
was by the earnest solicitation of the Gentry of Kent ingaged
to joyn with them in presenting the most honest and famous Petition
of theirs to the House of Commons, delivered by Captain RICHARD
LOVELACE, for which service the Captain was committed Prisoner to
the GATE HOUSE, and SIR WILLIAM BOTELER to the Fleet, from whence,
after some weeks close imprisonment, no impeachment in all that
time brought in against him [Boteler], many Petitions being
delivered and read in the House for his inlargement, he was at last
upon bail of <pounds>20,000 [<pounds>15,000] remitted to his house
in LONDON, to attend DE DIE IN DIEM the pleasure of the House."--MERCURIUS
RUSTICUS, 1646 (edit. 1685, pp. 7, 8). The fact was
that, although on the 7th of April, 1642, the Kentish petition in
favour of the Liturgy, &c. had been ordered by the House of Commons
to be burned by the common hangman (PARLIAMENTS AND COUNCILS
OF ENGLAND, 1839, p. 384), Boteler and Lovelace had the temerity,
on the 30th of the same month, to come up to London, and present it
again to the House. It was this which occasioned their committal.
In the VERNEY PAPERS (Camd. Soc. 1845, p. 175) there is the
following memorandum:--
"Captaine Lovelace committed to the Gatehouse ! Concerning
Sir William Butler committed to the Fleete ! Deering's
! petition."
<2.6> "Gatehouse, a prison in Westminster, near the west end
of the Abbey, which leads into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street,
and the Almonry"--Cunningham's HANDBOOK OF LONDON, PAST AND
PRESENT. But for a more particular account, see Stow's SURVEY,
ed. 1720, ii. lib. 6.
"The Gatehouse for a Prison was ordain'd,
When in this land the third king EDWARD reign'd:
Good lodging roomes, and diet it affords,
But I had rather lye at home on boords."
Taylor's PRAISE AND VIRTUE OF A JAYLE AND JAYLERS,
(Works, 1630, ii. 130).
<2.7> By an inadvertence, I have spoken of THOMAS, instead of
WILLIAM, Lovelace having perished at Caermarthen, in a note
at p. 125. <i.e. note 52.1>
<2.8> It appears from the following copy of verses, printed
in Tatham's OSTELLA, 1650, 4to., that Lovelace made a stay
in the Netherlands about this time, if indeed he did not serve
there with his regiment.
UPON MY NOBLE FRIEND RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ., HIS
BEING IN HOLLAND. AN INVITATION.
Come, Adonis, come again;
What distaste could drive thee hence,
Where so much delight did reign,
Sateing ev'n the soul of sense?
And though thou unkind hast prov'd,
Never youth was more belov'd.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.
Wert thou sated with the spoil
Of so many virgin hearts,
And therefore didst change thy soil,
To seek fresh in other parts?
Dangers wait on foreign game;
We have deer more sound and tame.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.
Phillis, fed with thy delights,
In thy absence pines away;
And love, too, hath lost his rites,
Not one lass keeps holiday.
They have changed their mirth for cares,
And do onely sigh thy airs.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.
Elpine, in whose sager looks
Thou wert wont to take delight,
Hath forsook his drink and books,
'Cause he can't enjoy thy sight:
He hath laid his learning by,
'Cause his wit wants company.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For friendship brooks not thy delay.
All the swains that once did use
To converse with Love and thee,
In the language of thy Muse,
Have forgot Love's deity:
They deny to write a line,
And do only talk of thine.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For friendship brooks not thy delay.
By thy sweet Althea's voice,
We conjure thee to return;
Or we'll rob thee of that choice,
In whose flames each heart would burn:
That inspir'd by her and sack,
Such company we will not lack:
That poets in the age to come,
Shall write of our Elisium.
<2.9> Peter, or rather PETRE House, in Aldersgate Street,
belonged at one time to the antient family by whose name it was
known. The third Lord Petre, dying in 1638, left it, with other
possessions in and about the city of London, to his son William.
(Collins's PEERAGE, by Brydges, vii. 10, 11.) When Lovelace was
committed to Peter House, and probably long before (MERCURIUS
RUSTICUS, ed. 1685, pp. 76-79), this mansion was used as a house of
detention for political prisoners; but in Ward's DIARY (ed. Severn,
p. 167), there is the following entry (like almost all Ward's
entries, unluckily without date):--"My Lord Peters is an Essex man;
hee hath a house in Aldersgate Street, wherein lives the Marquis
of Dorchester:" implying that at that period (perhaps about 1660),
the premises still belonged to the Petre family, though temporarily
let to Lord Dorchester. Another celebrated house in the same
street was London House, which continued for some time to be the
town residence of the Bishops of London. When it had ceased to be
an episcopal abode, it was adapted to the purposes of an ordinary
dwelling, and, among the occupants, at a somewhat later period, was
Tom Rawlinson, the great book-collector. See Stow, ed. 1720, ii.
lib. iii. p. 121.
<2.10> How different was the conduct, under similar circumstances,
of the lady whom Charles Gerbier commemorates in his ELOGIUM
HEROINUM, 1651, p. 127. "Democion, the Athenian virgin," he tells
us, "hearing that Leosthenes, to whom she was contracted, was slain
in the wars, she killed herself; but before her death she thus
reasoned with herself: 'Although my body is untoucht, yet should I
fall into the imbraces of another, I should but deceive the second,
since I am still married to the former in my heart.'"
<2.11> Wood's story about LUCASTA having been a Lucy Sacheverell,
"a lady of great beauty and fortune," may reasonably be doubted.
Lucasta, whoever she was, seems to have belonged to Kent;
the SACHEVERELLS were not a Kentish family. Besides, the
corruption of Lucy Sacheverell into Lucasta is not very obvious,
and rather violent; and the probability is that the author of
the ATHENAE was misled by his informant on this occasion.
The plate etched by Lely and engraved by Faithorne, which
is found in the second part of LUCASTA, 1659, can scarcely
be regarded as a portrait; it was, in all likelihood, a mere
fancy sketch, and we are not perhaps far from the truth in our
surmise that the artist was nearly, if not quite, as much
in the dark as to who Lucasta was, as we are ourselves
at the present day.
<2.12> This is a mistake on the part of Wood, which (with many
others) ought to be corrected in a new edition of the ATHENAE.
Lawes did not set to music AMARANTHA, A PASTORAL, nor any portion
of it; but he harmonized two stanzas of a little poem to be found
at p. 29 of the present volume, and called "To Amarantha; that she
would dishevel her Hair."
<2.13> Hasted states that soon after the death of Charles I. the
manor of Lovelace-Bethersden passed by purchase to Richard Hulse,
Esq.
<2.14> On the title-page of this portion of LUCASTA, as well as
on that which had appeared in 1649, the author is expressly styled
RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ.: yet in Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, p. 474,
he is, curiously enough, called SIR Richard Lovelace, KNT. It is
scarcely necessary to observe that the error is on Berry's side.
<2.15> The most pleasing likeness of Lovelace, the only one,
indeed, which conveys any just idea to us of the "handsomest man of
his time," is the picture at Dulwich, which has been twice copied,
in both instances with very indifferent success. One of these
copies was made for Harding's BIOGRAPHICAL MIRROR. Bromley
(DICTIONARY OF ENGRAVED BRITISH PORTRAITS, 1793, p. 101) correctly
names F[rancis] Lovelace, the writer's brother, as the designer
of the portrait before the POSTHUME POEMS.
<2.16> Winstanley, perhaps, intended some allusion to these two
lost dramas from the pen of Lovelace, when he thus characterizes
him in his LIVES OF THE POETS, 1687, p. 170:--"I can compare no
man," he says, "so like this Colonel LOVELACE as SIR PHILIP SIDNEY,
of which latter it is said by one in an epitaph made of him:--
'Nor is it fit that more I should acquaint,
Lest men adore in one
A Scholar, SOULDIER, Lover, and a Saint.'"
As to the comparison, Winstanley must be understood to signify
a resemblance between Lovelace and Sydney as men, rather than
as writers. Winstanley's extract is from WITS' RECREATIONS,
but the text, as he gives it, varies from that printed by
the editor of the reprint of that work in 1817.
<2.17> Gunpowder Alley still exists, but it is not the Gunpowder
Alley which Lovelace knew, having been rebuilt more than once
since 1658, It is now a tolerably wide and airy court, without
any conspicuous appearance of squalor. There is no tradition,
I am sorry to say, respecting Lovelace; all such recollections
have long been swept away. When one of the old inhabitants
told me (and there are one or two persons who have lived here
all their life) that a great poet once resided thereabout,
I naturally became eager to catch the name; but it turned out
to be Dr. Johnson, not Lovelace, the latter of whom might have
been contemporary with Homer for aught they knew to the contrary
in Gunpowder Alley. It appears from Decker and Webster's play
of WESTWARD HOE, 1607 (Webster's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 67),
that there was another Gunpowder Alley, near Crutched Friars.
<2.18> Hone (EVERY-DAY BOOK, ii. 561, edit. 1827), states,
under date of April 28, that "during this month in 1658
the accomplished Colonel Richard Lovelace died IN THE GATEHOUSE
AT WESTMINSTER, whither he had been committed," &c. No authority,
however, is given for in assertion so wholly at variance with
the received view on the subject, and I am afraid that Hone has
here fallen into a mistake.
<2.19> Aubrey, in what are called his LIVES OF EMINENT MEN,
but which are, in fact, merely rough biographical memoranda,
states under the head of Lovelace:--"Obiit in a cellar in
Long acre, a little before the restauration of his Matie.
Mr. Edm. Wyld,<<AN.1>> &c. had made collections for him,
and given him money.....Geo. Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet street,
carried xx<shillings> to him every Monday morning from Sr....Many
and Charles Cotton, Esq. for....moneths, BUT WAS NEVER REPAYD."
Aubrey was certainly a contemporary of Lovelace, and Wood seems
to have been indebted to him for a good deal of information;
but all who are acquainted with Aubrey are probably aware that
he took, in many instances, very little trouble to examine for
himself, but accepted statements on hearsay. Wood does not,
in the case of Lovelace, adopt Aubrey's account, and it is to
be observed that, IF the poet died as poor as he is represented
by both writers to have died, he would have been buried by the
parish, and, dying in Long Acre, the parochial authorities would
not have carried him to Fleet Street for sepulture.
<<AN.1>> P. xxiv. MR. EDM[UND] WYLD.
This gentleman, the friend of Aubrey, Author of the MISCELLANIES,
&c., and (?) the son of Sir Edmund Wyld, seems to have furnished
the former with a variety of information on matters of current
interest. See Thoms' ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS, 1839, p. 99.
He is, no doubt, the E. W. Esq., whom Aubrey cites as his
authority on one or two occasions, in his REMAINS OF GENTILISM
AND JUDAISM. He was evidently a person of the most benevolent
character, and Aubrey (LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, ii. 483) pays him
a handsome tribute, where he describes him as "a great fautor
of ingenious and good men, for meer merit's sake."
<2.20> See p. 149, NOTE 3.<i.e. note 63.4> His acquaintance
with Hellenic literature possibly extended very little beyond
the pages of the ANTHOLOGIA.
<2.21> His favourites appear to have been Ausonius and Catullus.
<2.22> On the 5th May, 1642, a counter-petition was presented
by some Kentish gentlemen to the House of Commons, disclaiming
and condemning the former one.--JOURNALS OF THE H. OF C. ii. 558.
<2.23> "The humble petition of Richard Lovelace, Esquire,
a prisoner in the Gate-house, by a former order of this
House."--JOURNALS, ii. 629.
<2.24> This property, which was of considerable extent and value,
was purchased of the Cheney family, toward the latter part
of the reign of Henry VI, by Richard Lovelace, of Queenhithe.
<2.25> I do not think that there is any proof, that Gunpowder-alley
was, at the time when Lovelace resided there, a particularly poor
or mean locality.
<2.26> See Lambarde (PERAMBULATION OF KENT, 1570, ed. 1826,
p. 533).
<2.27> As so little is known of the personal history of Lovelace,
the reader may not be displeased to see this Dedication, and it is
therefore subjoined:--
"To my Noble Friend And Gossip, CAPTAIN RICHARD LOVELACE.
"Sir,
"I have so long beene in your debt that I am almost desperate
in my selfe of making you paiment, till this fancy by
ravishing from you a new curtesie in its patronage, promised
me it would satisfie part of my former engagements to you.
Wonder not to see it invade you thus on the sudden; gratitude
is aeriall, and, like that element, nimble in its motion and
performance; though I would not have this of mine of a French
disposition, to charge hotly and retreat unfortunately: there
may appeare something in this that may maintaine the field
courageously against Envy, nay come off with honour; if you,
Sir, please to rest satisfied that it marches under your
ensignes, which are the desires of
"Your true honourer,
"Hen. Glapthorne."
<2.28> It has never, so far as I am aware, been suggested that
the friend to whom Sir John Suckling addressed his capital ballad:--
"I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,"
may have been Lovelace. It was a very usual practice (then even
more so than now) among familiar acquaintances to use the
abbreviated Christian name in addressing each other; thus Suckling
was JACK; Davenant, WILL; Carew, TOM, &c.; in the preceding
generation Marlowe had been KIT; Jonson, BEN; Greene, ROBIN, and so
forth; and although there is no positive proof that Lovelace and
Suckling were intimate, it is extremely probable that such was the
case, more especially as they were not only brother poets, but both
country gentlemen belonging to neighbouring counties. Suckling
had, besides, some taste and aptitude for military affairs, and
could discourse about strategics in a city tavern over a bowl of
canary with the author of LUCASTA, notwithstanding that he was a
little troubled by nervousness (according to report), when the
enemy was too near.
<2.29> From Andrew Marvell's lines prefixed to LUCASTA, 1649,
it seems that Lovelace and himself were on tolerably good terms,
and that when the former presented the Kentish petition, and was
imprisoned for so doing, his friends, who exerted themselves to
procure his release, suspected Marvell of a share in his disgrace,
which Marvell, according to his own account, earnestly disclaimed.
See the lines commencing:--
"But when the beauteous ladies came to know," &c.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
<This is the original location of notes AN.1, AN.2, AN.3, AN.4,
and AN.5. These notes have been moved to appropriate locations
in the text.>
LUCASTA:
Epodes, Odes, Sonnets,
Songs, &c.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
Aramantha,
a
PASTORALL.
BY
RICHARD LOVELACE,
Esq.
LONDON,
Printed by Tho. Harper, and are to be sold
by Tho. Evvster, at the Gun, in
Ivie Lane. 1649.
THE DEDICATION.
TO THE RIGHT HON. MY LADY ANNE LOVELACE.<3.1>
To the richest Treasury
That e'er fill'd ambitious eye;
To the faire bright Magazin
Hath impoverisht Love's Queen;
To th' Exchequer of all honour
(All take pensions but from her);
To the taper of the thore
Which the god himselfe but bore;
To the Sea of Chaste Delight;
Let me cast the Drop I write.
And as at Loretto's shrine
Caesar shovels in his mine,
Th' Empres spreads her carkanets,
The lords submit their coronets,
Knights their chased armes hang by,
Maids diamond-ruby fancies tye;
Whilst from the pilgrim she wears
One poore false pearl, but ten true tears:
So among the Orient prize,
(Saphyr-onyx eulogies)
Offer'd up unto your fame,
Take my GARNET-DUBLET name,
And vouchsafe 'midst those rich joyes
(With devotion) these TOYES.
Richard Lovelace.
<3.1> This lady was the wife of the unfortunate John, second Lord
Lovelace, who suffered so severely for his attachment to the King's
cause, and daughter to the equally unfortunate Thomas, Earl of
Cleveland, who was equally devoted to his sovereign, and whose
estates were ordered by the Parliament to be sold, July 26, 1650.
See PARLIAMENTS AND COUNCILS OF ENGLAND, 1839, p. 507.
VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR.
TO MY BEST BROTHER ON HIS POEMS CALLED "LUCASTA."
Now y' have oblieg'd the age, thy wel known worth
Is to our joy auspiciously brought forth.
Good morrow to thy son, thy first borne flame
Which, as thou gav'st it birth, stamps it a name,
That Fate and a discerning age shall set
The chiefest jewell in her coronet.
Why then needs all this paines, those season'd pens,
That standing lifeguard to a booke (kinde friends),
That with officious care thus guard thy gate,
As if thy Child were illigitimate?
Forgive their freedome, since unto their praise
They write to give, not to dispute thy bayes.
As when some glorious queen, whose pregnant wombe
Brings forth a kingdome with her first-borne Sonne,
Marke but the subjects joyfull hearts and eyes:
Some offer gold, and others sacrifice;
This slayes a lambe, that, not so rich as hee,
Brings but a dove, this but a bended knee;
And though their giftes be various, yet their sence
Speaks only this one thought, Long live the prince.
So, my best brother, if unto your name
I offer up a thin blew-burning flame,
Pardon my love, since none can make thee shine,
Vnlesse they kindle first their torch at thine.
Then as inspir'd, they boldly write, nay that,
Which their amazed lights but twinkl'd at,
And their illustrate thoughts doe voice this right,
Lucasta held their torch; thou gav'st it light.
Francis Lovelace, Col.
AD EUNDEM.
En puer Idalius tremulis circumvolat alis,
Quem prope sedentem<4.1> castior<4.2> uret amor.
Lampada sic videas circumvolitare Pyrausta,<4.3>
Cui contingenti est flamma futura rogus.
Ergo procul fugias, Lector, cui nulla placebunt
Carmina, ni fuerint turpia, spurca, nigra.
