John Cleveland works - inspirational, sad and funny

Works by John Cleveland

From the 1921 compilation “Minor Poets of the Caroline Period”

INTRODUCTION TO JOHN CLEVELAND.

Almost everybody–an everybody not including many bodies–who has dealt with Cleveland since the revival of interest in seventeenth-century writers has of necessity dwelt more or less on the moral that he points, and the tale that he illustrates, if he does not exactly adorn it. Moral and tale have been also generally summarized by referring to the undoubted fact that Cleveland had twenty editions while Milton’s _Minor Poems_ had two. I do not propose myself to dwell long on this part of the matter. The moral diatribe is not my trade: and while almost any one who wants such a thing can deduce it from the facts which will be given, those who are unable to effect the deduction may as well go without it. What I wish to provide is what it is not easy for any one to provide, and impossible for any one to provide ‘out of his own head’–that is to say an edition, sufficient for reading and for all literary purposes, of the most probably authentic of the heterogeneous poems which have clustered round Cleveland’s name. Such an edition did not exist when this collection of Caroline poets was planned, nor when it was announced: nor has it been supplied since in this country. One did appear very shortly afterwards in America,[1] and it has been of use to me: but it certainly does not make Cleveland’s appearance here superfluous. Had not Professor Case of Liverpool, who had long made Cleveland a special study, insisted on my giving him in this collection, and most kindly provided me with stores of his own material, I should not have attempted the task: and I still hope that Mr. Case will execute a more extensive edition with the prose, with the doubtful or even certainly spurious poems duly annotated, and with apparatus which would be out of place here. It cannot, however, be out of place to include–in what is almost a corpus of ‘metaphysical’ poetry of the less easily accessible class–one who has been regarded from different, but not very distant, points of view as at once the metaphysical ‘furthest’ and as the metaphysical _reductio ad absurdum_.

Cleveland (the name was also very commonly spelt in his own day ‘Cleiveland'[2] and ‘Cleaveland’, as well as otherwise still) was born at Loughborough, and christened on June 20, 1613. His father, Thomas, was curate of the parish and assistant master at the Grammar School. Eight years later the father was made vicar of Hinckley, also provided with a grammar school, at which John appears to have been educated till in 1627 he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge–where, of course, the everlasting comparison with his elder contemporary Milton comes in again for those who like it. He remained at Christ’s for seven years as usual, performing divers college exercises on public occasions, occasionally of some importance; took his bachelor’s degree (also as usual) in 1631; and in 1634 was elected to a fellowship at St. John’s, proceeding to his M.A. next year. At the end of his probationary period he did not take orders, but was admitted as _legista_–perhaps also, though the statement is uncorroborated officially, to the third learned faculty of Physic. There is also doubt about his incorporation at Oxford. He served as Tutor and as Rhetoric Praelector: nor are we destitute of Orations and Epistles of an official character from his pen. Like the majority of university men at the time–and indeed like the majority of men of letters and education–he was a strong Royalist: and was unlikely to stay in Cambridge when the Roundhead mob of the town was assisted by a Parliamentary garrison in rabbling the University. It was natural that he should ‘retire to Oxon.’, and it is probable that Oxford was his head-quarters from 1642 to 1645. But he does not seem to have been actually deprived of his fellowship at St. John’s till the last-named year, when the Earl of Manchester, whom (especially as Lord Kimbolton) Cleveland had bitterly satirized, had his opportunity of revenge and took it.

For Cleveland had already been active with his pen in the Royalist cause, and was now appointed to a post of some importance as ‘Judge Advocate’ of Newark. The Governor was Sir Richard Willis, for whom Cleveland replied to Leven’s summons to surrender. They held the town for the King from November to May, when it was given up on Charles’s own order. Then comes the anecdote–more than a hundred years after date–of Leven’s dismissing him with contemptuous lenity. ‘Let the poor fellow go about his business and sell his ballads.’ This, though accepted by Carlyle, and a smart enough invention, has no contemporary authority, and is made extremely suspicious by its own addition that Cleveland was so vexed that he took to strong liquors which hastened his death. Now Newark fell in 1646 and Cleveland lived till 1658. It would make an interesting examination question, ‘How much must a man drink in a day in order to hasten his death thereby twelve years afterwards?’ And it must be admitted, if true, to be a strong argument on the side of the good fellow who pleaded that alcohol was a very _slow_ poison.

He escaped somehow, however: and we hear nothing of his life for another decade. Then he is again in trouble, being informed against, to the Council of State, by some Norwich Roundheads who have, however, nothing to urge against him but his antecedents, his forgathering with ‘papists and delinquents’, his ‘genteel garb’ with ‘small and scant means’, and (which is important) his ‘great abilitie whence he is able to do the greater disservice’, this last a handsome testimonial to Cleveland, and a remarkable premium upon imbecility. He was imprisoned at Yarmouth and wrote a very creditable letter to Cromwell, maintaining his principles, but asking for release, which seems to have been granted. Cromwell–to do him justice and to alter a line of his greatest panegyrist save one in verse on another person–

Never _persecuted_ but for gain,

and he probably did not agree with the officious persons at Norwich that there was much to be gained by incarcerating a poor Royalist poet. But Cleveland had been at least three months in prison, and it is alleged, with something more like _vera causa_ in the allegation, that he there contracted ‘such a weakness and disorder as soon after brought him to the grave’. A seventeenth-century prison was much more likely to kill a man in two years than ‘strong waters’ which had already been vigorously applied and successfully resisted for ten. He died in Gray’s Inn, of an intermittent fever, on April 29, 1658.

Something will be said presently of the almost hopeless tangle of the so-called editions of Cleveland’s _Poems_. It seems at least probable that no single one of the twenty–or whatever the number is–can be justly called authoritative. That he was an extremely popular poet or rather journalist in verse as well as prose, is absolutely beyond dispute–the very tangle just referred to proves it–and, though it may be excessive to call him the most popular poet of his time, he may fairly be bracketed with Cowley as joint holder of that position. Nor did his popularity cease as quickly as Cowley’s did–the Restoration indeed was likely to increase rather than diminish it; and the editions went on till close upon the Revolution itself, while there were at least two after it, one just on the eve of the eighteenth century in 1699 and one near its middle in 1742.[3] Considerably before this, however, the critics had turned against him. ‘Grave men’, to quote Edward Phillips and the _Theatrum Poetarum_, ‘affirmed him the best of English poets’, but not for long. Fuller, who actually admired him, admitted that ‘Clevelandizing’ was dangerous; and Dryden, who must have admired him at one time, and shows constant traces of his influence, talks in the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ of a ‘Catachresis or Clevelandism’. In the eighteenth century he passed almost out of sight till Johnson brought him up for ‘awful exampling’ in the famous Life of Cowley: and he has had few advocates since. Let us, without borrowing from these advocates or attempting tediously to confute his enemies, deal with the facts, so far as they are known, of his life, and with the characteristics of the carefully sifted, but in no sense ‘selected’, poetry which will follow.

As for his character as a man, the evidence is entirely in his favour. He was an honest and consistent politician on his own side, and if some people think it the wrong side, others are equally positive that it was the right. If (rather unfairly) we dismiss the encomia on his character as partisan, there remains the important fact that no one on the other side says anything definite against it. If he was abusive, it certainly does not lie with anybody who admires Milton to reproach him with that. But the fact is, once more, that except in so far as there is a vague idea that a cavalier, and especially a cavalier poet, must have been a ‘deboshed’ person, there is absolutely no evidence against Cleveland and much in his favour. Also, this is not our business, which is with him as a poet.

As such he has been subjected to very little really critical examination.[4] The result of such as I myself have been able to give him was arrived at somewhat slowly: or rather it flashed upon me, after reading the poems several times over in different arrangements, that which gives the serious and satiric pieces higgledy-piggledy as in the older editions, and that which separates them, as in 1677 and in Mr. Berdan’s American reprint. This result is that I entertain a very serious doubt whether Cleveland _ever_ wrote ‘serious’ poetry, in one sense–he was of course serious enough in his satires–at all. That, on the other hand, he deliberately set himself to burlesque the ‘metaphysical’ manner I do not think: or at least (for rather minute definition is necessary here) I do not think that he executed this burlesque with any reforming intention or any particular contempt for the style. Like Butler, whom he in so many ways resembles–who pretty certainly owed him not a little, and of whom he was, as has often been pointed out, a sort of rough copy or spoiled draft–he was what he satirized in the literary way, and he caricatured himself. Of course if anybody thinks, as the _Retrospective_ Reviewer thought, that ‘Fuscara’ and ‘To the State of Love’ are actually and intrinsically ‘beautiful specimens of poetic conception’, he will scout my notion. But I do not think that any one who has done me the honour even to look into these volumes will think me an ‘antimetaphysical’, and I must confess that I can see only occasional poetry here–only a caricature of such methods as may be suggested by Donne’s ‘Bracelet’ piece, and the best things in Crashaw. It is, for instance, a very tell-tale thing that there is not, in Cleveland’s work, a single one of the lovely lyrics that enshrine and ennoble the conceits in almost every one else of the school, from Donne himself to Sherburne. An American critic, defending Cleveland with the delightful indiscreetness of most defenders, maintains that these lyrics were failures–that they were _not_ characteristic of the time. Well, let us be thankful that almost everybody down to Kynaston and John Hall ‘failed’ in this way not seldom.

But Cleveland never failed in it: and unfortunately it wants a failure or two at least of this kind to make a poet. To illustrate what I mean, let me refer readers to Benlowes–comparison of Cleveland with whom would not long ago have been impossible except in a large library. Benlowes is as extravagant as Cleveland, whom (I rather think) he sometimes copied.[5] But he cannot help this kind of poetic ‘failure’ from breaking in. Cleveland can, or rather I should say that he does not try–or has no need to try–to keep it out. In ‘Fuscara’, eminently; in ‘To the State of Love’, perhaps most prettily; in the ‘Antiplatonic’, most vigorously–in all his poems more or less, he sets himself to work to accumulate and elaborate conceits for their own sake. They are not directly suggested by the subject and still less by each other; they are no spray or froth of passion; they never suggest (as all the best examples and many not so good in others do) that indomitable reaching after the infinite which results at least in an infinite unexpectedness. They are merely card-castles of ‘wit’ in its worst sense; mechanical games of extravagant idea-twisting which simply aim at ‘making records’. It is true that people admired them for being this. It is still truer that similar literary exercises may be found, and found popular, at the present day. It is even true, as will be shown later, that it is possible positively to enjoy them still. But these are different questions.

If Cleveland had little or nothing of the poetry of enthusiastic thought and feeling, he had not much more of the poetry of accomplished form, though here also he is exceptionally interesting. His ‘Mark Antony'[6] has been indicated as an early example of ‘dactylic’ metre. It certainly connects interestingly with some songs of Dryden’s, and has an historical position of its own, but I am by no means sure (_v. inf._) that it was meant to be dactylic or even anapaestic.

Cleveland, therefore, was not a great poet, nor even a failure of one: but he was but just a failure of a very great satirist. Even here, of course, the Devil’s Advocate will find only too much to say against him. Every one of the pieces requires the editing, polishing, and criticizing which (we know pretty well) the author never gave to anything of his. Every one suffers from Cleveland’s adoption of the same method which he used in his purely metaphysical poems, that of stringing together and heaping up images and observations, instead of organizing and incorporating them. Every one is a tangled tissue of temporary allusion, needing endless scholiastry to unravel and elucidate it. It has been said, and it is true, that we find not a few reminiscences of Cleveland in Dryden. There is even in the couplet of the older and smaller poet something of the weight, the impetus, the _animosity_ of that of the younger and greater. But of Dryden’s _ordonnance_, his generalship, his power of coupling up his couplets into irresistible column, Cleveland has practically nothing. He has something of his own ‘Rupertismus’: but nothing more.

But, for all that, the Satires give us ample reason for understanding why the Roundheads persecuted Cleveland, and justify their fear of his ‘abilities’. He has, though an unequal, an occasional command of the ‘slap-in-the-face’ couplet which–as has just been said–not impossibly taught something to Dryden, or at least awoke something in him. ‘The Rebel Scot’, his best thing, does not come so very far short of the opportunity which the Scots had given: and its most famous distich

Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom, Not forced him wander, but confined him home,

was again and again revived till the unpopularity of North with South Britain flamed out last in Bute’s time, a hundred years and more after Cleveland’s. Of course it is only ignorance which thinks that this form of the couplet was invented by Cleveland, or even in his time. It may be found in Elizabeth’s, and in Cleveland’s own day was sporadic; nor did he himself ever approach such continuous and triumphant use of it as Dryden achieved only two years after Cleveland’s own death. But there is, so to speak, the ‘atmosphere’ of it, and that atmosphere occasionally condenses into very concrete thunderbolts. Unfortunately he knew no mood but abuse, and such an opportunity as that of the ‘Elegy on Laud’ is almost entirely lost.

However, such as he is–in measure as full as can with any confidence be imparted; and omitting of course prose work–he is now before the reader, who will thus be able at last to form his own judgement on a writer who, perhaps of all English writers, combines the greatest popularity in his own time with the greatest inaccessibility in modern editions.

Nor should any reader be deterred from making the examination by the strictures which have been given above on Cleveland’s purely poetical methods and merits. These strictures were made as cautions, and as a kind of antidote to the writer’s own undisguised partiality for the ‘metaphysical’ style. It is true that Cleveland, like Benlowes, has something of a helot of that style about him: and that his want of purely lyrical power deprives his readers of much of the solace of his (if not of their) sin. But those natures must be very morose, very prosaic, or at best steeled against everything else by abhorrence of ‘False Wit’ who can withstand a certain tickling of amused enjoyment at the enormous yet sometimes pretty quaintnesses of ‘Fuscara’ itself; and still more at those of the ‘To the State of Love’, which is his happiest non-satirical thing. From the preliminary wish to be a ‘Shaker’ to the final description of Chanticleer as

That Baron Tell-Clock of the night,

the thing is a kind of a carnival of conceit, a fairy-tale of the fantastic. ‘To Julia to expedite her Promise’ is somewhat more laboured and so less happy: and the loss of the lyric form in ‘The Hecatomb to his Mistress’ is considerable. The heroic couplet squares ill with this sort of thing: but the octasyllabic admits it fairly, and so ‘The Antiplatonic’ with its greater part, and ‘Upon Phillis walking’ with the whole in this metre, are preferable. Yet it must be acknowledged that one heroic couplet in the former–

Like an ambassador that beds a queen With the nice caution of a sword between,

is worthy of Dryden. Most of the other _seria_ are but _nugae_: and the chief interest of the ‘Edward King’ epicede, besides its contrast with _Lycidas_, is its pretty certain position as model to Dryden’s ‘Lord Hastings’. But the two ‘Mark Antony’ pieces and ‘Square-Cap’ demand, both from the point of view of tone and from that of metre, more attention than was given to them above.

If any one not previously acquainted with the piece or the discussions about it will turn to the text of ‘Mark Antony’ and read it either aloud or to himself, I should say that, in the common phrase, it is a toss-up what scansion his voice will adopt supposing that he ‘commences with the commencement’. The first stanza can run quite agreeably to the usual metrical arrangements of the time, thus:

or, in technical language, a decasyllabic quatrain, like _Annus Mirabilis_ or Gray’s _Elegy_, but with hypercatalexis or redundance in the first and third lines and occasional trochees for iambics; followed by a batch, rhymed _a a a b c c b_, of seven three-foot lines also iambic. This, which as far as the first quatrain is concerned is very nearly the exact metre of Emily Brontë’s _Remembrance_ and of Myers’s _St. Paul_, suits the second and third stanzas as well as the first.

When the reader comes to the fourth stanza, or if, like some irregular spirits, he takes the last first and begins with it, the most obvious scansion, though the lines are syllabically the same, will be different.

(Trisyllabic rhythm either dactylic[7] or anapaestic[8] as may be on general principles preferred.) And this may have occurred to him even with the first as thus:

When ¦ as the | night¦ingale | chan¦ted her | ves¦pers.

Now which of these is to be preferred? and which did the author mean? (two questions which are not so identical as they may seem). My own answer, which I have already given elsewhere,[9] is that both are uncertain, and that he probably had each of the rhythms in his head, but confusedly.[10]

‘Square Cap’ is much less doubtful, or not doubtful at all, and it may be thought to prove the anapaestic-dactylic scansion, especially the anapaestic of ‘Mark Antony’. For it will be observed that, even from the first two verses, you can get no iambic run, except of the most tumbling character, on the line _here_.

The problem is scarcely one for dogmatic decision, but it is one of some interest, and of itself entitles Cleveland to attention of the prosodic kind. For these pieces are quite early–before 1645–and a third, ‘How the Commencement grows new’ (q.v.), is undeniably trisyllabic and meant for some such a tune as the ‘Sellenger’s Round’ which it mentions.

With such a combination of interests, political, historical, poetical (as regards school and period), and prosodic, it will hardly be denied that Cleveland deserves his place here. But I must repeat that I am here endeavouring to deal with him strictly on the general principles of this Collection, and am in no way trying to occupy the ground so as to keep out a more elaborate edition. I have had help from my friends Professors Firth and Case in information and correction of contemporary facts; but full comment on Cleveland, from the historical side, would nearly fill this volume: and the problems of the work attributed to him would suffice for a very substantial bibliographical monograph. Neither of these, nor any exhaustive apparatus, even of the textual kind, do I pretend to supply. I simply endeavour–and have spent not a little time and trouble in endeavouring–to provide the student and lover of English literature with an accessible copy, sufficient in amount and fairly trustworthy in substance, of a curious and memorable figure in English verse.[11]

[Footnote 1: _Poems of John Cleveland_, by John M. Berdan, New York, 1903.]

[Footnote 2: It has been said that we ought to adopt this spelling because of its connexion with a district of Yorkshire, which, before it was ransacked for iron ore, was both wild and beautiful. But as everybody now spells _this_ ‘Cleveland’, and as the title derived from it has always been so spelt, the argument seems an odd one.]

[Footnote 3: I am not certain that I have seen a copy of this, and its existence has been denied: but I have certainly seen it catalogued somewhere. It should perhaps be added that _1699_ is only _1687_ with a fresh title.]

[Footnote 4: The most important treatments besides Johnson’s, treatments usefully separated in date, are contained in the _Retrospective Review_ (vol. xii), Mr. Gosse’s remarks in _From Shakespeare to Pope_, and Mr. Berdan’s in the edition above mentioned.]

[Footnote 5: They were both St. John’s men; and Benlowes must have been a benefactor of the College (see Evelyn’s _Diary_) while Cleveland was Fellow. Also Cleveland’s Poems had been published, and again and again republished, years before _Theophila_ appeared.]

[Footnote 6: The _Retrospective_ eulogist was deeply hurt by Cleveland’s parodying this, and of course drags in Milton once more. ‘Could one fancy Milton parodying _Lycidas_?’ Now there is considerable difference between ‘Mark Antony’ and _Lycidas_: nor did Cleveland, so far as we know, dream of parodying his own poem on King. If Milton had had the humour to parody some of his own work, it would have been much the better for him and for us. No doubt Cleveland’s actual parody is rather coarse and not extraordinarily witty: but there is no more objection to it in principle than to Thackeray’s two forms of the ‘Willow Song’ in _Ottilia_.]

[Footnote 7: Marked by straight bars.]

[Footnote 8: Marked by dotted bars.]

[Footnote 9: _History of English Prosody_ (London, 1906-10), vol. iii, app. iii.]

[Footnote 10: _Very_ confusedly on the trisyllabic side or ear: for ‘In th’ [)e]ven[)i]ng’ is a very awkward dactyl, and ‘th’ [)e]ven[=i]ng wh[=i]sp’ not a much cleverer anapaest, while the same remark applies to ‘fr[=a]gr[)a]nt f[)i]eld’ and ‘w[=i]th r[=o]s[)e]s’ and their anapaestic counterparts.]

[Footnote 11: The extraordinary complexity of the editions of Cleveland has been glanced at above. The following summary will at least give the reader some idea of the facts, and the two original Prefaces will extra-illustrate these facts with some views of causes. It need only be added here that the principle of the collection now given is, of course, to exclude everything that is certainly _not_ Cleveland’s: and, in giving what certainly and probably is his, to arrange the items as far as possible in the order of their publication in the author’s lifetime, though the impossibility of working with an actually complete collection of all the issues before one may have occasioned some error here. In the following abstract only the _Poems_ are referred to, as they alone concern us.

The original collection is contained in _The Character of a London Diurnal_ [prose] with several select _Poems_, London, 1647. This was reprinted in the same year and the next so often that some admit _thirteen_ different issues (of course, as was usual at the time, sometimes only ‘stop-press’ batches with slight changes made in what is practically the same edition), while no one I think has allowed less than _five_. There are substantive additions in several of these, but the singular characteristic of the whole, and indeed of Cleveland’s published _Poems_ generally, is that part of the matter, even in the very earliest issue, is certainly not his: and that in very early forms these pieces were coolly headed ‘Uncertain Authors’. The extent to which this jumbling and misattributing went on in the seventeenth century is generally if not very precisely known from the famous cases of _Sic Vita_ (_v. inf._, on Bishop King, &c.), and of the epitaph sometimes assigned to Browne, more usually to Jonson. Another almost equally strange, though perhaps not so commonly known, is the assignment of some of the poems of a writer of position like the dramatist James Shirley to Carew. But Cleveland must have been rather exceptionally careless of his work during his life, and he was treated with exceptional impudence (see Williamson’s _Preface_) after his death. The process went on in 1651, to which two issues are assigned, with three or four pretty certainly spurious additions, while 1653 and 1654 each saw two more, the last being printed again in 1656 and 1657. This last was also the last printed in Cleveland’s lifetime.

But he was hardly dead when in 1659 two different issues, each of them many times reprinted, took the most astounding liberties with his name. The first foisted in more than thirty pieces by Robert Fletcher, the translator of Martial. The other, calling itself _Cleveland Revived_, contains the remarkable and perfectly frank explanation, given below, of the principles on which the work of Mr. Williamson was conducted, and the critical notions which directed his ‘virtuous endeavours’.

From the disaster of this singular fashion of building a poet’s monument out of the fragments of other people’s work, Cleveland may be said to have never been entirely relieved. For though twenty years later, in 1677 _Clievelandi Vindiciae_ (Preface and full title again subjoined) undertook the task and provided a sort of standard (which may, however, be over-valued), ten years later still, in 1687, the purged collection was reissued with all the spurious matter from previous ones heaped again on it, and this, with a fresh reissue (new title-paged and with a pasted-on finis[A]) in 1699, appear to be the commonest copies that occur.

In such a tangle it is not easy to know how to proceed, and I had made and discarded several plans before I fixed upon that actually adopted. I have taken the edition of 1653, which, with its reprints almost unaltered to 1657, represents the latest text current during the author’s life and during a full lustrum of that. The contents of this I have printed, putting its few _spuria_ in italic, in the order in which they there appear. Next, I have given a few additions from 1677 (the only one of the later accessible editions which even pretends to give Cleveland, the whole Cleveland, and nothing but Cleveland) and other sources. As was notified above, complete _apparatus criticus_ is not attempted in a text with such a history, for this would only suit a complete edition of Cleveland’s whole works: but variants of apparent importance are supplied. I should add that while I myself have for many years possessed the _textus quasi-receptus_ of 1677, the exceeding kindness of Mr. Case left on my shelves–for a time disgracefully long as far as I am concerned–copies of 1653 itself, 1654, 1659, 1662 (with the ‘exquisite remains’ of Dick, Tom, and Harry), 1665, 1668, 1669 (with the letters added), and the _omnium gatherums_ of 1687 and 1699. The Bodleian copies of the _Poems_ of 1647, 1651, 1653, 1654, 1657, 1659, 1662, 1668, 1669, 1677, 1687 have also been used to check the collations; and the stitched quartos of _The King’s Disguise_ (undated, but known to be 1647) and the _News from Newcastle_, 1651. The British Museum broadside of _The Scots’ Apostasy_ has also been collated. Mr. Berdan’s edition I have already mentioned. I have treated the text, as far as modernization of spelling goes, on the same principles as in preceding volumes.[B] ]

[Footnote A: This is apparently peculiar to some, perhaps to one, copy. The British Museum, Bodleian, &c. copies have it not.]

[Footnote B: Since the above Introduction was first written an additional revision of the texts has been made by Mr. Percy Simpson with assistance from Mr. Thorn-Drury, as referred to in the General Preface of this volume. There can be no doubt that their labours, superadded to those of Professor Case, have enabled me to put forth in this edition a text infinitely superior to any previous one, though my part of the credit is the least. Yet, after all, I dare say Cleveland remains, as he has been impartially described, ‘a terrible tangle’.]

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface of _Cleaveland Revived_ 15

Preface of _Clievelandi Vindiciae_ 17

POEMS FROM THE 1653 EDITION: To the State of Love 19 The Hecatomb to his Mistress 21 Upon Sir Thomas Martin 24 On the Memory of Mr. Edward King 26 Upon an Hermaphrodite 28 The Author’s Hermaphrodite 30 * _To the Hectors upon the unfortunate death of H. Compton_ 32 Square-Cap 33 Upon Phillis walking in a morning before sun-rising 35 Upon a Miser that made a great feast, and the next day died for grief 36 A Young Man to an Old Woman courting him 39 To Mrs. K. T. 41 A Fair Nymph scorning a Black Boy courting her 42 A Dialogue between two Zealots upon the &c. in the Oath 43 Smectymnuus, or the Club-Divines 45 The Mixed Assembly 49 The King’s Disguise 52 The Rebel Scot 56 The Scots’ Apostasy 60 Rupertismus 62 Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford 67 An Elegy upon the Archbishop of Canterbury 68 * _On I. W. A .B. of York_ 69 Mark Antony 71 The Author’s Mock Song to Mark Antony 72 How the Commencement grows new 73 The Hue and Cry after Sir John Presbyter 75 The Antiplatonic 77 Fuscara, or the Bee Errant 79 * _An Elegy upon Doctor Chad[d]erton, the first Master of Emanuel College in Cambridge_ 81 * _Mary’s Spikenard_ 82 To Julia to expedite her Promise 83

POEMS IN 1677 BUT NOT IN 1653: Upon Princess Elizabeth, born the night before New Year’s Day 85 The General Eclipse 85 Upon the King’s Return from Scotland 86

POEMS CERTAINLY OR PROBABLY GENUINE, NOT IN 1653 OR 1677: An Elegy on Ben Jonson 87 News from Newcastle 88 An Elegy upon King Charles the First 92

As stated above, it has been thought better to follow the miscellaneous arrangement of _1653_ than the classified but not strictly chronological one of _1677_. For those, however, who may desire it, the chronological order of the _political_ poems is here added: 1637-8, _Princess Elizabeth’s Birth_; 1640, _A Dialogue_; 1641, _Epitaph on Strafford_, _Smectymnuus_, _The King’s Return_; 1642, _Rupertismus_; 1643, _Upon Sir Thomas Martin_, _The Mixed Assembly_; 1643-4, _The Rebel Scot_, _The Scots’ Apostasy_; 1645, _The Hue and Cry_, _Elegy on Laud_, _The General Eclipse_, _The King’s Disguise_; 1649, _Elegy on Charles I_.

_Preface of Cleaveland Revived_

To the Discerning Reader.

Worthy Friend, there is a saying, _Once well done, and ever done_; the wisest men have so considerately acted in their times, as by their learned works to build their own monuments, such as might eternize them to future ages: our Jonson named his, Works, when others were called Plays, though they cost him much of the lamp and oil; yet he so writ, as to oblige posterity to admire them. Our deceased Hero, Mr. Cleveland, knew how to difference legitimate births from abortives, his mighty genius anvilled out what he sent abroad, as his informed mind knew how to distinguish betwixt writing much and well; a few of our deceased poet’s pages being worth cartloads of the scribblers of these times. It was my fortune to be in Newark, when it was besieged, where I saw a few [some] manuscripts of Mr. Cleveland’s. Amongst others I have heard that he writ of the Treaty at Uxbridge, as I have been informed since by a person I intrusted to speak with one of Mr. Cleveland’s noble friends, who received him courteously, and satisfied his inquiries; as concerning the papers that were left in his custody, more particularly of the Treaty at Uxbridge, that it was not finished, nor any of his other papers fit for the press. They were offered to the judicious consideration of one of the most accomplished persons of our age, he refusing to have them in any further examination, as he did not conceive that they could be published without some injury to Mr. Cleveland; from which time they have remained sealed and locked up: neither can I wonder at this obstruction, when I consider the disturbances our author met with in the time of the siege, how scarce and bad the paper was, the ink hardly to be discerned on it. The intimacy I had with Mr. Cleveland before and since these civil wars, gained most of these papers from him, it being not the least of his misfortunes, out of the love he had to pleasure his friends, to be unfurnished with his own manuscripts, as I have heard him say often. He was not so happy as to have any considerable collection of his own papers, they being dispersed amongst his friends; some whereof when he writ for them, he had no other answer, but that they were lost, or through the often reading, transcribing, or folding of them, worn to pieces. So that though he knew where he formerly bestowed some of them, yet they were not to be regained. For which reason, the poems he had left in his hands being so few, [and] of so inconsiderable [small] a volume, he could not (though he was often solicited) with honour to himself give his consent to the publishing of them, though indeed most of his former printed poems were truly his own, except such as have been lately added, to make up the volume. At the first some few of his verses were printed with the[2] character of the London Diurnal, a stitched pamphlet in quarto. Afterwards, as I have heard Mr. Cleveland say, the copies of verses that he communicated to his friends, the book-seller by chance meeting with them, being added to his book, they sold him another impression; in like manner such small additions (though but a paper or two of his incomparable verses or prose) posted off other editions, [whereas this edition hath the happiness to flourish with the remainder of Mr. Cleveland’s last never before printed pieces.] I acknowledge some few of these papers I received [many of these last new printed papers] from one of Mr. Cleveland’s near acquaintance, which when I sent to his ever to be honoured friend of Grays-Inn, he had not at that time the leisure to peruse them; but for what he had read of them, he told the person I intrusted, that he did believe them to be Mr. Cleveland’s, he having formerly spoken of such papers of his, that were abroad in the hands of his friends, whom he could not remember. My intention was to reserve the collection of these manuscripts for my own private use; but finding many of these I had in my hands already published in the former poems, not knowing what further proceedings might attend the forwardness of the press, I thought myself concerned, not out of any worldly [unworthy] ends of profit, but out of a true affection to my deceased friend, to publish these his never [other] before extant pieces in Latin and English and to make this to be somewhat [like] a volume for the study. Some other poems are intermixed, such as the reader shall find to be of such persons as were for the most part Mr. Cleveland’s contemporaries; some of them no less eminently known to the three nations. I hope the world cannot be so far mistaken in his genuine muse, as not to discern his pieces from any of the other poems; neither can I believe there are any persons so unkind, as not candidly to entertain the heroic fancies of the other gentlemen that are worthily placed to live in this volume. Some of their poems, contrary to my expectation–I being at such a distance–I have since heard[3] were before in print, but as they are excellently good and so few, the [but in this second edition I have crossed them out, only reserving those that were excellently good, and never before extant. The] reader (I hope) will the more freely accept them. Thus having ingenuously satisfied thee in these particulars, I shall not need to insert more; but that I have, to prevent surreptitious editions, published this collection; that by erecting this Pyramid of Honour, I might oblige posterity to perpetuate their memories, which is the highest ambition of him, who is,

Newark. Nov. 21, 1658.

Yours in all virtuous endeavours, E. WILLIAMSON.

[Footnote 1: This singular production is, in the original, punctuated after a fashion very suitable, in its entire irrationality, to the sentiments of its writer; but I have taken the liberty (and no other) of relieving the reader of an additional burden by at least separating the sentences. The second edition of 1660 shows some alterations which are given above in brackets.

Whether Mr. Williamson was one of the most impudent persons in the world, or merely (which seems more probable) an abject fool, may be left to the reader to determine. The thing does not seem to require much, if any, annotation. The author, I think, is not otherwise known, and the name is common enough. The well-known Secretary Williamson must have been his contemporary, and may have had some connexion with our paragon besides that of Cavalier principles. But _he_ was Joseph.]

[Footnote 2: ‘a character’ 1662 (third edition).]

[Footnote 3: ‘I have since heard’ omitted in 1662.]

The Stationer to the Reader.

Courteous Reader, thy free Acceptance of the former edition, encouraged me so far as to use my best diligence to gain what still remained in the hands of the Author’s friends. I acknowledge myself to be obliged to Mr. Williamson, whose worthy example Mr. Cleveland’s other honourers have since pursued. I shall not trouble thee, Reader, with any further Apologies, but only subscribe Mr. W. W. his last Verses in his following Elegy on Mr. Cleveland.

That Plagiary that can filch but one Conceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown, At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight, Steal Beams, and make ’em pass for his own light.

To the Right Worshipful and Reverend Francis Turner, D.D., Master of St. John’s College in Cambridge, and to the Worthy Fellows of the same College.

GENTLEMEN,

That we interrupt your more serious studies with the offer of this piece, the injury that hath been and is done to the deceased author’s ashes not only pleadeth our excuse, but engageth you (whose once he was, and within whose walls this standard of wit was first set up) in the same quarrel with us.

Whilst Randolph and Cowley lie embalmed in their own native wax, how is the name and memory of Cleveland equally profaned by those that usurp, and those that blaspheme it?–by those that are ambitious to lay their cuckoo’s eggs in his nest, and those that think to raise up Ph[oe]nixes of wit by firing his spicy bed about him?

We know you have, not without passionate resentments, beheld the prostitution of his name in some late editions vended under it, wherein his orations are murthered over and over in barbarous Latin, and a more barbarous translation: and wherein is scarce one or other poem of his own to commute for all the rest. At least every Cuirassier of his hath a fulsome dragooner behind him, and Venus is again unequally yoked with a sooty anvil-beater. Cleveland thus revived dieth another death.

You cannot but have beheld with like zealous indignation how enviously our late mushroom-wits look up at him because he overdroppeth them, and snarl at his brightness as dogs at the Moon.

Some of these grand Sophys will not allow him the reputation of wit at all: yet how many such authors must be creamed and spirited to make up his Fuscara?[2] And how many of their slight productions may be gigged[3] out of one of his pregnant words? There perhaps you may find some leaf-gold, here massy wedges; there some scattered rays, here a galaxy; there some loose fancy frisking in the air, here Wit’s Zodiac.

The quarrel in all this is upbraiding merit, and eminence his crime. His towering[4] fancy scareth so high a pitch that they fly like shades below him. The torrent thereof (which riseth far above their high water mark) drowneth their levels. Usurping upon the State Poetic of the time, he hath brought in such insolent measures of Wit and Language that, despairing to imitate, they must study to understand. That alone is Wit with them to which they are commensurate, and what exceedeth their scantling[5] is monstrous.

Thus they deifie[6] his Wit and Fancy as the clown the plump oyster when he could not crack it. And now instead of that strenuous masculine style which breatheth in this author, we have only an enervous effeminate froth offered, as if they had taken the salivating pill before they set pen to paper. You must hold your breath in the perusal lest the jest vanish by blowing on.

Another blemish in this monster of perfection is the exuberance of his fancy. His manna lieth so thick upon the ground they loathe it. When he should only fan, he with hurricanos of wit stormeth the sense, and doth not so much delight his reader, as oppress and overwhelm him.

To cure this excess, their frugal wit hath reduced the world to a Lessian Diet.[7] If perhaps they entertain their reader with one good thought (as these new Dictators affect to speak) he may sit down and say Grace over it: the rest is words and nothing else.

We will leave them therefore to the most proper vengeance, to humour themselves with the perusal of their own poems: and leave the barber to rub their thick skulls with bran[8] until they are fit for musk. Only we will leave this friendly advice with them; that they have one eye upon John Tradescant’s executor,[9] lest among his other Minims of Art and Nature he expose their slight conceits: and another upon the Royal Society, lest they make their poems the counterbalance when they intend to weigh air.

From these unequal censures we appeal to such competent judges as yourselves, in whose just value of him Cleveland shall live the wonder of his own, and the pattern of succeeding ages. And although we might (upon several accompts) bespeak your affections, yet (abstracting from these) we submit him to your severer judgements, and doubt not but he will find that patronage from you which is desired and expected by

Your humble Servants.

J. L. S. D.[10]

[Footnote 1: Here we get into _terra cognita_ as regards authorship. The editors had been, both of them, Cleveland’s pupils at St. John’s. ‘J. L.’ was John Lake (1624-1689), a man of great distinction–at this time Vicar of Leeds and Prebendary of York, later Bishop, first of Sodor and Man and then of Chichester, who while he held the last-named see had the double glory of withstanding James II as one of ‘the Seven’, and of refusing the Oath to William. ‘S. D.’ was also a Yorkshire clergyman–Samuel Drake–who had not only studied under Cleveland at Cambridge, but fought under him at Newark. He became Vicar of Pontefract; but (if the _D.N.B._ is right in assigning his death to the year 1673) his work on the great vindication of his tutor must have been done some time before publication. Francis Turner (1638-1700), of a much younger generation and an Oxford man, though admitted _ad eundem_ at Cambridge in 1662, had been Master of St. John’s College since 1670, and was therefore properly selected as chief dedicatee. He was destined to be connected with Lake again in the great actions above noted as Bishop of Ely, and for the last ten years of his life was an active Jacobite agent.]

[Footnote 2: The description of _Cleaveland Revived_ in the third paragraph is perfectly just, and ‘anvil-beater’ is an obvious echo-gibe at Williamson’s own phraseology. It is less certain what ‘grand Sophys’ are specially referred to further on–but Dryden _might_ be one.]

[Footnote 3: A Clevelandish word; _v. infra_, p. 65 (_Rupertismus_, l. 120).]

[Footnote 4: In orig., as often, ‘touring’, but to print this nowadays would invite misconception.]

[Footnote 5: ‘Scantling’ is used in various senses. Either that of ‘rough draft’ or, as in Taylor, ‘small piece’ would do; but it is at least possible that it is not a noun at all, but a direct participle from the verb to ‘scantle’, found in Drayton, and meaning ‘to be deficient’, ‘come short’. Some, however, prefer the sense ‘dimension’ or ‘measurement’, which would make it a sort of varied repetition of ‘commensurate’.]

[Footnote 6: ‘Deifie’ is of course wrong. ‘Defy’ is likeliest, and in a certain sense (frequent in Elizabethan writers) would do; but ‘decry’ seems wanted.]

[Footnote 7: A common phrase for an earlier ‘Banting’ regime derived from the _Hygiasticon_ (Antwerp, 1623) of Leonard Lessius (1554-1624). I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Comrie, Lecturer on the History of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. The next sentence may, or rather must, be a reference to (in fact, a fling at) Dryden, _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ (vol. i, p. 52, ed. Ker, Oxford, 1900), who censures Cleveland for not giving ‘a _great_ thought’ in ‘words … commonly received’. I owe the reminder of this to Mr. Thorn-Drury.]

[Footnote 8: The use of bran for shampooing is not perhaps so well known as that for poultices, foot-baths, &c. It is always a _softener_ as well as a detergent.]

[Footnote 9: Ashmole.]

[Footnote 10: Perhaps I should add a very few words explaining why I have not made this ‘authenticated’ edition the base of mine. I have not done so because the editors, excellent as was evidently their intention, have after all given us no reasons for their exclusions and inclusions; because, though they have corrected some obvious errors, their readings by no means always intrinsically commend themselves to me; and especially because the distance between 1647 and 1677 reflects itself, to no small degree, in a certain definite _modernisation_ of form, grammatical and prosodic. 1653 has much more _contemporariness_.]

POEMS.

To the State of Love. Or the Senses’ Festival.

I saw a vision yesternight, Enough to sate a Seeker’s sight; I wished myself a Shaker there, And her quick pants my trembling sphere. It was a she so glittering bright, You’d think her soul an Adamite; A person of so rare a frame, Her body might be lined with’ same. Beauty’s chiefest maid of honour, You may break Lent with looking on her. 10 Not the fair Abbess of the skies, With all her nunnery of eyes, Can show me such a glorious prize!

And yet, because ’tis more renown To make a shadow shine, she’s brown; A brown for which Heaven would disband The galaxy, and stars be tanned; Brown by reflection as her eye Deals out the summer’s livery. Old dormant windows must confess 20 Her beams; their glimmering spectacles, Struck with the splendour of her face, Do th’ office of a burning-glass. Now where such radiant lights have shown, No wonder if her cheeks be grown Sunburned, with lustre of her own.

My sight took pay, but (thank my charms!) I now impale her in mine arms; (Love’s compasses confining you, Good angels, to a circle too.) 30 Is not the universe strait-laced When I can clasp it in the waist? My amorous folds about thee hurled, With Drake I girdle in the world; I hoop the firmament, and make This, my embrace, the zodiac. How would thy centre take my sense When admiration doth commence At the extreme circumference?

Now to the melting kiss that sips 40 The jellied philtre of her lips; So sweet there is no tongue can praise ‘t Till transubstantiate with a taste. Inspired like Mahomet from above By th’ billing of my heavenly dove, Love prints his signets in her smacks, Those ruddy drops of squeezing wax, Which, wheresoever she imparts, They’re privy seals to take up hearts. Our mouths encountering at the sport, 50 My slippery soul had quit the fort, But that she stopped the sally-port.

Next to these sweets, her lips dispense (As twin conserves of eloquence) The sweet perfume her breath affords, Incorporating with her words. No rosary this vot’ress needs– Her very syllables are beads; No sooner ‘twixt those rubies born, But jewels are in ear-rings worn. 60 With what delight her speech doth enter; It is a kiss o’ th’ second venter. And I dissolve at what I hear, As if another Rosamond were Couched in the labyrinth of my ear.

Yet that ‘s but a preludious bliss, Two souls pickeering in a kiss. Embraces do but draw the line, ‘Tis storming that must take her in. When bodies join and victory hovers 70 ‘Twixt the equal fluttering lovers, This is the game; make stakes, my dear! Hark, how the sprightly chanticleer (That Baron Tell-clock of the night) Sounds boutesel to Cupid’s knight. Then have at all, the pass is got, For coming off, oh, name it not! Who would not die upon the spot?

[_To the State of Love, &c._ appeared first _1651_. The stanzas are not divided in the early editions, but are so in _1677_. Carew’s _Rapture_ may have given some suggestions, Apuleius and Lucretius also; but not much is required. The substance is shocking to pure prudery, no doubt; but, as observed in the introduction, there is perhaps more gusto in the execution than in _Fuscara_.

A copy of this poem, with many minor variants, is in Bodleian MS. Tanner 306, fol. 424: it has one noteworthy reading, ‘took sey’, i.e. ‘say’ or ‘assay’–the hunting term–in l. 27.]

[Lines: 2, 3 The use of capitals in the seventeenth century is so erratic that it is dangerous to base much on it. But both ‘Seekers’ and ‘Shakers’ (a variant of ‘Quakers’) were actually among the countless sects of the time, as well of course as ‘Adamites’. _1651_. _1653_, _1654_, and _1657_ have ‘tempt’ for _1677_ ‘sate’.]

[Line: 4 pants _1677_: ‘pulse’ _1651_, _1653_, _1654_, _1657_.]

[Line: 10 ‘You’d break a Lent’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Lines: 11-13 Benlowes’s lines (_v. sup._ i. 356)–

The lady prioress of the cloistered sky, &c.–

are more poetic than these, but may be less original. Even that, however, is uncertain. Both poets, though Benlowes was a good deal the elder, were of St. John’s, and must, even in other ways, have known each other: _Theophila_ appeared a year after the edition in which this poem was first included. But the indebtedness may be the other way, or common to an earlier original, or non-existent.]

[Line: 19 Deals out] The earlier texts have ‘Dazzle’s’, but _1677_ seems here to have introduced the true reading found also in the _MS._ ‘Deals out’ is far more poetical: the eye clothes with its own reflection sky and stars, and earth.]

[Lines: 20-3 The punctuation of all editions, including Mr. Berdan’s, makes these lines either totally unintelligible, or very confused, by putting a stop at ‘spectacles’ and none at ‘beams’. That adopted in the text makes it quite clear.]

[Line: 30 circle] ‘compass’ _1651_, _1653_, evidently wrong.]

[Line: 33 It is not impossible that Aphra Behn had these lines unconsciously in her head when she wrote her own finest passage. Unconsciously, for the drift is quite different; but ‘hurled’, ‘amorous’, and ‘world’ come close together in both.]

[Line: 34 _1651_, _1653_ again ‘compass’ for ‘girdle’.]

[Line: 37 ‘would’, the reading of _1651_, _1653_, infinitely better than ‘could’, that of _1677_.]

[Line: 45 In this pyramidally metaphysical passage Cleveland does not quite play the game. Mahomet’s pigeon did not _kiss_ him. But ‘privy seals to take up hearts’ is very dear to fancy, most delicate, and of liberal conceit. So also ‘jewels are in ear-rings worn’ below; where the game is played to its rigour, though the reader may not at first see it.]

[Line: 46 his] ‘her’ _1651_, _1653_; but it clearly should be ‘his’, which is in _1677_.]

[Line: 53 _1651_, _1653_ read ‘Next to those sweets her lips dispense’, _nescio an melius_.]

[Line: 61 her] ‘our,’ a variant of one edition (_1665_) is all wrong.]

[Line: 62 Mr. Berdan has strangely misinterpreted ‘venter’. The phrase is quite a common one–‘of the second _marriage_.’ The first kiss comes of lip and lip, the second of lip and love.]

[Line: 67 pickeering] ‘marauding’, ‘skirmishing in front of an army’.]

[Line: 70 For ‘join’ [jine] _1651_, _1653_ and others have ‘whine’–suggesting the Latin _gannitus_ frequent in such contexts. But ‘join’ must be right. Professor Gordon points out that the passage is a reminiscence of Donne, in his _Extasie_:

As ‘twixt two equall Armies, Fate Suspends uncertaine victorie, Our soules (which to advance their state Were gone out,) hung ‘twixt her, and mee.(13-16.)

This is contrasted with the bodily ‘entergrafting’ of l. 9, &c.]

[Line: 74 When ‘prose and sense’ came in they were very contemptuous of this Baron Tell-clock. But the image is complete, congruous, and capable of being championed.]

[Line: 75 ‘Boutesel’ of course = ‘boot and saddle’, albeit ’boute’ does not mean ‘boot’.]

The Hecatomb to his Mistress.

Be dumb, you beggars of the rhyming trade, Geld your loose wits and let your Muse be spayed. Charge not the parish with the bastard phrase Of balm, elixir, both the Indias, Of shrine, saint, sacrilege, and such as these Expressions common as your mistresses. Hence, you fantastic postillers in song. My text defeats your art, ties Nature’s tongue, Scorns all her tinselled metaphors of pelf, Illustrated by nothing but herself. 10 As spiders travel by their bowels spun Into a thread, and, when the race is run, Wind up their journey in a living clew, So is it with my poetry and you. From your own essence must I first untwine, Then twist again each panegyric line. Reach then a soaring quill that I may write, As with a Jacob’s staff, to take her height. Suppose an angel, darting through the air, Should there encounter a religious prayer 20 Mounting to Heaven, that Intelligence Should for a Sunday-suit thy breath condense Into a body.–Let me crack a string In venturing higher; were the note I sing Above Heaven’s Ela, should I then decline, And with a deep-mouthed gamut sound the line From pole to pole, I could not reach her worth, Nor find an epithet to set it forth. Metals may blazon common beauties; she Makes pearls and planets humble heraldry. 30 As, then, a purer substance is defined But by a heap of negatives combined, Ask what a spirit is, you’ll hear them cry It hath no matter, no mortality: So can I not define how sweet, how fair; Only I say she ‘s not as others are. For what perfections we to others grant, It is her sole perfection to want. All other forms seem in respect of thee The almanac’s misshaped anatomy, 40 Where Aries head and face, Bull neck and throat, The Scorpion gives the secrets, knees the Goat; A brief of limbs foul as those beasts, or are Their namesake signs in their strange character. As the philosophers to every sense Marry its object, yet with some dispense, And grant them a polygamy with all, And these their common sensibles they call: So is ‘t with her who, stinted unto none, Unites all senses in each action. 50 The same beam heats and lights; to see her well Is both to hear and feel, to taste and smell. For, can you want a palate in your eyes, When each of hers contains a double prize, Venus’s apple? Can your eyes want nose When from each cheek buds forth a fragrant rose? Or can your sight be deaf to such a quick And well-tuned face, such moving rhetoric? Doth not each look a flash of lightning feel Which spares the body’s sheath, and melts the steel? 60 Thy soul must needs confess, or grant thy sense Corrupted with the object’s excellence. Sweet magic, which can make five senses lie Conjured within the circle of an eye! In whom, since all the five are intermixed, Oh now that Scaliger would prove his sixt! Thou man of mouth, that canst not name a she Unless all Nature pay a subsidy, Whose language is a tax, whose musk-cat verse Voids nought but flowers, for thy Muse’s hearse 70 Fitter than Celia’s looks, who in a trice Canst state the long disputed Paradise, And (what Divines hunt with so cold a scent) Canst in her bosom find it resident; Now come aloft, come now, and breathe a vein, And give some vent unto thy daring strain. Say the astrologer who spells the stars, In that fair alphabet reads peace and wars, Mistakes his globe and in her brighter eye Interprets Heaven’s physiognomy. 80 Call her the Metaphysics of her sex, And say she tortures wits as quartans vex Physicians; call her the square circle; say She is the very rule of Algebra. What e’er thou understand’st not, say ‘t of her, For that ‘s the way to write her character. Say this and more, and when thou hopest to raise Thy fancy so as to inclose her praise– Alas poor Gotham, with thy cuckoo-hedge! Hyperboles are here but sacrilege. 90 Then roll up, Muse, what thou hast ravelled out, Some comments clear not, but increase the doubt. She that affords poor mortals not a glance Of knowledge, but is known by ignorance; She that commits a rape on every sense, Whose breath can countermand a pestilence; She that can strike the best invention dead Till baffled poetry hangs down the head– She, she it is that doth contain all bliss, And makes the world but her periphrasis. 100

[_The Hecatomb to his Mistress._] (_1651_.) This poem is perhaps the best text to prove (or endeavour to prove) that Cleveland’s object was really burlesque.]

[Line: 1 you] ‘ye’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 2 _1651_, _1653_ read ‘the’ for ‘your’, and ‘splaid’: ‘spade’ _1677_. ‘Spay’ or ‘splay’ to destroy the reproductive powers of a female.]

[Line: 3 the bastard] _1677_ again alters ‘the’ to ‘your’, which does not seem good.]

[Line: 5 sacrilege] sacrifice _1677_.]

[Line: 6 your] their _1653_, &c.]

[Line: 7 postillers] The word means glossers or commentators on Scripture, and has acquired in several languages a contemptuous meaning from the frequently commonplace and trivial character of such things. ‘ye fantastic’ _1653_.]

[Line: 9 _1651_, _1653_ have ‘his’ for ‘her’, and in the next line ‘his self’ for ‘herself’. The poem is particularly badly printed in this group, and I think the _1677_ editors, in trying to mend it, have mistaken some places. Thus in …]

[Line: 22 They print ‘Would’ for ‘Should’. This may look better at first; but I at least can make no real sense of it. With ‘Should’ I can make some. The poet starts an extravagant comparison in 19-21; continues it in ‘[suppose] that Intelligence should’, &c.; finds it will not do, and breaks it off with the parenthetical ‘Let me’ &c. To bring this out I have inserted the –.]

[Line: 24 _1677_ ‘And venture’, with a full-stop at ‘higher’, not so well; but in …]

[Line: 25 ‘_un_decline’ _1651_, _1653_, &c. is nonsense; while in the next line ‘sound _agen_’ either points to a complete breakdown or indicates that, on the most recent Cockney principles, ‘again’ could be pronounced ‘ag_ine_’ and rhymes _à la_ Mrs. Browning. The text is _1677_.]

[Line: 28 set] shadow _1677_.]

[Line: 35 define] describe _1677_.]

[Line: 37 perfections _1651_, _1653_: perfection _1677_.]

[Line: 43 brief = ‘list’.]

[Line: 44 name-sak’d _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 45 the] your _1677_.]

[Line: 52 _1677_, not nearly so well, ‘see and’ for ‘feel, to’. You want the list of senses completed and summed up by such a palate in ‘see’, which, repeated, spoils all.]

[Line: 54 _1651_, _1653_ have ‘his’ for ‘hers’; but ‘a double prize’ is more vivid if less strictly defensible than ‘the beauteous’ of _1677_. So in 56 _1677_ opens with ‘Seeing each’ instead of ‘When from’–much feebler. But in 57-8 The text, which is _1677_, is better than _1653_:

Or can the sight be deaf _if she but speak_, A well-tuned face, such moving rhetoric?

which indeed is, if not nonsense, most clumsily expressed, even if comma at ‘face’ be deleted.]