Sacrificus Romae lustralem venditat undam:
Castior est illa Castalis unda mihi:
Limpida, et <<eulikrines>>, nulla putredine spissa,
Scilicet ex puro defluit illa jugo.
Ex pura veniunt tam dia poemata mente,
Cui scelus est Veneris vel tetigisse fores.
Thomas Hamersley, Eques Auratus.
<4.1> Old ed. SIDENTEM.
<4.2> Old ed. CARTIOR.
<4.3> See Scheller's LEX. TOT. LAT. voce PYRAUSTA and PYRALIS
ON THE POEMS.
How humble is thy muse (Deare) that can daign
Such servants as my pen to entertaine!
When all the sonnes of wit glory to be
Clad in thy muses gallant livery.
I shall disgrace my master, prove a staine,
And no addition to his honour'd traine;
Though all that read me will presume to swear
I neer read thee: yet if it may appear,
I love the writer and admire the writ,
I my owne want betray, not wrong thy wit.
Did thy worke want a prayse, my barren brain
Could not afford it: my attempt were vaine.
It needs no foyle: All that ere writ before,
Are foyles to thy faire Poems, and no more.
Then to be lodg'd in the same sheets with thine,
May prove disgrace to yours, but grace to mine.
Norris Jephson, Col.
TO MY MUCH LOVED FRIEND, RICHARD LOVELACE Esq.
CARMEN EROTICUM.
Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write love.
On such a subject as thy booke I coo'd
Write books much greater, but not half so good.
But as the humble tenant, that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox<5.1>
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted than a stiver),<5.2>
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver-stile write love as well as they.
I write so well that I no criticks feare;
For who'le read mine, when as thy booke's so neer,
Vnlesse thy selfe? then you shall secure mine
From those, and Ile engage my selfe for thine.
They'l do't themselves; <thee> this allay you'l take,
I love thy book, and yet not for thy sake.
John Jephson, Col.<5.3>
<5.1> TO FOX usually means to intoxicate. To fox oneself
is TO GET DRUNK, and to fox a person is TO MAKE HIM DRUNK.
The word in this sense belongs to the cant vocabulary.
But in the present case, fox merely signifies TO FARE or TO FEAST.
<5.2> A Dutch penny. It is very likely that this individual
had served with the poet in Holland.
<5.3> Three members of this family, or at least three persons
of this name, probably related, figure in the history of the
present period, viz., Colonel John Jephson, apparently a military
associate of Lovelace; Norris Jephson, who contributed a copy
of verses to LUCASTA, and to the first folio edition of Beaumont
and Fletcher's plays, 1647; and William Jephson, whose name occurs
among the subscribers to the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, 1643.
TO MY NOBLE AND MOST INGENIOUS FRIEND,
COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS "LUCASTA."
So from the pregnant braine of Jove did rise
Pallas, the queene of wit and beautious eyes,
As faire Lucasta from thy temples flowes,
Temples no lesse ingenious then Joves.
Alike in birth, so shall she be in fame,
And be immortall to preserve thy Name.
ANOTHER, UPON THE POEMS.
Now, when the wars augment our woes and fears,
And the shrill noise of drums oppresse our ears;
Now peace and safety from our shores are fled
To holes and cavernes to secure their head;
Now all the graces from the land are sent,
And the nine Muses suffer banishment;
Whence spring these raptures? whence this heavenly rime,
So calme and even in so harsh a time?
Well might that charmer his faire Caelia<6.1> crowne,
And that more polish't Tyterus<6.2> renowne
His Sacarissa, when in groves and bowres
They could repose their limbs on beds of flowrs:
When wit had prayse, and merit had reward,
And every noble spirit did accord
To love the Muses, and their priests to raise,
And interpale their browes with flourishing bayes;
But in a time distracted so to sing,
When peace is hurried hence on rages wing,
When the fresh bayes are<6.3> from the Temple torne,
And every art and science made a scorne;
Then to raise up, by musicke of thy art,
Our drooping spirits and our grieved hearts;
Then to delight our souls, and to inspire
Our breast with pleasure from thy charming lyre;
Then to divert our sorrowes by thy straines,
Making us quite forget our seven yeers paines
In the past wars, unlesse that Orpheus be
A sharer in thy glory: for when he
Descended downe for his Euridice,
He stroke his lute with like admired art,
And made the damned to forget their smart.
John Pinchbacke, Col<<AN.2>>
<6.1> Many poets have celebrated the charms of a CAELIA;
but I apprehend that the writer here intends Carew.
<6.2> Waller.
<6.3> Original has IS.
<<AN.2>> P. 10. JOHN PINCHBACK, COL[ONEL].
Pinchback neither is nor was, I believe, a name of common
occurrence; and it is just possible that the Colonel may be the
very "old Jack Pinchbacke" mentioned by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange,
in his MERRY PASSAGES AND JESTS, of which a selection was given
by Mr. Thoms in his ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS, 1839. L'Estrange,
it is true, describes the Colonel as a "gamester and rufler,
daubed with gold lace;" but this is not incompatible with the
identity between the PINCHBACKE, who figures in LUCASTA, and
OLD JACK, who had perhaps not always been "a gamester and ruffler,"
and whose gold lace had, no doubt, once been in better company than
that which he seems to have frequented, when L'Estrange knew him.
The "daubed gold lace," after all, only corresponds with the
picture, which Lovelace himself may have presented in GUNPOWDER
ALLEY days.
<<EXASTIKON.
Pseudetai hostis ephe-dolichos chronos oiden ameiben
Ounoma, kai panton mnemosynen olesai.
Oden gar poiein agathen ponos aphthonos esti,
Hon medeis aion oiden odousi phagein.
Oden soi, phile, doke men aphthiton, ogathe, mousa,
Hos eis aionas ounoma ee teon.>>
Villiers Harington, L.C.
TO HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS POEMS.
He that doth paint the beauties of your verse,
Must use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equall master to you prove.
My heart is all my eloquence, and that
Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat;
I reade you like my mistresse, and discry
In every line the quicknesse of her eye:
Her smoothnesse in each syllable, her grace
To marshall ev'ry word in the right place.
It is the excellence and soule of wit,
When ev'ry thing is free as well as fit:
For metaphors packt up and crowded close
Swath <ye> minds sweetnes, and display the throws,
And, like those chickens hatcht in furnaces,
Produce or one limbe more, or one limbe lesse
Then nature bids. Survey such when they write,
No clause but's justl'd with an epithite.
So powerfully you draw when you perswade,
Passions in you in us are vertues made;
Such is the magick of that lawfull shell
That where it doth but talke, it doth compell:
For no Apelles 'till this time e're drew
A Venus to the waste so well as you.
W. Rudyerd.<7.1>
<7.1> Only son of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Kt., known as a poet
and a friend of poets, and as a warm advocate of Episcopacy.
See MEMOIRS OF SIR B. R., edited by Manning, 1841, 8vo, p. 257.
The world shall now no longer mourne nor vex
For th' obliquity of a cross-grain'd sex;
Nor beauty swell above her bankes, (and made
For ornament) the universe invade
So fiercely, that 'tis question'd in our bookes,
Whether kils most the Amazon's sword or lookes.
Lucasta in loves game discreetly makes
Women and men joyntly to share the stakes,
And lets us know, when women scorne, it is
Mens hot love makes the antiparisthesis;
And a lay lover here such comfort finds
As Holy Writ gives to affected minds.
The wilder nymphs, lov's power could not comand,
Are by thy almighty numbers brought to hand,
And flying Daphnes, caught, amazed vow
They never heard Apollo court till now.
'Tis not by force of armes this feat is done,
For that would puzzle even the Knight o' th' Sun;<8.1>
But 'tis by pow'r of art, and such a way
As Orpheus us'd, when he made fiends obay.
J. Needler, Hosp. Grayensis.
<8.1> A celebrated romance, very frequently referred to by our
old writers. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his CHARACTERS, represents
a chambermaid as carried away by the perusal of it into the realms
of romance, insomuch that she can barely refrain from forsaking
her occupation, and turning lady-errant. The book is better known
under the title of THE MIRROR OF PRINCELY DEEDES AND KNIGHTHOOD,
wherein is shewed the worthinesse of the Knight of the Sunne, &c.
It consists of nine parts, which appear to have been published
at intervals between 1585 and 1601.
TO HIS NOBLE FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS POEMS.
SIR,
Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men.
These vertues now are banisht out of towne,
Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others fame his owne employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the faire blossome of each growing wit.
The ayre's already tainted with the swarms
Of insects, which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons.
The barbed censurers begin to looke
Like the grim Consistory on thy booke;
And on each line cast a reforming eye
Severer then the yong presbytery.
Till, when in vaine they have thee all perus'd,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus'd.
Some reading your LUCASTA will alledge
You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e're seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spight
(She knew what pain 't would be to lose that sight).
O no, mistake not, I reply'd: for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would dy.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or mine aid doth clime.
Him valianst men and fairest nymphs approve,
His booke in them finds judgement, with you, love.
Andr. Marvell
TO COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON THE PUBLISHING OF HIS INGENIOUS POEMS.
If the desire of glory speak a mind
More nobly operative and more refin'd,
What vast soule moves thee, or what hero's spirit
(Kept in'ts traduction pure) dost thou inherit,
That, not contented with one single fame,
Dost to a double glory spread thy name,
And on thy happy temples safely set
Both th' Delphick wreath and civic coronet?
Was't not enough for us to know how far
Thou couldst in season suffer, act and dare
But we must also witnesse, with what height
And what Ionick sweetnesse thou canst write,
And melt those eager passions, that are
Stubborn enough t' enrage the god of war
Into a noble love, which may expire<9.1>
In an illustrious pyramid of fire;
Which, having gained his due station, may
Fix there, and everlasting flames display.
This is the braver path: time soone can smother
The dear-bought spoils and tropheis of the other.
How many fiery heroes have there been,
Whose triumphs were as soone forgot as seen?
Because they wanted some diviner one
To rescue <thee> from night, and make <thee> known.
Such art thou to thy selfe. While others dream
Strong flatt'ries on a fain'd or borrow'd theam,
Thou shalt remaine in thine owne lustre bright,
And adde unto 't LUCASTA'S chaster light.
For none so fit to sing great things as he,
That can act o're all lights of poetry.
Thus had Achilles his owne gests design'd,
He had his genius Homer far outshin'd.
Jo. Hall.<<9.2>>
<9.1> Original has ASPIRE.
<9.2> The precocious author of HORAE VACIVAE, 1646, and
of a volume of poems which was printed in the same year.
In the LUCASTA are some complimentary lines by Lovelace
on Hall's translation of the commentary of Hierocles on
the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1657.
TO THE HONORABLE, VALIANT, AND INGENIOUS COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS EXQUISITE POEMS.
Poets and painters have some near relation,
Compar'd with fancy and imagination;
The one paints shadowed persons (in pure kind),
The other paints the pictures of the mind
In purer verse. And as rare Zeuxes fame
Shin'd, till Apelles art eclips'd the same
By a more exquisite and curious line
In Zeuxeses (with pensill far more fine),
So have our modern poets late done well,
Till thine appear'd (which scarce have paralel).
They like to Zeuxes grapes beguile the sense,
But thine do ravish the intelligence,
Like the rare banquet of Apelles, drawn,
And covered over with most curious lawn.
Thus if thy careles draughts are cal'd the best,
What would thy lines have beene, had'st thou profest
That faculty (infus'd) of poetry,
Which adds such honour unto thy chivalry?
Doubtles thy verse had all as far transcended
As Sydneyes Prose, who Poets once defended.
For when I read thy much renowned pen,
My fancy there finds out another Ben
In thy brave language, judgement, wit, and art,
Of every piece of thine, in every part:
Where thy seraphique Sydneyan fire is raised high
In valour, vertue, love, and loyalty.
Virgil was styl'd the loftiest of all,
Ovid the smoothest and most naturall;
Martiall concise and witty, quaint and pure,
Iuvenall grave and learned, though obscure.
But all these rare ones which I heere reherse,
Do live againe in Thee, and in thy Verse:
Although not in the language of their time,
Yet in a speech as copious and sublime.
The rare Apelles in thy picture wee
Perceive, and in thy soule Apollo see.
Wel may each Grace and Muse then crown thy praise
With Mars his banner and Minerva's bayes.
Fra. Lenton.<10.1>
<10.1> The author of the YOUNG GALLANT'S WHIRLIGIGG, 1629,
and other poetical works. Singer does not give these lines.
In the WHIRLIGIG there is a curious picture of a young gallant
of the time of Charles I., to which Lovelace might have sat,
had he been old enough at the time. But Lenton had no want
of sitters for his portrait.
TO HIS HONOURED AND INGENIOUS FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS "LUCASTA."
Chast as Creation meant us, and more bright
Then the first day in 's uneclipsed light,
Is thy LUCASTA; and thou offerest heere
Lines to her name as undefil'd and cleere;
Such as the first indeed more happy dayes
(When vertue, wit, and learning wore the bayes
Now vice assumes) would to her memory give:
A Vestall flame that should for ever live,
Plac't in a christal temple, rear'd to be
The Embleme of her thoughts integrity;
And on the porch thy name insculpt, my friend,
Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.
The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.
Tho. Rawlins.<11.1>
<11.1> A well known dramatist and poet. These lines are not
in Singer's reprint.
TO MY DEAR BROTHER, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE.
Ile doe my nothing too, and try
To dabble to thy memory.
Not that I offer to thy name
Encomiums of thy lasting fame.
Those by the landed have been writ:
Mine's but a yonger-brother wit;
A wit that's hudled up in scarres,
Borne like my rough selfe in the warres;
And as a Squire in the fight
Serves only to attend the Knight,
So 'tis my glory in this field,
Where others act, to beare thy shield.
Dudley Lovelace, Capt.<12.1>
<12.1> The youngest brother of the poet. Besides the present
lines, and some to be found in the posthumous volume, of which
he was the editor, this gentleman contributed the following
commendatory poem to AYRES AND DIALOGUES [by Thomas Stanley Esq.]
set by John Gamble, 1656. The verses themselves have little merit;
and the only object which I had in introducing them, was to add
to the completeness of the present edition:--
TO MY MUCH HONORED COZEN, MR. STANLEY,
UPON HIS POEMS SET BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.
I.
Enough, enough of orbs and spheres,
Reach me a trumpet or a drum,
To sound sharp synnets in your ears,
And beat a deep encomium.
II.
I know not th' Eight Intelligence:
Those that do understand it, pray
Let them step hither, and from thence
Speak what they all do sing or say:
III.
Nor what your diapasons are,
Your sympathies and symphonies;
To me they seem as distant farre
As whence they take their infant rise.
IV.
But I've a grateful heart can ring
A peale of ordnance to your praise,
And volleys of small plaudits bring
To clowd a crown about your baies.
V.
Though laurel is thought thunder free,
That storms and lightning disallows,
Yet Caesar thorough fire and sea
Snatches her to twist his conquering brows.
VI.
And now me thinks like him you stand
I' th' head of all the Poets' hoast,
Whilest with your words you do command,
They silent do their duty boast.
VII.
Which done, the army ecchoes o're,
Like Gamble Ios one and all,
And in their various notes implore,
Long live our noble Generall.
Dudley Posthumus Lovelace.
DE DOMINO RICHARDO LOVELACIO,
ARMIGERO ET CHILIARCHA,<13.1> VIRO INCOMPARABILI.
Ecce tibi, heroi claris natalibus orto;<13.2>
Cujus honoratos Cantia vidit avos.
Cujus adhuc memorat rediviva Batavia patrem,
Inter et Herculeos enumerare solet.
Qui tua Grollaferox, laceratus vulnere multo,
Fulmineis vidit moenia Pacta globis.
Et cum saeva tuas fudisset Iberia turmas,
Afflatu pyrii pulveris ictus obit.
Haec sint magna: tamen major majoribus hic est,
Nititur et pennis altius ire novis.
Sermonem patrium callentem et murmura Celtae,
Non piguit linguas edidicisse duas.
Quicquid Roma vetus, vel quicquid Graecia jactat,
Musarum nutrix alma Calena dedit.
Gnaviter Hesperios compressit Marte cachinnos,
Devictasque dedit Cantaber ipse manus.
Non evitavit validos Dunkerka lacertos,
Non intercludens alta Lacuna vias,
Et scribenda gerens vivaci marmore digna,
Scribere Caesareo more vel ipse potest.
Cui gladium Bellona dedit, calamumque Minerva,
Et geminae Laurus circuit umbra comam.
Cujus si faciem spectes vultusque decorem,
Vix puer Idalius gratior ore fuit.
<13.1> Strictly speaking, the officer in command of a thousand men,
from the Greek <<chiliarches>>, or <<chiliarchos>>, but in the
present instance meaning nothing more than Colonel.
<13.2> I have amended the text of these lines, which in the
original is very corrupt. I suppose that the compositor was
left to himself, as usual.
AD EUNDEM.
Herrico succede meo: dedit ille priora
Carmina, carminibus non meliora tuis.<14.1>
<14.1> Herrick's HESPERIDES had appeared in 1648.
<<PERI TOY AYTOY.
Aoulakios pollaplasios philos estin emeio.
Tounoma esti philos, kai to noema philos.
Kai phylon antiphylo megaloisin agaklyton ergois:
Tes aretes cheiros kai phrenos anchinoos.
Hos neos en tytthais pinytos selidessin etheke
Poieton ekaston chromat epagromenos.