[Line: 60 and melts] yet melts _1677_.]

[Line: 66 ‘sixt’ _1651_, _1653_, _1677_.]

[Lines: 70-1 The punctuation of the old texts–no comma at ‘flowers’ and one at ‘hearse’–makes the passage hard to understand. As I have altered this punctuation, it is clear.]

[Line: 73 what Divines] _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘with Divines’.]

[Line: 75 come now _1677_: come, come _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 83 square] squared _1677_. If all this is not burlesque it is very odd.]

[Line: 85 you undertake not _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 91 roll] rouse _1651_, _1653_. ravelled] revealed _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 98 the] her _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 100 The hundred lines making the _heca_tomb–and the metaphysical matter the subject of sacrifice.]

Upon Sir Thomas Martin,

Who subscribed a Warrant thus: ‘We the Knights and Gentlemen of the Committee,’ &c. when there was no Knight but himself.

Hang out a flag and gather pence–A piece Which Afric never bred nor swelling Greece With stories’ tympany, a beast so rare No lecturer’s wrought cap, nor Bartholomew Fair Can match him; nature’s whimsey, that outvies Tradescant and his ark of novelties; The Gog and Magog of prodigious sights, With reverence to your eyes, Sir Thomas Knights. But is this bigamy of titles due? Are you Sir Thomas and Sir Martin too? 10 Issachar couchant ‘twixt a brace of sirs, Thou knighthood in a pair of panniers; Thou, that look’st, wrapped up in thy warlike leather, Like Valentine and Orson bound together; Spurs’ representative! thou, that art able To be a voider to King Arthur’s table; Who, in this sacrilegious mass of all, It seems has swallowed Windsor’s Hospital; Pair-royal-headed Cerberus’s cousin. Hercules’ labours were a baker’s dozen, 20 Had he but trumped on thee, whose forked neck Might well have answered at the font for Smec. But can a knighthood on a knighthood lie? Metal on metal is ill armory; And yet the known Godfrey of Bouillon’s coat Shines in exception to the herald’s vote. Great spirits move not by pedantic laws; Their actions, though eccentric, state the cause, And Priscian bleeds with honour. Caesar thus Subscribed two consuls with one Julius. 30 Tom, never oaded squire, scarce yeoman-high, Is Tom twice dipped, knight of a double dye! Fond man, whose fate is in his name betrayed! It is the setting sun doubles his shade. But it ‘s no matter, for amphibious he May have a knight hanged, yet Sir Tom go free!

[_Upon Sir Thomas Martin._] (_1651_.) We here turn to the other side of Cleveland’s work, where jest and earnest are combined in a very different fashion. Martin was a member of the Committee of Sequestration appointed under the Act of April 1, 1643, which, in a more fearless and thoroughgoing fashion than that of some later legislation, confiscated in a lump the property of certain bishops and of political opponents generally. The sequestrators for Cambridge were this man and two other knights–Sir Dudley North and Sir John Cutts; with two esquires–a Captain Symonds and Dudley Pope.]

[Line: 1 ‘pence apiece’ _1651_, which makes doubtful sense. _1653_, _1677_, and all others before me, have ‘pence a piece’, which I believe to be careless printing for the text above. The ‘piece’ is the same as the ‘beast’, and the brackets which follow in the originals are a printer’s error. ‘Piece’, in this sense of ‘rare object’, is not uncommon. Cf. Prospero’s ‘Thy mother was a _piece_ of _virtue_.’ ‘Pence apiece’ (about the same as the Scotch fishwife’s ‘pennies each’), if not, as Mr. Berdan says, ‘proverbial’, is certainly a perfectly common expression, still I think existing, but it is difficult to see how what follows can thus suit it. ‘Which’ must have an antecedent.]

[Line: 4 ‘Bartlemew’ _1651_, _1653_: ‘Bartholmew’ _1654_. The word was, of course, pronounced ‘Bartlemy,’ and almost dissyllabically.]

[Line: 5 that outvies] _1651_, _1653_ ‘one that outvies’, perhaps rightly.]

[Line: 6 Tredeskin _1651_, _1653_: Tredescant _1677_.]

[Line: 11 The reference to the animal between two burdens to whom Issachar is biblically compared (Gen. xlix. 14) is perhaps meant to be additionally pointed by ‘Sir _Martin_’, the latter being one of the story-names of the much-enduring beast.]

[Line: 16 voider] The servant who clears the table; also, but here less probably, the tray or basket used for the purpose.]

[Line: 18 The ‘Poor Knights of Windsor’ having fallen, like other institutions, into the maw of plebeian and Puritan plunder.]

[Line: 19 The hyphen at ‘Pair-royal’, which Mr. Berdan has dropped, is important, the term being technical in certain card-games and meaning _three_ cards of the same value–kings, &c.]

[Line: 21 trumped on thee = turned thee up like a trump.]

[Line: 22 ‘Smec’–of course–‘tymnuus’, and used both for the sake of contempt and as denoting a plurality of person.]

[Line: 24 The principle of this line is of course part of the A B C of the more modern and dogmatic heraldry: the application will lie either on sword or spur, the two characteristic insignia of knighthood and both metallic. _1677_ changed ‘ill armory’ to ‘false heraldry’, and Scott was probably thinking of this line when he made Prince John and Wamba between them use the phrase in _Ivanhoe_.]

[Line: 25 Godfrey’s arms as King of Jerusalem–five golden crosses on a silver shield–were commonly quoted, as Cleveland quotes them, in special exception to the rule. But my friend Mr. F. P. Barnard, Professor of Mediaeval Archaeology in the University of Liverpool, to whom I owe the materials of this note, tells me that he has collected many other cases, English and foreign. The objection, however, was originally a practical one, metal on metal and colour on colour being difficult to distinguish _in the field_. It passed into a technical rule later.]

[Line: 29 Priscian’s head may not have bled here before it was broken by Butler; but the dates of the _writing_ of _Hudibras_ are quite uncertain.]

[Line: 31 oaded] This singular word is in all the editions I have seen. _1699_ makes it ‘loaded’, with no sense that I can see in this passage. Can it be ‘oathèd’–be sworn either to the commission of the peace or something else that gave the title ‘Esquire’? ‘Oad’, however, = woad; cf. Minsheu, _Guide into Tongues_, 1617 ‘Oade, _an hearbe_. Vide _Woade_’. This would certainly suit the next line.]

On the memory of Mr. Edward King, drowned in the Irish Seas.

I like not tears in tune, nor do I prize His artificial grief who scans his eyes. Mine weep down pious beads, but why should I Confine them to the Muse’s rosary? I am no poet here; my pen ‘s the spout Where the rain-water of mine eyes run out In pity of that name, whose fate we see Thus copied out in grief’s hydrography. The Muses are not mermaids, though upon His death the ocean might turn Helicon. 10 The sea’s too rough for verse; who rhymes upon ‘t With Xerxes strives to fetter th’ Hellespont. My tears will keep no channel, know no laws To guide their streams, but (like the waves, their cause) Run with disturbance, till they swallow me As a description of his misery. But can his spacious virtue find a grave Within th’ imposthumed bubble of a wave? Whose learning if we sound, we must confess The sea but shallow, and him bottomless. 20 Could not the winds to countermand thy death With their whole card of lungs redeem thy breath? Or some new island in thy rescue peep To heave thy resurrection from the deep, That so the world might see thy safety wrought With no less wonder than thyself was thought? The famous Stagirite (who in his life Had Nature as familiar as his wife) Bequeathed his widow to survive with thee, Queen Dowager of all philosophy. 30 An ominous legacy, that did portend Thy fate and predecessor’s second end. Some have affirmed that what on earth we find, The sea can parallel in shape and kind. Books, arts, and tongues were wanting, but in thee Neptune hath got an university. We’ll dive no more for pearls; the hope to see Thy sacred reliques of mortality Shall welcome storms, and make the seamen prize His shipwreck now more than his merchandise. 40 He shall embrace the waves, and to thy tomb As to a Royaller Exchange shall come. What can we now expect? Water and fire, Both elements our ruin do conspire. And that dissolves us which doth us compound: One Vatican was burnt, another drowned. We of the gown our libraries must toss To understand the greatness of our loss; Be pupils to our grief, and so much grow In learning, as our sorrows overflow. 50 When we have filled the rundlets of our eyes We’ll issue ‘t forth and vent such elegies As that our tears shall seem the Irish Seas, We floating islands, living Hebrides.

[_On the Memory of Mr. Edward King._] First printed in the memorial volume of Cambridge verse to King, _1638_; included in the _Poems_ of _1651_. It is of course easy (and it may be feared that it has too often been done) to contrast this disadvantageously with _Lycidas_. A specific or generic comparison, bringing out the difference of ephemeral and eternal style in verse, will not be found unprofitable and is almost as easy to make. No reader of Milton–and any one who has not read Milton is very unlikely to read this–can need information on King or on the circumstances of his death. _1651_ and _1653_ add a spurious duplicate, the last fourteen lines of W. More’s elegy which followed Cleveland’s in the Cambridge volume.

* _On the Same._

Tell me no more of Stoics: canst thou tell Who ’twas that when the waves began to swell, The ship to sink, sad passengers to call ‘Master, we perish’–slept secure of all? Remember this, and him that waking kept A mind as constant as he did that slept. Canst thou give credit to his zeal and love That went to Heaven, and to those flames above, Wrapt in a fiery chariot? Since I heard Who ’twas, that on his knees the vessel steered With hands bolt up to Heaven, since I see As yet no signs of his mortality,– Pardon me, Reader, if I say he’s gone The self-same journey in a wat’ry one. ]

[Line: 1 do] will _1638_.]

[Line: 2 who] that _1638_.]

[Line: 6 _1651_ ‘runs’: all other editions (including _1638_) ‘run’. The attraction to ‘eyes’ is one of the commonest of things.]

[Line: 10 The everlasting confusion of ‘mount’ and ‘fount’ occurs in ‘Helicon.’]

[Line: 26 wonder] miracle _1638_.]

[Line: 34 _1638_, _1677_, and later editions read, harmlessly but needlessly, ‘_for_ shape’.]

[Line: 46 ‘Vatican’ used (as Mr. Berdan justly notes) as = ‘library’.

Cleveland’s warmest defenders must admit that this epicede is a triumph of ‘frigidity’. And the personal note which _Lycidas_ itself has been unfairly accused of wanting is here non-existent to my eyes, though some have discovered it.]

Upon an Hermaphrodite.

Sir, or Madam, choose you whether! Nature twists you both together And makes thy soul two garbs confess, Both petticoat and breeches dress. Thus we chastise the God of Wine With water that is feminine, Until the cooler nymph abate His wrath, and so concorporate. Adam, till his rib was lost, Had both sexes thus engrossed. 10 When Providence our Sire did cleave, And out of Adam carved Eve, Then did man ’bout wedlock treat, To make his body up complete. Thus matrimony speaks but thee In a grave solemnity. For man and wife make but one right Canonical hermaphrodite. Ravel thy body, and I find In every limb a double kind. 20 Who would not think that head a pair That breeds such factions in the hair? One half so churlish in the touch That, rather than endure so much I would my tender limbs apparel In Regulus’s nailèd barrel: But the other half so small, And so amorous withal, That Cupid thinks each hair doth grow A string for his invis’ble bow. 30 When I look babies in thine eyes Here Venus, there Adonis, lies. And though thy beauty be high noon Thy orb contains both sun and moon. How many melting kisses skip ‘Twixt thy male and female lip– Twixt thy upper brush of hair And thy nether beard’s despair? When thou speak’st (I would not wrong Thy sweetness with a double tongue) 40 But in every single sound A perfect dialogue is found. Thy breasts distinguish one another, This the sister, that the brother. When thou join’st hands my ear still fancies The nuptial sound, ‘I, John, take Frances.’ Feel but the difference soft and rough; This is a gauntlet, that a muff. Had sly Ulysses, at the sack Of Troy, brought thee his pedlar’s pack, 50 And weapons too, to know Achilles From King Lycomedes’ Phillis, His plot had failed; this hand would feel The needle, that the warlike steel. When music doth thy pace advance, Thy right leg takes the left to dance. Nor is ‘t a galliard danced by one, But a mixed dance, though alone. Thus every heteroclite part Changes gender but thy heart. 60 Nay those, which modesty can mean But dare not speak, are epicene. That gamester needs must overcome That can play both Tib and Tom. Thus did Nature’s mintage vary, Coining thee a Philip and Mary.

[_Upon an Hermaphrodite._] (_1647_.) This poem appeared in the 1640 and all subsequent editions of Randolph’s poems and in the 1653 edition of Beaumont’s. Beaumont had preceded Cleveland as a ‘dumping-ground’ for odds and ends of all kinds. But see the following poem.]

[Line: 1 _1647_ and _1651_ ‘Madam_e_’, which is not English, and which spoils the run of the verse.]

[Line: 2 twists] _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, and others ‘twist’d’, which is very like the time.]

[Line: 10 both sexes] _1677_ and later ‘_the_ sexes’.]

[Line: 13 I do not know whether it is worth while to point out that catalectic or seven-syllabled lines with trochaic effect (cf. 9. this, 16, and others), as well as complete trochaic dimeters (1, 2, &c.), occur more frequently here than in _The Senses’ Festival_, _Fuscara_, &c. This, though of course Milton has it, was rather more frequent in Randolph’s generation than in Cleveland’s.]

[Line: 22 _1647_, _1651_, _1677_, and later ‘faction’, but ‘factions’ _1653_.]

[Line: 25 _1651_, _1653_ &c. ‘_It_ would’, which can hardly be right. On the other hand _1677_ and its follower have ‘_With_ Regulus his’ (l. 26).]

[Line: 31 It can hardly be necessary to interpret this famous and charming phrase.]

[Line: 48 Line shortened to the trochaic run in _1677_, &c. by dropping ‘is’.]

[Line: 52 ‘Lycomedes’ puzzled the earlier printers, who in _1647_ and _1651_ make it ‘Nicomedes’ (corrupted by _1653_ to ‘Nichomedes’)–a curiously awkward blunder, as it happens.]

[Line: 56 the left _1647_, _1653_: thy left _1651_.]

[Line: 58 The late edition of _1687_, when ‘regularity’ was becoming a fetish, inserted ‘all’ before ‘alone’, though _1677_–its standard for the genuine poems–has not got it, and it is not wanted.]

[Line: 59 heteroclite part] _1677_ and its followers, puzzled by this, the original, reading, read ‘apart’ (apostrophating ‘Het’roclite’), the sense of which is not clear; while Mr. Berdan would emend to ‘heteroclitic’, which is unnecessary. Cleveland may well have scanned ‘heter[=o]clite’, which is by no means an extravagant licence, and has been paralleled by Longfellow in ‘Eur[=o]clydon’. Indeed, since I wrote this note Mr. Simpson has furnished me with a parallel of ‘heter[=o]clite’ itself from Harl. MS. 4126, f. 102.]

[Line: 60 but thy heart _1649_: not the heart _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 62 ‘But’ _1677_: ‘And’ in earlier texts.]

The Author’s Hermaphrodite.

(Made after Mr. Randolph’s death, yet inserted into his Poems.)

Problem of sexes! Must thou likewise be As disputable in thy pedigree? Thou twins in one, in whom Dame Nature tries To throw less than aums ace upon two dice. Wert thou served up two in one dish, the rather To split thy sire into a double father? True, the world’s scales are even; what the main In one place gets, another quits again. Nature lost one by thee, and therefore must Slice one in two to keep her number just. 10 Plurality of livings is thy state, And therefore mine must be impropriate. For, since the child is mine and yet the claim Is intercepted by another’s name, Never did steeple carry double truer; His is the donative and mine the cure. Then say, my Muse (and without more dispute), Who ’tis that fame doth superinstitute. The Theban wittol, when he once descries Jove is his rival, falls to sacrifice. 20 That name hath tipped his horns; see, on his knees! A health to Hans-in-kelder Hercules! Nay, sublunary cuckolds are content To entertain their fate with compliment; And shall not he be proud whom Randolph deigns To quarter with his Muse both arms and brains? Gramercy Gossip, I rejoice to see She’th got a leap of such a barbary. Talk not of horns, horns are the poet’s crest; For, since the Muses left their former nest 30 To found a nunnery in Randolph’s quill, Cuckold Parnassus is a forked hill. But stay, I’ve waked his dust, his marble stirs And brings the worms for his compurgators. Can ghost have natural sons? Say, Og, is’t meet Penance bear date after the winding sheet? Were it a Ph[oe]nix (as the double kind May seem to prove, being there’s two combined) I would disclaim my right, and that it were The lawful issue of his ashes swear. 40 But was he dead? Did not his soul translate Herself into a shop of lesser rate; Or break up house, like an expensive lord That gives his purse a sob and lives at board? Let old Pythagoras but play the pimp And still there’s hopes ‘t may prove his bastard imp. But I’m profane; for, grant the world had one With whom he might contract an union, They two were one, yet like an eagle spread, I’ th’ body joined, but parted in the head. 50 For you, my brat, that pose the Porph’ry Chair, Pope John, or Joan, or whatsoe’er you are, You are a nephew; grieve not at your state, For all the world is illegitimate. Man cannot get a man, unless the sun Club to the act of generation. The sun and man get man, thus Tom and I Are the joint fathers of my poetry. For since, blest shade, thy verse is male, but mine O’ th’ weaker sex, a fancy feminine, 60 We’ll part the child, and yet commit no slaughter; So shall it be thy son, and yet my daughter.

[_The Author’s Hermaphrodite._] (_1647_.) The note, which appears in all editions, seems evidently conclusive as to this poem. Moreover the quibbles are right Clevelandish.]

[Line: 7 ‘main’ is a little ambiguous, or may appear so from the recent mention of dice. But that sense will hardly come in, and Cleveland was probably thinking of the famous passage in Spenser (Artegall’s dispute with the giant, _F. Q._ v. ii) as to the washing away and washing up of the _sea_. Yet ‘main’ _might_ mean ‘stock’. The reading of ‘gets place’ in one edition (_1662_), rather notable for blunders, cannot be listened to.]

[Line: 15 steeple] By synecdoche for ‘church’ or ‘parish’.]

[Line: 16 donative] A play on words, as also in ‘cure’.]

[Line: 19 Theban wittol] Amphitryon.]

[Line: 22 Hans-in-kelder] = ‘unborn’.

[Line: 28 She’th] _1667_ changes to ‘Th’hast’. barbary] ‘Barbs’ or Spanish horses were imported for the stud as early as Anglo-Saxon times; but before Cleveland’s day actual Arabs had been tried.]

[Line: 34 compurgators] persons who swear in a court of law to the innocence or the veracity of some other person.]

[Line: 35 I was unable to say why the King of Bashan comes in here, except that the comparison of the _Dialogue on the &c._, ‘Og the great _commissary_’, and the put case about ‘penance’, suggest some church lawyer of portly presence. But Mr. Simpson and Mr. Thorn-Drury have traced the thing from this point as follows:

Cf. _A Dialogue upon the &c._, l. 47 ‘Og the great commissary’, where the copy in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 26, fol. 94 _b_, has a marginal note ‘Roan’. This was Dr. William Roan, of whom an account is given in the _Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum_, Division 1, ‘Political and Personal Satires’, p. 156: ‘Dr. Roane was one of the most eminent doctors who acted in Laud’s Ecclesiastical Courts; he fled from the indignation of the House of Commons, and is frequently alluded to in pamphlets and broadsides of the time (see _Times Alteration_, Jan. 8, 1641,… _Old News newly Revived_, Dec. 21, 1640,…and _The Spirituall Courts Epitomised_, June 26, 1641).’ The pamphlet illustrated in this note is _A Letter front Rhoan in France Written by Doctor Roane one of the Doctors of the late Sicke Commons, to his Fellow Doctor of the Civill Law. Dated 28, of Iune last past. With an Ellegy written by his oune hand upon the death and buriall of the said Doctors Commons. Printed in this happy yeare, 1641_. (Thomason’s copy dated June 28.)

Mr. Thorn-Drury supplies the following references bearing directly on the nickname, and not noticed in the B.M. Catalogue: _Foure fugitives meeting Or, The Discourse amongst my Lord Finch, Sir Frances Windebank, Sir John Sucklin, and Doctor Roane, as they accidentally met in France, with a detection of their severall pranks in England. Printed In the Yeare, 1641_. 4^{o}.

Suckling says to Roane, ‘Hold there good Doctor _Roane_, and take me with you, you are to be blamed too, for not bidding farewell to Sir _Paul Pinder_, (at whose beauteous house, you have devoured the carkasse of many a cram’d Capon) before you fled, but I wonder more, why you came hither so unprovided; methinks some English dyet would have bin good for a weake stomack: the Church-Wardens of Northhamptonshire promised to give you a good fee, if you will goe to ’em, and resolve ’em whether they may lawfully take the oath &c. or no.

‘_Wind_. That may very well be, for they have given him a great Addition, they stile him, Og the great Commissary, they say he was as briske in discharging the new Canons, as he that made them.’

Suckling addresses Roane as ‘Immense Doctor Roane’: so it is possible that it was his personal appearance which suggested the name of Og.

Cf. also _Canidia. The Third Part_, p. 150 (1683):

Are you a Smock-Sinner, or so, Commute soundly, and you shall be let go. Fee _Ogg_ the great _Commissary_ before and behind, Then sin on, you know my mind. ]

[Line: 39 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘_It_ would’, which can hardly be right.]

[Line: 44 ‘sob’ _1647_, _1651_: _1653_ clearly ‘_f_ob’: ‘Sob’ 1677. Cf. _Comedy of Errors_ (iv. iii. 22) ‘gives a sob’. ‘Sob’ is literally ‘an act on the part of a horse of recovering its wind after exertion’–hence ‘respite’ (_N.E.D._).]

[Line: 51 Porph’ry Chair] The Pope’s throne, the myths of which, as well as of Pope Joan herself, are vulgate. ‘Nephew’ carries out the allusion: Popes’ sons being called so

Better to preserve the peace. ]

[Line: 59 thy] this _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 62 The merit of the style for burlesque use could hardly be better brought out.]

*_To the Hectors, upon the unfortunate death of H. Compton._

You Hectors! tame professors of the sword, Who in the chair state duels, whose black word Bewitches courage, and like Devils too, Leaves the bewitch’d when ‘t comes to fight and do. Who on your errand our best spirits send, Not to kill swine or cows, but man and friend; Who are a whole court-martial in your drink, And dispute honour, when you cannot think, Not orderly, but prate out valour as You grow inspired by th’ oracle of the glass; 10 Then, like our zeal-drunk presbyters, cry down All law of Kings and God, but what’s their own. Then y’ have the gift of fighting, can discern Spirits, who ‘s fit to act, and who to learn, Who shall be baffled next, who must be beat, Who killed–that you may drink, and swear, and eat. Whilst you applaud those murders which you teach And live upon the wounds your riots preach. Mere booty-souls! Who bid us fight a prize To feast the laughter of our enemies, 20 Who shout and clap at wounds, count it pure gain, Mere Providence to hear a Compton ‘s slain. A name they dearly hate, and justly; should They love ‘t ’twere worse, their love would taint the blood. Blood always true, true as their swords and cause, And never vainly lost, till your wild laws Scandalled their actions in this person, who Truly durst more than you dare think to do. A man made up of graces–every move Had entertainment in it, and drew love 30 From all but him who killed him, who seeks a grave And fears a death more shameful than he gave. Now you dread Hectors! you whom tyrant drink Drags thrice about the town, what do you think? (If you be sober) Is it valour, say, To overcome, and then to run away? Fie! Fie! your lusts and duels both are one; Both are repented of as soon as done.

[_To the Hectors_ (_1653_) is struck out in _1677_ and Mr. Berdan does not give it. I asterisk it in text; but as it might be Cleveland’s (though I do not think it is) I do not exclude it. The Comptons were a good Royalist family in those days. This Henry (not the Bishop) was killed in 1652 in a duel by George Brydges, Lord Chandos, who died three years later (see Professor Firth’s _House of Lords during the Civil War_, p. 223). The fame of the Hectors as predecessors of the Mohocks and possible objects of Milton’s objurgation ‘flown with insolence and wine’, &c., is sufficient. But they seem to have been more methodical maniacs and ruffians than their successors, and even to have had something of the superior quality of Sir Lucius O’Trigger and Captain M^{c}Turk about them, as professors and painful preachers of the necessity and etiquette of the duel.]

[Line: 2 state duels] Arrange them like the said Captain M^{c}Turk in _St. Ronan’s Well_? word] _1653_ (wrongly for rhyme, though not necessarily for concord) ‘words’.]

[Line: 19 booty-souls] Apparently ‘souls interested in nothing but booty’. The piece would seem to have been addressed to Hectors in the actual Cavalier camp, or at least party. The ‘enemies’ are of course the Roundheads, and it will soon be noticed that there is no apodosis or consequence to all these ‘who’s’, &c. It is literally an ‘Address’ and no more.]

[Line: 25 their] = ‘the Comptons’–nothing to do with ‘their’ and ‘they’ in the preceding lines.]

[Line: 31 Does not run very smoothly: the second ‘him’ may be a foist.]

Square-Cap.

Come hither, Apollo’s bouncing girl, And in a whole Hippocrene of sherry Let ‘s drink a round till our brains do whirl, Tuning our pipes to make ourselves merry. A Cambridge lass, Venus-like, born of the froth Of an old half-filled jug of barley-broth, She, she is my mistress, her suitors are many, But she’ll have a Square-cap if e’er she have any.

And first, for the plush-sake, the Monmouth-cap comes, Shaking his head like an empty bottle; 10 With his new-fangled oath by Jupiter’s thumbs, That to her health he’ll begin a pottle. He tells her that, after the death of his grannam, He shall have God knows what per annum. But still she replied, ‘Good Sir, la-bee; If ever I have a man, Square-cap for me!’

Then Calot Leather-cap strongly pleads, And fain would derive the pedigree of fashion. The antipodes wear their shoes on their heads, And why may not we in their imitation? 20 Oh, how this football noddle would please, If it were but well tossed on S. Thomas his leas! But still she replied, ‘Good sir, la-bee; If ever I have a man, Square-cap for me!’

Next comes the Puritan in a wrought-cap, With a long-waisted conscience towards a sister. And, making a chapel of ease of her lap, First he said grace and then he kissed her. ‘Beloved,’ quoth he, ‘thou art my text.’ Then falls he to use and application next; 30 But then she replied, ‘Your text, sir, I’ll be; For then I’m sure you’ll ne’er handle me.’

But see where Satin-cap scouts about, And fain would this wench in his fellowship marry. He told her how such a man was not put out Because his wedding he closely did carry. He’ll purchase induction by simony, And offers her money her incumbent to be; But still she replied, ‘Good sir, la-bee; If ever I have a man, Square-cap for me!’ 40

The lawyer’s a sophister by his round-cap, Nor in their fallacies are they divided, The one milks the pocket, the other the tap; And yet this wench he fain would have brided. ‘Come, leave these thread-bare scholars,’ quoth he, ‘And give me livery and seisin of thee.’ ‘But peace, John-a-Nokes, and leave your oration, For I never will be your impropriation; I pray you therefore, good sir, la-bee; For if ever I have a man, Square-cap for me!’ 50

[_Square-Cap_ (_1647_) is one of the pleasantest of all Cleveland’s poems. Its prosodic puzzle and profit have been indicated in the Introduction, and it might sometimes run more easily. But the thorough good-fellowship and _esprit de corps_ carry it off more than sufficiently. It would be pleasant to think that Mr. Samuel Pepys sang it on the famous occasion when he was ‘scandalously over-served with drink’ as an undergraduate. It had been printed only three years when he went up, though no doubt written earlier.]

[Line: 2 Cleveland has got the fount right here.]

[Line: 7 she is] she’s _1653_.]

[Line: 9 Monmouth-cap] A soldier.]

[Lines: 13, 14 A most singular blunder in _1677_ (and the editions that follow it) shows that Cleveland’s ‘Vindicators’ were by no means always attentive to his sense. It reads ‘_her_ grannam’ and ‘_She_ shall have’–the exact effect of which, as an inducement to marry him, one would like to hear.]

[Line: 15 la-bee] = ‘let-a-be’, ‘let me alone’.]

[Line: 17 One or two editions (but not very good ones) ‘_Thin_ Calot’. Calot of course = ‘calotte’, the lawyer’s cap or coif.]

[Line: 18 This is a signal instance of the way in which these early anapaestic lines break down into heroics. _1677_ and others read ‘_his_ pedigree’–not so well.]

[Line: 22 S. Thomas his leas] A decree of Oct. 29, 1632, ordains that scholars and students of Corpus and Pembroke shall play football only ‘upon St. Thomas Layes’, the site of Downing College later. This decree and the ‘S.’ of _1651_, _1653_, would seem to show that _1677_ is wrong in expanding to ‘Sir’, though two Cambridge editors ought to have known the right name. It was also called ‘Swinecroft’. (Information obtained from the late Mr. J. W. Clark’s _Memories and Customs_, Cambridge, 1909, through the kindness of Mr. A. J. Bartholomew.)]

[Line: 33 Satin-cap] Clerical: cf. Strode’s poem on _The Caps_ (_Works_, ed. Dobell, p. 106):]

The Sattin and the Velvet hive Unto a Bishopric doth drive.

[Line: 36 closely … carry] = ‘disguise’, ‘conceal’.]

Upon Phillis walking in a morning before sun-rising.

The sluggish morn as yet undressed, My Phillis brake from out her East, As if she’d made a match to run With Venus, usher to the sun. The trees, like yeomen of her guard, Serving more for pomp than ward, Ranked on each side, with loyal duty Weave branches to enclose her beauty. The plants, whose luxury was lopped, Or age with crutches underpropped, 10 Whose wooden carcasses are grown To be but coffins of their own, Revive, and at her general dole Each receives his ancient soul. The winged choristers began To chirp their mattins, and the fan Of whistling winds like organs played, Until their voluntaries made The wakened Earth in odours rise To be her morning sacrifice. 20 The flowers, called out of their beds, Start and raise up their drowsy heads; And he that for their colour seeks May find it vaulting in her cheeks, Where roses mix–no civil war Between her York and Lancaster. The marigold (whose courtier’s face Echoes the sun and doth unlace Her at his rise–at his full stop Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop) 30 Mistakes her cue and doth display: Thus Phillis antedates the day. These miracles had cramped the sun, Who, thinking that his kingdom ‘s won, Powders with light his frizzled locks To see what saint his lustre mocks. The trembling leaves through which he played, Dappling the walk with light and shade Like lattice-windows, give the spy Room but to peep with half an eye; 40 Lest her full orb his sight should dim And bid us all good-night in him, Till she should spend a gentle ray To force us a new-fashioned day. But what religious palsy ‘s this Which makes the boughs divest their bliss, And, that they might her footsteps straw, Drop their leaves with shivering awe? Phillis perceived and (lest her stay Should wed October unto May, 50 And, as her beauty caused a Spring, Devotion might an Autumn bring) Withdrew her beams, yet made no night, But left the sun her curate-light.

[_Upon Phillis, &c._ (_1647_.) This is perhaps the prettiest, as _The Senses’ Festival_ is the most vigorous and _Fuscara_ the most laboured, of Cleveland’s Clevelandisms.]

[Line: 6 _1677_ &c. insert ‘her’ between ‘serving’ and ‘more’–doubtless on the principle, noticed before, of patching lines to supposed ‘regularity’.]

[Line: 7 ‘Ranked’ _1647_, _1677_: ‘Banked’ _1651_, _1653_. As it happens either will do; and at the same time either, if original, is likely to have been mistaken for the other.]

[Line: 8 ‘Weave’ _1647_: ‘Wave’ _1651_, _1653_: ‘Weav’d’ _1677_ (the printer unconsciously assimilating it to the ‘Ranked’ of l. 8). The same remark applies as to the preceding line.]

[Line: 11 are] were _1677_, _1687_.]

[Line: 18 _1654_ ‘Un_to_’.]

[Line: 19 _1677_ &c. ‘weaken’d’: _putide_.]

[Line: 20 A meeting-point of many pious poems.]

[Line: 24 _1677_ ‘vaulting _to_’–hardly an improvement.]

[Line: 26 Dryden may have had Cleveland in mind (as he pretty often, and most naturally had, seeing that the poems must have ‘spent their youth with him’) when he wrote some of the latest and most beautiful of his own lines to the Duchess of Ormond (Lady Mary Somerset):

O daughter of the Rose whose cheeks unite The differing titles of the Red and White. ]

[_1677_ ‘_Divides_ her York and Lancaster’–pretty palpable emendation to supply the apparent lack of a verb.]

[Lines: 27-30 It has been suggested to me that the sense wants mechanical aid to clear it up; and I have therefore made a visible parenthesis of ‘whose … shop’, following _1677_.]

[Line: 34 thinking] fearing _1677_.]

[Line: 36 _1653_ &c. ‘saints’–a misprint, as _1647_, _1651_ have the singular.]

[Line: 38 Here, for once, Cleveland achieves the really poetical conceit.]

[Line: 42 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘bids’–again a mere misprint.]

[Line: 43 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘would’.]

[Line: 47 straw] For ‘strew’, as in the A. V.]

[Line: 49 _1649_, _1651_, _1653_, ‘perceives’ (an unconscious echo of ‘leaves’ in l. 48).]

Upon a Miser that made a great feast, and the next day died for grief.

Nor ‘scapes he so; our dinner was so good My liquorish Muse cannot but chew the cud, And what delight she took in th’ invitation Strives to taste o’er again in this relation. After a tedious grace in Hopkins’ rhyme, Not for devotion but to take up time, Marched the trained-band of dishes, ushered there To show their postures and then as they were. For he invites no teeth; perchance the eye He will afford the lover’s gluttony. 10 Thus is our feast a muster, not a fight, Our weapons not for service, but for sight. But are we tantalized? Is all this meat Cooked by a limner for to view, not eat? Th’ astrologers keep such houses when they sup On joints of Taurus or their heavenly Tup. Whatever feasts be made are summed up here, His table vies not standing with his cheer. His churchings, christenings, in this meal are all, And not transcribed but in th’ original. 20 Christmas is no feast movable; for lo, The self-same dinner was ten years ago! ‘Twill be immortal if it longer stay, The gods will eat it for ambrosia. But stay a while; unless my whinyard fail Or is enchanted, I’ll cut off th’ entail. Saint George for England then! have at the mutton When the first cut calls me bloodthirsty glutton. Stout Ajax, with his anger-coddled brain, Killing a sheep thought Agamemnon slain; 30 The fiction’s now proved true; wounding his roast I lamentably butcher up mine host. Such sympathy is with his meat, my weapon Makes him an eunuch when it carves his capon. Cut a goose leg and the poor soul for moan Turns cripple too, and after stands on one. Have you not heard the abominable sport A Lancaster grand-jury will report? The soldier with his Morglay watched the mill; The cats they came to feast, when lusty Will 40 Whips off great puss’s leg which (by some charm) Proves the next day such an old woman’s arm. ‘Tis so with him whose carcass never ‘scapes, But still we slash him in a thousand shapes. Our serving-men (like spaniels) range to spring The fowl which he had clucked under his wing. Should he on widgeon or on woodcock feed It were, Thyestes like, on his own breed. To pork he pleads a superstition due, But we subscribe neither to Scot nor Jew. 50 [No liquor stirs; call for a cup of wine. ‘Tis blood we drink; we pledge thee, Catiline.] Sauces we should have none, had he his wish. The oranges i’ th’ margent of the dish He with such huckster’s care tells o’er and o’er, The Hesperian dragon never watched them more. But being eaten now into despair (Having nought else to do) he falls to prayer. ‘As thou didst once put on the form of bull And turned thine Io to a lovely mull, 60 Defend my rump, great Jove, grant this poor beef May live to comfort me in all this grief.’ But no Amen was said: see, see it comes! Draw, boys, let trumpets sound, and strike up drums. See how his blood doth with the gravy swim, And every trencher hath a limb of him. The venison’s now in view, our hounds spend deeper. Strange deer, which in the pasty hath a keeper Stricter than in the park, making his guest, (As he had stoln’t alive) to steal it drest! 70 The scent was hot, and we, pursuing faster Than Ovid’s pack of dogs e’er chased their master, A double prey at once may seize upon, Acteon, and his case of venison. Thus was he torn alive; to vex him worse Death serves him up now as a second course. Should we, like Thracians, our dead bodies eat, He would have lived only to save his meat. [Lastly; we did devour that corpse of his Throughout all Ovid’s Metamorphoses.] 80

[_Upon a Miser, &c._ (_1647_.) This juxtaposition of the serious-sentimental-fanciful with the burlesque-satiric may not please some readers. But the older editions which give it seem to me better to represent the ideas of the time than the later siftings and reclassifications of the age of prose and sense. And this is one reason why I follow the order of _1653_ rather than that of _1677_.]

[Line: 2 ‘Cud’ is spelt in _1647_ here and elsewhere in Cleveland ‘cood’.]

[Line: 3 In some copies ‘i_mi_tation’, of course wrongly.]

[Line: 4 taste] cast _1653_.]

[Line: 5 Cleveland gibed at Sternhold and Hopkins in prose (_The Character of a London Diurnall_) as well as verse. _1647_, _1651_ misprint ‘rhythm’.]

[Line: 11 The text, from _1677_, is a clear improvement at first sight on the earlier ‘_This_ is _a_ feast’: though I would not be too sure that Cleveland did not write it thus.]

[Line: 16 _1677_ ‘_the_ heavenly’.]

[Line: 17 _1677_ ‘he made’.]

[Line: 18 Meaning, apparently, that, as was the custom, the table between these sham feast-days was moved off its trestles and cleared away; but the feast was a ‘standing’ one, kept to reappear.]

[Line: 20 in th’] i’ th’ _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 26 is] it _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ ‘Whe_re_’.]

[Line: 29 Stout] What _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 31 _1677_ ‘_the_ roast’.]

[Line: 34 carves] One edition, of no value (_1665_), ‘_se_rves’.]

[Line: 35 soul] fool _1677_.]

[Line: 38 Lancaster, because of the Lancashire witches. See Heywood, _Lancashire Witches_, Act V.]

[Line: 39 Morglay] The sword of Bevis.]

[Line: 43 ‘Tis] It’s _1677_.]

[Line: 44 ‘him’ _1647_: ‘them’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 46 These lines appear with some variants and are not clear in any text: ‘which he had cluck’d under his wing’ _1677_, for the earlier ‘when he hath clock’t under her wing’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. Professor Case suggests ‘cloakt’ (i.e. ‘hidden’) for ‘clock’t’.]

[Line: 50 Mr. Berdan says, ‘_Englishmen supposed_ that the Scotch did not eat pork’. But, until quite recently, it was a fact; and even now there is much less eaten north than south of the Tweed. As for Cleveland’s day, James the First’s aversion to it was well known and had been celebrated by Ben Jonson. In _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘But not a mouth is muzzled by the Jew’.]

[Line: 51-2 Not in earlier editions. Added in _1677_.]

[Line: 54 _1677_ ‘margin of _his_ dish’.]

[Line: 55 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. omit ‘care’ and read ‘tells them’.]

[Line: 59 _1677_ ‘Thou that didst’.]

[Line: 60 ‘turned thine’ _1677_, _1687_: ‘turn’st thy’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. mull] Dialectic for ‘cow’, especially as a call-name. It seems to be connected with the sense of the word for ‘lips’, especially large loose ones.]

[Line: 61 _1677_

allay my grief, O spare me this, this monumental beef. ]

[Line: 66 ‘hath’ _1677_, _1687_: ‘has’ _1651_, _1653_ and its group.]

[Line: 73 ‘may’ _1651_, _1653_, &c.: ‘we’ _1677_.]

[Lines: 79, 80 Added in _1677_ &c., with very doubtful advantage.]

A Young Man to an Old Woman courting him.

Peace, Beldam Eve, surcease thy suit; There ‘s no temptation in such fruit; No rotten medlars, whilst there be Whole orchards in virginity. Thy stock is too much out of date For tender plants t’ inoculate. A match with thee thy bridegroom fears Would be thought interest in his years, Which, when compared to thine, become Odd money to thy grandam sum. 10 Can wedlock know so great a curse As putting husbands out to nurse? How Pond and Rivers would mistake And cry new almanacs for our sake. Time sure hath wheeled about his year, December meeting Janiveer. The Egyptian serpent figures Time, And stripped, returns unto his prime. If my affection thou wouldst win, First cast thy hieroglyphic skin. 20 My modern lips know not, alack! The old religion of thy smack. I count that primitive embrace As out of fashion as thy face. And yet, so long ’tis since thy fall, Thy fornication ‘s classical. Our sports will differ; thou mayst play Lero, and I Alphonso way. I’m no translator, have no vein To turn a woman young again, 30 Unless you’ll grant the tailor’s due, To see the fore-bodies be new. I love to wear clothes that are flush, Not prefacing old rags with plush, Like aldermen, or under-shrieves With canvass backs and velvet sleeves: And just such discord there would be Betwixt thy skeleton and me. Go study salve and treacle, ply Your tenant’s leg or his sore eye. 40 Thus matrons purchase credit, thank Six pennyworth of mountebank; Or chew thy cud on some delight That thou didst taste in ‘eighty-eight; Or be but bed-rid once, and then Thou’lt dream thy youthful sins again. But if thou needs wilt be my spouse, First hearken and attend my vows. _When Aetna’s fires shall undergo_ _The penance of the Alps in snow;_ 50 _When Sol at one blast of his horn_ _Posts from the Crab to Capricorn;_ _When th’ heavens shuffle all in one_ _The Torrid with the Frozen Zone;_ _When all these contradictions meet_, _Then, Sibyl, thou and I will greet._ For all these similes do hold In my young heat and thy dull cold. Then, if a fever be so good A pimp as to inflame thy blood, 60 Hymen shall twist thee and thy page, The distinct tropics of man’s age. Well, Madam Time, be ever bald. I’ll not thy periwig be called. I’ll never be ‘stead of a lover, An aged chronicle’s new cover.

[_A Young Man, &c._ (_1647_.)]

[Line: 8 _1677_, &c. have ‘incest’, which is rather tempting, but considering the ‘odd money’ which follows, not, I think, absolutely certain.]

[Line: 13 Edward Pond died in 1629; but the almanac, published by him first in 1601, lasted till 1709. Rivers was probably Peregrine Rivers, ‘Student in Mathematics’, writer of one of the numerous almanacs of the period. There are in the Bodleian copies of his almanacs for 1629, 1630, 1638, all printed at Cambridge. (Information supplied to me from Oxford.)]

[Line: 15 Some copies ‘this’.]

[Line: 22 Rather a good line.]

[Line: 27 _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘mayst’: _1647_, _1677_, &c. ‘must’.]

[Line: 35 _1647_ ‘Monster Shrieves’, _1653_ ‘Monster-Sheriffs’, which can hardly be right.]

[Line: 44 ‘eighty-eight] The Armada year, often taken as a standard of remoteness not too remote. This, which is the later reading, of 1677 _sqq._, seems better than ‘_Thou takest in thy_ Eighty Eight’ (_1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c.).]

[Lines: 49-62 The italics of _1653_, though discarded in _1677_, seem worth keeping, because of the solemn call of attention to the particulars of the ‘Vow’; they extend in the _1653_ text to l. 60. But _1647_ and _1651_, prefix inverted commas to ll. 49-56, which seems a more effective ending to the ‘Vow’.]

[Line: 53 Some inferior editions put in ‘shall’. _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, and _1677_ exclude it.]

[Line: 61 twist] In the sense of ‘twine’, ‘unite’. ‘page’ = ‘boy’.]

[Line: 62 _1647_, _1651_ ‘Tropicks’: _1653_ ‘Tropick’; but both Cancer and Capricorn are wanted.]

To Mrs. K. T.

(Who asked him why he was dumb.)

Stay, should I answer, Lady, then In vain would be your question: Should I be dumb, why then again Your asking me would be in vain. Silence nor speech, on neither hand, Can satisfy this strange demand. Yet, since your will throws me upon This wished contradiction, I’ll tell you how I did become So strangely, as you hear me, dumb. 10 Ask but the chap-fallen Puritan; ‘Tis zeal that tongue-ties that good man. (For heat of conscience all men hold Is th’ only way to catch their cold.) How should Love’s zealot then forbear To be your silenced minister? Nay, your Religion which doth grant A worship due to you, my Saint, Yet counts it that devotion wrong That does it in the Vulgar Tongue. 20 My ruder words would give offence To such an hallowed excellence, As th’ English dialect would vary The goodness of an Ave Mary. How can I speak that twice am checked By this and that religious sect? Still dumb, and in your face I spy Still cause and still divinity. As soon as blest with your salute, My manners taught me to be mute. 30 For, lest they cancel all the bliss You signed with so divine a kiss, The lips you seal must needs consent Unto the tongue’s imprisonment. My tongue in hold, my voice doth rise With a strange E-la to my eyes, Where it gets bail, and in that sense Begins a new-found eloquence. Oh listen with attentive sight To what my pratling eyes indite! 40 Or, lady, since ’tis in your choice To give or to suspend my voice, With the same key set ope the door Wherewith you locked it fast before. Kiss once again, and when you thus Have doubly been miraculous, My Muse shall write with handmaid’s duty The Golden Legend of your beauty.

He whom his dumbness now confines But means to speak the rest by signs. 50

_I. C._

[_To Mrs. K. T., &c._ (_1647_). To this title _1677_ and its followers add ‘Written _calente calamo_’. The variant on _currente_ is of some interest, and the statement may have been made to excuse the bad opening rhyme.]

[Line: 5 neither] either _1677_.]

[Line: 14 ‘their cold’ _1651_, _1653_: ‘that cold’ _1647_, _1677_.]

[Line: 16 silenced] As some Puritans were before Cleveland wrote, and all, or almost all, Churchmen afterwards.]

[Line: 31 _1677_ ‘Lest I should cancel all the bliss’.]

[Line: 37 bail] _1653_ &c. ‘_h_ail’, which is doubtless a misprint.]

[Line: 40 ‘prating’ _1677_.]

[Line: 47 ‘handmaid’ _1677_.]

[Line: 50 _1677_ ‘_Intends_ to speak’–an obvious correction of the ‘red-hot pen’. But whether Cleveland’s or his vindicators’ who shall say?]

[Line: 51 So _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. The couplet is meaningless without them.]

A Fair Nymph scorning a Black Boy courting her.

_Nymph._ Stand off, and let me take the air; Why should the smoke pursue the fair?

_Boy._ My face is smoke, thence may be guessed What flames within have scorched my breast.

_Nymph._ The flame of love I cannot view For the dark lantern of thy hue.

_Boy._ And yet this lantern keeps Love’s taper Surer than yours, that’s of white paper. Whatever midnight hath been here, The moonshine of your light can clear. 10

_Nymph._ My moon of an eclipse is ‘fraid, If thou shouldst interpose thy shade.

_Boy._ Yet one thing, Sweetheart, I will ask; Take me for a new-fashioned mask.

_Nymph._ Yes, but my bargain shall be this, I’ll throw my mask off when I kiss.

_Boy._ Our curled embraces shall delight To checker limbs with black and white.

_Nymph._ Thy ink, my paper, make me guess Our nuptial bed will prove a press, 20 And in our sports, if any came, They’ll read a wanton epigram.

_Boy._ Why should my black thy love impair? Let the dark shop commend the ware; Or, if thy love from black forbears, I’ll strive to wash it off with tears.

_Nymph._ Spare fruitless tears, since thou must needs Still wear about thee mourning weeds. Tears can no more affection win Than wash thy Ethiopian skin. 30

[_A Fair Nymph, &c._ (_1647_.)]

[Line: 2 An odd fancy included by Browne among the _Vulgar Errors_.]

[Line: 5 ‘Thy flaming love’ _1677_ &c.]

[Line: 10 ‘face will clear’ _1677_ &c.]

[Line: 14 _1677_ ‘Take me for a new-fashioned mask’: _1647_, _1651_ ‘Buy me for a new false mask’, varied in _1653_ ‘Buy for me’–apparently a misprint, as the boy does not seem to wish to disguise himself.]

[Line: 15 Yes] Done _1677_.]

[Line: 20 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, ‘make a press’, ill repeated from above.]

[Line: 24 ‘the ware’ _1677_: _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, not so well, ‘_thy_ ware’.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ changed ‘thee’ to ‘thy’.]

[Line: 30 Some inferior copies ‘_the_ Ethiopian’.]

A Dialogue between two Zealots upon the &c. in the Oath.

Sir Roger, from a zealous piece of frieze Raised to a vicar of the children’s threes; Whose yearly audit may by strict account To twenty nobles and his vails amount; Fed on the common of the female charity Until the Scots can bring about their parity; So shotten that his soul, like to himself, Walks but in cuerpo; this same clergy-elf, Encountering with a brother of the cloth, Fell presently to cudgels with the Oath. 10 The quarrel was a strange misshapen monster, &c., (God bless us) which they conster The brand upon the buttock of the Beast, The Dragon’s tail tied on a knot, a nest Of young Apocryphas, the fashion Of a new mental Reservation. While Roger thus divides the text, the other Winks and expounds, saying, ‘My pious brother, Hearken with reverence, for the point is nice. I never read on ‘t, but I fasted twice, 20 And so by revelation know it better Than all the learn’d idolaters o’th’ letter.’ With that he swelled, and fell upon the theme Like great Goliah with his weaver’s beam. ‘I say to thee, &c., thou li’st! Thou art the curléd lock of Antichrist; Rubbish of Babel; for who will not say Tongues were confounded in &c.? Who swears &c., swears more oaths at once Than Cerberus out of his triple sconce. 30 Who views it well, with the same eye beholds The old half Serpent in his numerous folds. Accurst &c. thou, for now I scent What lately the prodigious oysters meant! Oh Booker! Booker! How camest thou to lack This sign in thy prophetic almanac? It ‘s the dark vault wherein th’ infernal plot Of powder ‘gainst the State was first begot. Peruse the Oath and you shall soon descry it By all the Father Garnets that stand by it; 40 ‘Gainst whom the Church, (whereof I am a member,) Shall keep another Fifth Day of November. Yet here’s not all; I cannot half untruss &c.–it’s so abhominous! The Trojan nag was not so fully lined; Unrip &c., and you shall find Og the great commissary, and (which is worse) The apparitor upon his skew-bald horse. Then finally, my babe of grace, forbear, &c. will be too far to swear, 50 For ’tis (to speak in a familiar style) A Yorkshire wee bit longer than a mile.’ Here Roger was inspired, and by God’s diggers He’ll swear in words at large but not in figures. Now by this drink, which he takes off, as loath To leave &c. in his liquid oath. His brother pledged him, and that bloody wine He swears shall seal the Synod’s Catiline. So they drunk on, not offering to part ‘Till they had quite sworn out th’ eleventh quart, 60 While all that saw and heard them jointly pray They and their tribe were all &c.

[_A Dialogue, &c._ (_1647_.) This occurs also in the _Rump_ (1662, reprinted London, N. D.). A MS. copy is found in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 26 of the Bodleian, at fol. 94, with the title ‘_A Dialogue between 2. Zelots concerning &c. in the new Oath_.’ ‘The Oath’ is the famous one formulated in 1640 by Convocation. Fuller, who was proctor for the diocese of Bristol (and who would have been fined heavily for his part, ‘moderate’ as he was, if the Puritan Ultras of the Commons could have had their way), has left much about it. This oath, to be taken by all the clergy, imported approval of the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Church, and disclaimed, twice over, ‘Popish’ doctrine and the usurpations of the see of Rome. Unluckily the government of the Church was defined as ‘by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, _&c._’, which last was, in the absence of any other handle, seized by the Puritan party as possibly implying all sorts of horrors. Cleveland banters them well enough, but hardly with the force and directness which he was to show later. The Royalists were then under the fatal error of underrating the strength of their opponents, and the gullibility of the people of England.]

[Line: 2 ‘vicar’, _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _MS._: ‘vicarage’ _1677_. ‘children’ _1651_, _1653_: I have been waiting a long time to know what ‘children’s threes’ means. It occurs elsewhere, but to my thinking as an obvious reminiscence of Cleveland.]

[Line: 7 shotten] ‘like a herring that has spawned’, ‘thin’.]

[Line: 8 in cuerpo] ‘in body-clothes’, ‘cloakless’. _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘Querpo’: _MS._ ‘Quirpo’, with ‘cuerpo’ written above it.]

[Line: 12 _1677_ extends ‘&c.’ to ‘et caetera’. This is a mistake, as the actual ampersand occurred in the oath and gave some slight assistance to the cavillers. Cleveland’s expressions–‘tail tied on a knot’ (l. 14), ‘curled lock’ (l. 26), ‘numerous folds’ (l. 32)–lose their point without the ampersand. _1677_ also has ‘_may_ conster’, which though possible enough, seems to me neither necessary nor even much of an improvement.]