Phrouron Mousaon, pokinon essena Melisson,
En Charitessi charin, kai Meleessi meli.>>
Scripsit Jo. Harmarus,
Oxoniensis, C. W. M.<15.1>
<15.1> A celebrated scholar and philologist. An account of him
will be found in Bliss's edition of Wood's ATHENAE. He published
an Elegy on St. Alban the Protomartyr and an Apology for Archbishop
Williams, and edited Scapula. These lines are omitted by Singer.
POEMS.
SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.<16.1>
TO LUCASTA. GOING BEYOND THE SEAS.
I.
If to be absent were to be
Away from thee;
Or that when I am gone,
You or I were alone;
Then my LUCASTA might I crave
Pity from blustring winde or swallowing wave.
II.
But I'le not sigh one blast or gale
To swell my saile,
Or pay a teare to swage
The foaming blew-gods rage;
For whether he will let me passe
Or no, I'm still as happy as I was.
III.
Though seas and land betwixt us both,
Our faith and troth,
Like separated soules,
All time and space controules:
Above the highest sphere wee meet,
Unseene, unknowne, and greet as angels greet
IV.
So then we doe anticipate
Our after-fate,
And are alive i'th' skies,
If thus our lips and eyes
Can speake like spirits unconfin'd
In Heav'n, their earthy bodies left behind.
<16.1> Of Henry and William Lawes an account may be found in Burney
and Hawkins. Although the former (H. Lawes) set many of Lovelace's
pieces to music, only two occur in the AYRES AND DIALOGUES FOR ONE,
TWO, AND THREE VOYCES, 1653-55-8, folio.
SONG.
SET BY MR. JOHN LANIERE.
TO LUCASTA. GOING TO THE WARRES.
I.
Tell me not, (sweet,) I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde
To warre and armes I flie.
II.
True: a new Mistresse now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
III.
Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more.
A PARADOX.
I.
Tis true the beauteous Starre<17.1>
To which I first did bow
Burnt quicker, brighter far,
Than that which leads me now;
Which shines with more delight,
For gazing on that light
So long, neere lost my sight.
II.
Through foul we follow faire,
For had the world one face,
And earth been bright as ayre,
We had knowne neither place.
Indians smell not their neast;
A Swisse or Finne tastes best
The spices of the East.<17.2>
III.
So from the glorious Sunne
Who to his height hath got,
With what delight we runne
To some black cave or grot!
And, heav'nly Sydney you
Twice read, had rather view
Some odde romance so new.
IV.
The god, that constant keepes
Unto his deities,
Is poore in joyes, and sleepes
Imprison'd in the skies.
This knew the wisest, who
From Juno stole, below
To love a bear or cow.
<17.1> i.e. LUCASTA.
<17.2> The East was celebrated by all our early poets as the land
of spices and rich gums:--
"For now the fragrant East,
The spicery o' th' world,
Hath hurl'd
A rosie tincture o'er the Phoenix nest."
OTIA SACRA, by Mildmay, Earl of Westmoreland, 1648, p. 37.
SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.
TO AMARANTHA;<18.1> THAT SHE WOULD DISHEVELL HER HAIRE.
I.
Amarantha sweet and faire,
Ah brade<18.2> no more that shining haire!
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it flye.
II.
Let it flye as unconfin'd
As it's calme ravisher, the winde,
Who hath left his darling, th' East,
To wanton o're that<18.3> spicie neast.
III.
Ev'ry tresse must be confest:
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.
IV.
Doe not then winde up that light
In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night,
Like the sun in's early ray;
But shake your head, and scatter day.
V.
See, 'tis broke! within this grove,
The bower and the walkes of love,
Weary lye we downe and rest,
And fanne each other's panting breast.
VI.
Heere wee'll strippe and coole our fire,
In creame below, in milk-baths<18.4> higher:
And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a teare out of thine eye.
VII.
Which our very joys shall leave,
That sorrowes thus we can deceive;
Or our very sorrowes weepe,
That joyes so ripe so little keepe.
<18.1> A portion of this song is printed, with a few orthographical
variations, in the AYRES AND DIALOGUES, part i. 1653; and it is
also found in Cotgrave's WITS INTERPRETER, 1655, where it is called
"Amarantha counselled." Cotgrave used the text of Lawes, and only
gives that part of the production which he found in AYRES AND
DIALOGUES.
<18.2> Forbear to brade--Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES, and Cotgrave.
<18.3> This--Lawes' AYRES AND DIALOGUES. Cotgrave reads HIS.
<18.4> Milk-baths have been a favourite luxury in all ages.
Peele had probably in his mind the custom of his own time and
country when he wrote the following passage:--
"Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower,
In water mix'd with purest almond flower,
And bathe her beauty in the milk of kids."
KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, 1599.
SONNET.
SET BY MR. HUDSON.
I.
Depose your finger of that ring,
And crowne mine with't awhile;
Now I restor't. Pray, dos it bring
Back with it more of soile?
Or shines it not as innocent,
As honest, as before 'twas lent?
II.
So then inrich me with that treasure,
'Twill but increase your store,
And please me (faire one) with that pleasure
Must please you still the more.
Not to save others is a curse
The blackest, when y'are ne're the worse.
ODE.
SET BY DR. JOHN WILSON.<19.1>
TO LUCASTA. THE ROSE.
I.
Sweet serene skye-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower;
From thy long clowdy bed
Shoot forth thy damaske<19.2> head.
II.
New-startled blush of FLORA!
The griefe of pale AURORA,
Who will contest no more,
Haste, haste, to strowe her floore.
III.
Vermilion ball, that's given
From lip to lip in Heaven;
Loves couches cover-led,
Haste, haste, to make her bed.
IV.
Dear offspring of pleas'd VENUS,
And jollie plumpe SILENUS;
Haste, haste, to decke the haire,
Of th' only sweetly faire.
V.
See! rosie is her bower,
Her floore is all this flower;
Her bed a rosie nest
By a bed of roses prest.
VI.
But early as she dresses,
Why fly you her bright tresses?
Ah! I have found, I feare;
Because her cheekes are neere.
<19.1> Dr. John Wilson was a native of Feversham in Kent,
a gentleman of Charles the First's chapel, and chamber-musician
to his majesty. For an account of his works,
see Burney's HISTORY OF MUSIC, vol. iii. pp. 399-400,
or Hawkins' HISTORY OF MUSIC, iii. 57, where a portrait
of Wilson, taken from the original painting, will be found.
Wood, author of the FASTI and ATHENAE, says that he was
in his time, "the best at the lute in all England." Herrick,
in his HESPERIDES, 1648, has these lines in reference to
Henry Lawes:--
"Then if thy voice commingle with the string,
I hear in thee the rare Laniere to sing,
OR CURIOUS WILSON."
<19.2> In a MS. copy of the poem contemporary with the author,
now before me, this word is omitted.
LOVE CONQUER'D.
A SONG.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.
I.
The childish god of love did sweare
Thus: By my awfull bow and quiver,
Yon' weeping, kissing, smiling pair,
I'le scatter all their vowes i' th' ayr,
And their knit imbraces shiver.
II.
Up then to th' head with his best art
Full of spite and envy blowne,
At her constant marble heart,
He drawes his swiftest surest dart,
Which bounded back, and hit his owne.
III.
Now the prince of fires burnes;
Flames in the luster of her eyes;
Triumphant she, refuses, scornes;
He submits, adores and mournes,
And is his votresse sacrifice.
IV.
Foolish boy! resolve me now
What 'tis to sigh and not be heard?
He weeping kneel'd, and made a vow:
The world shall love as yon' fast two;
So on his sing'd wings up he steer'd.
A LOOSE SARABAND.
SET BY MR. HENRY LAWES.
I.
Ah me! the little tyrant theefe!
As once my heart was playing,
He snatcht it up and flew away,
Laughing at all my praying.
II.
Proud of his purchase,<20.1> he surveys
And curiously sounds it,
And though he sees it full of wounds,
Cruel one, still<20.2> he wounds it.
III.
And now this heart is all his sport,
Which as a ball he boundeth
From hand to breast, from breast to lip,
And all its<20.3> rest confoundeth.
IV.
Then as a top he sets it up,
And pitifully whips it;
Sometimes he cloathes it gay and fine,
Then straight againe he strips it.
V.
He cover'd it with false reliefe,<20.4>
Which gloriously show'd it;
And for a morning-cushionet
On's mother he bestow'd it.
VI.
Each day, with her small brazen stings,
A thousand times she rac'd it;
But then at night, bright with her gemmes,
Once neere her breast she plac'd it.
VII.
There warme it gan to throb and bleed;
She knew that smart, and grieved;
At length this poore condemned heart
With these rich drugges repreeved.
VIII.
She washt the wound with a fresh teare,
Which my LUCASTA dropped,
And in the sleave<20.5>-silke of her haire
'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.
IX.
She proab'd it with her constancie,
And found no rancor nigh it;
Only the anger of her eye
Had wrought some proud flesh by it.
X.
Then prest she narde in ev'ry veine,
Which from her kisses trilled;
And with the balme heald all its paine,
That from her hand distilled.
XI.
But yet this heart avoyds me still,
Will not by me be owned;
But's fled to its physitian's breast;
There proudly sits inthroned.
<20.1> Prize. It is not uncommonly used by the early dramatists
in this sense; but the verb TO PURCHASE is more usually found than
the noun.
"Yet having opportunity, he tries,
Gets her goodwill, and with his purchase flies."
Wither's ABUSES STRIPT AND WHIPT, 1613.
<20.2> Here I have hazarded an emendation of the text. In original
we read, CRUELL STILL ON. Lovelace's poems were evidently printed
without the slightest care.
<20.3> Original reads IT'S.
<20.4> Original has BELIEFE.
<<20.5>> Soft, like floss.
ORPHEUS TO WOODS.
SONG.
SET BY MR. CURTES.
Heark! Oh heark! you guilty trees,
In whose gloomy galleries
Was the cruell'st murder done,
That e're yet eclipst the sunne.
Be then henceforth in your twigges
Blasted, e're you sprout to sprigges;
Feele no season of the yeere,
But what shaves off all your haire,
Nor carve any from your wombes
Ought but coffins and their tombes.
ORPHEUS<21.1> TO BEASTS.
SONG.
SET BY MR. CURTES.<21.2>
I.
Here, here, oh here! EURIDICE,
Here was she slaine;
Her soule 'still'd through a veine:
The gods knew lesse
That time divinitie,
Then ev'n, ev'n these
Of brutishnesse.
II.
Oh! could you view the melodie
Of ev'ry grace,
And musick of her face,<21.3>
You'd drop a teare,
Seeing more harmonie
In her bright eye,
Then now you heare.
<21.1> By Orpheus we may perhaps understand Lovelace himself,
and by Euridice, the lady whom he celebrates under the name
of Lucasta. Grainger mentions (BIOG. HIST. ii. 74) a portrait
of Lovelace by Gaywood, in which he is represented as Orpheus.
I have not seen it. The old poets were rather fond of likening
themselves to this legendary personage, or of designating
themselves his poetical children:--
"We that are ORPHEUS' sons, and can inherit
By that great title"--
Davenant's WORKS, 1673, p. 215.
Many other examples might be given. Massinger, in his CITY MADAM,
1658, makes Sir John Frugal introduce a representation of the story
of the Thracian bard at an entertainment given to Luke Frugal.
<21.2> A lutenist. Wood says that after the Restoration he became
gentleman or singing-man of Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of
those musicians who, after the abolition of organs, &c. during the
civil war, met at a private house at Oxford for the purpose of
taking his part in musical entertainments.
<21.3> "Such was Zuleika; such around her shone
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone;
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face."
Byron's BRIDE OF ABYDOS, canto 1.
(WORKS, ed. 1825, ii. 299.)
DIALOGUE.
LUCASTA, ALEXIS.<22.1>
SET BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.<22.2>
I.
Lucasta.
TELL me, ALEXIS, what this parting is,
That so like dying is, but is not it?
Alexis.
It is a swounding for a while from blisse,
'Till kind HOW DOE YOU call's us from the fit.
Chorus.
If then the spirits only stray, let mine
Fly to thy bosome, and my soule to thine:
Thus in our native seate we gladly give
Our right for one, where we can better live.
II.
Lu. But ah, this ling'ring, murdring farewel!
Death quickly wounds, and wounding cures the ill.
Alex. It is the glory of a valiant lover,
Still to be dying, still for to recover.
Cho. Soldiers suspected of their courage goe,
That ensignes and their breasts untorne show:
Love nee're his standard, when his hoste he sets,
Creates alone fresh-bleeding bannerets.
III.
Alex. But part we, when thy figure I retaine
Still in my heart, still strongly in mine eye?
Lu. Shadowes no longer than the sun remaine,
But <whee> his beams, that made 'em, fly, they fly.
Cho. Vaine dreames of love! that only so much blisse
Allow us, as to know our wretchednesse;
And deale a larger measure in our paine
By showing joy, then hiding it againe.
IV.
Alex. No, whilst light raigns, LUCASTA still rules here,
And all the night shines wholy in this sphere.
Lu. I know no morne but my ALEXIS ray,
To my dark thoughts the breaking of the day.
Chorus.
Alex. So in each other if the pitying sun
Thus keep us fixt, nere may his course be run!
Lu. And oh! if night us undivided make;
Let us sleepe still, and sleeping never wake!
The close.
Cruel ADIEUS may well adjourne awhile
The sessions of a looke, a kisse, or smile,
And leave behinde an angry grieving blush;
But time nor fate can part us joyned thus.
<22.1> i.e. the poet himself.
<22.2> "John Gamble, apprentice to Ambrose Beyland, a noted
musician, was afterwards musician at one of the playhouses;
from thence removed to be a cornet in the King's Chapel.
After that he became one in Charles the Second's band of violins,
and composed for the theatres. He published AYRES AND DIALOGUES
TO THE THEORBO AND BASS VIOL, fol. Lond., 1659."--Hawkins.
SONNET.
SET BY MR. WILLIAM LAWES.
I.
When I by thy faire shape did sweare,
And mingled with each vowe a teare,
I lov'd, I lov'd thee best,
I swore as I profest.
For all the while you lasted warme and pure,
My oathes too did endure.
But once turn'd faithlesse to thy selfe and old,
They then with thee incessantly<23.1> grew cold.
II.
I swore my selfe thy sacrifice
By th' ebon bowes<23.2> that guard thine eyes,
Which now are alter'd white,
And by the glorious light
Of both those stars, which of<23.3> their spheres bereft,
Only the gellie's left.
Then changed thus, no more I'm bound to you,
Then swearing to a saint that proves untrue.
<23.1> i.e. at once, immediately.
<23.2> Her eyebrows.
<23.3> Original reads OF WHICH.
LUCASTA WEEPING.
SONG.
SET BY MR. JOHN LANEERE.
I.
Lucasta wept, and still the bright
Inamour'd god of day,
With his soft handkercher of light,
Kist the wet pearles away.
II.
But when her teares his heate or'ecame,
In cloudes he quensht his beames,
And griev'd, wept out his eye of flame,
So drowned her sad streames.
III.<24.1>
At this she smiled, when straight the sun
Cleer'd by her kinde desires;
And by her eyes reflexion
Fast kindl'd there his fires.
<24.1> This stanza is not found in the printed copy of LUCASTA,
1649, but it occurs in a MS. of this poem written, with many
compositions by Lovelace and other poets, in a copy of Crashaw's
POEMS, 1648, 12mo, a portion of which having been formed of the
printer's proof-sheets, some of the pages are printed only on one
side, the reverse being covered with MSS. poems, among the rest
with epigrams by MR. THOMAS FULLER (about fifty in number). There
can be little doubt, from the character of the majority of these
little poems, that by "Mr. Thomas Fuller" we may understand the
church-historian.
TO LUCASTA. FROM PRISON
AN EPODE.<25.1>
I.
Long in thy shackels, liberty
I ask not from these walls, but thee;
Left for awhile anothers bride,
To fancy all the world beside.
II.
Yet e're I doe begin to love,
See, how I all my objects prove;
Then my free soule to that confine,
'Twere possible I might call mine.
III.
First I would be in love with PEACE,
And her rich swelling breasts increase;
But how, alas! how may that be,
Despising earth, she will love me?
IV.
Faine would I be in love with WAR,
As my deare just avenging star;
But War is lov'd so ev'rywhere,
Ev'n he disdaines a lodging here.
V.
Thee and thy wounds I would bemoane,
Faire thorough-shot RELIGION;
But he lives only that kills thee,
And who so bindes thy hands, is free.
VI.
I would love a PARLIAMENT
As a maine prop from Heav'n sent;
But ah! who's he, that would be wedded
To th' fairest body that's beheaded?
VII.
Next would I court my LIBERTY,
And then my birth-right, PROPERTY;
But can that be, when it is knowne,
There's nothing you can call your owne?
VIII.
A REFORMATION I would have,
As for our griefes a SOV'RAIGNE salve;
That is, a cleansing of each wheele
Of state, that yet some rust doth feele.
IX.
But not a reformation so,
As to reforme were to ore'throw,
Like watches by unskilfull men
Disjoynted, and set ill againe.
X.
The PUBLICK FAITH<25.2> I would adore,
But she is banke-rupt of her store:
Nor how to trust her can I see,
For she that couzens all, must me.
XI.
Since then none of these can be
Fit objects for my love and me;
What then remaines, but th' only spring
Of all our loves and joyes, the King?
XII.
He who, being the whole ball
Of day on earth, lends it to all;
When seeking to ecclipse his right,
Blinded we stand in our owne light.
XIII.
And now an universall mist
Of error is spread or'e each breast,
With such a fury edg'd as is
Not found in th' inwards of th' abysse.
XIV.
Oh, from thy glorious starry waine
Dispense on me one sacred beame,
To light me where I soone may see
How to serve you, and you trust me!
<25.1> This was written, perhaps, during the poet's confinement
in Peterhouse, to which he was committed a prisoner on his return
from abroad in 1648. At the date of its composition, there can be
little doubt, from expressions in stanzas vi. and xii. that the
fortunes of Charles I. were at their lowest ebb, and it may be
assigned without much risk of error to the end of 1648.
<25.2> "The publick faith? why 'tis a word of kin,
A nephew that dares COZEN any sin;
A term of art, great BEHOMOTH'S younger brother,
Old MACHAVIEL and half a thousand other;
Which, when subscrib'd, writes LEGION, names on truss,
ABADDON, BELZEBUB, and INCUBUS."
Cleaveland's POEMS, ed. 1669, p. 91.
LUCASTA'S FANNE, WITH A LOOKING-GLASSE IN IT.<26.1>
I.
Eastrich!<26.2> thou featherd foole, and easie prey,
That larger sailes to thy broad vessell needst;
Snakes through thy guttur-neck hisse all the day,
Then on thy iron messe at supper feedst.<26.3>
II.
O what a glorious transmigration
From this to so divine an edifice
Hast thou straight made! heere<26.4> from a winged stone
Transform'd into a bird of paradice!
III.
Now doe thy plumes for hiew and luster vie
With th' arch of heav'n that triumphs or'e past wet,
And in a rich enamel'd pinion lye
With saphyres, amethists and opalls set.
IV.
Sometime they wing her side,<26.5> <thee> strive to drown
The day's eyes piercing beames, whose am'rous heat
Sollicites still, 'till with this shield of downe
From her brave face his glowing fires are beat.
V.
But whilst a plumy curtaine she doth draw,
A chrystall mirror sparkles in thy breast,
In which her fresh aspect when as she saw,
And then her foe<26.6> retired to the west.
VI.
Deare engine, that oth' sun got'st me the day,
'Spite of his hot assaults mad'st him retreat!
No wind (said she) dare with thee henceforth play
But mine own breath to coole the tyrants heat.
VII.
My lively shade thou ever shalt retaine
In thy inclosed feather-framed glasse,
And but unto our selves to all remaine
Invisible, thou feature of this face!
VIII.
So said, her sad swaine over-heard and cried:
Yee Gods! for faith unstaind this a reward!
Feathers and glasse t'outweigh my vertue tryed!
Ah! show their empty strength! the gods accord.
IX.
Now fall'n the brittle favourite lyes and burst!
Amas'd LUCASTA weepes, repents and flies
To her ALEXIS, vowes her selfe acurst,
If hence she dresse her selfe but in his eyes.
<26.1> This adaptation of the fan to the purposes of a mirror,
now so common, was, as we here are told, familiar to the ladies
of Lovelace's time. Mr. Fairholt, in his COSTUME IN ENGLAND,
1846, p. 496, describes many various forms which were given at
different periods to this article of use and ornament; but the
present passage in LUCASTA appears to have escaped his notice.
<26.2> Ostrich. Lyly, in his EUPHUES, 1579, sig. c 4,
has ESTRIDGE. The fan here described was composed of
ostrich-feathers set with precious stones.
<26.3> In allusion to the digestive powers of this bird.
<26.4> Original reads NEERE.
<26.5> The poet means that Lucasta, when she did not require
her fan for immediate use, wore it suspended at her side or
from her girdle.
<26.6> The sun.
LUCASTA, TAKING THE WATERS AT TUNBRIDGE.<27.1>
I.
Yee happy floods! that now must passe
The sacred conduicts of her wombe,
Smooth and transparent as your face,
When you are deafe, and windes are dumbe.
II.
Be proud! and if your waters be
Foul'd with a counterfeyted teare,
Or some false sigh hath stained yee,
Haste, and be purified there.
III.
And when her rosie gates y'have trac'd,
Continue yet some Orient wet,
'Till, turn'd into a gemme, y'are plac'd
Like diamonds with rubies set.
IV.
Yee drops, that dew th' Arabian bowers,
Tell me, did you e're smell or view
On any leafe of all your flowers
Soe sweet a sent, so rich a hiew?
V.
But as through th' Organs of her breath
You trickle wantonly, beware:
Ambitious Seas in their just death
As well as Lovers, must have share.
VI.
And see! you boyle as well as I;
You, that to coole her did aspire,
Now troubled and neglected lye,
Nor can your selves quench your owne fire.
VII.
Yet still be happy in the thought,
That in so small a time as this,
Through all the Heavens you were brought
Of Vertue, Honour, Love and Blisse.
<27.1> From this it might be conjectured, though the ground for
doing so would be very slight, that LUCASTA was a native of Kent
or of one of the adjoining shires; but against this supposition
we have to set the circumstance that elsewhere this lady is called
a "northern star."
TO LUCASTA.
ODE LYRICK.
I.
Ah LUCASTA, why so bright?
Spread with early streaked light!
If still vailed from our sight,
What is't but eternall night?
II.
Ah LUCASTA, why so chaste?
With that vigour, ripenes grac't,
Not to be by Man imbrac't
Makes that Royall coyne imbace't,
And this golden Orchard waste!
III.
Ah LUCASTA, why so great,
That thy crammed coffers sweat?
Yet not owner of a seat
May shelter you from Natures heat,
And your earthly joyes compleat.
IV.
Ah Lucasta, why so good?
Blest with an unstained flood
Flowing both through soule and blood;
If it be not understood,
'Tis a Diamond in mud.
V.
LUCASTA! stay! why dost thou flye?
Thou art not bright but to the eye,
Nor chaste but in the mariage-tye,
Nor great but in this treasurie,
Nor good but in that sanctitie.
VI.
Harder then the Orient stone,
Like an apparition,
Or as a pale shadow gone,
Dumbe and deafe she hence is flowne.
VII.
Then receive this equall dombe:
Virgins, strow no teare or bloome,
No one dig the Parian wombe;
Raise her marble heart i'th' roome,
And 'tis both her coarse and tombe.
LUCASTA PAYING HER OBSEQUIES TO THE CHAST MEMORY
OF MY DEAREST COSIN MRS. BOWES BARNE[S].<28.1>
I.
See! what an undisturbed teare
She weepes for her last sleepe;
But, viewing her, straight wak'd a Star,
She weepes that she did weepe.
II.
Griefe ne're before did tyranize
On th' honour of that brow,
And at the wheeles of her brave eyes
Was captive led til now.
III.
Thus, for a saints apostacy
The unimagin'd woes
And sorrowes of the Hierarchy
None but an angel knowes.
IV.
Thus, for lost soules recovery
The clapping of all wings
And triumphs of this victory
None but an angel sings.
V.
So none but she knows to bemone
This equal virgins fate,
None but LUCASTA can her crowne
Of glory celebrate.
VI.
Then dart on me (CHAST LIGHT)<28.2> one ray,
By which I may discry
Thy joy cleare through this cloudy day
To dresse my sorrow by.
<28.1> This lady was probably the wife of a descendant of
Sir William Barnes, of Woolwich, whose only daughter and heir,
Anne, married the poet's father, and brought him the seat in Kent.
See GENTS. MAGAZINE for 1791, part ii. 1095.
<28.2> A translation of LUCASTA, or LUX CASTA, for the sake
of the metre.
UPON THE CURTAINE OF LUCASTA'S PICTURE,
IT WAS THUS WROUGHT.<29.1>
Oh, stay that covetous hand; first turn all eye,
All depth and minde; then mystically spye
Her soul's faire picture, her faire soul's, in all
So truely copied from th' originall,
That you will sweare her body by this law
Is but its shadow, as this, its;--now draw.
<29.1> Pictures used formerly to have curtains before them.
It is still done in some old houses. In WESTWARD HOE, 1607,
act ii. scene 3, there is an allusion to this practice:--
"SIR GOSLING. So draw those curtains, and let's see the
pictures under 'em."--Webster's WORKS, ed. Hazlitt, i. 133.
LUCASTA'S WORLD.
EPODE.
I.
Cold as the breath of winds that blow
To silver shot descending snow,
Lucasta sigh't;<30.1> when she did close
The world in frosty chaines!
And then a frowne to rubies frose
The blood boyl'd in our veines:
Yet cooled not the heat her sphere
Of beauties first had kindled there.
II.
Then mov'd, and with a suddaine flame
Impatient to melt all againe,
Straight from her eyes she lightning hurl'd,
And earth in ashes mournes;
The sun his blaze denies the world,
And in her luster burnes:
Yet warmed not the hearts, her nice
Disdaine had first congeal'd to ice.
III.
And now her teares nor griev'd desire
Can quench this raging, pleasing fire;
Fate but one way allowes; behold
Her smiles' divinity!
They fann'd this heat, and thaw'd that cold,
So fram'd up a new sky.
Thus earth, from flames and ice repreev'd,
E're since hath in her sun-shine liv'd.
<30.1> Original reads SIGHT.
THE APOSTACY OF ONE, AND BUT ONE LADY.
I.
That frantick errour I adore,
And am confirm'd the earth turns round;
Now satisfied o're and o're,
As rowling waves, so flowes the ground,
And as her neighbour reels the shore:
Finde such a woman says she loves;
She's that fixt heav'n, which never moves.
II.
In marble, steele, or porphyrie,
Who carves or stampes his armes or face,
Lookes it by rust or storme must dye:
This womans love no time can raze,
Hardned like ice in the sun's eye,
Or your reflection in a glasse,
Which keepes possession, though you passe.
III.
We not behold a watches hand
To stir, nor plants or flowers to grow;
Must we infer that this doth stand,
And therefore, that those do not blow?
This she acts calmer, like Heav'ns brand,
The stedfast lightning, slow loves dart,
She kils, but ere we feele the smart.
IV.
Oh, she is constant as the winde,
That revels in an ev'nings aire!
Certaine as wayes unto the blinde,
More reall then her flatt'ries are;
Gentle as chaines that honour binde,
More faithfull then an Hebrew Jew,
But as the divel not halfe so true.
AMYNTOR<31.1> FROM BEYOND THE SEA TO ALEXIS.<31.2>
A DIALOGUE.
Amyntor.
Alexis! ah Alexis! can it be,
Though so much wet and drie
Doth drowne our eye,
Thou keep'st thy winged voice from me?
Alexis.
Amyntor, a profounder sea, I feare,
Hath swallow'd me, where now
My armes do row,
I floate i'th' ocean of a teare.
Lucasta weepes, lest I look back and tread
Your Watry land againe.
Amyn. I'd through the raine;
Such showrs are quickly over-spread.
Conceive how joy, after this short divorce,
Will circle her with beames,
When, like your streames,
You shall rowle back with kinder force,
And call the helping winds to vent your thought.
Alex. Amyntor! Chloris! where
Or in what sphere
Say, may that glorious fair be sought?
Amyn. She's now the center of these armes e're blest,
Whence may she never move,
Till Time and Love
Haste to their everlasting rest.
Alex. Ah subtile swaine! doth not my flame rise high
As yours, and burne as hot?
Am not I shot
With the selfe same artillery?
And can I breath without her air?--Amyn.
Why, then,
From thy tempestuous earth,
Where blood and dearth
Raigne 'stead of kings, agen
Wafte thy selfe over, and lest storms from far
Arise, bring in our sight
The seas delight,
Lucasta, that bright northerne star.
Alex. But as we cut the rugged deepe, I feare
The green god stops his fell
Chariot of shell,
And smooths the maine to ravish her.
Amyn. Oh no, the prince of waters' fires are done;
He as his empire's old,
And rivers, cold;
His queen now runs abed to th' sun;
But all his treasure he shall ope' that day:
Tritons shall sound: his fleete
In silver meete,
And to her their rich offrings pay.
Alex. We flye, Amyntor, not amaz'd how sent
By water, earth, or aire:
Or if with her
By fire: ev'n there
I move in mine owne element.
<31.1> Endymion Porter?
<31.2> Lovelace himself.
CALLING LUCASTA FROM HER RETIREMENT.
ODE.
I.
From the dire monument of thy black roome,
Wher now that vestal flame thou dost intombe,
As in the inmost cell of all earths wombe.
II.
Sacred Lucasta, like the pow'rfull ray
Of heavenly truth, passe this Cimmerian way,
Whilst all the standards of your beames display.
III.
Arise and climbe our whitest, highest hill;
There your sad thoughts with joy and wonder fill,
And see seas calme<32.1> as earth, earth as your will.
IV.
Behold! how lightning like a taper flyes,
And guilds your chari't, but ashamed dyes,
Seeing it selfe out-gloried by your eyes.
V.
Threatning and boystrous tempests gently bow,
And to your steps part in soft paths, when now
There no where hangs a cloud, but on your brow.
VI.
No showrs but 'twixt your lids, nor gelid snow,
But what your whiter, chaster brest doth ow,<32.2>
Whilst winds in chains colder for<32.3> sorrow blow.
VII.
Shrill trumpets doe only sound to eate,
Artillery hath loaden ev'ry dish with meate,
And drums at ev'ry health alarmes beate.
VIII.
All things Lucasta, but Lucasta, call,
Trees borrow tongues, waters in accents fall,
The aire doth sing, and fire is<32.4> musicall.
IX.
Awake from the dead vault in which you dwell,
All's loyall here, except your thoughts rebell
Which, so let loose, often their gen'rall quell.
X.
See! she obeys! By all obeyed thus,
No storms, heats, colds, no soules contentious,
Nor civill war is found; I meane, to us.
XI.
Lovers and angels, though in heav'n they show,
And see the woes and discords here below,
What they not feele, must not be said to know.
<32.1> Original has COLME.
<32.2> i.e. own.
<32.3> Original reads YOUR.
<32.4> Original has FIRE'S, but FIRE IS is required by the metre,
and it is probably what the poet wrote.
AMARANTHA.
A PASTORALL.<33.1>
Up with the jolly bird of light
Who sounds his third retreat to night;
Faire Amarantha from her bed
Ashamed starts, and rises red
As the carnation-mantled morne,
Who now the blushing robe doth spurne,
And puts on angry gray, whilst she,
The envy of a deity,
Arayes her limbes, too rich indeed
To be inshrin'd in such a weed;
Yet lovely 'twas and strait, but fit;
Not made for her, but she to it:
By nature it sate close and free,
As the just bark unto the tree:
Unlike Love's martyrs of the towne,
All day imprison'd in a gown,
Who, rackt in silke 'stead of a dresse,
Are cloathed in a frame or presse,
And with that liberty and room,
The dead expatiate in a tombe.
No cabinets with curious washes,
Bladders and perfumed plashes;
No venome-temper'd water's here,
Mercury is banished this sphere:
Her payle's all this, in which wet glasse
She both doth cleanse and view her face.
Far hence, all Iberian smells,
Hot amulets, Pomander spells,
Fragrant gales, cool ay'r, the fresh
And naturall odour of her flesh,
Proclaim her sweet from th' wombe as morne.
Those colour'd things were made, not borne.
Which, fixt within their narrow straits,
Do looke like their own counterfeyts.
So like the Provance rose she walkt,
Flowerd with blush, with verdure stalkt;
Th' officious wind her loose hayre curles,
The dewe her happy linnen purles,
But wets a tresse, which instantly
Sol with a crisping beame doth dry.
Into the garden is she come,
Love and delight's Elisium;
If ever earth show'd all her store,
View her discolourd budding floore;
Here her glad eye she largely feedes,
And stands 'mongst them, as they 'mong weeds;
The flowers in their best aray
As to their queen their tribute pay,
And freely to her lap proscribe
A daughter out of ev'ry tribe.
Thus as she moves, they all bequeath
At once the incense of their breath.
The noble Heliotropian
Now turnes to her, and knowes no sun.
And as her glorious face doth vary,
So opens loyall golden Mary<33.2>
Who, if but glanced from her sight,
Straight shuts again, as it were night.
The violet (else lost ith' heap)
Doth spread fresh purple for each step,
With whose humility possest,
Sh' inthrones the Poore Girle<33.3> in her breast:
The July-flow'r<33.4> that hereto thriv'd,
Knowing her self no longer-liv'd,
But for one look of her upheaves,
Then 'stead of teares straight sheds her leaves.
Now the rich robed Tulip who,
Clad all in tissue close, doth woe
Her (sweet to th' eye but smelling sower),
She gathers to adorn her bower.
But the proud Hony-suckle spreads
Like a pavilion her heads,
Contemnes the wanting commonalty,
That but to two ends usefull be,
And to her lips thus aptly plac't,
With smell and hue presents her tast.
So all their due obedience pay,
Each thronging to be in her way:
Faire Amarantha with her eye
Thanks those that live, which else would dye:
The rest, in silken fetters bound,
By crowning her are crown and crown'd.<33.5>
And now the sun doth higher rise,
Our Flora to the meadow hies:
The poore distressed heifers low,
And as sh' approacheth gently bow,
Begging her charitable leasure
To strip them of their milkie treasure.
Out of the yeomanry oth' heard,
With grave aspect, and feet prepar'd,
A rev'rend lady-cow drawes neare,
Bids Amarantha welcome here;
And from her privy purse lets fall
A pearle or two, which seeme[s] to call
This adorn'd adored fayry
To the banquet of her dayry.
Soft Amarantha weeps to see
'Mongst men such inhumanitie,
That those, who do receive in hay,
And pay in silver<33.6> twice a day,
Should by their cruell barb'rous theft
Be both of that and life bereft.