[Line: 17 _1677_, less euphoniously, ‘Whil_st_’.]

[Line: 22 A reading of the _Rump_ version, ‘Than all the Idolaters of the letter’, though almost certainly a mere mistaken correction, has some interest.]

[Line: 23 fell] sett _MS._]

[Line: 24 Goliah] This form occurs in all the texts.]

[Line: 25 In this and other lines that follow much of the quaintness is lost by ‘extending’ the ‘&c.’ of the older editions.]

[Line: 28 were] are _1677_, _MS._]

[Line: 32 All editions, I think, before _1677_ (which substitutes ‘false’) have ‘half’. ‘False’ is very feeble; ‘half’ refers picturesquely to the delineation of the Serpent tempting Eve with a human head, being coiled below like the curves of the _&c._ ‘False’ _MS._]

[Line: 33 _1677_, _MS._ ‘Accurst Et Caetera! now, now I scent’.]

[Line: 34 I do not know whether these very Livyish oysters have been traced. _1677_ and _MS._ omit ‘lately’ and read ‘prodigious bloody oysters’.]

[Line: 35 John Booker (1603-1677), Manchester man, haberdasher, writing-master, and astrologer, gained a great deal of credit by interpreting an eclipse after the usual fashion as portending disaster to kings and princes, the great Gustavus Adolphus and the unfortunate Frederick, ‘Winter’-King of Bohemia, being complaisant enough to die in accordance.]

[Line: 36 This sign] _1677_, _MS._ ‘This _fiend_’–more energetically.]

[Line: 37 ”Tis the dark vault where the’ _MS._]

[Line: 40 The sting of ‘the _Father Garnets_ that _stand by_ it’ lies in the words immediately preceding the obnoxious ‘&c.’–‘archbishops, bishops, &c.’–whom the Puritan divine stigmatizes as Jesuits and traitors to Church and State. As has been stated, the oath distinctly, in set terms and twice over, abjured Rome and all things Roman; but the Puritans of those days, like their descendants, paid no attention to trifles of this kind. For ‘stand’ _MS._ reads ‘stood’.]

[Line: 43 Yet] Nay _MS._]

[Line: 44 _1647_, _1651_ ‘abominous’; _1653_ ‘abhominous’. The ‘h’ must be kept in ‘ab_h_ominous’, though not unusual for ‘ab_om_-‘, because it helps to explain, and perhaps to justify, _1677_ and _MS._ in reading ‘ab_d_ominous’. This, though something suggestive of a famous Oxford story, derives some colour from ‘untruss’ and may be right, especially as I do not know another example of ‘abominous’ for ‘abominable’.]

[Line: 47 Og] _v. sup._, p. 31. _MS._ has marginal note ‘Roan’.]

[Line: 48 ‘Skew-bald’ is not = ‘piebald’, though most horses commonly called piebald are skewbalds. ‘Pie[magpie]bald’ is _black_ and white; skewbald _brown_ (or some other colour not black) and white. The Church-courts were much more unpopular, in these as in mediaeval times, than the Church, and High Commissioners and commissaries and apparitors were alleged to lurk under the guileful and dreadful ‘&c.’]

[Line: 49 ‘babes’ _1677_.]

[Line: 52 Blount’s _Glossographia_ (1656), a useful book, shows the ignorance of Northern English then prevailing by supposing ‘we_a_-bit’ (the form found in Cleveland originally) to be ‘_way_-bit’. It is, of course, ‘little bit’, the Scotch ‘mile and a bittock’.]

[Line: 53 Here] Then _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. God’s diggers] = nails or fingers. Commoner in the corruption ‘Ods niggers’.]

[Line: 54 ‘in words at large’ _1647_ (‘at length’, one issue of _1647_): ‘at words in large’ _1651_, _1653_: ‘in words at length, and not in figures’ _MS._]

[Line: 58 Edd. ‘Cat_a_line’, as usual, but _1677_ ‘Catiline’. ‘He swears he’ll be the Synod’s’ _MS._]

[Line: 59 ‘Thus they drink on, not offering to depart’ _MS._]

[Line: 60 _1677_ omits ‘quite’–no doubt for the old syllabic reason. _MS._ substitutes ‘fully’.]

[Line: 62 Perhaps nowhere is the comic surprise of the symbol more wanted than here, and more of a loss when that symbol is extended.]

Smectymnuus, or the Club-Divines.

Smectymnuus! The goblin makes me start! I’ th’ name of Rabbi Abraham, what art? Syriac? or Arabic? or Welsh? what skill’t? Ap all the bricklayers that Babel built, Some conjurer translate and let me know it; Till then ’tis fit for a West Saxon poet. But do the brotherhood then play their prizes Like mummers in religion with disguises, Out-brave us with a name in rank and file? A name, which, if ’twere trained, would spread a mile! 10 The saints’ monopoly, the zealous cluster Which like a porcupine presents a muster And shoots his quills at bishops and their sees, A devout litter of young Maccabees! Thus Jack-of-all-trades hath devoutly shown The Twelve Apostles on a cherry-stone; Thus faction ‘s _à la mode_ in treason’s fashion, Now we have heresy by complication. Like to Don Quixote’s rosary of slaves Strung on a chain; a murnival of knaves 20 Packed in a trick, like gipsies when they ride, Or like colleagues which sit all of a side. So the vain satyrists stand all a row As hollow teeth upon a lute-string show. Th’ Italian monster pregnant with his brother, Nature’s diæresis, half one another, He, with his little sides-man Lazarus, Must both give way unto Smectymnuus. Next Sturbridge Fair is Smec’s; for, lo! his side Into a five-fold lazar’s multiplied. 30 Under each arm there ‘s tucked a double gizzard; Five faces lurk under one single vizard. The Whore of Babylon left these brats behind, Heirs of confusion by gavelkind. I think Pythagoras’ soul is rambled hither With all the change of raiment on together. Smec is her general wardrobe; she’ll not dare To think of him as of a thoroughfare. He stops the gossiping dame; alone he is The purlieu of a metempsychosis; 40 Like a Scotch mark, where the more modest sense Checks the loud phrase, and shrinks to thirteen pence: Like to an ignis fatuus whose flame, Though sometimes tripartite, joins in the same; Like to nine tailors, who, if rightly spelled, Into one man are monosyllabled. Short-handed zeal in one hath cramped many Like to the Decalogue in a single penny. See, see how close the curs hunt under sheet As if they spent in quire and scanned their feet. 50 One cure and five incumbents leap a truss; The title sure must be litigious. The Sadducees would raise a question Who must be Smec at th’ Resurrection. Who cooped them up together were to blame. Had they but wire-drawn and spun out their name, ‘Twould make another Prentices’ Petition Against the bishops and their superstition. Robson and French (that count from five to five, As far as nature fingers did contrive– 60 She saw they would be ‘sessors, that ‘s the cause She cleft their hoof into so many claws) May tire their carrot-bunch, yet ne’er agree To rate Smectymnuus for poll-money. Caligula–whose pride was mankind’s bail, As who disdained to murder by retail, Wishing the world had but one general neck,– His glutton blade might have found game in Smec. No echo can improve the author more Whose lungs pay use on use to half a score. 70 No felon is more lettered, though the brand Both superscribes his shoulder and his hand. Some Welshman was his godfather, for he Wears in his name his genealogy. The banns are asked, would but the times give way, Betwixt Smectymnuus and Et Caetera. The guests, invited by a friendly summons, Should be the Convocation and the Commons. The priest to tie the foxes’ tails together Mosely, or Sancta Clara, choose you whether. 80 See what an offspring every one expects, What strange pluralities of men and sects! One says he’ll get a vestry, but another Is for a synod; Bet upon the mother. Faith, cry St. George! Let them go to ‘t and stickle Whether a conclave or a conventicle. Thus might religions caterwaul, and spite Which uses to divorce, might once unite. But their cross fortunes interdict their trade; The groom is rampant but the bride displayed. 90 My task is done, all my he goats are milked. So many cards i’ th’ stock, and yet be bilked? I could by letters now untwist the rabble, Whip Smec from constable to constable; But there I leave you to another dressing; Only kneel down and take your father’s blessing. May the Queen Mother justify your fears And stretch her patent to your leather ears!

[_Smectymnuus, &c._ (_1647_.) Whether this lively skit on the five ‘reverend men whose friend’ Milton was (as far as he could be proud of being anything but himself) proud of being was in Milton’s own mind when he wrote his _Apology_ for the acrostically named treatise, one cannot say. It is a lively ‘mime’ enough, and he seems to throw back that word with some special meaning. Cleveland’s poem may have appeared in the summer of 1641. Naturally, it is in the _Rump_ poems.]

[Line: 3 All editions ‘skilt’. It apparently must be as in text: ‘skill’t’ for ‘skill’st’ = ‘dost thou [or ‘does it’] signify?’]

[Line: 4 _1677_, &c. ‘Ape’, but ‘Ap’ in the Welsh sense (Welsh having just been mentioned) does well enough. It would go, not too roughly for Cleveland’s syntax, with ‘conjurer’. Let some wizard, descended from all these, _and therefore knowing all tongues_, translate.]

[Line: 6 This is rather interesting. Does it refer to Wessex or Devonshire dialect of the day, or to old West Saxon? Junius did not edit Cædmon till fourteen years later, but there was study of Anglo-Saxon from Parker’s time at Cambridge.]

[Line: 7 the brotherhood] ‘Brother’ and ‘sister’ being constant sneers at the Puritan.

play their prizes] = ‘fight’.]

[Line: 10 Perhaps another sneer at the ‘train-bands’ of the City.]

[Line: 15 ‘distinctly’ _1677_.]

[Line: 16 ‘_in_ a’ _1677_.]

[Line: 18 I suppose _à la mode_, which is in _1677_, is right; but the ‘_all_-a-mode’ of _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ is tempting.]

[Line: 20 ‘murnival’ or ‘mournival’. Four aces, kings, &c., especially at gleek.]

[Line: 22 _1677_, &c. ‘Or like _the College_’.]

[Line: 24 ‘h_a_llow’ _1653_.]

[Line: 25 I knew not this monster, and suspected that he would not be a delicate monster to know. But Mr. Thorn-Drury has found him in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1777, p. 482. Lazarus Collondo, a Genoese, had a small brother growing out of his side, with one leg, two arms, &c., &c.]

[Line: 29 ‘Smec’ will now be an even greater attraction at the Sturbridge fair at Cambridge. All fairs rejoiced in monsters.]

[Line: 36 ‘_The_ change’, as in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its group, including the _Rump_ version, is not so good as ‘her’, which _1677_ reads.]

[Line: 38 i.e. ‘to go on to any _other_ body’.]

[Line: 40 ‘Purlieu’ seems to be used in the sense of ‘precinct’ or ‘province’.]

[Lines: 41-2 These lines are in all the seventeenth-century editions I have seen, but not in Mr. Berdan’s. The Scots pound was of course only twenty English pence, and so the mark (two thirds) ‘shrank’ accordingly.]

[Line: 49 _1647_, _1651_, _1677_ insert ‘a’ before ‘sheet’. The metaphor is probably as old as hunting. ‘Spend’, as Professor Case reminds me, has had already in _The Miser_, l. 67, the sense of ‘give tongue’. ‘Scanned their feet’ for ‘kept pace’ is good enough; but why the five should leap a truss, and why this should be litigious, I again frankly confess myself to have been ignorant. Mr. Simpson, however, quotes R. Fletcher in _Ex Otio Negotium_, 1656, p. 202, ‘The model of the new Religion’:

How many Queere-religions? clear your throat, May a man have a penyworth? four a groat? Or do the _Iuncto_ leap at truss a fayle? Three tenents clap while five hang on the tayle?

Cleveland seems to have tried in this piece to equal the mystery of the title of ‘Smec’ by his own matter, and to have succeeded very fairly.]

[Line: 54 _1677_, &c. ‘_shall_ be’. ‘at th” _1647_, _1677_: ‘at the’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 55 cooped] cooked _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 56 _1677_, &c. ‘_the_ name’.]

[Line: 57 An absurd, but doubtless in the circumstances dangerous, document of the kind was actually disseminated, in which the prentices bold engaged ‘to defend his Sacred Majesty against Popish innovations such as archbishops and bishops appear to be’.]

[Line: 63 carrot-bunch] Cant for ‘fingers’.]

[Line: 70 ‘pay’ _1653_, _1677_: ‘pays’ _1647_, _1651_. _1677_ ‘_and_ use’.]

[Line: 75 ‘Banns’ _1677_: ‘Banes’ in earlier texts. _1653_ ‘time’.]

[Line: 78 The Convocation which had been guilty of ‘&c.’, and the Commons who mostly sympathized with ‘Smec’.]

[Line: 79 foxes’ tails] As at Samson’s marriage (Judges xv. 4-7.)]

[Line: 80 Mosel[e]y, Milton’s printer; and Sancta Clara, the Jesuit?]

[Line: 82 _1677_ ‘plurality’.]

[Line: 83 ‘Vestry, but’ _1677_: ‘Vestery’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 84 _1677_ ‘Bets’.]

[Line: 90 The heraldic terms are pretty plain, but _1677_ reads ‘is spade’ i.e. ‘spayed’, as in _The Hecatomb to his Mistress_, l. 2.]

[Line: 94 Rhyme here really badly managed.]

[Line: 95 _1677_ ‘another’s’.]

[Line: 97 The fear and dislike of Henrietta Maria (whom Mr. Berdan supposes to be meant) among the disaffected is only too certain: and the fate of Prynne’s ears for his scandal of her is notorious. But why _at this time_ she should be called a Queen Mother (it was her proper title afterwards, and she was one of the very few to whom it was actually given), and what the last line means, I know not. Nor does Professor Firth, unless Marie de Médicis (who _was_ Queen Mother in France and had visited England) had, as he suggests, a share in some leather patent, and is meant here. Smec’s ears are ‘vellum’ in _Rupertismus_, 169 (_v. inf._, p. 67).]

The Mixed Assembly.

Flea-Bitten synod, an assembly brewed Of clerks and elders _ana_, like the rude Chaos of Presbyt’ry, where laymen guide With the tame woolpack clergy by their side. Who asked the banns ‘twixt these discoloured mates? A strange grotesco this; the Church and states, Most divine tick-tack, in a piebald crew, To serve as table-men of divers hue! She, that conceived an Ethiopian heir By picture, when the parents both were fair, 10 At sight of you had born a dappled son, You checkering her imagination. Had Jacob’s flock but seen you sit, the dams Had brought forth speckled and ring-streakéd lambs. Like an impropriator’s motley kind Whose scarlet coat is with a cassock lined; Like the lay-thief in a canonic weed, Sure of his clergy ere he did the deed; Like Royston crows, who are (as I may say) Friars of both the Orders, Black and Gray; 20 So mixed they are, one knows not whether ‘s thicker, A layer of burgess, or a layer of vicar. Have they usurped what Royal Judah had, And now must Levi too part stakes with Gad? The sceptre and the crosier are the crutches, Which, if not trusted in their pious clutches, Will fail the cripple State. And were ‘t not pity But both should serve the yardwand of the City? That Isaac might stroke his beard and sit Judge of [Greek: eis Haidou] and _elegerit_? 30 Oh that they were in chalk and charcoal drawn! The miscellany-satyr and the faun And all th’ adulteries of twisted nature But faintly represent this riddling feature; Whose members being not tallies, they’ll not own Their fellows at the Resurrection. Strange scarlet doctors these! They’ll pass in story For sinners half refined in Purgatory, Or parboiled lobsters, where there jointly rules The fading sables and the coming gules. 40 The flea that Falstaff damned thus lewdly shows Tormented in the flames of Bardolph’s nose. Like him that wore the dialogue of cloaks This shoulder John-a-Stiles, that John-a-Nokes; Like Jews and Christians in a ship together With an old neck-verse to distinguish either; Like their intended discipline to boot, Or whatsoe’er hath neither head nor foot; Such may their stript-stuff-hangings seem to be, Sacrilege matched with codpiece simony. 50 Be sick and dream a little, you may then Fancy these linsey-woolsey vestry-men. Forbear, good Pembroke, be not over-daring. Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing, And thy drum-major oaths, of bulk unruly, May dwindle to a feeble ‘By my truly’! He that the noble Percy’s blood inherits, Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits? He’ll fright the Obadiahs out of tune With his uncircumciséd Algernoon; 60 A name so stubborn, ’tis not to be scanned By him in Gath with the six-fingered hand. See, they obey the magic of my words! Presto! they’re gone, and now the House of Lords Looks like the withered face of an old hag, But with three teeth like to a triple gag. A jig! a jig! and in this antic dance Fielding and Doxie Marshall first advance. Twisse blows the Scotch-pipes, and the loving brace Puts on the traces and treads cinque-a-pace. 70 Then Saye and Sele must his old hamstrings supple, And he and rumpled Palmer make a couple. Palmer ‘s a fruitful girl if he’ll unfold her; The midwife may find work about her shoulder. Kimbolton, that rebellious Boanerges, Must be content to saddle Dr. Burges. If Burges get a clap, ’tis ne’er the worse, But the fifth time of his compurgators. Noll Bowles is coy; good sadness, cannot dance But in obedience to the ordinance. 80 Here Wharton wheels about till mumping Lidy, Like the full moon, hath made his lordship giddy. Pym and the members must their giblets levy T’ encounter Madam Smec, that single bevy. If they two truck together, ’twill not be A child-birth, but a gaol-delivery. Thus every Ghibelline hath got his Guelph But Selden,–he ‘s a galliard by himself; And well may be; there ‘s more divines in him Than in all this, their Jewish Sanhedrim: 90 Whose canons in the forge shall then bear date When mules their cousin-germans generate. Thus Moses’ law is violated now; The ox and ass go yoked in the same plough. Resign thy coach-box, Twisse; Brooke’s preacher he Would sort the beasts with more conformity. Water and earth make but one globe; a Roundhead Is clergy-lay, party-per-pale compounded.

[_The Mixed Assembly_ (_1647_.) This was the famous ‘Westminster’ Assembly which met in July, 1643–a hodge-podge of half a score peers, a score of commoners, and about four times as many divines as laymen. Tanner MS. 465, of the Bodleian, has a poor copy of this poem; but some transpositions and omissions suggest that it preserves an earlier draft. Lines 63-6 follow 52; 71-8, 81-2, are omitted.]

[Line: 1 Flea-bitten] As of a horse–the laymen appearing like specks on the body of clergy.]

[Line: 2 _ana_] Usually interpreted in the apothecary’s sense, ‘in equal quantities’, written so in prescriptions and said to be from the Greek–[Greek: ana] being thus used.]

[Lines: 6, 7 ‘Church and State’s, Most divine’ _MS._]

[Line: 19 In a fable a Royston crow (the town being on the way to Cambridge had probably a bad reputation for fleecing the guileless undergraduate) advised an innocent of his kind to drop a shellfish from a height on rocks where the Royston bird was waiting and secured the meat.]

[Line: 28 _1677_ changes ‘But’ to ‘That’.]

[Line: 29 _1677_ inserts ‘_go_’ before ‘stroke’. But Cleveland probably scanned ‘I-sa-ac’. The reference is to Isaac Pennington: cf. _The Rebel Scot_, l. 79.]

[Line: 30 The phrase is of course Homeric (_sc._ [Greek: domous]) and with its companion combines the idea of an ecclesiastical condemnation (‘delivering over to Satan’) and a civil execution, a writ of _elegit_.]

[Line: 32 faun] All old editions, I think, and Mr. Berdan, ‘fa_w_n’. But the _animal_ (always now indicated by that spelling) is not of a ‘twisted nature’, the half-god is.]

[Line: 40 One of those that taught Dryden something.]

[Line: 41 Cleveland, like most Royalists and their master, was evidently sound on Shakespeare. A copy of _1677_ in my possession has a manuscript list of references on the fly-leaf.]

[Line: 46 ‘neck-verse’] = for benefit of clergy.]

[Line: 49 ‘Stript’, _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, is evidently ‘striped’, and is printed ‘strip’d’ in _1677_.]

[Line: 53 Philip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke, though a patron of literature and the arts, was a man of bad character and a virulent Roundhead.]

[Line: 55 ‘thy’ _1677_: ‘these’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.

of bulk unruly] if Vulcan rule you _MS._]

[Line: 59 _1647_, _1651_ ‘Obadiahs’: _1653_ and its group ‘Obadiah’: _1677_ ‘Obadiah’s’.]

[Line: 60 Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland–who repented too late of his rebellion and tried to prevent the consequences–seems to have joined the Roundheads out of pique (his pride was notorious) at neglect of his suggestions and interference with his powers as Lord High Admiral. By putting the fleet into the hands of the Parliament he did the King perhaps more hurt than any other single person at the beginning of the war. ‘Algernoon’ _1647_, _1651_: later texts spoil the point of the next line by using the conventional form.]

[Line: 68 Fielding] Basil, the degenerate son of the first Earl of Denbigh. He actually served in the Parliamentary Army, but like Northumberland, who did not go that length, repented too late.

Doxie Marshall] The Stephen Marshall of _Smectymnuus_ and the ‘Geneva Bull’ of _The Rebel Scot_, l. 21; exactly why ‘Doxie’ I do not know. Possibly ‘prostitute’ from his eager Presbyterianism. It is odd that Anne and Rebecca Marshall, two famous actresses of the Restoration to whom the term might be applied with some direct justification, used to be counted his daughters, though this is now denied.]

[Line: 69 Twisse] William (1578-1646), the Prolocutor of the Assembly.]

[Line: 71 Saye and Sele] William Fiennes, first Viscount (1582-1662). Of very bad reputation as a slippery customer.]

[Line: 72 rumpled] Mr. Berdan ‘rumbled’, on what authority and with what meaning I do not know. ‘Rumpled’, which is in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, and _1677_, no doubt refers to the untidy bands, &c. of a slovenly priest. Herbert Palmer (1604-1647) was a man of good family but a bitter Puritan. He was first Fellow and then President of Queens’ College, Cambridge, where Cleveland doubtless knew him. The odd description reads like that of a sort of deformed dwarf.]

[Line: 75 Kimbolton] Edward, Lord (1602-1671), just about to become the well-known Earl of Manchester of the Rebellion. Like Northumberland and Denbigh, he repented, but only after he had been not too politely shelved for Fairfax and Cromwell.]

[Line: 76 Cleveland would have been delighted had he known the fate of Cornelius Burges (1589?-1665), of whom he evidently had a pretty bad idea. Burges, a Wadham and Lincoln man, was one of the leaders of the Puritans among the London clergy, and a great favourite with the House of Commons in the Long Parliament. He wanted to suppress cathedrals; and, being a practical man and preacher at Wells during the Commonwealth, did his best by buying the deanery and part of the estates. Wherefore he was promptly and properly ruined by the Restoration, and died in well-deserved poverty. He was vice-president of the Westminster Assembly.]

[Line: 79 Oliver Bowles, a Puritan divine. _1653_ omits the comma after ‘sadness’ found in _1651_,–a neat punctuation, meaning ‘in good sadness, he cannot dance’. Phrases like ‘in good truth’, ‘in good sadnesse’ were the utmost licence of speech which the Puritans permitted themselves.]

[Line: 81 Philip, fourth Lord Wharton (1613-1696) took the anti-Royalist side very early, but cut a very poor figure at Edgehill and abandoned active service. He did not figure under the Commonwealth, but was a zealous Whig after the Restoration, and a prominent Williamite in the last years of his long life. Who ‘Lidy’ (_1653_) or ‘Lidie’ (_1677_) was seems unknown. Professor Firth suggests a misprint for ‘Sidie,’ i.e. Sidrach Simpson (1600?-1655), a busy London Puritan and member of the Assembly. Another ingenious suggestion made to me is that ‘mumping Lid[d]y’ may be one of the queer dance-names of the period, or actually a woman, Wharton being no enemy to the sex. But I do not know that there was such a dance, and as all the other pairs are males, being members of the Assembly, it would be odd if there were an exception here. For ‘Here’ _1647_, _1651_ read ‘Her’.]

[Line: 88 The exceptional position of Selden is well hit off here. His character and his earning were just able to neutralize, though not to overcome, the curse of Laodicea.]

[Line: 95 ‘Brooke’ is Robert Brooke, second Lord Brooke, cousin and successor of Fulke Greville–the ‘fanatic Brooke’ who had his ‘guerdon meet’ by being shot in his attack on Lichfield Cathedral. _Mercurius Anti-Britannicus_, 1645, p. 23, has:

Like my Lord Brooke’s _Coachman_ Preaching out of a tub.

(I owe this citation to Mr. Simpson.)]

The King’s Disguise.