But 'tis decreed, when ere this dies,
That she shall fall a sacrifice
Unto the gods, since those, that trace
Her stemme, show 'tis a god-like race,
Descending in an even line
From heifers and from steeres divine,
Making the honour'd extract full
In Io and Europa's bull.
She was the largest goodliest beast,
That ever mead or altar blest;
Round [w]as her udder, and more white
Then is the Milkie Way in night;
Her full broad eye did sparkle fire;
Her breath was sweet as kind desire,
And in her beauteous crescent shone,
Bright as the argent-horned moone.
But see! this whiteness is obscure,
Cynthia spotted, she impure;
Her body writheld,<33.7> and her eyes
Departing lights at obsequies:
Her lowing hot to the fresh gale,
Her breath perfumes the field withall;
To those two suns that ever shine,
To those plump parts she doth inshrine,
To th' hovering snow of either hand,
That love and cruelty command.
After the breakfast on her teat,
She takes her leave oth' mournfull neat
Who, by her toucht, now prizeth her<33.8> life,
Worthy alone the hollowed knife.
Into the neighbring wood she's gone,
Whose roofe defies the tell-tale Sunne,
And locks out ev'ry prying beame;
Close by the lips of a cleare streame,
She sits and entertaines her eye
With the moist chrystall and the frye<33.9>
With burnisht-silver mal'd, whose oares<33.10>
Amazed still make to the shoares;
What need she other bait or charm,
What hook<33.11> or angle, but her arm?
The happy captive, gladly ta'n,
Sues ever to be slave in vaine,
Who instantly (confirm'd in's feares)
Hasts to his element of teares.
From hence her various windings roave
To a well-orderd stately grove;
This is the pallace of the wood
And court oth' Royall Oake, where stood
The whole nobility: the Pine,
Strait Ash, tall Firre, and wanton Vine;
The proper Cedar, and the rest.
Here she her deeper senses blest;
Admires great Nature in this pile,
Floor'd with greene-velvet Camomile,
Garnisht with gems of unset fruit,
Supply'd still with a self recruit;
Her bosom wrought with pretty eyes
Of never-planted Strawberries;
Where th' winged musick of the ayre
Do richly feast, and for their fare,
Each evening in a silent shade,
Bestow a gratefull serenade.
Thus ev'n tyerd with delight,
Sated in soul and appetite;
Full of the purple Plumme and Peare,
The golden Apple, with the faire
Grape that mirth fain would have taught her,
And nuts, which squirrells cracking brought her;
She softly layes her weary limbs,
Whilst gentle slumber now beginnes
To draw the curtaines of her eye;
When straight awakend with a crie
And bitter groan, again reposes,
Again a deep sigh interposes.
And now she heares a trembling voyce:
Ah! can there ought on earth rejoyce!
Why weares she this gay livery,
Not black as her dark entrails be?
Can trees be green, and to the ay'r
Thus prostitute their flowing hayr?
Why do they sprout, not witherd dy?
Must each thing live, save wretched I?
Can dayes triumph in blew and red,
When both their light and life is fled?
Fly Joy on wings of Popinjayes
To courts of fools, where<33.12> as your playes
Dye laught at and forgot; whilst all
That's good mourns at this funerall.
Weep, all ye Graces, and you sweet
Quire, that at the hill inspir'd meet:
Love, put thy tapers out, that we
And th' world may seem as blind as thee;
And be, since she is lost (ah wound!)
Not Heav'n it self by any found.
Now as a prisoner new cast,<33.13>
Who sleepes in chaines that night, his last,
Next morn is wak't with a repreeve,
And from his trance, not dream bid live,
Wonders (his sence not having scope)
Who speaks, his friend or his false hope.
So Amarantha heard, but feare
Dares not yet trust her tempting care;
And as againe her arms oth' ground
Spread pillows for her head, a sound
More dismall makes a swift divorce,
And starts her thus:----Rage, rapine, force!
Ye blew-flam'd daughters oth' abysse,
Bring all your snakes, here let them hisse;
Let not a leaf its freshnesse keep;
Blast all their roots, and as you creepe,
And leave behind your deadly slime,
Poyson the budding branch in's prime:
Wast the proud bowers of this grove,
That fiends may dwell in it, and move
As in their proper hell, whilst she
Above laments this tragedy:
Yet pities not our fate; oh faire
Vow-breaker, now betroth'd to th' ay'r!
Why by those lawes did we not die,
As live but one, Lucasta! why----
As he Lucasta nam'd, a groan
Strangles the fainting passing tone;
But as she heard, Lucasta smiles,
Posses<33.14> her round; she's slipt mean whiles
Behind the blind of a thick bush,
When, each word temp'ring with a blush,
She gently thus bespake; Sad swaine,
If mates in woe do ease our pain,
Here's one full of that antick grief,
Which stifled would for ever live,
But told, expires; pray then, reveale
(To show our wound is half to heale),
What mortall nymph or deity
Bewail you thus? Who ere you be,
The shepheard sigh't,<33.15> my woes I crave
Smotherd in me, me<33.16> in my grave;
Yet be in show or truth a saint,
Or fiend, breath anthemes, heare my plaint,
For her and thy breath's symphony,
Which now makes full the harmony
Above, and to whose voice the spheres
Listen, and call her musick theirs;
This was I blest on earth with, so
As Druids amorous did grow,
Jealous of both: for as one day
This star, as yet but set in clay,
By an imbracing river lay,
They steept her in the hollowed brooke,
Which from her humane nature tooke,
And straight to heaven with winged feare,<33.17>
Thus, ravisht with her, ravish her.
The nymph reply'd: This holy rape
Became the gods, whose obscure shape
They cloth'd with light, whilst ill you grieve
Your better life should ever live,
And weep that she, to whom you wish
What heav'n could give, has all its blisse.
Calling her angell here, yet be
Sad at this true divinity:
She's for the altar, not the skies,
Whom first you crowne, then sacrifice.
Fond man thus to a precipice
Aspires, till at the top his eyes
Have lost the safety of the plain,
Then begs of Fate the vales againe.
The now confounded shepheard cries:
Ye all-confounding destines!
How did you make that voice so sweet
Without that glorious form to it?
Thou sacred spirit of my deare,
Where e're thou hoverst o're us, hear!
Imbark thee in the lawrell tree,
And a new Phebus follows thee,
Who, 'stead of all his burning rayes,
Will strive to catch thee with his layes;
Or, if within the Orient Vine,
Thou art both deity and wine;
But if thou takest the mirtle grove,
That Paphos is, thou, Queene of Love,
And I, thy swain who (else) must die,
By no beasts, but thy cruelty:
But you are rougher than the winde.
Are souls on earth then heav'n<33.18> more kind?
Imprisoned in mortality
Lucasta would have answered me.
Lucasta, Amarantha said,
Is she that virgin-star? a maid,
Except her prouder livery,
In beauty poore, and cheap as I;
Whose glory like a meteor shone,
Or aery apparition,
Admir'd a while, but slighted known.
Fierce, as the chafed lyon hies,
He rowses him, and to her flies,
Thinking to answer with his speare----
Now, as in warre intestine where,
Ith' mist of a black battell, each
Layes at his next, then makes a breach
Through th' entrayles of another, whom
He sees nor knows whence he did come,
Guided alone by rage and th' drumme,
But stripping and impatient wild,
He finds too soon his onely child.
So our expiring desp'rate lover
Far'd when, amaz'd, he did discover
Lucasta in this nymph; his sinne
Darts the accursed javelin
'Gainst his own breast, which she puts by
With a soft lip and gentle eye,
Then closes with him on the ground
And now her smiles have heal'd his wound.
Alexis too again is found;
But not untill those heavy crimes
She hath kis'd off a thousand times,
Who not contented with this pain,
Doth threaten to offend again.
And now they gaze, and sigh, and weep,
Whilst each cheek doth the other's steep,
Whilst tongues, as exorcis'd, are calm;
Onely the rhet'rick of the palm
Prevailing pleads, untill at last
They[re] chain'd in one another fast.
Lucasta to him doth relate
Her various chance and diffring fate:
How chac'd by Hydraphil, and tract
The num'rous foe to Philanact,
Who whilst they for the same things fight,
As Bards decrees and Druids rite,
For safeguard of their proper joyes
And shepheards freedome, each destroyes
The glory of this Sicilie;
Since seeking thus the remedie,
They fancy (building on false ground)
The means must them and it confound,
Yet are resolved to stand or fall,
And win a little, or lose all.
From this sad storm of fire and blood
She fled to this yet living wood;
Where she 'mongst savage beasts doth find
Her self more safe then humane<33.19> kind.
Then she relates, how Caelia--<33.20>
The lady--here strippes her array,
And girdles her in home-spunne bayes
Then makes her conversant in layes
Of birds, and swaines more innocent,
That kenne not guile [n]or courtship ment.
Now walks she to her bow'r to dine
Under a shade of Eglantine,
Upon a dish of Natures cheere
Which both grew, drest and serv'd up there:
That done, she feasts her smell with po'ses
Pluckt from the damask cloath of Roses.
Which there continually doth stay,
And onely frost can take away;
Then wagers which hath most content
Her eye, eare, hand, her gust or sent.
Intranc't Alexis sees and heares,
As walking above all the spheres:
Knows and adores this, and is wilde,<33.21>
Untill with her he live thus milde.<33.22>
So that, which to his thoughts he meant
For losse of her a punishment,
His armes hung up and his sword broke,
His ensignes folded, he betook
Himself unto the humble crook.
And for a full reward of all,
She now doth him her shepheard call,
And in a see of flow'rs install:
Then gives her faith immediately,
Which he returns religiously;
Both vowing in her peacefull cave
To make their bridall-bed and grave.
But the true joy this pair conceiv'd,
Each from the other first bereav'd,
And then found, after such alarmes,
Fast-pinion'd in each other's armes,
Ye panting virgins, that do meet
Your loves within their winding sheet,
Breathing and constant still ev'n there;
Or souls their bodies in yon' sphere,
Or angels, men return'd from hell
And separated mindes--can tell.
<33.1> The punctuation of this piece is in the original edition
singularly corrupt. I have found it necessary to amend it
throughout.
<33.2> The marigold.
<33.3> A flower so called.
<33.4> More commonly known as THE GILLIFLOWER.
<33.5> i.e. the lady gathers the flowers, and binds them in her
hair with a silken fillet, making of them a kind of chaplet
or crown.
<33.6> i.e. silvery or white milk.
<33.7> An uncommon word, signifying WRINKLED. Bishop Hall seems
to be, with the exception of Lovelace, almost the only writer who
used it. Compare, however, the following passage:--
"Like to a WRITHEL'D Carion I have seen
(Instead of fifty, write her down fifteen)
Wearing her bought complexion in a box,
And ev'ry morn her closet-face unlocks."
PLANTAGENET'S TRAGICALL STORY, by T. W. 1649, p. 105.
<33.8> Original has PRIZE THEIR.
<33.9> The fish with their silvery scales.
<33.10> Fins.
<33.11> Original reads BUT LOOK.
<33.12> Original has THERE.
<33.13> i.e. condemned.
<33.14> This word does not appear to have any very exact meaning.
See Halliwell's DICTIONARY OF ARCHAIC WORDS, art. POSSE, and
Worcester's Dict. IBID, &c. The context here requires TO TURN
SHARPLY OR QUICKLY.
<33.15> Original has SIGHT.
<33.16> Original reads I. The meaning seems to be, "I crave
that my woes may be smothered in me, and I may be smothered
in my grave."
<33.17> Reverence.
<33.18> i.e. in heaven.
<33.19> i.e. than among human kind.
<33.20> It may be presumed that LUCASTA had adopted the name
of CAELIA during her sylvan retreat.
<33.21> Impatient.
<33.22> Tranquil or secluded.
TO ELLINDA, THAT LATELY I HAVE NOT WRITTEN.
I.
If in me anger, or disdaine
In you, or both, made me refraine
From th' noble intercourse of verse,
That only vertuous thoughts rehearse;
Then, chaste Ellinda, might you feare
The sacred vowes that I did sweare.
II.
But if alone some pious thought
Me to an inward sadnesse brought,
Thinking to breath your soule too welle,
My tongue was charmed with that spell;
And left it (since there was no roome
To voyce your worth enough) strooke dumbe.
III.
So then this silence doth reveal
No thought of negligence, but zeal:
For, as in adoration,
This is love's true devotion;
Children and fools the words repeat,
But anch'rites pray in tears and sweat.
ELLINDA'S GLOVE.
SONNET.
I.
Thou snowy farme with thy five tenements!<34.1>
Tell thy white mistris here was one,
That call'd to pay his dayly rents;
But she a-gathering flowr's and hearts is gone,
And thou left voyd to rude possession.
II.
But grieve not, pretty Ermin cabinet,
Thy alabaster lady will come home;
If not, what tenant can there fit
The slender turnings of thy narrow roome,
But must ejected be by his owne dombe?<34.2>
III.
Then give me leave to leave my rent with thee:
Five kisses, one unto a place:
For though the lute's too high for me,
Yet servants, knowing minikin<34.3> nor base,
Are still allow'd to fiddle with the case.
<34.1> i.e. the white glove of the lady with its five fingers.
<34.2> Doom.
<34.3> A description of musical pin attached to a lute. It was
only brought into play by accomplished musicians. In the address
of "The Country Suiter to his Love," printed in Cotgrave's WITS
INTERPRETER, 1662, p. 119, the man says:--
"Fair Wench! I cannot court thy sprightly eyes
With a base-viol plac'd betwixt my thighs,
I cannot lisp, nor to a fiddle sing,
Nor run upon a high-strecht minikin."
In Middleton's FAMILIE OF LOVE, 1608 (Works by Dyce, ii. 127)
there is the following passage:--
"GUDGEON. Ay, and to all that forswear marriage, and can be
content with other men's wives.
GERARDINE. Of which consort you two are grounds; one touches
the bass, and the other tickles the minikin."
BEING TREATED.
TO ELLINDA.
For cherries plenty, and for corans
Enough for fifty, were there more on's;
For elles of beere,<35.1> flutes<35.2> of canary,
That well did wash downe pasties-Mary;<35.3>
For peason, chickens, sawces high,
Pig, and the widdow-venson-pye;<35.4>
With certaine promise (to your brother)
Of the virginity of another,
Where it is thought I too may peepe in
With knuckles far as any deepe in;<35.5>
For glasses, heads, hands, bellies full
Of wine, and loyne right-worshipfull;<35.6>
Whether all of, or more behind--a
Thankes freest, freshest, faire Ellinda.
Thankes for my visit not disdaining,
Or at the least thankes for your feigning;
For if your mercy doore were lockt-well,
I should be justly soundly knockt-well;
Cause that in dogrell I did mutter
Not one rhime to you from dam-Rotter.<35.7>
Next beg I to present my duty
To pregnant sister in prime beauty,
Whom well I deeme (e're few months elder)
Will take out Hans from pretty Kelder,
And to the sweetly fayre Mabella,
A match that vies with Arabella;
In each respect but the misfortune,
Fortune, Fate, I thee importune.
Nor must I passe the lovely Alice,
Whose health I'd quaffe in golden chalice;
But since that Fate hath made me neuter,
I only can in beaker pewter:
But who'd forget, or yet left un-sung
The doughty acts of George the yong-son?
Who yesterday to save his sister
Had slaine the snake, had he not mist her:
But I shall leave him, 'till a nag on
He gets to prosecute the dragon;
And then with helpe of sun and taper,
Fill with his deeds twelve reames of paper,
That Amadis,<35.8> Sir Guy, and Topaz
With his fleet neigher shall keep no-pace.
But now to close all I must switch-hard,
[Your] servant ever;
LOVELACE RICHARD.
<35.1> This expression has reference to the old practice
of drinking beer and wine out of very high glasses, with
divisions marked on them. A yard of ale is even now a well
understood term: nor is the custom itself out of date, since
in some parts of the country one is asked to take, not a glass,
but A YARD. The ell was of course, strictly speaking, a larger
measure than a yard; but it was often employed as a mere synonyme
or equivalent. Thus, in MAROCCUS EXTATICUS, 1595, Bankes says:--
"Measure, Marocco, nay, nay, they that take up commodities make no
difference for measure between a Flemish elle and an English yard."
<35.2> In the new edition of Nares (1859), this very passage is
quoted to illustrate the meaning of the word, which is defined
rather vaguely to be A CASK. Obviously the word signifies
something of the kind, but the explanation does not at all satisfy
me. I suspect that a flute OF CANARY was so called from the cask
having several vent-holes, in the same way that the French call a
lamprey FLEUTE D'ALEMAN from the fish having little holes in the
upper part of its body.
<35.3> Forsyth, in his ANTIQUARY'S PORTFOLIO, 1825, mentions
certain "glutton-feasts," which used formerly to be celebrated
periodically in honour of the Virgin; perhaps the pasties used on
these occasions were thence christened PASTIES-MARY.
<35.4> Venison pies or pasties were the most favourite dish in
this country in former times; innumerable illustrations might be
furnished of the high esteem in which this description of viand
was held by our ancestors, who regarded it as a thoroughly English
luxury. The anonymous author of HORAE SUBSECIVAE, 1620, p. 38
(this volume is supposed to have been written by Giles Brydges,
Lord Chandos), describes an affected Englishman who has been
travelling on the Continent, as "sweating at the sight of a pasty
of venison," and as "swearing that the only delicacies be
mushrooms, or CAVIARE, or snayles."