And why a tenant to this vile disguise Which who but sees, blasphemes thee with his eyes? My twins of light within their penthouse shrink, And hold it their allegiance now to wink. O, for a state-distinction to arraign Charles of high treason ‘gainst my Sovereign! What an usurper to his prince is wont, Cloister and shave him, he himself hath don’ ‘t. His muffled feature speaks him a recluse– His ruins prove him a religious house! 10 The sun hath mewed his beams from off his lamp And majesty defaced the royal stamp. Is ‘t not enough thy dignity ‘s in thrall, But thou’lt transmute it in thy shape and all, As if thy blacks were of too faint a dye Without the tincture of tautology? Flay an Egyptian for his cassock skin, Spun of his country’s darkness, line ‘t within With Presbyterian budge, that drowsy trance, The Synod’s sable, foggy Ignorance; 20 Nor bodily nor ghostly negro could Roughcast thy figure in a sadder mould. This privy-chamber of thy shape would be But the close mourner of thy Royalty. Then, break the circle of thy tailor’s spell, A pearl within a rugged oyster’s shell. Heaven, which the minster of thy person owns, Will fine thee for dilapidations. Like to a martyred abbey’s coarser doom, Devoutly altered to a pigeon-room; 30 Or like a college by the changeling rabble, Manchester’s elves, transformed into a stable; Or if there be a profanation higher; Such is the sacrilege of thine attire, By which thou’rt half deposed.–Thou look’st like one Whose looks are under sequestration; Whose renegado form at the first glance Shows like the Self-denying Ordinance; Angel of light, and darkness too, (I doubt) Inspired within and yet possessed without; 40 Majestic twilight in the state of grace, Yet with an excommunicated face. Charles and his mask are of a different mint; A psalm of mercy in a miscreant print. The sun wears midnight, day is beetle-browed, And lightning is in kelder of a cloud. O the accursed stenography of fate! The princely eagle shrunk into a bat! What charm, what magic vapour can it be That checks his rays to this apostasy? 50 It is no subtile film of tiffany air, No cobweb vizard such as ladies wear, When they are veiled on purpose to be seen, Doubling their lustre by their vanquished screen. No, the false scabbard of a prince is tough And three-piled darkness, like the smoky slough Of an imprisoned flame; ’tis Faux in grain; Dark lantern to our bright meridian. Hell belched the damp; the Warwick Castle vote Rang Britain’s curfew, so our light went out. 60 [A black offender, should he wear his sin For penance, could not have a darker skin.] His visage is not legible; the letters Like a lord’s name writ in fantastic fetters; Clothes where a Switzer might be buried quick; Sure they would fit the body politic; False beard enough to fit a stage’s plot (For that ‘s the ambush of their wit, God wot), Nay, all his properties so strange appear, Y’ are not i’ th’ presence though the King be there. 70 A libel is his dress, a garb uncouth, Such as the _Hue and Cry_ once purged at mouth. Scribbling assassinate! Thy lines attest An earmark due, Cub of the Blatant Beast; Whose breath, before ’tis syllabled for worse, Is blasphemy unfledged, a callow curse. The Laplanders, when they would sell a wind Wafting to hell, bag up thy phrase and bind It to the bark, which at the voyage end Shifts poop and breeds the colic in the Fiend. 80 But I’ll not dub thee with a glorious scar Nor sink thy sculler with a man-of-war. The black-mouthed _Si quis_ and this slandering suit Both do alike in picture execute. But since w’ are all called Papists, why not date Devotion to the rags thus consecrate? As temples use to have their porches wrought With sphinxes, creatures of an antic draught, And puzzling portraitures to show that there Riddles inhabited; the like is here. 90 But pardon, Sir, since I presume to be Clerk of this closet to your Majesty. Methinks in this your dark mysterious dress I see the Gospel couched in parables. At my next view my purblind fancy ripes And shows Religion in its dusky types; Such a text royal, so obscure a shade Was Solomon in Proverbs all arrayed. Come, all the brats of this expounding age To whom the spirit is in pupilage, 100 You that damn more than ever Samson slew, And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too! How is ‘t he ‘scapes your inquisition free Since bound up in the Bible’s livery? Hence, Cabinet-intruders! Pick-locks, hence! You, that dim jewels with your Bristol sense: And characters, like witches, so torment Till they confess a guilt though innocent! Keys for this coffer you can never get; None but St. Peter’s opes this cabinet, 110 This cabinet, whose aspect would benight Critic spectators with redundant light. A Prince most seen is least. What Scriptures call The Revelation, is most mystical. Mount then, thou Shadow Royal, and with haste Advance thy morning-star, Charles, overcast. May thy strange journey contradictions twist And force fair weather from a Scottish mist. Heaven’s confessors are posed, those star-eyed sages, T’ interpret an eclipse thus riding stages. 120 Thus Israel-like he travels with a cloud, Both as a conduct to him and a shroud. But oh, he goes to Gibeon and renews A league with mouldy bread and clouted shoes!

[_The Kings Disguise._] That assumed on the fatal journey from Oxford to the camp of the Scots. (First printed as a quarto pamphlet of four leaves; Thomason bought his copy on 21 January, 1647; reprinted in the 1647 _Poems_. Vaughan wrote a poem on the same subject about the same time.)]

[Line: 1 a tenant to] so coffin’d in _1677_.]

[Line: 2 Which] That _1677_.]

[Line 4: _1677_ omits ‘now’, rather to one’s surprise, as the value ‘allegi-ance’ is of the first rather than of the second half of the century. It is therefore probably right.]

[Line: 14 transmute] transcribe _1677_. The two readings obviously pertain to two different senses of ‘blacks’–‘clothes’ and ‘ink’.]

[Line: 17 for] from _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 18 line ‘t] lin’de _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 19 The _1677_ ‘Vindicators’ had forgotten ‘budge’ in the sense of ‘fur’ (perhaps they were too loyal to read Milton) and made it ‘b_a_dge’.]

[Line: 20 _1651_, _1653_ ‘Synod’, with no hyphen but perhaps meant for a compound. The genitive is perhaps better. The comma at ‘sable’, which Mr. Berdan omits, is important.]

[Lines: 21-2 The error of those who say that such a rhyme points to the pronunciation of the _l_ in words like ‘could’ is sufficiently shown by the fact that ‘coud’ is frequent. It is, of course, a mere eye-rhyme, like many of Spenser’s earlier. ‘No bodily’ _1647_ (pamphlet).]

[Line: 23 shape] garb _1677_.]

[Line: 24 of] to _1677_.]

[Line: 25 ‘Twill break’ _1647_, _1653_. tailor’s] jailor’s _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 29 _1653_, but obviously by a mere misprint, ‘co_u_rser’.]

[Line: 31 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘_the_ college’. It is said that the definite article usually at this time designates ‘the College _of Physicians_’. But, as Mr. Berdan well observes, ‘the case was unfortunately too common to admit of identification’. Cleveland’s restless wit was not idle in calling ‘Manchester’s elves’–the Parliamentary troops–‘changelings’. The soldier ought to be a King’s man: and indeed pretended to be.]

[Line: 32 _1647_ (pamphlet) ‘reformed’.]

[Line: 40 This and l. 47 are examples of the Drydenian line before Dryden, so frequent in Cleveland.]

[Line: 46 = ‘The unborn child of a cloud’.]

[Line: 47 Alliteration, and some plausibility of verse, seduced _1677_ into ‘of State’, but I think ‘fate’ is better.]

[Line: 50 checks] shrinks _1647_, _1651_, _1653_.]

[Lines: 55-6 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ read

_Nor_ the false scabbard of a Princ_e’s_ tough _Metal_ and three-piled darkness like the slough.

Some fight might be made for ‘Metal’, but ‘Nor’ is indefensible. I am half inclined to transfer it above to l. 52 and take ‘No’ thence. The text, which is _1677_, is I suppose a correction. Both _1647_ texts mark ‘slough’ with an asterisk, and have a marginal note ‘A damp in coal-pits usual’.]

[Line: 57 I cannot understand what Mr. Berdan–who prints ‘Fawkes’–means by saying it is not authorized by any edition, whereas his own apparatus gives ‘Faux’ in every one. It is a mere question of spelling. ‘Three-piled darkness’ equally surrounds to me his further remark that he ‘adopted it as the only reading approximating sense; _treason in grain_’. The metaphor of the dark lantern cloaked is surely clear enough; and this ‘in grain’ is one of the innumerable passages showing the rashness of invariably interpreting ‘in grain’ as = ‘with the grain of the cochineal insect’. Beyond all doubt it has the simple sense of _penitus_, ‘inward’.]

[Line: 58 bright] high _1647_, _1653_.]

[Line: 59 the Warwick Castle vote] The Resolution of the Commons on May 6, 1646, that the King, after the Scots sold him, should be lodged in Warwick Castle.]

[Lines: 61-2 Not in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its group, but added in _1677_.]

[Line: 63 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘_Thy_ visage’.]

[Line: 67 _1677_ has the very considerable and not at once acceptable alteration of ‘thatch a poet’s plot’. But it may have been Cleveland.]

[Line: 72 _1647_, _1651_, again give an asterisked note, ‘Britanicus’, showing the definite, not general, reference of ‘Hue and Cry’. It seems that _Mercurius Britannicus_ did issue a ‘Hue and Cry’ after the King, for which the editor, Captain Audley, was put in the Gate-house till he apologized.]

[Line: 75 _1651_ ‘wreath’, corrupted into ‘wrath’ in _1653_.]

[Line: 76 Blount stupidly thought ‘callow’ to mean ‘lewd or wicked’, as if ‘unfledged’ did not ratify the usual sense.]

[Line: 80 breeds] brings _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 83 _Si quis_] The first words of a formal inquiry as to disqualifications in a candidate for orders, &c. It would apply to the Hue and Cry itself.]

[Line: 85 It being a favourite Puritan trick to identify ‘Royalist’ with ‘Papist’. ‘Date’ apparently in the sense of ‘begin’, which it usually has only as neuter.]

[Line: 89 puzzling] _1677_ and its followers ‘purling’, with no sense.]

[Line: 95 _1677_ ‘The second view’ and ‘wipes’.]

[Line: 106 Bristol] as of diamonds.]

[Line: 109 coffer] cipher _1677_, &c.]

[Line: 110 opes] ope _1677_.]

[Line: 116 ‘Charles’ _1677_: _1647_, _1651_, _1653,_ by a clear error ‘Charles’s’.]

[Line: 120 ‘T’ interpret an’ _1647_ (pamphlet): ‘To interpret an’ _1647_ (Poems) _1653_, _1677_. _1651_ omits ‘To’ and reads the ‘an’ which seems bad in metre and meaning alike.]

The Rebel Scot.

How, Providence? and yet a Scottish crew? Then Madam Nature wears black patches too! What? shall our nation be in bondage thus Unto a land that truckles under us? Ring the bells backward! I am all on fire. Not all the buckets in a country quire Shall quench my rage. A poet should be feared, When angry, like a comet’s flaming beard. And where ‘s the stoic can his wrath appease, To see his country sick of Pym’s disease? 10 By Scotch invasion to be made a prey To such pigwiggin myrmidons as they? But that there ‘s charm in verse, I would not quote The name of Scot without an antidote; Unless my head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be poison too. Were I a drowsy judge whose dismal note Disgorgeth halters as a juggler’s throat Doth ribbons; could I in Sir Emp’ric’s tone Speak pills in phrase and quack destruction; 20 Or roar like Marshall, that Geneva bull, Hell and damnation a pulpit full; Yet to express a Scot, to play that prize, Not all those mouth-grenadoes can suffice. Before a Scot can properly be curst, I must like Hocus swallow daggers first. Come, keen iambics, with your badger’s feet And badger-like bite till your teeth do meet. Help, ye tart satirists, to imp my rage With all the scorpions that should whip this age. 30 Scots are like witches; do but whet your pen, Scratch till the blood come, they’ll not hurt you then. Now, as the martyrs were enforced to take The shapes of beasts, like hypocrites, at stake, I’ll bait my Scot so, yet not cheat your eyes; A Scot within a beast is no disguise. No more let Ireland brag her harmless nation Fosters no venom since the Scot’s plantation: Nor can ours feigned antiquity maintain; Since they came in, England hath wolves again. 40 The Scot that kept the Tower might have shown, Within the grate of his own breast alone, The leopard and the panther, and engrossed What all those wild collegiates had cost The honest high-shoes in their termly fees; First to the salvage lawyer, next to these. Nature herself doth Scotchmen beasts confess, Making their country such a wilderness: A land that brings in question and suspense God’s omnipresence, but that Charles came thence, 50 But that Montrose and Crawford’s loyal band Atoned their sins and christ’ned half the land. Nor is it all the nation hath these spots; There is a Church as well as Kirk of Scots. As in a picture where the squinting paint Shows fiend on this side, and on that side saint. He, that saw Hell in ‘s melancholy dream And in the twilight of his fancy’s theme, Scared from his sins, repented in a fright, Had he viewed Scotland, had turned proselyte. 60 A land where one may pray with cursed intent, ‘Oh may they never suffer banishment!’ Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; Not forced him wander but confined him home! Like Jews they spread and as infection fly, As if the Devil had ubiquity. Hence ’tis they live at rovers and defy This or that place, rags of geography. They’re citizens o’ th’ world; they’re all in all; Scotland’s a nation epidemical. 70 And yet they ramble not to learn the mode, How to be dressed, or how to lisp abroad; To return knowing in the Spanish shrug, Or which of the Dutch States a double jug Resembles most in belly or in beard, (The card by which the mariners are steered). No, the Scots-errant fight and fight to eat, Their Ostrich stomachs make their swords their meat. Nature with Scots as tooth-drawers hath dealt Who use to hang their teeth upon their belt. 80 Yet wonder not at this their happy choice, The serpent ‘s fatal still to Paradise. Sure, England hath the hemorrhoids, and these On the north postern of the patient seize Like leeches; thus they physically thirst After our blood, but in the cure shall burst! Let them not think to make us run o’ th’ score To purchase villenage, as once before When an act passed to stroke them on the head, Call them good subjects, buy them gingerbread. 90 Not gold, nor acts of grace, ’tis steel must tame The stubborn Scot; a Prince that would reclaim Rebels by yielding, doth like him, or worse, Who saddled his own back to shame his horse. Was it for this you left your leaner soil, Thus to lard Israel with Egypt’s spoil? They are the Gospel’s life-guard; but for them, The garrison of New Jerusalem, What would the brethren do? The Cause! The Cause! Sack-possets and the fundamental laws! 100 Lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts! How a Scotch stomach and no meat converts! They wanted food and raiment, so they took Religion for their seamstress and their cook. Unmask them well; their honours and estate, As well as conscience, are sophisticate. Shrive but their titles and their money poise, A laird and twenty pence pronounced with noise, When construed, but for a plain yeoman go, And a good sober two-pence; and well so. 110 Hence then, you proud impostors; get you gone, You Picts in gentry and devotion; You scandal to the stock of verse, a race Able to bring the gibbet in disgrace. Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce The ostracism and shamed it out of use. The Indian, that Heaven did forswear Because he heard some Spaniards were there, Had he but known what Scots in Hell had been, He would Erasmus-like have hung between. 120 My Muse hath done. A voider for the nonce! I wrong the Devil should I pick their bones; That dish is his; for, when the Scots decease, Hell, like their nation, feeds on barnacles. A Scot, when from the gallow-tree got loose, Drops into Styx and turns a Solan goose.

[_The Rebel Scot._] This famous piece is said to be the only one of Cleveland’s poems which is in every edition. In _1677_ it is accompanied by a Latin version (of very little merit, and probably if not certainly by ‘another hand’) which I do not give. A poor copy is in Tanner MS. 465 of the Bodleian, at fol. 92, with the title ‘A curse on the Scots’. The piece is hot enough, and no wonder; but it would no doubt have been hotter if it had been written later, when Cleveland was actually gagged by Leven’s dismissal of him. It is not unnoteworthy that the library of the University of Edinburgh contains not a single one of the numerous seventeenth-century editions of Cleveland. Years afterwards, when a Douglas had chequered the disgrace of ‘the Dutch in the Medway’ by a brave death, Marvell, who probably knew our poet, composed for ‘Cleveland’s Ghost’ a half palinode, half continuation, entitled ‘The _Loyal_ Scot’.]

[Line: 10 It would seem that Pym had not yet gone to his account, as he died on December 6, 1643, after getting Parliament to accept the Covenant and the Scots to invade England.]

[Line: 12 The early texts have Drayton’s name correctly: _1677_ makes it ‘Pigwidgin’.]

[Line: 15 It seems hardly necessary to remind the reader of the well-known habit of painting Judas’s hair red.]

[Line: 19 could … tone] or in the Empiric’s misty tone _MS._]

[Line: 21 Stephen Marshall, the ‘Smec.’ man and a mighty cushion-thumper (who denounced the ‘Curse of Meroz’ on all who came not to destroy those in any degree opposed to the Parliament), actually preached Pym’s funeral sermon.]

[Line: 22 ‘Damnati-on’. But _MS._ reads ‘a whole pulpit full’.]

[Line: 28 _1653_ has the obvious blunder of ‘feet’ repeated for ‘teeth’. The first ‘feet’ is itself less obvious, but I suppose the strong claw and grip of the badger’s are meant. Some, however, refer it to the supposed lop-sidedness or inequality of badgers’ feet, answering to the [)]– of the iamb. I never knew but one badger, who lived in St. Clement’s, Oxford, and belonged (surreptitiously) to Merton College. I did not notice his feet.]

[Line: 32 The more usual reproach was the other way–that ‘the Scot would not fight _till_ he saw his own blood’.]

[Line: 38 _1677_, less well, ‘_that_ Scot’.]

[Line: 39 ‘ours … maintain’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_: ‘our … obtain’ _1677_.]

[Line: 41 The Scot] Sir William Balfour, a favoured servant of the King, who deserted to the other side.]

[Line: 44 A difficulty has been made about ‘collegiate’, but there is surely none. The word (or ‘colleg_ian_’) is old slang, and hardly slang for ‘jail-bird’. The double use of the Tower as a prison and a menagerie should of course be remembered.]

[Line: 45 high-shoes] Country folk in boots.

termly] = ‘when they came up to business’.]

[Line: 51 Crawford] Ludovic, sixteenth Earl, who fought bravely all through the Rebellion, served after the downfall in France and Spain, and died, it is not accurately known when or where, but about 1652.]

[Line: 52 A fine line. _1677_ does not improve it by reading ‘_their_ land’.]

[Lines: 63-4 The central and most often quoted couplet.]

[Lines: 65-6 follow 70 in the _MS._]

[Line: 67 at rovers] Common for shooting not at a definite mark, but at large.]

[Line: 70 epidemical] In the proper sense of ‘travelling from country to country’, not doubtless without the transferred one of a ‘travelling _plague_’.]

[Line: 74 States] not the Provinces; but the representative Hogan Mogans themselves.]

[Line: 78 ‘Ostrich’ in _1677_: _1647_, _1651,_ and _1653_ the older ‘estrich’.]

[Line: 80 hang] string _1677_.]

[Line: 81 ‘But why should we be made your frantic choice?’ _MS._]

[Line: 82 ‘England too hath emerods’ _MS._]

[Line: 83 _1651_, _1653_ have a middle form between ’emerod’ and ‘hemorrhoid’–‘Hemeroids’. _1647_ ‘Hemerods’.]

[Line: 84 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ and its group, oddly, ‘posture’.]

[Line: 89 The Parliamentary bribe or Danegelt of 1641.]

[Line: 95 ‘left’ _1653_, &c., _1677_: ‘gave’ _1647_, _1651_. The _MS._ reads ‘But they may justly quit their leaner soil. ‘Tis to lard …’]

[Line: 101 _1651_, _1653_ ‘goodly’, but here, I think, the old is not the better.]

[Line: 107 ‘money’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_: ‘moneys’ _1677_.]

[Line: 108 _1647_, _1653_, &c. ‘pound’, wrongly. Twenty Scots pence = not quite two-pence English. Therefore ‘well so’.]

[Line: 118 _1641_, _1651_, and _1653_ ‘the Spaniards’, but ‘some’ (_1677_) is more pointed.]

[Line: 120 Erasmus] Regarded as neither Papist nor Protestant?]

[Cleveland never wrote anything else of this force and fire: and it, or parts of it, were constantly revived when the occasion presented itself.]

The Scots’ Apostasy.

Is ‘t come to this? What? shall the cheeks of Fame, Stretched with the breath of learned Loudoun’s name, Be flagged again? And that great piece of sense, As rich in loyalty as eloquence, Brought to the test, be found a trick of state? Like chemists’ tinctures, proved adulterate? The Devil sure such language did achieve To cheat our unforewarned Grandam Eve, As this impostor found out to besot Th’ experienced English to believe a Scot! 10 Who reconciled the Covenant’s doubtful sense, The Commons’ argument, or the City’s pence? Or did you doubt persistence in one good Would spoil the fabric of your brotherhood, Projected first in such a forge of sin, Was fit for the grand Devil’s hammering? Or was ‘t ambition that this damned fact Should tell the world you know the sins you act? The infamy this super-treason brings Blasts more than murders of your sixty kings; 20 A crime so black, as being advis’dly done, Those hold with this no competition. Kings only suffered then; in this doth lie Th’ assassination of Monarchy. Beyond this sin no one step can be trod, If not t’ attempt deposing of your God. Oh, were you so engaged that we might see Heaven’s angry lightning ’bout your ears to flee Till you were shrivelled to dust, and your cold Land Parched to a drought beyond the Lybian sand! 30 But ’tis reserved! Till Heaven plague you worse, Be objects of an epidemic curse. First, may your brethren, to whose viler ends Your power hath bawded, cease to count you friends, And, prompted by the dictate of their reason, Reproach the traitors though they hug the treason: And may their jealousies increase and breed Till they confine your steps beyond the Tweed: In foreign nations may your loath’d name be A stigmatizing brand of infamy, 40 Till forced by general hate you cease to roam The world, and for a plague go live at home; Till you resume your poverty and be Reduced to beg where none can be so free To grant: and may your scabby Land be all Translated to a general hospital: Let not the sun afford one gentle ray To give you comfort of a summer’s day; But, as a guerdon for your traitorous war, Live cherished only by the Northern Star: 50 No stranger deign to visit your rude coast, And be to all but banished men as lost: And such, in heightening of the infliction due, Let provoked princes send them all to you: Your State a chaos be where not the Law, But power, your lives and liberties may awe: No subject ‘mongst you keep a quiet breast, But each man strive through blood to be the best; Till, for those miseries on us you’ve brought, By your own sword our just revenge be wrought. 60 To sum up all–let your religion be, As your allegiance, masked hypocrisy, Until, when Charles shall be composed in dust, Perfumed with epithets of good and just, HE saved, incenséd Heaven may have forgot T’ afford one act of mercy to a Scot, Unless that Scot deny himself and do (What’s easier far) renounce his Nation too.

[_The Scots’ Apostasy_ was first printed as a broadside in _1646_, and assigned at the time to Cleveland by Thomas Old. It was included in _1651_, but not admitted by the ‘Vindicators’ in _1677_. But it is in all the central group of editions except _Cleaveland Revived_, where absence is usually a strong proof of genuineness; and it is extremely like him. Mr. Berdan has admitted it, and so do I. Professor Case has noted a catalogue entry of _The Scot’s Constancy, an answer to J. C’s._ [_al._ Or an Answer to Cleveland’s] _Scots’ Apostasy_ (G. R. Bastick) [_al._ Robin Bostock], London April 1647. The ‘J. C’s’ is of course pertinent.]

[Line: 2 John Campbell (1598-1633), from 1620 Baron Loudoun in his wife’s right, was, after taking a violent part on the Covenant side in the earlier Scotch-English war, instrumental in concluding peace; and was made in 1641 Chancellor of Scotland and Earl of Loudoun.]

[Line: 4 as] ‘and’ _1653_.]

[Line: 9 ‘imposture’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 20 The celebrated and grisly collection of Scottish monarchs in Holyrood was not yet in existence; for its imaginative creator only painted it in 1684, and there are 106, not sixty. But the remoteness of Scottish pedigrees was popularly known: and if it be not true that all Scottish kings were murdered, not a few had been.]

[Line: 24 ‘Assassination’ is valued at six syllables.]

[Line: 28 ‘to’ _1651_, &c.: ‘into’ _1646_.]

[Line: 31 Till] and tell _1646_, _1651_.]

[Line: 34 ‘count you’ _1646_, _1651_, _1653_, &c.: ‘be your’ _1687_. This prayer, at any rate, was heard pretty soon.]

[Line: 38 ‘steps’ _1651_, &c.: ‘ships’ _1646_.]

[Line: 42 ‘go’, misprinted ‘to’ in _1653_, &c.]

[Lines: 67-8 Not in _1646_.]

Rupertismus.

O that I could but vote myself a poet, Or had the legislative knack to do it! Or, like the doctors militant, could get Dubbed at adventure Verser Banneret! Or had I Cacus’ trick to make my rhymes Their own antipodes, and track the times! ‘Faces about,’ says the remonstrant spirit, ‘Allegiance is malignant, treason merit.’ Huntingdon colt, that posed the sage recorder, Might be a sturgeon now and pass by order. 10 Had I but Elsing’s gift (that splay-mouthed brother That declares one way and yet means another), Could I thus write asquint, then, Sir, long since You had been sung a great and glorious Prince! I had observed the language of these days, Blasphemed you, and then periwigged the phrase With humble service and such other fustian, Bells which ring backward in this great combustion. I had reviled you, and without offence; The literal and equitable sense 20 Would make it good. When all fails, that will do ‘t; Sure that distinction cleft the Devil’s foot! This were my dialect, would your Highness please To read me but with Hebrew spectacles; Interpret counter what is cross rehearsed; Libels are commendations when reversed. Just as an optic glass contracts the sight At one end, but when turned doth multiply ‘t. But you’re enchanted, Sir, you’re doubly free From the great guns and squibbing poetry, 30 Whom neither bilbo nor invention pierces, Proof even ‘gainst th’ artillery of verses. Strange that the Muses cannot wound your mail! If not their art, yet let their sex prevail. At that known leaguer, where the bonny Besses Supplied the bow-strings with their twisted tresses, Your spells could ne’er have fenced you, every arrow Had lanced your noble breast and drunk the marrow. For beauty, like white powder, makes no noise And yet the silent hypocrite destroys. 40 Then use the Nuns of Helicon with pity Lest Wharton tell his gossips of the City That you kill women too, nay maids, and such Their general wants militia to touch. Impotent Essex! Is it not a shame Our Commonwealth, like to a Turkish dame, Should have an eunuch guardian? May she be Ravished by Charles, rather than saved by thee! But why, my Muse, like a green-sickness girl, Feed’st thou on coals and dirt? A gelding earl 50 Gives no more relish to thy female palate Than to that ass did once the thistle sallet. Then quit the barren theme and all at once, Thou and thy sisters like bright Amazons, Give Rupert an alarum. Rupert! one Whose name is wit’s superfetation, Makes fancy, like eternity’s round womb, Unite all valour, present, past, to come! He who the old philosophy controls That voted down plurality of souls! 60 He breathes a Grand Committee; all that were The wonders of their age constellate here. And as the elder sisters, Growth and Sense, Souls paramount themselves, in man commence But faculties of reasons queen; no more Are they to him (who was complete before), Ingredients of his virtue. Thread the beads Of Caesar’s acts, great Pompey’s and the Swede’s, And ’tis a bracelet fit for Rupert’s hand, By which that vast triumvirate is spanned. 70 Here, here is palmistry; here you may read How long the world shall live and when ‘t shall bleed. What every man winds up, that Rupert hath, For Nature raised him of the Public Faith; Pandora’s brother, to make up whose store The gods were fain to run upon the score. Such was the painter’s brief for Venus’ face; Item, an eye from Jane; a lip from Grace. Let Isaac and his cits flay off the plate That tips their antlers, for the calf of state; 80 Let the zeal-twanging nose, that wants a ridge, Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge; Yes, and the gossip spoon augment the sum Although poor Caleb lose his christendom; Rupert outweighs that in his sterling self Which their self-want pays in commuting pelf. Pardon, great Sir, for that ignoble crew Gains when made bankrupt in the scales with you. As he, who in his character of Light Styled it God’s shadow, made it far more bright 90 By an eclipse so glorious (light is dim And a black nothing when compared to Him), So ’tis illustrious to be Rupert’s foil And a just trophy to be made his spoil. I’ll pin my faith on the Diurnal’s sleeve Hereafter, and the Guildhall creed believe; The conquests which the Common Council hears With their wide listening mouth from the great Peers That ran away in triumph. Such a foe Can make them victors in their overthrow; 100 Where providence and valour meet in one, Courage so poised with circumspection That he revives the quarrel once again Of the soul’s throne; whether in heart, or brain, And leaves it a drawn match; whose fervour can Hatch him whom Nature poached but half a man; His trumpet, like the angel’s at the last, Makes the soul rise by a miraculous blast. Was the Mount Athos carved in shape of man As ’twas designed by th’ Macedonian 110 (Whose right hand should a populous land contain, The left should be a channel to the main), His spirit would inform th’ amphibious figure And, strait-laced, sweat for a dominion bigger. The terror of whose name can out of seven, Like Falstaff’s buckram men, make fly eleven. Thus some grow rich by breaking. Vipers thus, By being slain, are made more numerous. No wonder they’ll confess no loss of men, For Rupert knocks ’em till they gig again. 120 They fear the giblets of his train, they fear Even his dog, that four-legged cavalier; He that devours the scraps that Lunsford makes; Whose picture feeds upon a child in steaks; Who, name but Charles, he comes aloft for him, But holds up his malignant leg at Pym. ‘Gainst whom they have these articles in souse: First, that he barks against the sense o’ th’ House; Resolved delinquent, to the Tower straight, Either to th’ Lions’ or the Bishop’s Grate: 130 Next, for his ceremonious wag o’ th’ tail. (But there the sisterhood will be his bail, At least the Countess will, Lust’s Amsterdam, That lets in all religions of the game.) Thirdly, he smells intelligence; that ‘s better And cheaper too than Pym’s from his own letter, Who ‘s doubly paid (Fortune or we the blinder!) For making plots and then for fox the finder: Lastly, he is a devil without doubt, For, when he would lie down, he wheels about, 140 Makes circles, and is couchant in a ring; And therefore score up one for conjuring. ‘What canst thou say, thou wretch!’ ‘O quarter, quarter! I’m but an instrument, a mere Sir Arthur. If I must hang, O let not our fates vary, Whose office ’tis alike to fetch and carry!’ No hopes of a reprieve; the mutinous stir That strung the Jesuit will dispatch a cur. ‘Were I a devil as the rabble fears, I see the House would try me by my peers!’ 150 There, Jowler, there! Ah, Jowler! ‘st, ’tis nought! Whate’er the accusers cry, they’re at a fault: And Glyn and Maynard have no more to say Than when the glorious Strafford stood at bay. Thus libels but annexed to him, we see, Enjoy a copyhold of victory. Saint Peter’s shadow healed; Rupert’s is such ‘Twould find Saint Peter’s work and wound as much. He gags their guns, defeats their dire intent; The cannons do but lisp and compliment. 160 Sure, Jove descended in a leaden shower To get this Perseus; hence the fatal power Of shot is strangled. Bullets thus allied Fear to commit an act of parricide. Go on, brave Prince, and make the world confess Thou art the greater world and that the less. Scatter th’ accumulative king; untruss That five-fold fiend, the State’s Smectymnuus, Who place religion in their vellum ears As in their phylacters the Jews did theirs. 170 England’s a paradise (and a modest word) Since guarded by a cherub’s flaming sword. Your name can scare an atheist to his prayers, And cure the chincough better than the bears. Old Sibyl charms the toothache with you; Nurse Makes you still children; and the ponderous curse The clowns salute with is derived from you, ‘Now, Rupert take thee, rogue, how dost thou do?’ In fine the name of Rupert thunders so, Kimbolton’s but a rumbling wheelbarrow. 180

[_Rupertismus_] ‘_To P. Rupert_’ in the _1647_ texts (Bodley and Case copies). The odd title _Rupertismus_ was first given in _1651_. This poem expresses the earlier and more sanguine Cavalier temper, when things on the whole went well. Rupert’s admirable quality as an officer naturally made him a sort of Cavalier cynosure and (with his being half a foreigner) a bugbear to the Roundheads; while neither party had yet found out his fatal defects as a general. Hence ‘Rupertismus’ not ill described the humour of both sides. The dog who figures so largely was a real dog (said of course to be a familiar spirit), and Professor Firth tells me that he has a pamphlet (1642) entitled _Observations upon P. R.’s white dog called Boy, carefully taken by T. B._, with a picture of the animal. It was replied to by _The Parliament’s Unspotted Bitch_ next year.]

[Lines: 1, 2 The ‘legislative knack’ to vote oneself everything good and perfect has always been a gift of Houses of Commons. It was rather shrewd of Cleveland to formulate it so early and so well.]

[Line: 4 Bannerets being properly dubbed on the field of battle. ‘Adventure’ _1677_: ‘Adventures’ _1647_, _1651_, _1687_: ‘adventurers’ _1653_ and its group.]

[Line: 5 Cacus’ trick] of dragging his cattle by the tails.]

[Line: 7 spirit] A word their abuse of which was constantly thrown in the face of the Puritans till Swift’s thrice rectified vitriol almost destroyed the abuse itself.]

[Line: 8 malignant] in the technical Roundhead sense.]

[Line: 9 The gibe at Huntingdon, clear enough from the passage, is one of many old local insults. I can remember when it was a little unsafe, in one of the Channel islands, to speak of a donkey. This particular jest recurs in Pepys (May 22, 1677), who was in a way a Huntingdon man.]

[Line: 11 Elsing] Clerk to the House of Commons.]

[Line: 13 ‘thus’ _1677_: ‘but’ _1647_ and the earlier texts. write] _1653_, ‘right’–evidently one of the numerous mistakes due to dictating copy.]

[Line: 14 ‘_The_ Prince’ was a title which Rupert monopolized early and kept till his death.]

[Line: 15 ‘these’ _1677_: ‘the’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _1687_.]

[Line: 20 _1677_ ‘th’ equitable’.]

[Line: 24 The rhyme of ‘-cles’ to an _ee_ syllable occurs in Dryden.]

[Line: 31 ‘Who’ _1653_ and its group.]

[Line: 35 Carthage. Rupert’s devotion to ladies was lifelong.]

[Line: 39 ‘White’ or noiseless powder was a constant object of research.]

[Line: 45 Essex was _twice_ divorced on the ground mentioned, and his efficiency in the field was not to be much greater than that in the chamber.]

[Line: 53 _1677_, &c., ‘_his_ barren theme’.]

[Line: 65 _1654_ ‘faculty’. _1677_ ‘Reason Queen’. I am not sure which is right.]

[Lines: 66-7 So punctuated in _1677_. Earlier texts and _1687_ ‘who were to him complete before. Ingredients of his virtue thread’ … _1677_ reads ‘virtues’.]

[Line: 68 ‘_the_ Swede’: of course Gustavus Adolphus.]

[Line: 73 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘Whatever’.]

[Line: 74 _1677_, apparently alone, ‘o_n_ the’].

[Line: 78 _1653_, evidently by slip, ‘_for_ Jane’.]

[Line: 79 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘Cit’z’ (not quite bad for ‘_citiz_ens) and ‘flea of the place’. ‘Flea’ for ‘flay’ is not uncommon: the rest is absurd. ‘Isaac’ was Isaac Pennington, father of that Judith whose obliging disposition Mr. Pepys has commemorated.]

[Line: 80 ‘Antl_ets_’, which occurs in all, is not impossible for ‘antl_ers_’ (the everlastingly ridiculed citizen ‘horns’). But _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ forgot the Golden Calf altogether in their endeavour to provide a rhyme for their own misprint (l. 79) by reading ‘Stace’.]

[Line: 83 ‘Gossip’s’ (_1651_, _1677_) is not wanted and hisses unnecessarily.]

[Line: 86 ‘self-wants’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, _1687_. _1677_, most improbably, ‘committee’. The whole passage refers to the subscriptions of plate and money in lieu of personal service which Pennington, as Lord Mayor, promised ‘on the Public Faith’. Rupert’s self outweighs all this vicarious performance.]

[Line: 89 ‘whom’ _1653_, _1654._]

[Line: 92 to] with _1677_.]

[Line: 95 Diurnal] Which Cleveland satirized in his first published (prose) work.]

[Line: 98 As Wharton at Edgehill. ‘Mouths’ _1647_, _1687_.]

[Line: 100 them] men _1677_.]

[Line: 109 Was the] ‘Twas the _1647_, _1651_, _1653_: Was that _1677_. ‘Was’ = ‘if it were’.]

[Line: 110 designed] _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘defin’d’, with a clear _f_, not long _s_.]

[Line: 113 would] _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ might.]

[Line: 114 The text is _1677_, which, however, reads (with the usual want of strait-lacedness) ‘straight’. _1651_, _1653_, have ‘Yet’ for ‘And’, which is corrected in some of their own group, and ‘sweats’.]

[Line: 117 some] Like Mr. Badman a little later.]

[Line: 120 gig] = ‘spin like a top’. Dryden uses the word in the same sense and almost in the same phrase in the Prologue to _Amphitryon_, l. 21: _v. sup._, p. 17.]

[Line: 121 giblets] Apparently in the sense of ‘offal’, ‘refuse’.]

[Line: 123 Lunsford] Sir Thomas, 1610?-1653. The absurd legends about this Cavalier’s ‘child-eating’ are referred to in, originally, _Hudibras_ and in Lacy’s _Old Troop_, and at second-hand (probably from the text also, though it is not quoted) in the notes to Scott’s _Woodstock_. _1651_ and _1653_ have ‘which’ for second ‘that’.]

[Line: 124 steaks] All old editions ‘stakes’–a very common spelling, which Mr. Berdan keeps. As he modernizes the rest, his readers may be under the impression that the ogre impaled the infants before devouring them, which was not, I think, alleged by the most savoury professor on the Roundhead side.]

[Line: 127 souse] = ‘pickle’. ‘they have these’ _1677_: ‘they’ve several’ _1647_, _1651_: ‘they have several’ _1653_.]

[Line: 130 Bishop’s] _1677_, _1687_ editions have the apostrophe. Laud is probably referred to in ‘Bishop’s’. The force of all this, and its application to other times, are admirable.]

[Line: 133 The Countess–pretty clearly Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle (1599-1660)–beauty, wit, harlot, and traitress (though, too late, she repented). Amsterdam] The religious indifference of the Dutch being a common reproach.

_1677_ and its followers read ‘with’ for ‘will’, which would alter the sense completely.]

[Line: 134 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ have ‘religious’ in the well-known noun sense, and it is possibly better.]

[Line: 144 Sir Arthur Haselrig (died 1661)–a very busy person throughout the troubles, but not considered as exactly a prime mover.]

[Line: 148 _1677_ ‘_the_ cur’.]

[Line: 149 ‘rabble’ is _1677_ and seems good, though the earlier ‘rebel’ might do.]

[Line: 152 a fault] _1677_ default–not so technical.]

[Line: 153 Serjeants John Glyn[ne] (1607-66) and John Maynard (1602-90) were well-known legal bandogs on the Roundhead side in the earlier stages; but both trimmed cleverly during the later, and sold themselves promptly to the Crown at the Restoration. Glynne died soon. Maynard lived to prosecute the victims of the Popish Plot, and to turn his coat once more, at nearly ninety, for William of Orange.]

[Line: 155 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘l_a_bels’: _1677_ ‘Thus libels but amount to him we see T’ enjoy’.]

[Line: 158 _1677_ ‘St. Peter’, which looks plausible, though I am not sure that it is better than the genitive. _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ have ‘yet’ for ‘and’ as in other cases.]

[Line: 167 the accumulative king] Pym? who was nicknamed ‘king’ Pym, and if not exactly ‘accumulative’ (for his debts were paid by Parliament) must have been expensive and was probably rapacious. Others think it means ‘the Committee’, ‘accumulative’ being = ‘cumulative’ (or rather ‘plural’). They quote, not without force, our poet’s prose _Character of a Country Committee man_, ‘a Committee man is a name of multitude’, the phrase ‘accumulative treason’ occurring in the context.]

[Line: 175 _1677_ transfers ‘the’ to before ‘Nurse’–a great loss, the unarticled and familiar ‘Nurse’ being far better–and reads ‘Sibils charm’.]

[Line: 176 ‘and’ _1653_, 1677: ‘nay and’ _1647_, _1651_, _1687._]

[Line: 177 _1677_ ‘Clown salutes’.]

Epitaph on the Earl of Strafford.

Here lies wise and valiant dust Huddled up ‘twixt fit and just; Strafford, who was hurried hence ‘Twixt treason and convenience. He spent his time here in a mist; A Papist, yet a Calvinist; His Prince’s nearest joy and grief He had, yet wanted all relief; The prop and ruin of the State; The People’s violent love and hate; 10 One in extremes loved and abhorred. Riddles lie here, or in a word, Here lies blood; and let it lie Speechless still and never cry.

[_Epitaph, &c._ In the Bodleian copy of _1647_ and in Professor Case’s (3rd issue) and in all others except _Cleaveland Revived_ (_1659_) and _1677_; but in some of the earliest classed with the work of ‘Uncertain Authors’. Winstanley (no very strong authority, it is true) calls it Cleveland’s and ‘excellent’. It is perhaps too much to say with Mr. Berdan, that it is ‘unlike his manner’. There is certainly in it a manner which he does not often display, but the pity and the terror of that great tragedy might account for part of this, and the difficulty (for any Royalist) of speaking freely of it for more. It is rather fine, I think.]

[Line: 4 The pitiful truth could hardly be better put.]

[Line: 6 Obscure, but not un-Clevelandish.]

[Lines: 7-8 Punctuation altered to get what seems the necessary sense. A comma which _1653_ has at ‘grief’ (not to mention a full stop in the _1647_ texts) obscures this, and a comma at ‘wanted’, which Mr. Berdan puts, does so even more. The phrase is once more fatally just and true. He enjoyed all his master’s affection and received all his grief, but ‘wanted’ his support and relief. Professor Case, however, would cling to the stop, at least the comma, at ‘grief’.]

[Line: 12 or] Other editions ‘and’. For ‘Riddles’ cf. _The King’s Disguise_, ll. 89-90.]

[Lines: 13-14 For the third time ‘he says it’, and there is no more to say.–In _1653_ there follows a Latin Epitaph on Strafford which has nothing to do with this. It is in some phrases enigmatic enough to be Cleveland’s, but it is not certainly his, and as it is neither English nor verse we need hardly give it.]

An Elegy upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I need no Muse to give my passion vent, He brews his tears that studies to lament. Verse chemically weeps; that pious rain Distilled with art is but the sweat o’ th’ brain Whoever sobbed in numbers? Can a groan Be quavered out by soft division? ‘Tis true for common formal elegies Not Bushel’s Wells can match a poet’s eyes In wanton water-works; he’ll tune his tears From a Geneva jig up to the spheres. 10 But then he mourns at distance, weeps aloof. Now that the conduit head is our own roof, Now that the fate is public, we may call It Britain’s vespers, England’s funeral. Who hath a pencil to express the Saint But he hath eyes too, washing off the paint? There is no learning but what tears surround, Like to Seth’s pillars in the Deluge drowned. There is no Church; Religion is grown So much of late that she ‘s increased to none, 20 Like an hydropic body, full of rheums, First swells into a bubble, then consumes. The Law is dead or cast into a trance,– And by a law dough-baked, an Ordinance! The Liturgy, whose doom was voted next, Died as a comment upon him the text. There’s nothing lives; life is, since he is gone, But a nocturnal lucubration. Thus you have seen death’s inventory read In the sum total,–Canterbury’s dead; 30 A sight would make a Pagan to baptize Himself a convert in his bleeding eyes; Would thaw the rabble, that fierce beast of ours, (That which hyena-like weeps and devours) Tears that flow brackish from their souls within, Not to repent, but pickle up their sin. Meantime no squalid grief his look defiles. He gilds his sadder fate with nobler smiles. Thus the world’s eye, with reconciléd streams, Shines in his showers as if he wept his beams. 40 How could success such villanies applaud? The State in Strafford fell, the Church in Laud; The twins of public rage, adjudged to die For treasons they should act, by prophecy; The facts were done before the laws were made; The trump turned up after the game was played. Be dull, great spirits, and forbear to climb, For worth is sin and eminence a crime. No churchman can be innocent and high. ‘Tis height makes Grantham steeple stand awry. 50

[_An Elegy, &c._ (_1647_.) If the Strafford epitaph seemed too serious, as well as too concentrated and passionate, for Cleveland, this on Strafford’s fellow worker and fellow victim may seem almost a caricature of our author’s more wayward and more fantastic manner. Yet there are fine lines in it, and perhaps nowhere else do we see the Dryden fashion of verse (though not of thought) more clearly foreshadowed. It appears to come under ‘Uncertain Authors’ in some _1647_ texts, but _1677_ gives it. Title in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘On the Archbishop of Canterbury’ only.]

[Line: 4 _1677_ ‘_by_ art’.]

[Line: 6 _1677_ ‘_in_ soft’.]

[Line: 8 Thomas Bushel[l] or Bushnell (1594-1674) was a page of Bacon’s and afterwards a great ‘projector’ in mining and mechanical matters generally. He dabbled largely in fancy fountains and waterworks–a queer taste of the seventeenth century in which even the sober Evelyn records his own participation.]

[Lines: 9-10 Cf. the opening of the elegy on King, ‘I like not tears in tune’.]

[Line: 11 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘_when_ he mourns’, which is hardly so good.]

[Line: 18 Seth’s pillars] A tradition, preserved in Josephus, that the race of Seth engraved antediluvian wisdom on two pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, the latter of which outlasted the Deluge.]

[Line: 20 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_, &c. ‘_From_ much’.]

[Line: 34 _1647_, _1651_ misprint ‘_Agena_-like.]

[Line: 35 _1653_ misprints ‘blackish’.]

[Line: 38 _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘noble’.]

[Line: 44 _1677_, omitting the comma at ‘act’, makes something like nonsense; ‘by prophecy’ goes, I think, with ‘adjudged to die’.]

[Line: 50 One would expect ‘Chesterfield’, for Grantham nowadays does not look very crooked–at least from the railway. But Fuller in the _Worthies_ quotes this as a proverb. Some take it as referring to the height and slenderness of the steeple and an optical illusion. They might quote ‘The high masts _flickered_ as they lay afloat’. But few travellers had the excuse of Iphigenia.]

*On I. W. A. B. of York.

Say, my young sophister, what think’st of this? Chimera’s real, _Ergo falleris_. The lamb and tiger, fox and goose agree And here concorp’rate in one prodigy. Call an Haruspex quickly: let him get Sulphur and torches, and a laurel wet, To purify the place: for sure the harms This monster will produce transcend his charms.– ‘Tis Nature’s masterpiece of Error, this, And redeems whatever she did amiss 10 Before, from wonder and reproach, this last Legitimateth all her by-blows past. Lo! here a general Metropolitan, And arch-prelatic Presbyterian! Behold his pious garbs, canonic face, A zealous _Episcopo-mastix_ Grace– A fair blue-apron’d priest, a Lawn-sleeved brother, One leg a pulpit holds, a tub the other. Let ‘s give him a fit name now if we can, And make th’ Apostate once more Christian. 20 ‘Proteus’ we cannot call him: _he_ put on His change of shapes by a succession, Nor ‘the Welsh weather-cock’, for that we find At once doth only wait upon the wind. These speak him not: but if you’ll name him right, Call him Religion’s Hermaphrodite. His head i’ the sanctified mould is cast, Yet sticks th’abominable mitre fast. He still retains the ‘Lordship’ and the ‘Grace’, And yet hath got a reverend elder’s place. 30 Such acts must needs be his, who did devise By crying altars down to sacrifice To private malice; where you might have seen His conscience holocausted to his spleen. Unhappy Church! the viper that did share Thy greatest honours, helps to make thee bare, And void of all thy dignities and store. Alas! thine own son proves the forest boar, And, like the dam-destroying cuckoo, he, When the thick shell of his Welsh pedigree 40 By thy warm fostering bounty did divide And open–straight thence sprung forth parricide: As if ’twas just revenge should be dispatched In thee, by th’ monster which thyself hadst hatched. Despair not though, in Wales there may be got, As well as Lincolnshire, an antidote ‘Gainst the foul’st venom he can spit, though ‘s head Were changed from subtle grey to pois’nous red. Heaven with propitious eyes will look upon Our party, now the curséd thing is gone; 50 And chastise Rebels who nought else did miss To fill the measure of their sins, but his– Whose foul imparalleled apostasy, Like to his sacred character, shall be Indelible. When ages, then of late More happy grown, with most impartial fate A period to his days and time shall give, He by such Epitaphs as this shall live. _Here York’s great Metropolitan is laid, Who God’s Anointed, and His Church, betrayed._ 60

[_On I. W. A. B. of York._ (_1647_.) This vigorous onslaught on the trimmer John Williams, Archbishop of York, who began public life as a tool of Buckingham’s and ended it as a kind of tolerated half-deserter to the Parliament, was turned out by the ‘Vindicators’ in _1677_. There may, however, have been reasons for this, other than certain spuriousness. Williams, though driven to doubtful conduct by his enmity with Laud, never called himself anything but a Royalist, was imprisoned as such, and is said to have died of grief (perhaps of compunction) at the King’s execution. Also both Lake and Drake were Yorkshire men. The piece is vigorous, if not quite Clevelandish in the presence of some enjambment, and the absence of extravagant conceit.]

[Line: 2 _falleris_] In advancing the general observation that ‘twy-natured is no nature’.]

[Line: 10 whatever] Perhaps we should read ‘whatsoe’er’.]

[Line: 15 ‘garb’ _1653_.]

[Line: 16 A parody of course on Prynne’s _Histrio-mastix_.]

[Line: 21 ‘he’ = Proteus. Williams went right over.]

[Line: 23 Williams was very popular with his fellow provincials. He took refuge in Wales when the war broke out, and was made a sort of mediator by the Welsh after Naseby.]

[Line: 26 ‘Religion’s’ _1647_; ‘Religious’ _1651_, _1653_.]

[Line: 27 _1651_, _1653_, ‘I’ th”: but here, as often, the apostrophation ruins the verse.]

[Line: 30 ‘hath’ _1653_: ‘has’ _1647_, _1651_.]

[Line: 32 Williams had been chairman of the Committee ‘to consider innovations’ in 1641. His private malice was to Laud.]

[Line: 46 I am not certain of the meaning. But Lincolnshire (at least Lindsey) was strongly Royalist early in the war till Cromwell’s successes at Grantham, Lea Moor, and Winceby in 1643.]

[Line: 53 _1647_, _1651_ ‘unparalleled’.]

Mark Antony.

When as the nightingale chanted her vespers, And the wild forester couched on the ground, Venus invited me in th’ evening whispers Unto a fragrant field with roses crowned, Where she before had sent My wishes’ compliment; Unto my heart’s content Played with me on the green. Never Mark Antony Dallied more wantonly 10 With the fair Egyptian Queen.

First on her cherry cheeks I mine eyes feasted, Thence fear of surfeiting made me retire; Next on her warmer lips, which, when I tasted, My duller spirits made active as fire. Then we began to dart, Each at another’s heart, Arrows that knew no smart, Sweet lips and smiles between. Never Mark, &c. 20

Wanting a glass to plait her amber tresses Which like a bracelet rich deckéd mine arm, Gaudier than Juno wears when as she graces Jove with embraces more stately than warm, Then did she peep in mine Eyes’ humour crystalline; I in her eyes was seen As if we one had been. Never Mark, &c.

Mystical grammar of amorous glances; 30 Feeling of pulses, the physic of love; Rhetorical courtings and musical dances; Numbering of kisses arithmetic prove; Eyes like astronomy; Straight-limbed geometry; In her art’s ingeny Our wits were sharp and keen. Never Mark Antony Dallied more wantonly With the fair Egyptian Queen.

[_Mark Antony._ The unusual prosodic interest of this piece, and its companion, has been explained in the Introduction. The pair appeared first in 1647 (3rd), where they follow _The Character of a London Diurnal_ and precede the _Poems_.]

[Line: 14 ‘warmer’ some copies of _1653_: _1647_, _1651_ ‘warm’. Cf. ‘bluer’ in the ‘Mock Song’, l. 14 (below).]

[Line: 15 _1677_, &c. ‘made _me_ active’–a bad blunder.]

[Line: 35 ‘Straight limb’ _1647_.]

[Line: 36 ‘art’s’ is _1677_ for ‘heart’s’ in _1647_, _1651_, _1653_. I rather prefer it, but with some doubts.]

[Line: 37 _1677_, &c. emends by substituting ‘were’ for _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ ‘are’.]

The Author’s Mock Song to Mark Antony.

When as the night-raven sung Pluto’s matins And Cerberus cried three amens at a howl, When night-wandering witches put on their pattens, Midnight as dark as their faces are foul; Then did the furies doom That the nightmare was come. Such a misshapen groom Puts down Su. Pomfret clean. Never did incubus Touch such a filthy sus 10 As this foul gypsy quean.

First on her gooseberry cheeks I mine eyes blasted, Thence fear of vomiting made me retire Unto her bluer lips, which when I tasted, My spirits were duller than Dun in the mire. But then her breath took place Which went an usher’s pace And made way for her face! You may guess what I mean. Never did, &c. 20

Like snakes engendering were platted her tresses, Or like the slimy streaks of ropy ale; Uglier than Envy wears, when she confesses Her head is periwigged with adder’s tail. But as soon as she spake I heard a harsh mandrake. Laugh not at my mistake, Her head is epicene. Never did, &c.

Mystical magic of conjuring wrinkles; 30 Feeling of pulses, the palmistry of hags; Scolding out belches for rhetoric twinkles; With three teeth in her head like to three gags; Rainbows about her eyes And her nose, weather-wise; From them the almanac lies, Frost, Pond, and Rivers clean. Never did incubus Touch such a filthy sus As this foul gypsy quean. 40

[_The Author’s Mock Song._ In _1647_ this runs on as a continuation of ‘Mark Anthony’.]

[Line: 1 _1677_ _putidissime_ ‘nightingale’, as in the preceding poem. ‘Night-raven’ _1647_, _1651_, _1653_ is certainly right. Mr. Berdan’s copy seems to have ‘_But_ as’, which I rather like; but mine has ‘When’.]

[Line: 2 howl] hole _1647_.]

[Line: 16 _1677_ ‘when’, not impossibly.]

[Line: 21 platted] placed _1647_.]

[Line: 22 _1647_, _1651_ ‘the’: omitted in _1653_: ‘to’ inserted in _1677_.]

[Line: 37 Cf. _A Young Man, &c._, l. 13.]