"The full-cram'd dishes made the table crack,
Gammons of bacon, brawn, and what was chief,
King in all feasts, a tall Sir Loyne of BEEF,
Fat venison pasties smoaking, 'tis no fable,
Swans in their broath came swimming to the table."--
Poems of Ben Johnson Junior, by W. S. 1672, p. 3.
<35.5> An allusion to the scantiness of forks. "And when your
justice of peace is knuckle-deep in goose, you may without
disparagement to your blood, though you have a lady to your mother,
fall very manfully to your woodcocks."-- Decker's GULS HORN BOOK,
1609, ed. Nott, p. 121.
"Hodge. Forks! what be they?
Mar. The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy,
To the sparing of napkins--"
Jonson's THE DEVIL IS AN ASS, act. v. scene 4.
"Lovell. Your hand, good sir.
Greedy. This is a lord, and some think this a favour;
But I had rather have my hand in my dumpling."
Massinger's NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS, 1633.
<35.6> The sirloin of beef.
<35.7> Rotterdam.
<35.8> AMADIS DE GAULE. The translation of this romance by Anthony
Munday and two or three others, whose assistance he obtained, made
it popular in England, although, perhaps with the exception of the
portion executed by Munday himself, the performance is beneath
criticism.
TO ELLINDA.
VPON HIS LATE RECOVERY.
A PARADOX.
I.
How I grieve that I am well!
All my health was in my sicknes,
Go then, Destiny, and tell,
Very death is in this quicknes.
II.
Such a fate rules over me,
That I glory when I languish,
And do blesse the remedy,
That doth feed, not quench my anguish.
III.
'Twas a gentle warmth that ceas'd
In the vizard of a feavor;
But I feare now I am eas'd
All the flames, since I must leave her.
IV.
Joyes, though witherd, circled me,
When unto her voice inured
Like those who, by harmony,
Only can be throughly cured.
V.
Sweet, sure, was that malady,
Whilst the pleasant angel hover'd,
Which ceasing they are all, as I,
Angry that they are recover'd.
VI.
And as men in hospitals,
That are maim'd, are lodg'd and dined;
But when once their danger fals,
Ah th' are healed to be pined!
VII.
Fainting so, I might before
Sometime have the leave to hand her,
But lusty, am beat out of dore,
And for Love compell'd to wander.
TO CHLOE, COURTING HER FOR HIS FRIEND.
I.
Chloe, behold! againe I bowe:
Againe possest, againe I woe;
From my heat hath taken fire
Damas, noble youth, and fries,<36.1>
Gazing with one of mine eyes,
Damas, halfe of me expires:
Chloe, behold! Our fate's the same.
Or make me cinders too, or quench his flame
II.
I'd not be King, unlesse there sate
Lesse lords that shar'd with me in state
Who, by their cheaper coronets, know,
What glories from my diadem flow:
Its use and rate<36.2> values the gem:
Pearles in their shells have no esteem;
And, I being sun within thy sphere,
'Tis my chiefe beauty thinner lights shine there.
III.
The Us'rer heaps unto his store
By seeing others praise it more;
Who not for gaine or want doth covet,
But, 'cause another loves, doth love it:
Thus gluttons cloy'd afresh invite
Their gusts from some new appetite;
And after cloth remov'd, and meate,
Fall too againe by seeing others eate.
<36.1> This is not unfrequently used in old writers in the sense
of BURN:--
"But Lucilla, who now began to frie in the flames of love,
all the company being departed," &c.--Lyly's EUPHUES, 1579,
sig. c v. verso.
"My lady-mistresse cast an amourous eye
Upon my forme, which her affections drew,
Shee was Love's martyr, and in flames did frye."
EGYPT'S FAVORITE. THE HISTORIE OF JOSEPH.
By Sir F. Hubert, 1631, sig. C.
<36.2> The estimation in which it is held, its marketable worth.
GRATIANA DAUNCING AND SINGING.
I.
See! with what constant motion
Even and glorious, as the sunne,
Gratiana steeres that noble frame,
Soft as her breast, sweet as her voyce,
That gave each winding law and poyze,
And swifter then the wings of Fame.
II.
She beat the happy pavement
By such a starre-made firmament,
Which now no more the roofe envies;
But swells up high with Atlas ev'n,
Bearing the brighter, nobler Heav'n,
And in her, all the Dieties.
III.
Each step trod out a lovers thought
And the ambitious hopes he brought,
Chain'd to her brave feet with such arts,
Such sweet command and gentle awe,
As when she ceas'd, we sighing saw
The floore lay pav'd with broken hearts.
IV.
So did she move: so did she sing:
Like the harmonious spheres that bring
Unto their rounds their musick's ayd;
Which she performed such a way,
As all th' inamour'd world will say:
The Graces daunced, and Apollo play'd.
AMYNTOR'S GROVE,<37.1>
HIS CHLORIS, ARIGO,<37.2> AND GRATIANA.
AN ELOGIE.
It was<37.3> Amyntor's Grove, that Chloris
For ever ecchoes, and her glories;
Chloris, the gentlest sheapherdesse,
That ever lawnes and lambes did blesse;
Her breath, like to the whispering winde,
Was calme as thought, sweet as her minde;
Her lips like coral gates kept in
The perfume and<37.4> the pearle within;
Her eyes a double-flaming torch
That alwayes shine, and never scorch;
Her<37.5> selfe the Heav'n in which did meet
The all of bright, of faire and sweet.
Here was I brought with that delight
That seperated soules take flight;
And when my reason call'd my sence
Back somewhat from this excellence,
That I could see, I did begin
T' observe the curious ordering
Of every roome, where 'ts hard to know,
Which most excels in sent or show.
Arabian gummes do breathe here forth,
And th' East's come over to the North;
The windes have brought their hyre<37.6> of sweet
To see Amyntor Chloris greet;
Balme and nard, and each perfume,
To blesse this payre,<37.7> chafe and consume;
And th' Phoenix, see! already fries!
Her neast a fire in Chloris<37.8> eyes!
Next<37.9> the great and powerful hand
Beckens my thoughts unto a stand
Of Titian, Raphael, Georgone
Whose art even Nature hath out-done;
For if weake Nature only can
Intend, not perfect, what is man,
These certainely we must prefer,
Who mended what she wrought, and her;
And sure the shadowes of those rare
And kind incomparable fayre
Are livelier, nobler company,
Then if they could or speake, or see:
For these<37.10> I aske without a tush,
Can kisse or touch without a blush,
And we are taught that substance is,
If uninjoy'd, but th'<37.11> shade of blisse.
Now every saint cleerly divine,
Is clos'd so in her severall shrine;
The gems so rarely, richly set,
For them wee love the cabinet;
So intricately plac't withall,
As if th' imbrordered the wall,
So that the pictures seem'd to be
But one continued tapistrie.<37.12>
After this travell of mine eyes
We sate, and pitied Dieties;
Wee bound our loose hayre with the vine,
The poppy, and the eglantine;
One swell'd an oriental bowle
Full, as a grateful, loyal soule
To Chloris! Chloris! Heare, oh, heare!
'Tis pledg'd above in ev'ry sphere.
Now streight the Indians richest prize
Is kindled in<37.13> glad sacrifice;
Cloudes are sent up on wings of thyme,
Amber, pomgranates, jessemine,
And through our earthen conduicts sore
Higher then altars fum'd before.
So drencht we our oppressing cares,
And choakt the wide jawes of our feares.
Whilst ravisht thus we did devise,
If this were not a Paradice
In all, except these harmlesse sins:
Behold! flew in two cherubins,
Cleare as the skye from whence they came,
And brighter than the sacred flame;
The boy adorn'd with modesty,
Yet armed so with majesty,
That if the Thunderer againe
His eagle sends, she stoops in vaine.<37.14>
Besides his innocence he tooke
A sword and casket, and did looke
Like Love in armes; he wrote but five,
Yet spake eighteene; each grace did strive,
And twenty Cupids thronged forth,
Who first should shew his prettier worth.
But oh, the Nymph! Did you ere know
Carnation mingled with snow?<37.15>
Or have you seene the lightning shrowd,
And straight breake through th' opposing cloud?
So ran her blood; such was its hue;
So through her vayle her bright haire flew,
And yet its glory did appeare
But thinne, because her eyes were neere.
Blooming boy, and blossoming mayd,
May your faire sprigges be neere betray'd
To<37.16> eating worme or fouler storme;
No serpent lurke to do them harme;
No sharpe frost cut, no North-winde teare,
The verdure of that fragrant hayre;
But<37.17> may the sun and gentle weather,
When you are both growne ripe together,
Load you with fruit, such as your Father
From you with all the joyes doth gather:
And may you, when one branch is dead,
Graft such another in its stead,
Lasting thus ever in your prime,
'Till th' sithe is snatcht away from Time.<37.18>
<37.1> In the MS. copy this poem exhibits considerable variations,
and is entitled "Gratiana's Eulogy."
<37.2> ARIGO or ARRIGO is the Venetian form of HENRICO. I have no
means of identifying CHLORIS or GRATIANA; but AMYNTOR was probably,
as I have already suggested, Endymion Porter, and ARIGO was
unquestionably no other than Henry Jermyn, or Jarmin, who, though
no poet, was, like his friend Porter, a liberal and discerning
patron of men of letters.
"Yet when thy noble choice appear'd, that by
Their combat first prepar'd thy victory:
ENDYMION and ARIGO, who delight
In numbers--"
Davenant's MADAGASCAR, 1638 (Works, 1673, p. 212).
See also p. 247 of Davenant's Works.
Jermyn's name is associated with that of Porter in the noblest
dedication in our language, that to DAVENANT'S POEMS, 1638, 12mo.
"If these poems live," &c.
<37.3> This and the five next lines are not in MS. which opens
with "Her lips," &c.
<37.4> So original; MS. reads OF.
<37.5> This and the next thirteen lines are not in MS.
<<37.6>> i.e. tribute.
<37.7> FAIRE--MS.
<37.8> HER FAIRE--MS. The story of the phoenix was very popular,
and the allusions to it in the early writers are almost
innumerable.
"My labour did to greater things aspire,
To find a PHOENIX melted in the fire,
Out of whose ashes should spring up to birth
A friend"--
POEMS OF Ben Johnson jun., by W. S., 1672, p. 18.
<37.9> This and the next eleven lines are not in MS.
<37.10> The MS. reads SHE.
<37.11> The MS. reads for BUT TH' "the."
<37.12> In the houses of such as could afford the expense,
the walls of rooms were formerly lined with tapestry instead
of paper.
<37.13> So MS.; original has A.
<37.14> An allusion to the fable of Jupiter and Ganymede.
<37.15> MIX'D WITH DROPPINGE SNOW--MS.
<37.16> This and the succeeding line are not in MS.
<37.17> This and the six following lines are not in MS.
<37.18> Here we have a figure, which reminds us of Jonson's famous
lines on the Countess of Pembroke; but certainly in this instance
the palm of superiority is due to Lovelace, whose conception of
Time having his scythe snatched from him is bolder and finer than
that of the earlier and greater poet.
THE SCRUTINIE.
SONG.
SET BY MR. THOMAS CHARLES.<38.1>
I.
Why shouldst thou<38.2> sweare I am forsworn,
Since thine I vow'd to be?
Lady, it is already Morn,
And 'twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.
II.
Have I not lov'd thee much and long,
A tedious twelve moneths<38.3> space?
I should<38.4> all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new imbrace;
Should<38.5> I still dote upon thy face.
III.
Not but all joy in thy browne haire
In<38.6> others may be found;
But I must search the black and faire,
Like skilfulle minerallists that sound
For treasure in un-plow'd-up<38.7> ground.
IV.
Then if, when I have lov'd my<38.8> round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoyles<38.9> of meaner beauties crown'd,
I laden will returne to thee,
Ev'n sated with varietie.
<38.1> This poem appears in WITS INTERPRETER, by John Cotgrave,
ed. 1662, p. 214, under the title of "On his Mistresse,
who unjustly taxed him of leaving her off."
<38.2> So Cotgrave. LUCASTA reads SHOULD YOU.
<38.3> So Cotgrave. This is preferable to HOURS, the reading in LUCASTA.
<38.4> So Cotgrave. LUCASTA reads MUST.
<38.5> So Cotgrave. LUCASTA has COULD.
<38.6> So Cotgrave. LUCASTA reads BY.
<38.7> UNBIDDEN--Cotgrave.
<38.8> THEE--Cotgrave.
<38.9> IN SPOIL--Cotgrave.
PRINCESSE LOYSA<39.1> DRAWING.
I saw a little Diety,
MINERVA in epitomy,
Whom VENUS, at first blush, surpris'd,
Tooke for her winged wagge disguis'd.
But viewing then, whereas she made
Not a distrest, but lively shade
Of ECCHO whom he had betrayd,
Now wanton, and ith' coole oth' Sunne
With her delight a hunting gone,
And thousands more, whom he had slaine;
To live and love, belov'd againe:
Ah! this is true divinity!
I will un-God that toye! cri'd she;
Then markt she SYRINX running fast
To Pan's imbraces, with the haste
Shee fled him once, whose reede-pipe rent
He finds now a new Instrument.
THESEUS return'd invokes the Ayre
And windes, then wafts his faire;
Whilst ARIADNE ravish't stood
Half in his armes, halfe in the flood.
Proud ANAXERETE doth fall
At IPHIS feete, who smiles at<39.2> all:
And he (whilst she his curles doth deck)
Hangs no where now, but on her neck.
Here PHOEBUS with a beame untombes
Long-hid LEUCOTHOE, and doomes
Her father there; DAPHNE the faire
Knowes now no bayes but round her haire;
And to APOLLO and his Sons,
Who pay him their due Orisons,
Bequeaths her lawrell-robe, that flame
Contemnes, Thunder and evill Fame.
There kneel'd ADONIS fresh as spring,
Gay as his youth, now offering
Herself those joyes with voice and hand,
Which first he could not understand.
Transfixed VENUS stood amas'd,
Full of the Boy and Love, she gaz'd,
And in imbraces seemed more
Senceless and colde then he before.
Uselesse Childe! In vaine (said she)
You beare that fond artillerie;
See heere a pow'r above the slow
Weake execution of thy bow.
So said, she riv'd the wood in two,
Unedged all his arrowes too,
And with the string their feathers bound
To that part, whence we have our wound.
See, see! the darts by which we burn'd
Are bright Loysa's pencills turn'd,
With which she now enliveth more
Beauties, than they destroy'd before.
<39.1> Probably the second daughter of Frederic and Elizabeth
of Bohemia, b. 1622. See Townend's DESCENDANTS OF THE STUARTS,
1858, p. 7.
<39.2> Original has OF.
A FORSAKEN LADY TO HER FALSE SERVANT
THAT IS DISDAINED BY HIS NEW MISTRISS.<40.1>
Were it that you so shun me, 'cause you wish
(Cruels't) a fellow in your wretchednesse,
Or that you take some small ease in your owne
Torments, to heare another sadly groane,
I were most happy in my paines, to be
So truely blest, to be so curst by thee:
But oh! my cries to that doe rather adde,
Of which too much already thou hast had,
And thou art gladly sad to heare my moane;
Yet sadly hearst me with derision.
Thou most unjust, that really dust know,
And feelst thyselfe the flames I burne in. Oh!
How can you beg to be set loose from that
Consuming stake you binde another at?
Uncharitablest both wayes, to denie
That pity me, for which yourself must dye,
To love not her loves you, yet know the pain
What 'tis to love, and not be lov'd againe.
Flye on, flye on, swift Racer, untill she
Whom thou of all ador'st shall learne of thee
The pace t'outfly thee, and shall teach thee groan,
What terrour 'tis t'outgo and be outgon.
Nor yet looke back, nor yet must we
Run then like spoakes in wheeles eternally,
And never overtake? Be dragg'd on still
By the weake cordage of your untwin'd will
Round without hope of rest? No, I will turne,
And with my goodnes boldly meete your scorne;
My goodnesse which Heav'n pardon, and that fate
MADE YOU HATE LOVE, AND FALL IN LOVE WITH HATE.
But I am chang'd! Bright reason, that did give
My soule a noble quicknes, made me live
One breath yet longer, and to will, and see
Hath reacht me pow'r to scorne as well as thee:
That thou, which proudly tramplest on my grave,
Thyselfe mightst fall, conquer'd my double slave:
That thou mightst, sinking in thy triumphs, moan,
And I triumph in my destruction.
Hayle, holy cold! chaste temper, hayle! the fire
Rav'd<40.2> o're my purer thoughts I feel t' expire,
And I am candied ice. Yee pow'rs! if e're
I shall be forc't unto my sepulcher,
Or violently hurl'd into my urne,
Oh make me choose rather to freeze than burne.
<40.1> Carew (POEMS, ed. 1651, p. 53) has some lines, entitled,
"In the person of a Lady to her Inconstant Servant," which are
of nearly similar purport to Lovelace's poem, but are both shorter
and better.
<40.2> RAV'D seems here to be equivalent to REAV'D, or BEREAV'D.
Perhaps the correct reading may be "reav'd." See Worcester's
DICTIONARY, art. RAVE, where Menage's supposition of affinity
between RAVE and BEREAVE is perhaps a little too slightingly
treated.
THE GRASSEHOPPER.
TO MY NOBLE FRIEND, MR. CHARLES COTTON.<41.1>
ODE.
I.
Oh thou, that swing'st upon the waving eare<41.2>
Of some well-filled oaten beard,<41.3>
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious teare<41.4>
Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art reard.
II.
The joyes of earth and ayre are thine intire,
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye;
And when thy poppy workes, thou dost retire
To thy carv'd acorn-bed to lye.
III.
Up with the day, the Sun thou welcomst then,
Sportst in the guilt plats<41.5> of his beames,
And all these merry dayes mak'st merry men,<41.6>
Thy selfe, and melancholy streames.
IV.
But ah, the sickle! golden eares are cropt;
CERES and BACCHUS bid good-night;
Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowrs have topt,
And what sithes spar'd, winds shave off quite.
V.
Poore verdant foole! and now green ice, thy joys
Large and as lasting as thy peirch<41.7> of grasse,
Bid us lay in 'gainst winter raine, and poize
Their flouds with an o'erflowing glasse.
VI.
Thou best of men and friends? we will create
A genuine summer in each others breast;
And spite of this cold Time and frosen Fate,
Thaw us a warme seate to our rest.
VII.
Our sacred harthes shall burne eternally
As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretch'd winges, dissolve and flye
This Aetna in epitome.
VIII.
Dropping December shall come weeping in,
Bewayle th' usurping of his raigne;
But when in show'rs of old Greeke<41.8> we beginne,
Shall crie, he hath his crowne againe!
IX.
Night as cleare Hesper shall our tapers whip
From the light casements, where we play,
And the darke hagge from her black mantle strip,
And sticke there everlasting day.
X.
Thus richer then untempted kings are we,
That asking nothing, nothing need:
Though lord of all what seas imbrace, yet he
That wants himselfe, is poore indeed.
<41.1> Charles Cotton the elder, father of the poet. He died
in 1658. This poem is extracted in CENSURA LITERARIA, ix. 352,
as a favourable specimen of Lovelace's poetical genius. The
text is manifestly corrupt, but I have endeavoured to amend it.
In Elton's SPECIMENS OF CLASSIC POETS, 1814, i. 148, is a
translation of Anacreon's Address to the Cicada, or Tree-Locust
(Lovelace's grasshopper?), which is superior to the modern poem,
being less prolix, and more natural in its manner. In all
Lovelace's longer pieces there are too many obscure and feeble
conceits, and too many evidences of a leaning to the metaphysical
and antithetical school of poetry.
<41.2> Original has HAIRE.
<41.3> i.e. a beard of oats.
<41.4> Meleager's invocation to the tree-locust commences thus
in Elton's translation:--
"Oh shrill-voiced insect! that with dew-drops sweet
Inebriate----"
See also Cowley's ANACREONTIQUES, No. X. THE GRASSHOPPER.
<41.5> i.e. horizontal lines tinged with gold. See Halliwell's
GLOSSARY OF ARCHAIC WORDS, 1860, art. PLAT (seventh and eighth
meaning). The late editors of Nares cite this passage from LUCASTA
as an illustration of GUILT-PLATS, which they define to be "plots
of gold." This definition, unsupported by any other evidence, is
not very satisfactory, and certainly it has no obvious application
here.
<41.6> Randolph says:--
"----toiling ants perchance delight to hear
The summer musique of the gras-hopper."
POEMS, 1640, p. 90.
It is it question, perhaps, whether Lovelace intended by the
GRASSHOPPER the CICADA or the LOCUSTA. See Sir Thomas Browne's
INQUIRIES INTO VULGAR ERRORS (Works, by Wilkins, 1836, iii. 93).
<41.7> Perch.
<41.8> i.e. old Greek wine.
AN ELEGIE.
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. CASSANDRA COTTON,
ONLY SISTER TO MR. C. COTTON.<42.1>
Hither with hallowed steps as is the ground,
That must enshrine this saint with lookes profound,
And sad aspects as the dark vails you weare,
Virgins opprest, draw gently, gently neare;
Enter the dismall chancell of this rooome,
Where each pale guest stands fixt a living tombe;
With trembling hands helpe to remove this earth
To its last death and first victorious birth:
Let gums and incense fume, who are at strife
To enter th' hearse and breath in it new life;
Mingle your steppes with flowers as you goe,
Which, as they haste to fade, will speake your woe.
And when y' have plac't your tapers on her urn,
How poor a tribute 'tis to weep and mourn!
That flood the channell of your eye-lids fils,
When you lose trifles, or what's lesse, your wills.
If you'l be worthy of these obsequies,
Be blind unto the world, and drop your eyes;
Waste and consume, burn downward as this fire
That's fed no more: so willingly expire;
Passe through the cold and obscure narrow way,
Then light your torches at the spring of day,
There with her triumph in your victory.
Such joy alone and such solemnity
Becomes this funerall of virginity.
Or, if you faint to be so blest, oh heare!
If not to dye, dare but to live like her:
Dare to live virgins, till the honour'd age
Of thrice fifteen cals matrons on the stage,
Whilst not a blemish or least staine is scene
On your white roabe 'twixt fifty and fifteene;
But as it in your swathing-bands was given,
Bring't in your winding sheet unsoyl'd to Heav'n.
Daere to do purely, without compact good,
Or herald, by no one understood
But him, who now in thanks bows either knee
For th' early benefit and secresie.
Dare to affect a serious holy sorrow,
To which delights of pallaces are narrow,
And, lasting as their smiles, dig you a roome,
Where practise the probation of your tombe
With ever-bended knees and piercing pray'r,
Smooth the rough passe through craggy earth to ay'r;
Flame there as lights that shipwrackt mariners
May put in safely, and secure their feares,
Who, adding to your joyes, now owe you theirs.
Virgins, if thus you dare but courage take
To follow her in life, else through this lake
Of Nature wade, and breake her earthly bars,
Y' are fixt with her upon a throne of stars,
Arched with a pure Heav'n chrystaline,
Where round you love and joy for ever shine.
But you are dumbe, as what you do lament
More senseles then her very monument,
Which at your weaknes weeps. Spare that vaine teare,
Enough to burst the rev'rend sepulcher.
Rise and walk home; there groaning prostrate fall,
And celebrate your owne sad funerall:
For howsoe're you move, may heare, or see,
YOU ARE MORE DEAD AND BURIED THEN SHEE.
<42.1> Cassandra Cotton, only daughter of Sir George Cotton,
of Warblenton, Co. Sussex, and of Bedhampton, co. Hants, died
some time before 1649, unmarried. She was the sister of Charles
Cotton the elder, and aunt to the poet. See WALTON'S ANGLER,
ed. Nicolas, Introduction, clxvi.
THE VINTAGE TO THE DUNGEON.
A SONG.<43.1>
SET BY MR. WILLIAM LAWES.
I.
Sing out, pent soules, sing cheerefully!
Care shackles you in liberty:
Mirth frees you in captivity.
Would you double fetters adde?
Else why so sadde?
Chorus.
Besides your pinion'd armes youl finde
Griefe too can manakell the minde.
II.
Live then, pris'ners, uncontrol'd;
Drink oth' strong, the rich, the old,
Till wine too hath your wits in hold;
Then if still your jollitie
And throats are free--
Chorus.
Tryumph in your bonds and paines,
And daunce to the music of your chaines.
<43.1> Probably composed during the poet's confinement in
Peterhouse.
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ELIZABETH FILMER.<44.1>
AN ELEGIACALL EPITAPH.
You that shall live awhile, before
Old time tyrs, and is no more:
When that this ambitious stone
Stoopes low as what it tramples on:
Know that in that age, when sinne
Gave the world law, and governd Queene,
A virgin liv'd, that still put on
White thoughts, though out of fashion:
That trac't the stars, 'spite of report,
And durst be good, though chidden for't:
Of such a soule that infant Heav'n
Repented what it thus had giv'n:
For finding equall happy man,
Th' impatient pow'rs snatch it agen.
Thus, chaste as th' ayre whither shee's fled,
She, making her celestiall bed
In her warme alablaster, lay
As cold is in this house of clay:
Nor were the rooms unfit to feast
Or circumscribe this angel-guest;
The radiant gemme was brightly set
In as divine a carkanet;
Of<44.2> which the clearer was not knowne,
Her minde or her complexion.
Such an everlasting grace,
Such a beatifick face,
Incloysters here this narrow floore,
That possest all hearts before.
Blest and bewayl'd in death and birth!
The smiles and teares of heav'n and earth!
Virgins at each step are afeard,
Filmer is shot by which they steer'd,
Their star extinct, their beauty dead,
That the yong world to honour led;
But see! the rapid spheres stand still,
And tune themselves unto her will.
Thus, although this marble must,
As all things, crumble into dust,
And though you finde this faire-built tombe
Ashes, as what lyes in its wombe:
Yet her saint-like name shall shine
A living glory to this shrine,
And her eternall fame be read,
When all but VERY VERTUE'S DEAD.<44.3>
<44.1> This lady was perhaps the daughter of Edward Filmer, Esq.,
of East Sutton, co. Kent, by his wife Eliza, daughter of Richard
Argall, Esq., of the same place (See Harl. MS. 1432, p. 300).
Possibly, the Edward Filmer mentioned here was the same as the
author of "Frenche Court Ayres, with their Ditties englished,"
1629, in praise of which Jonson has some lines in his UNDERWOODS.
<44.2> Original reads FOR.
<44.3> "Which ensuing times shall warble,
When 'tis lost, that's writ in marble."
Wither's FAIR VIRTUE, THE MISTRESS OF PHILARETE, 1622.
Headley (SELECT BEAUTIES, ed. 1810, ii. p. 42) has remarked
the similarity between these lines and some in Collins'
DIRGE IN CYMBELINE:--
"Belov'd till life can charm no more;
And MOURN'D TILL PITY'S SELF BE DEAD."
TO MY WORTHY FRIEND MR. PETER LILLY:<45.1>
ON THAT EXCELLENT PICTURE OF HIS MAJESTY AND THE DUKE OF YORKE,
DRAWNE BY HIM AT HAMPTON-COURT.
See! what a clouded majesty, and eyes
Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise!
See! what an humble bravery doth shine,
And griefe triumphant breaking through each line,
How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne
Never did HAPPY MISERY adorne!
So sacred a contempt, that others show
To this, (oth' height of all the wheele) below,
That mightiest monarchs by this shaded booke
May coppy out their proudest, richest looke.
Whilst the true eaglet this quick luster spies,
And by his SUN'S enlightens his owne eyes;
He cures<45.2> his cares, his burthen feeles, then streight
Joyes that so lightly he can beare such weight;
Whilst either eithers passion doth borrow,
And both doe grieve the same victorious sorrow.
These, my best LILLY, with so bold a spirit
And soft a grace, as if thou didst inherit
For that time all their greatnesse, and didst draw
With those brave eyes your royal sitters saw.
Not as of old, when a rough hand did speake
A strong aspect, and a faire face, a weake;
When only a black beard cried villaine, and
By hieroglyphicks we could understand;
When chrystall typified in a white spot,
And the bright ruby was but one red blot;
Thou dost the things Orientally the same
Not only paintst its colour, but its flame:
Thou sorrow canst designe without a teare,
And with the man his very hope or feare;
So that th' amazed world shall henceforth finde
None but my LILLY ever drew a MINDE.
<45.1> Mr., afterwards Sir Peter, Lely. He was frequently called
Lilly, or Lilley, by his contemporaries, and Lilley is Pepys'
spelling. "At Lord Northumberland's, at Sion, is a remarkable
picture of King Charles I, holding a letter directed 'au roi
monseigneur,' and the Duke of York, aet. 14, presenting a penknife
to him to cut the strings. It was drawn at Hampton Court, when
the King was last there, by Mr. Lely, who was earnestly recommended
to him. I should have taken it for the hand of Fuller or Dobson.
It is certainly very unlike Sir Peter's latter manner, and is
stronger than his former. The King has none of the melancholy
grace which Vandyck alone, of all his painters, always gave him.
It has a sterner countenance, and expressive of the tempests he
had experienced."--Walpole's ANECDOTES OF PAINTING IN ENGLAND,
ed. 1862, p. 443-4.
<45.2> Original reads CARES.
THE LADY A. L.<46.1>
MY ASYLUM IN A GREAT EXTREMITY.
With that delight the Royal captiv's<46.2> brought
Before the throne, to breath his farewell thought,
To tel his last tale, and so end with it,
Which gladly he esteemes a benefit;
When the brave victor, at his great soule dumbe,
Findes something there fate cannot overcome,
Cals the chain'd prince, and by his glory led,
First reaches him his crowne, and then his head;
Who ne're 'til now thinks himself slave and poor;
For though nought else, he had himselfe before.
He weepes at this faire chance, nor wil allow,
But that the diadem doth brand his brow,
And under-rates himselfe below mankinde,
Who first had lost his body, now his minde,
With such a joy came I to heare my dombe,
And haste the preparation of my tombe,
When, like good angels who have heav'nly charge
To steere and guide mans sudden giddy barge,
She snatcht me from the rock I was upon,
And landed me at life's pavillion:
Where I, thus wound out of th' immense abysse,
Was straight set on a pinacle of blisse.
Let me leape in againe! and by that fall
Bring me to my first woe, so cancel all:
Ah! 's this a quitting of the debt you owe,
To crush her and her goodnesse at one blowe?
Defend me from so foule impiety,
Would make friends grieve, and furies weep to see.
Now, ye sage spirits, which infuse in men
That are oblidg'd twice to oblige agen,
Informe my tongue in labour what to say,
And in what coyne or language to repay.
But you are silent as the ev'nings ayre,
When windes unto their hollow grots repaire.<46.3>
Oh, then accept the all that left me is,
Devout oblations of a sacred wish!
When she walks forth, ye perfum'd wings oth' East,
Fan her, 'til with the Sun she hastes to th' West,
And when her heav'nly course calles up the day,
And breakes as bright, descend, some glistering ray,
To circle her, and her as glistering haire,
That all may say a living saint shines there.
Slow Time, with woollen feet make thy soft pace,
And leave no tracks ith' snow of her pure face;
But when this vertue must needs fall, to rise
The brightest constellation in the skies;
When we in characters of fire shall reade,
How cleere she was alive, how spotless, dead.
All you that are a kinne to piety:
For onely you can her close mourners be,
Draw neer, and make of hallowed teares a dearth:
Goodnes and justice both are fled the earth.
If this be to be thankful, I'v a heart
Broaken with vowes, eaten with grateful smart,
And beside this, the vild<46.4> world nothing hath
Worth anything but her provoked wrath;
So then, who thinkes to satisfie in time,
Must give a satisfaction for that crime:
Since she alone knowes the gifts value, she
Can onely to her selfe requitall be,
And worthyly to th' life paynt her owne story
In its true colours and full native glory;
Which when perhaps she shal be heard to tell,
Buffoones and theeves, ceasing to do ill,
Shal blush into a virgin-innocence,
And then woo others from the same offence;
The robber and the murderer, in 'spite
Of his red spots, shal startle into white:
All good (rewards layd by) shal stil increase
For love of her, and villany decease;<46.5>
Naught<46.6> be ignote, not so much out of feare
Of being punisht, as offending her.
So that, when as my future daring bayes
Shall bow it selfe<46.7> in lawrels to her praise,
To crown her conqu'ring goodnes, and proclaime
The due renowne and glories of her name:
My wit shal be so wretched and so poore
That, 'stead of praysing, I shal scandal her,
And leave, when with my purest art I'v done,
Scarce the designe of what she is begunne:
Yet men shal send me home, admir'd, exact;
Proud, that I could from her so wel detract.
Where, then, thou bold instinct, shal I begin
My endlesse taske? To thanke her were a sin
Great as not speake, and not to speake, a blame
Beyond what's worst, such as doth want a name;
So thou my all, poore gratitude, ev'n thou
In this wilt an unthankful office do:
Or wilt I fling all at her feet I have:
My life, my love, my very soule, a slave?
Tye my free spirit onely unto her,
And yeeld up my affection prisoner?
Fond thought, in this thou teachest me to give
What first was hers, since by her breath I live;
And hast but show'd me, how I may resigne
Possession of those thing are none of mine.
<46.1> i.e. Anne, Lady Lovelace, the poet's kinswoman, who seems
to have assisted him in some emergency, unknown to us except
through the present lines.
<46.2> Caractacus(?).
<46.3> The mythology of Greece assigned to each wind a separate
cave, in which it was supposed to await the commands of its
sovereign Aeolus, or Aeolos. It is to this myth that Lovelace
alludes.
<46.4> A very common form of VILE among early writers.
<46.5> This reads like a parody on the fourth Eclogue of Virgil.
The early English poets were rather partial to the introduction
of miniature-pictures of the Golden Age on similar occasions
to the present. Thus Carew, in his poem TO SAXHAM, says:--
"The Pheasant, Partridge, and the Lark
Flew to thy house, as to the Ark.
The willing Oxe of himself came
Home to the slaughter with the Lamb.
And every beast did thither bring
Himself, to be an offering."
Carew's POEMS, 1651, p. 34.
<46.6> Vice.
<46.7> We should read THEMSELVES.
A LADY WITH A FALCON ON HER FIST.
TO THE HONOURABLE MY COUSIN A[NNE] L[OVELACE.]
I.
This Queen of Prey (now prey to you),
Fast to that pirch of ivory
In silver chaines and silken clue,
Hath now made full thy victory:
II.
The swelling admirall of the dread
Cold deepe, burnt in thy flames, oh faire!
Wast not enough, but thou must lead
Bound, too, the Princesse of the aire?
III.
Unarm'd of wings and scaly oare,
Unhappy crawler on the land,
To what heav'n fly'st? div'st to what shoare,
That her brave eyes do not command?
IV.
Ascend the chariot of the Sun
From her bright pow'r to shelter thee:
Her captive (foole) outgases him;
Ah, what lost wretches then are we!
V.
Now, proud usurpers on the right
Of sacred beauty, heare your dombe;
Recant your sex, your mastry, might;
Lower you cannot be or'ecome:
VI.
Repent, ye er'e nam'd he or head,
For y' are in falcon's monarchy,
And in that just dominion bred,
In which the nobler is the shee.
A PROLOGUE TO THE SCHOLARS.
A COMAEDY PRESENTED AT THE WHITE FRYERS.<47.1>
A gentleman, to give us somewhat new,
Hath brought up OXFORD with him to show you;
Pray be not frighted--Tho the scaene and gown's
The Universities, the wit's the town's;
The lines each honest Englishman may speake:
Yet not mistake his mother-tongue for Greeke,
For stil 'twas part of his vow'd liturgie:--
From learned comedies deliver me!
Wishing all those that lov'd 'em here asleepe,
Promising SCHOLARS, but no SCHOLARSHIP.
You'd smile to see, how he do's vex and shake,
Speakes naught; but, if the PROLOGUE do's but take,
Or the first act were past the pikes once, then--
Then hopes and joys, then frowns and fears agen,
Then blushes like a virgin, now to be
Rob'd of his comicall virginity
In presence of you all. In short, you'd say
More hopes of mirth are in his looks then play.
These feares are for the noble and the wise;
But if 'mongst you there are such fowle dead eyes,
As can damne unaraign'd, cal law their pow'rs,
Judging it sin enough that it is ours,
And with the house shift their decreed desires,
FAIRE still to th' BLACKE, BLACKE still to the WHITE-FRYERS;<47.2>
He do's protest he wil sit down and weep
Castles and pyramids . . .
. . . . . . No, he wil on,
Proud to be rais'd by such destruction,
So far from quarr'lling with himselfe and wit,
That he wil thank them for the benefit,
Since finding nothing worthy of their hate,
They reach him that themselves must envy at:
<47.1> This was the theatre in Salisbury Court. See Collier,
H. E. D. P. iii. 289, and Halliwell's DICTIONARY OF OLD PLAYS,
art. SCHOLAR. From the terms of the epilogue it seems to have
been a piece occupying two hours in the performance. Judging,
I presume, from the opening lines, Mr. Halliwell supposes it
to have been originally acted at Gloucester Hall. Probably
Mr. Halliwell is right.
<47.2> A quibble on the two adjacent theatres in Whitefriars
and Blackfriars.
THE EPILOGUE.
The stubborne author of the trifle<48.1> crime,
That just now cheated you of two hours' time,
Presumptuous it lik't him,<48.2> began to grow
Carelesse, whether it pleased you or no.
But we who ground th' excellence of a play
On what the women at the dores wil say,
Who judge it by the benches, and afford
To take your money, ere his oath or word
His SCHOLLARS school'd, sayd if he had been wise
He should have wove in one two COMEDIES;
The first for th' gallery, in which the throne
To their amazement should descend alone,
The rosin-lightning flash, and monster spire
Squibs, and words hotter then his fire.
Th' other for the gentlemen oth' pit,
Like to themselves, all spirit, fancy, wit,
In which plots should be subtile as a flame,
Disguises would make PROTEUS stil the same:
Humours so rarely humour'd and exprest,
That ev'n they should thinke 'em so, not drest;
Vices acted and applauded too, times
Tickled, and th' actors acted, not their crimes,
So he might equally applause have gain'd
Of th' hardned, sooty, and the snowy hand.<48.3>
Where now one SO SO<48.4> spatters, t'other: no!
Tis his first play; twere solecisme 'tshould goe;
The next 't show'd pritily, but searcht within
It appeares bare and bald, as is his chin;
The towne-wit sentences: A SCHOLARS PLAY!
Pish! I know not why, but th'ave not the way.<48.5>
We, whose gaine is all our pleasure, ev'n these
Are bound by justice and religion to please;
Which he, whose pleasure's all his gaine, goes by
As slightly, as they doe his comaedy.
Culls out the few, the worthy, at whose feet
He sacrifices both himselfe and it,
His fancies first fruits: profit he knowes none,
Unles that of your approbation,
Which if your thoughts at going out will pay,
Hee'l not looke farther for a second day.<48.6>
<48.1> Perhaps TRIFLING was the word written by Lovelace.
A VENIAL OFFENCE is meant.
<48.2> It would be difficult to point out a writer so unpardonably
slovenly in his style or phraseology as Lovelace. By "Presumptuous
it lik't him," we must of course understand "Presumptuous that
he liked it himself," or presumptuously self-satisfied.
<48.3> i.e. the rough and dirty occupants of the gallery and
the fair spectators in the boxes.
<48.4> An exclamation of approval, when an actor made a hit.
The phrase seems to be somewhat akin to the Italian "SI, SI,"
a corruption of "SIA, SIA."
<48.5> i.e. they do not know how to act a play.
<48.6> This prologue and epilogue were clearly not attached
to the play when it was first performed by the fellow-collegians
of the poet at Gloucester Hall, as an amateur attempt in the
dramatic line, but were first added when "The Scholars" was
reproduced in London, and the parts sustained by ordinary actors.
AGAINST THE LOVE OF GREAT ONES.
Vnhappy youth, betrayd by Fate
To such a love<49.1> hath sainted hate,
And damned those celestiall bands<49.2>
Are onely knit with equal hands;
The love of great ones is a love,<49.3>
Gods are incapable to prove:
For where there is a joy uneven,
There never, never can be Heav'n:
'Tis such a love as is not sent
To fiends as yet for punishment;
IXION willingly doth feele
The gyre of his eternal wheele,
Nor would he now exchange his paine
For cloudes and goddesses againe.
Wouldst thou with tempests lye? Then bow
To th' rougher furrows of her brow,
Or make a thunder-bolt thy choyce?
Then catch at her more fatal voyce;
Or 'gender with the lightning? trye
The subtler<49.4> flashes of her eye:
Poore SEMELE<49.5> wel knew the same,
Who<49.6> both imbrac't her God and flame;
And not alone in soule did burne,
But in this love did ashes turne.
How il doth majesty injoy
The bow and gaity oth' boy,
As if the purple-roabe should sit,
And sentence give ith' chayr of wit.
Say, ever-dying wretch, to whom
Each answer is a certaine doom,<49.7>
What is it that you would possesse,
The Countes, or the naked Besse?<49.8>
Would you her gowne or title do?
Her box or gem, the<49.9> thing or show?
If you meane HER, the very HER,
Abstracted from her caracter,
Unhappy boy! you may as soone
With fawning wanton with the Moone,
Or with an amorous complaint
Get prostitute your very saint;
Not that we are not mortal, or
Fly VENUS altars, and<49.10> abhor
The selfesame knack, for which you pine;
But we (defend us!) are divine,
[Not] female, but madam born,<49.11> and come
From a right-honourable wombe.
Shal we then mingle with the base,
And bring a silver-tinsell race?
Whilst th' issue noble wil not passe
The gold alloyd<49.12> (almost halfe brasse),
And th' blood in each veine doth appeare,
Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare;
Like to the sordid insects sprung
From Father Sun and Mother Dung:
Yet lose we not the hold we have,
But faster graspe the trembling slave;
Play at baloon with's heart, and winde
The strings like scaines, steale into his minde
Ten thousand false<49.13> and feigned joyes
Far worse then they; whilst, like whipt boys,
After this scourge hee's hush with toys.
This<49.14> heard, Sir, play stil in her eyes,
And be a dying, live<49.15> like flyes
Caught by their angle-legs, and whom
The torch laughs peece-meale to consume.
<49.1> i.e. THAT hath sainted, &c.
<49.2> So the Editor's MS. copy already described; the printed
copy has BONDS.
<49.3> So Editor's MS. Printed copy has--
"The Love of Great Ones? 'Tis a Love."
<<49.4>> Subtle--Editor's MS.
<49.5> Semele she--Editor's MS.
<49.6> She--Ibid.
<49.7> Dombe--LUCASTA.
<49.8> BESS is used in the following passage as a phrase
for a sort of female TOM-O-BEDLAM--
"We treat mad-Bedlams, TOMS and BESSES,
With ceremonies and caresses!"
Dixon's CANIDIA, 1683, part i. canto 2.
And the word seems also to have been employed to signify
the loose women who, in early times, made Covent Garden
and its neighbourhood their special haunt. See Cotgrave's
WITS INTERPRETER, 1662, p. 236. But here "naked Besse,"
means only a woman who, in contradistinction to a lady of rank,
has no adventitious qualities to recommend her.
<49.9> Original reads HER.
<49.10> Altars, or--LUCASTA.
<49.11> Borne--LUCASTA.
<49.12> Allay'd--LUCASTA.
<49.13> So Editor's MS. LUCASTA has HELLS.
<49.14> From this word down to LIVES is omitted in the MS. copy.
<49.15> Original has LIVES.
TO ALTHEA.
FROM PRISON.
SONG.
SET BY DR. JOHN WILSON.<50.1>
I.
When love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates;
And my divine ALTHEA brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lye tangled in her haire,<50.2>
And fetterd to her eye,<50.3>
The birds,<50.4> that wanton in the aire,
Know no such liberty.
II.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying THAMES,
Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
Know no such libertie.
III.
When (like committed linnets<50.5>) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such liberty.
IV.
Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
Enjoy such liberty.
<50.1> The first stanza of this famous song is harmonized in
CHEERFULL AYRES OR BALLADS: FIRST COMPOSED FOR ONE SINGLE VOICE,
AND SINCE SET FOR THREE VOICES. By John Wilson, Dr. in Music,
Professor of the same in the University of Oxford. Oxford, 1660
(Sept. 20, 1659), 4to. p. 10. I have sometimes thought that,
when Lovelace composed this production, he had in his recollection
some of the sentiments in Wither's SHEPHERDS HUNTING, 1615. See,
more particularly, the sonnet (at p. 248 of Mr. Gutch's Bristol
edition) commencing:--
"I that er'st while the world's sweet air did draw."
<50.2> Peele, in KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, 1599, has a similar
figure, where David says:--
"Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair."
The "lover" is of course Bethsabe.
<50.3> Thus Middleton, in his MORE DISSEMBLERS BESIDES WOMEN,
printed in 1657, but written before 1626, says:--
"But for modesty,
I should fall foul in words upon fond man,
That can forget his excellence and honour,
His serious meditations, being the end
Of his creation, to learn well to die;
And live a PRISONER TO A WOMAN'S EYE."
<50.4> Original reads GODS; the present word is substituted
in accordance with a MS. copy of the song printed by the late
Dr. Bliss, in his edition of Woods ATHENAE. If Dr. Bliss had
been aware of the extraordinary corruptions under which the text
of LUCASTA laboured, he would have had less hesitation in adopting
BIRDS as the true reading. The "Song to Althea," is a favourable
specimen of the class of composition to which it belongs; but
I fear that it has been over-estimated.
<50.5> Percy very unnecessarily altered LIKE COMMITTED LINNETS
to LINNET-LIKE CONFINED (Percy's RELIQUES, ii. 247; Moxon's ed.)
Ellis (SPECIMENS OF EARLY ENGLISH POETS, ed. 1801, iii. 252)
says that this latter reading is "more intelligible." It is not,
however, either what Lovelace wrote, or what (it may be presumed)
he intended to write, and nothing, it would seem, can be clearer
than the passage as it stands, COMMITTED signifying, in fact,
nothing more than CONFINED. It is fortunate for the lovers
of early English literature that Bp. Percy had comparatively
little to do with it. Emendation of a text is well enough;
but the wholesale and arbitrary slaughter of it is quite another
matter.
SONNET.
TO GENERALL GORING,<51.1> AFTER THE PACIFICATION AT BERWICKE.
A LA CHABOT.<51.2>
I.
Now the peace is made at the foes rate,<51.3>
Whilst men of armes to kettles their old helmes translate,
And drinke in caskes of honourable plate.
In ev'ry hand [let] a cup be found,
That from all hearts a health may sound
To GORING! to GORING! see 't goe round.
II.
He whose glories shine so brave and high,
That captive they in triumph leade each care and eye,
Claiming uncombated the victorie,
And from the earth to heav'n rebound,
Fixt there eternall as this round:
To GORING! to GORING! see him crown'd.
III.
To his lovely bride, in love with scars,
Whose eyes wound deepe in peace, as doth his sword in wars;
They shortly must depose the Queen of Stars:
Her cheekes the morning blushes give,
And the benighted world repreeve;
To LETTICE! to LETTICE! let her live.
IV.
Give me scorching heat, thy heat, dry Sun,
That to this payre I may drinke off an ocean:
Yet leave my grateful thirst unquensht, undone;
Or a full bowle of heav'nly wine,
In which dissolved stars should shine,
To the couple! to the couple! th' are divine.
<51.1> Particulars of this celebrated man, afterward created
Earl of Norwich, may be found in Eachard's HISTORY, Rushworth's
COLLECTIONS, Whitelocke's MEMOIRS, Collins' PEERAGE by Brydges,
Pepys' DIARY (i. 150, ed. 1858), and Peck's DESIDERATA CURIOSA,
(ed. 1779, ii. 479). Whitelocke speaks very highly of his
military character. In a poem called THE GALLANTS OF THE TIMES,
printed in "Wit Restored," 1658, there is the following passage:--
"A great burgandine for WILL MURRAY'S sake
GEORGE SYMONDS, he vows the first course to take:
When STRADLING a Graecian dog let fly,
Who took the bear by the nose immediately;
To see them so forward Hugh Pollard did smile,
Who had an old curr of Canary oyl,
And held up his head that GEORGE GORING might see,
Who then cryed aloud, TO MEE, BOYS, TO MEE!"
See, also, THE ANSWER:--
"GEORGE, Generall of Guenefrieds,
He is a joviall lad,
Though his heart and fortunes disagree
Oft times to make him sad."
Consult Davenant's Works, 1673, p. 247, and FRAGMENTA AULICA,
1662, pp. 47, 54. Lord Goring died Jan. 6, 1663 (Smyth's
OBITUARY, p. 57; Camden Soc.).
<51.2> A LA CHABOT was a French dance tune, christened after
the admiral of that name, in the same manner as A LA BOURBON,
mentioned elsewhere in LUCASTA, derived its title from another
celebrated person. Those who have any acquaintance with the
history of early English music need not to be informed that
it was formerly the practice of our own composers to seek the
patronage of the gentlemen and ladies about the Court for their
works, and to identify their names with them. Thus we have
"My Lady Carey's Dumpe," &c. &c.
<<51.3>> Expense.
SIR THOMAS WORTLEY'S SONNET ANSWERED.
[THE SONNET.
I.
No more
Thou little winged archer, now no more
As heretofore,
Thou maist pretend within my breast to bide,
No more,
Since cruell Death of dearest LYNDAMORE
Hath me depriv'd,
I bid adieu to love, and all the world beside.
II.
Go, go;
Lay by thy quiver and unbend thy bow
Poore sillie foe,
Thou spend'st thy shafts but at my breast in vain,
Since Death
My heart hath with a fatall icie deart
Already slain,
Thou canst not ever hope to warme her wound,
Or wound it o're againe.]
THE ANSWER.
I.
Againe,
Thou witty cruell wanton, now againe,
Through ev'ry veine,
Hurle all your lightning, and strike ev'ry dart,
Againe,
Before I feele this pleasing, pleasing paine.
I have no heart,
Nor can I live but sweetly murder'd with
So deare, so deare a smart.
II.
Then flye,
And kindle all your torches at her eye,
To make me dye
Her martyr, and put on my roabe of flame:
So I,
Advanced on my blazing wings on high,
In death became
Inthroan'd a starre, and ornament unto
Her glorious, glorious name.
A GUILTLESSE LADY IMPRISONED: AFTER PENANCED.
SONG.
SET BY MR. WILLIAM LAWES.
I.
Heark, faire one, how what e're here is
Doth laugh and sing at thy distresse;
Not out of hate to thy reliefe,
But joy t' enjoy thee, though in griefe.
II.
See! that which chaynes you, you chaine here;
The prison is thy prisoner;
How much thy jaylor's keeper art!
He bindes your hands, but you his heart.
III.
The gyves to rase so smooth a skin,
Are so unto themselves within;
But, blest to kisse so fayre an arme,
Haste to be happy with that harme;
IV.
And play about thy wanton wrist,
As if in them thou so wert drest;
But if too rough, too hard they presse,
Oh, they but closely, closely kisse.
V.
And as thy bare feet blesse the way,
The people doe not mock, but pray,
And call thee, as amas'd they run
Instead of prostitute, a nun.
VI.
The merry torch burnes with desire
To kindle the eternall fire,
And lightly daunces in thine eyes
To tunes of epithalamies.
VII.
The sheet's ty'd ever to thy wast,
How thankfull to be so imbrac't!
And see! thy very very bonds
Are bound to thee, to binde such hands.
TO HIS DEARE BROTHER COLONEL F. L.
IMMODERATELY MOURNING MY BROTHERS<52.1> UNTIMELY DEATH
AT CARMARTHEN.
I.
If teares could wash the ill away,
A pearle for each wet bead I'd pay;
But as dew'd corne the fuller growes,
So water'd eyes but swell our woes.
II.
One drop another cals, which still
(Griefe adding fuell) doth distill;
Too fruitfull of her selfe is anguish,
We need no cherishing to languish.
III.
Coward fate degen'rate man
Like little children us
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