How the Commencement grows new.

It is no coranto-news I undertake; New teacher of the town I mean not to make; No New England voyage my Muse does intend; No new fleet, no bold fleet, nor bonny fleet send. But, if you’ll be pleased to hear out this ditty, I’ll tell you some news as true and as witty, _And how the Commencement grows new._

See how the simony doctors abound, All crowding to throw away forty pound. They’ll now in their wives’ stammel petticoats vapour 10 Without any need of an argument draper. Beholding to none, he neither beseeches This friend for venison nor t’other for speeches, _And so the Commencement grows new._

Every twice a day teaching gaffer Brings up his Easter-book to chaffer; Nay, some take degrees who never had steeple,– Whose means, like degrees, comes from placets of people. They come to the fair and, at the first pluck, The toll-man Barnaby strikes ‘um good luck, 20 _And so the Commencement grows new._

The country parsons come not up On Tuesday night in their old College to sup; Their bellies and table-books equally full, The next lecture-dinner their notes forth to pull; How bravely the Margaret Professor disputed, The homilies urged, and the school-men confuted; _And so the Commencement grows new._

The inceptor brings not his father the clown To look with his mouth at his grogoram gown; 30 With like admiration to eat roasted beef, Which invention posed his beyond-Trent belief; Who should he but hear our organs once sound, Could scarce keep his hoof from Sellenger’s round, _And so the Commencement grows new._

The gentleman comes not to show us his satin, To look with some judgment at him that speaks Latin, To be angry with him that marks not his clothes, To answer ‘O Lord, Sir’ and talk play-book oaths, And at the next bear-baiting (full of his sack) 40 To tell his comrades our discipline’s slack; _And so the Commencement grows new._

We have no prevaricator’s wit. Ay, marry sir, when have you had any yet? Besides no serious Oxford man comes To cry down the use of jesting and hums. Our ballad (believe ‘t) is no stranger than true; Mum Salter is sober, and Jack Martin too, _And so the Commencement grows new._

[_How the Commencement, &c._, belongs to the same group as the _Mark Antony_ poems and _Square-Cap_, and there is the same ambiguity between four anapaests and five iambs. You would certainly take line 1 as it stands in _1677_ with ”Tis’ for ‘It is’, and probably as it stands here, for a heroic if line 2 did not come to undeceive you. And this line 2 is bad as either.

First printed in _1653_. MS. copies are found in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 147, pp. 48-9, and Tanner MS. 465, fol. 83, of the Bodleian. Neither copy is good, but each helps to restore the text (see ll. 18 and 38). The Tanner MS. also has on fol. 44 an indignant poem ‘Upon Mr. Cl. who made a Song against the DD^{rs}’, beginning

Leave off, vain Satirist, and do not think, To stain our reverend purple with thy ink.

It adds the interesting evidence that the poem became a popular song at Cambridge:

Must gitterns now and fiddles be made fit, Be tuned and keyed to sweake [?squeak] a Johnian wit? Must now thy poems be made fidlers’ notes, Puffed with Tobacco through their sooty throats? . . . . . . . . . . Are thy strong lines and mighty cart-rope things Now spun so small, they’ll twist on fiddle strings? Canst thou prove Ballad-poet of the times? Can thy proud fancy stoop to penny rimes?

(This latter information, as to MSS., is Mr. Simpson’s.)]

[Line: 5 out] but _1653_.]

[Line: 9 forty pound] Still the regular doctorate fee, though relatively three or four times heavier then than now.]

[Line: 10 stammel] Properly a stuff; but, as generally or often red in colour, the colour itself.]

[Line: 11 I am not certain of the meaning of this line though I could conjecture.]

[Line: 13 nor t’other for speeches] _MS._ ‘that for his breeches’.]

[Line: 15 _1677_ inserts ‘the’ before ‘teaching’, but the absence of the article is much more characteristic.]

[Line: 18 The ‘Vindicators’, in the new bondage of grammar, ‘come’.

Placets] both _MSS._: places _1653_: placers _1677_. ‘Placets’, evidently right, would baffle a non-university printer; probably the editors of _1677_ attempted to correct it, but were again baffled by the printer.]

[Line: 22 _1677_ ‘they do not come up’–a natural but unnecessary patching of the line.]

[Line: 23 old] _1677_ own–less well, I think.

Both _MSS._ read in ll. 22-3:

The country parson cometh not up, Till Tuesday night in his old College to sup. ]

[Line: 26 ‘Marg_e_ret’ _1653_: Marg’ret’ _1677_.]

[Line: 29 inceptor] = ‘M.A. to be’.]

[Line: 30 ‘o’ of ‘grog[o]ram’ usually omitted, but both _1653_ and _1677_ have it here.]

[Line: 32 The North usually salting and boiling its beef?]

[Line: 38 Tanner MS. has the metrical punctuation ‘To be’angry’ found occasionally in texts of the time: ‘marks’ Tanner MS., all the texts have ‘makes’.]

[Line: 40 at the next bear-baiting] in his next company _MSS._]

[Line: 44 _1653_ ‘we’ for ‘you’, less pointedly, I think.]

[Line: 45 Cleveland lived to think better of Oxford–at least to take refuge and be warmly welcomed there. There has probably been no time at which either University was not convinced that the other, whatever its merits, could not see a joke.]

[Line: 48 _1665_ (not a very good edition) and the _MSS._ read ‘Mu_n_’, which was of course the usual short for Edmund. But ‘Mu_m_’ in the context is appropriate enough and generally read.

The intense Cambridge flavour of this seems to require special comment by a Cambridge man. For the duties of the ‘Prevaricator’ refer to Peacock’s _Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge_, 1841 (information kindly furnished by Mr. A. J. Bartholomew).]

The Hue and Cry after Sir John Presbyter.

With hair in characters and lugs in text; With a splay mouth and a nose circumflexed; With a set ruff of musket-bore that wears Like cartridges or linen bandoleers Exhausted of their sulphurous contents In pulpit fire-works, which that bomball vents; The Negative and Covenanting Oath, Like two mustachoes issuing from his mouth; The bush upon his chin like a carved story, In a box-knot cut by the Directory: 10 Madam’s confession hanging at his ear, Wire-drawn through all the questions, how and where; Each circumstance so in the hearing felt That when his ears are cropped he’ll count them gelt; The weeping cassock scared into a jump, A sign the presbyter’s worn to the stump,– The presbyter, though charmed against mischance With the divine right of an Ordinance! _If you meet any that do thus attire ’em, Stop them, they are the tribe of Adoniram._ 20 What zealous frenzy did the Senate seize, That tare the Rochet to such rags as these? Episcopacy minced, reforming Tweed Hath sent us runts even of her Church’s breed, Lay-interlining clergy, a device That ‘s nickname to the stuff called lops and lice. The beast at wrong end branded, you may trace The Devil’s footsteps in his cloven face; A face of several parishes and sorts, Like to a sergeant shaved at Inns of Courts. 30 What mean the elders else, those Kirk dragoons, Made up of ears and ruffs like ducatoons; That hierarchy of handicrafts begun; Those New Exchange men of religion? Sure, they’re the antick heads, which placed without The church, do gape and disembogue a spout. Like them above the Commons’ House, have been So long without; now both are gotten in. Then what imperious in the bishop sounds, The same the Scotch executor rebounds; 40 This stating prelacy the classic rout That spake it often, ere it spake it out. (So by an abbey’s skeleton of late I heard an echo supererogate Through imperfection, and the voice restore, As if she had the hiccough o’er and o’er.) ‘Since they our mixed diocesans combine Thus to ride double in their discipline, That Paul’s shall to the Consistory call A Dean and Chapter out of Weavers’ Hall, 50 Each at the ordinance for to assist With the five thumbs of his groat-changing fist. Down, Dagon-synod, with thy motley ware, Whilst we do swagger for the Common Prayer (That dove-like embassy that wings our sense To Heaven’s gate in shape of innocence) Pray for the mitred authors, and defy These demicastors of divinity! For, when Sir John with Jack-of-all-trades joins, His finger ‘s thicker than the prelates’ loins.’ 60

[_The Hue and Cry._ (_1653_.) 1 ‘in characters’ = in shorthand: _1677_ has ‘character’, wrongly. ‘lugs’ = ears. ‘in text’ = in capitals.

Cf. _Clievelandi Vindiciae_, 1677, p. 122 (Cleveland’s letter on a Puritan who had deserted to the Royalists. His officer complained that he had absconded with official money): ‘I doubt not, but you will pardon your Man. He hath but transcribed Rebellion, and copied out that Disloyalty in Shorthand, which you have committed in Text.’]

[Line: 6 bomball] A compound of ‘bomb’ and ‘ball’.]

[Line: 20 Adoniram] Byfield, a clerk of the Westminster Assembly whose minutes have been published in modern times. A great ejector of the clergy, who unfortunately did not live long enough to be ejected himself.]

[Line: 26 This stuff does not by any means sound nice.]

[Line: 32 ducatoons] One would take it that the ducatoon had a back view of some one’s head; but a passage of _Hudibras_, and Grey’s note on it, have complicated the matter with a story about the Archduke Albert of Austria, which seems to have little if any relevance _here_.]

[Line: 35 antick heads] = ‘gargoyles’.]

[Line: 41 classic] As in Milton. Nor is this the only point in which the two old Christ’s men, now on such opposite sides, agree in the ‘New Forcers of Conscience’ and this piece.]

[Line: 52 _1653_ great-changing–a mere misprint.]

[Line: 54 do swagger for] _1677_ most suspiciously improves to ‘_are champions_ for’.]

[From l. 43 onwards _1653_ has the whole in italics, and it is pretty clear that after the first four lines the Echo speaks to the end. The ‘Vindicators’ do not seem to have seen this, though the absence of the quotes above would not prove it. Professor Case, however, thinks that ‘So’ refers to what precedes, and that in l. 47 and onwards the author and Echo speaks. It is possible.]

The Antiplatonic.

For shame, thou everlasting wooer, Still saying grace and never falling to her! Love that ‘s in contemplation placed Is Venus drawn but to the waist. Unless your flame confess its gender, And your parley cause surrender, Y’ are salamanders of a cold desire That live untouched amidst the hottest fire.

What though she be a dame of stone, The widow of Pygmalion, 10 As hard and unrelenting she As the new-crusted Niobe, Or (what doth more of statue carry) A nun of the Platonic quarry? Love melts the rigour which the rocks have bred– A flint will break upon a feather-bed. For shame, you pretty female elves, Cease for to candy up your selves; No more, you sectaries of the game, No more of your calcining flame! 20 Women commence by Cupid’s dart As a king hunting dubs a hart. Love’s votaries enthral each other’s soul, Till both of them live but upon parole.

Virtue’s no more in womankind But the green-sickness of the mind; Philosophy (their new delight) A kind of charcoal appetite. There ‘s no sophistry prevails Where all-convincing love assails, 30 But the disputing petticoat will warp, As skilful gamesters are to seek at sharp.

The soldier, that man of iron, Whom ribs of horror all environ, That’s strung with wire instead of veins, In whose embraces you’re in chains, Let a magnetic girl appear, Straight he turns Cupid’s cuirassier. Love storms his lips, and takes the fortress in, For all the bristled turnpikes of his chin. 40

Since love’s artillery then checks The breastworks of the firmest sex, Come, let us in affections riot; Th’ are sickly pleasures keep a diet. Give me a lover bold and free, Not eunuched with formality, Like an ambassador that beds a queen With the nice caution of a sword between.

[_The Antiplatonic._ (_1653_.) This is a sort of half-way house between Cleveland’s burlesques and his serious or semi-serious poems like _Fuscara_. It is also nearer to Suckling and the graceful-graceless school than most of his things. It is good.]

[Line: 2 The alteration of _1677_ ‘and ne’er fall to her’ may be only an example of the tendency to ‘regularize’ (in this case by the omission of an extra foot). But I confess it seems to me better: for the slight irregularity of the construction replaces that of the line to advantage.]

[Line: 10 I don’t know whether the conceit of ‘Pygmalion’s _widow_’ returning to marble (or ivory) when her husband-lover’s embraces ceased is original with Cleveland. If it is, I make him my compliment. There is at any rate no hint of it in Ovid.]

[Line: 18 _1677_ changed the good old ‘_for_’ to ‘thus’.]

[Line: 19 sectaries of] = ‘heretics in’.]

[Line: 20 This is good: ‘calcining flame’ is good.]

[Line: 22 ‘dubs’ is said to mean ‘stabs’, as it certainly means ‘strikes’; but this seems to have little or no appropriateness here and to ignore the quaint conceit of ‘commence’ in its academic meaning. ‘Women _take their degrees_ by Cupid’s dart: as the fact of being hunted by a king _ennobles_ a hart.’ Cupid = the King of Love.]

[Line: 24 ‘parole’ too has a very delectable double meaning. This poem is really full of most excellent differences.]

[Lines: 25-9 The lesson of the unregenerate Donne and the never-regenerate Carew.]

[Line: 32 gamesters] = ‘fencers’. to seek at sharp] = ‘not good at sword-play’.]

[Line: 33 ‘The sol-di-er’. By the way, did Butler borrow this ‘iron’ and ‘environ’ rhyme from Cleveland?]

[Line: 43 The apostrophating mania made _1653_ contract to ‘let’s’ and spoil the verse.]

[Line: 44 Th’] here of course = ‘they’.]

Fuscara, or the Bee Errant.

Nature’s confectioner, the bee (Whose suckets are moist alchemy, The still of his refining mould Minting the garden into gold), Having rifled all the fields Of what dainties Flora yields, Ambitious now to take excise Of a more fragrant paradise, At my Fuscara’s sleeve arrived Where all delicious sweets are hived. 10 The airy freebooter distrains First on the violets of her veins, Whose tincture, could it be more pure, His ravenous kiss had made it bluer. Here did he sit and essence quaff Till her coy pulse had beat him off; That pulse which he that feels may know Whether the world ‘s long-lived or no. The next he preys on is her palm, That alm’ner of transpiring balm; 20 So soft, ’tis air but once removed; Tender as ’twere a jelly gloved. Here, while his canting drone-pipe scanned The mystic figures of her hand, He tipples palmistry and dines On all her fortune-telling lines. He bathes in bliss and finds no odds Betwixt her nectar and the gods’, He perches now upon her wrist, A proper hawk for such a fist, 30 Making that flesh his bill of fare Which hungry cannibals would spare; Where lilies in a lovely brown Inoculate carnation. He _argent_ skin with _or_ so streamed As if the milky way were creamed. From hence he to the woodbine bends That quivers at her fingers’ ends, That runs division on the tree Like a thick-branching pedigree. 40 So ’tis not her the bee devours, It is a pretty maze of flowers; It is the rose that bleeds, when he Nibbles his nice phlebotomy. About her finger he doth cling I’ th’ fashion of a wedding-ring, And bids his comrades of the swarm Crawl as a bracelet ’bout her arm. Thus when the hovering publican Had sucked the toll of all her span, 50 Tuning his draughts with drowsy hums As Danes carouse by kettle-drums, It was decreed, that posie gleaned, The small familiar should be weaned. At this the errant’s courage quails; Yet aided by his native sails The bold Columbus still designs To find her undiscovered mines. To th’ Indies of her arm he flies, Fraught both with east and western prize; 60 Which when he had in vain essayed, Armed like a dapper lancepresade With Spanish pike, he broached a pore And so both made and healed the sore: For as in gummy trees there ‘s found A salve to issue at the wound, Of this her breach the like was true: Hence trickled out a balsam, too. But oh, what wasp was ‘t that could prove Ravaillac to my Queen of Love! 70 The King of Bees now ‘s jealous grown Lest her beams should melt his throne, And finding that his tribute slacks, His burgesses and state of wax Turned to a hospital, the combs Built rank-and-file like beadsmen’s rooms, And what they bleed but tart and sour Matched with my Danae’s golden shower, Live-honey all,–the envious elf Stung her, ’cause sweeter than himself. 80 Sweetness and she are so allied The bee committed parricide.

[_Fuscara._ (_1651_.) Cleveland’s most famous poem of the amatory, as _The Rebel Scot_ is of the political, kind. In _1677_ and since it has been set in the forefront of his _Poems_, and Johnson draws specially on it for his famous diatribe against the metaphysicals in the ‘Life of Cowley’. It seems to me inferior both to _The Muses’ Festival_ and to _The Antiplatonic_, and, as was said in the Introduction, it betrays, to me, something of an intention to fool the lovers of a fashionable style to the top of their bent. But it has extremely pretty things in it; and Mr. Addison, who denounced and scorned ‘false wit’, never ‘fair-sexed it’ in half so poetical a manner.]

[Line: 2 ‘Suckets’ or ‘succades’ should need interpretation to no reader of _Robinson Crusoe_: and no one who has not read _Robinson Crusoe_ deserves to be taken into consideration.]

[Line: 13 tincture] Said to be used here in an alchemical sense for ‘gold’. But the plain meaning is much better.]

[Line: 18 Although the sense is not quite the same as, it is much akin to, that of Browning’s question–

‘Who knows but the world may end to night?’ ]

[Line: 20 Cleveland of course uses the correct and not the modern and blundering sense of ‘transpire’.]

[Line: 22 This ‘jelly gloved’ is _not_ like ‘mobled queen’ or ‘calcining flame’.]

[Lines: 25-6 _1653_ and its group have a queer misprint (carried out so as to rhyme, but hardly possible as a true reading) of ‘dives’ and ‘lives’. If they had had ‘In’ instead of ‘On’ it would have been on the (metaphysical) cards, especially with ‘bathes’ following.]

[Line: 28 _1653_, less well, ‘_the_ nectar’.]

[Line: 30 Neat, i’ faith!]

[Line: 33 ‘a lovely _brown_’ as being _Fuscara_.]

[Line: 35 Here Cleveland dares his ‘ill armoury again’; _v. sup._, p. 25. ‘He’ _1651_, _1653_: ‘Her’ _1677_.]

[Line: 48 as] _1677_, unnecessarily, ‘like’. Some (baddish) editions ‘_on_ a bracelet’.]

[Line: 52 Hardly necessary to notice as another of Cleveland’s Shakespearian touches.]

[Line: 62 The correcter form is ‘lancep_e_sade’.]

[Line: 70 ‘_Ratillias_’ _1651_: ‘_Ratilias_’ _1653_: corrected in _1677_.]

[Line: 71 _1677_, dropping the verb from ‘now’s’, improves the sense very much.]

*An Elegy upon Doctor Chad[d]erton, the first Master of Emanuel College in Cambridge, being above an hundred years old when he died.

(_Occasioned by his long-deferred funeral._)

Pardon, dear Saint, that we so late With lazy sighs bemoan thy fate, And with an after-shower of verse And tears, we thus bedew thy hearse. Till now, alas! we did not weep, Because we thought thou didst but sleep. Thou liv’dst so long we did not know Whether thou couldst now die or no. We looked still when thou shouldst arise And ope the casements of thine eyes. 10 Thy feet, which have been used so long To walk, we thought, must still go on. Thine ears, after a hundred year, Might now plead custom for to hear. Upon thy head that reverend snow Did dwell some fifty years ago: And then thy cheeks did seem to have The sad resemblance of a grave. Wert thou e’er young? For truth I hold And do believe thou wert born old. 20 There ‘s none alive, I’m sure, can say They knew thee young, but always grey. And dost thou now, venerable oak, Decline at Death’s unhappy stroke? Tell me, dear son, why didst thou die And leave ‘s to write an elegy? We’re young, alas! and know thee not. Send up old Abram and grave Lot. Let them write thy Epitaph and tell The world thy worth; they kenned thee well. 30 When they were boys, they heard thee preach And thought an angel did them teach. Awake them then: and let them come And score thy virtues on thy tomb, That we at those may wonder more Than at thy many years before.

[_An Elegy, &c._ This and the following piece are among the disputed poems, but as they occur in _1653_ I give them, with warning and asterisked. The _D.N.B._ allows (with a ?) 104 years (1536?-1640) to Chadderton. As the first Master of the House of pure Emmanuel he might be supposed unlikely to extract a tear from Cleveland. But he had resigned his Mastership nearly twenty years before his death, and that death occurred before the troubles became _insanabile vulnus_. There is nothing to require special annotation in it, or indeed in either, though in _Doctor Chadderton_, l. 23, one may safely guess that either ‘thou’ or ‘now’ is an intrusion; in l. 25 of the same that ‘son’ should be ‘sir’, ‘sire’, ‘saint’, &c.; and in l. 29 that ‘th’ Epitaph’ is likelier.]

*Mary’s Spikenard.

Shall I presume, Without perfume, My Christ to meet That is all sweet? No! I’ll make most pleasant posies, Catch the breath of new-blown roses, Top the pretty merry flowers, Which laugh in the fairest bowers, Whose sweetness Heaven likes so well, It stoops each morn to take a smell. 10 Then I’ll fetch from the Ph[oe]nix’ nest The richest spices and the best, Precious ointments I will make; Holy Myrrh and aloes take, Yea, costly Spikenard in whose smell The sweetness of all odours dwell. I’ll get a box to keep it in, Pure as his alabaster skin: And then to him I’ll nimbly fly Before one sickly minute die. 20 This box I’ll break, and on his head This precious ointment will I spread, Till ev’ry lock and ev’ry hair For sweetness with his breath compare: But sure the odour of his skin Smells sweeter than the spice I bring. Then with bended knee I’ll greet His holy and belovéd feet; I’ll wash them with a weeping eye, And then my lips shall kiss them dry; 30 Or for a towel he shall have My hair–such flax as nature gave. But if my wanton locks be bold, And on Thy sacred feet take hold, And curl themselves about, as though They were loath to let thee go, O chide them not, and bid away, For then for grief they will grow grey.

[_Mary’s Spikenard_ (_1652_) of course suggests Crashaw; and yet when one reads it the thought must surely occur, ‘How differently Crashaw would have done it!’ I do not think either is Cleveland’s, though the odd string of unrelated conceits in the Chadderton piece is not unlike him. In the other there is nothing like his usual style; but it is very pretty, and I will not say he could not have done it as an exception. But in that case it is a pity he did not make it a rule.]

To Julia to expedite her Promise.

Since ’tis my doom, Love’s undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? Panting expectance makes us prove The antics of benighted love, And withered mates when wedlock joins, They’re Hymen’s monkeys, which he ties by th’ loins To play, alas! but at rebated foins.

To sell thyself dost thou intend 10 By candle end, And hold the contract thus in doubt, Life’s taper out? Think but how soon the market fails; Your sex lives faster than the males; As if, to measure age’s span, The sober Julian were th’ account of man, Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.

Now since you bear a date so short, Live double for ‘t. 20 How can thy fortress ever stand If ‘t be not manned? The siege so gains upon the place Thou’lt find the trenches in thy face. Pity thyself then if not me, And hold not out, lest like Ostend thou be Nothing but rubbish at delivery.

The candidates of Peter’s chair Must plead grey hair, And use the simony of a cough 30 To help them off. But when I woo, thus old and spent, I’ll wed by will and testament. No, let us love while crisped and curled; The greatest honours, on the agéd hurled, Are but gay furloughs for another world.

To-morrow what thou tenderest me Is legacy. Not one of all those ravenous hours But thee devours. 40 And though thou still recruited be, Like Pelops, with soft ivory, Though thou consume but to renew, Yet Love as lord doth claim a heriot due; That ‘s the best quick thing I can find of you.

I feel thou art consenting ripe By that soft gripe, And those regealing crystal spheres. I hold thy tears Pledges of more distilling sweets, 50 The bath that ushers in the sheets. Else pious Julia, angel-wise, Moves the Bethesda of her trickling eyes To cure the spital world of maladies.

[_To Julia, &c._ Johnson singled out the opening verse of this as a special example of ‘bringing remote ideas together’.]

[Line: 1 ‘Shrieve’ of course = ‘Sheriff’.]

[Lines: 3-4 ‘advowson’ (again of course, but these things get curiously mistaken nowadays) = ‘_right_ of presenting to or enjoying a benefice’. ‘Incumbency’ = ‘the actual _occupation_ or enjoyment’. Cf. _Square-Cap_, ll. 37-8.]

[Line: 9 rebated] The opposite of ‘_un_bated’ in _Hamlet_–with the button _on_.]

[Line: 11 Mr. Pepys on November 6, 1660, watched this process (which was specially used in ship-selling) for the first time and with interest. ‘candle’ _1653_: ‘candle’s’ _1677_.]

[Lines: 17-18 Not a very happy ‘conceiting’ of the fact that in a millennium and a half the Julian reckoning had got ten days behindhand.]

[Line: 27 The siege of Ostend (1601-4) lasted three years and seventy-seven days.]

[Line: 34 Did a far greater Cambridge poet think of this in writing

‘When the locks are crisp and curl’d?’

(_The Vision of Sin._)]

[Line: 48 regealing] Cleveland seems to use this unusual word in the sense of ‘_un_freezing’.]

[Line: 51 _1677_ spoils sense and verse alike by beginning the line with ‘Than’. The ‘tears’ _are_ the ‘bath’.]

Poems in 1677 but not in 1653.

Upon Princess Elizabeth, born the night before New Year’s Day.

Astrologers say Venus, the self-same star, Is both our Hesperus and Lucifer; The antitype, this Venus, makes it true; She shuts the old year and begins the new. Her brother with a star at noon was born; She, like a star both of the eve and morn. Count o’er the stars, fair Queen, in babes, and vie With every year a new Epiphany.

[_Upon Princess Elizabeth._ Not before _1677_. This slight thing is inaccurately entitled, for the Princess was born on December 26, 1638.]

[Line: 1 The rhyme of ‘star’ and ‘Lucif_er_’, which occurs (with ‘travell_er_’) in Dryden, is–like all Cleveland’s rhymes, I think without exception–perfectly sound on the general principle then observed, and observed partly at all times, that _a vowel may, for rhyming purposes, take the sound that it has in a similar connexion but in another word_.]

[Line: 5 brother] Charles II.]

The General Eclipse.

Ladies that gild the glittering noon, And by reflection mend his ray, Whose beauty makes the sprightly sun To dance as upon Easter-day, What are you now the Queen ‘s away?

Courageous Eagles, who have whet Your eyes upon majestic light, And thence derived such martial heat That still your looks maintain the fight, What are you since the King’s good-night? 10

Cavalier-buds, whom Nature teems As a reserve for England’s throne, Spirits whose double edge redeems The last Age and adorns your own, What are you now the Prince is gone?

As an obstructed fountain’s head Cuts the entail off from the streams, And brooks are disinherited, Honour and Beauty are mere dreams Since Charles and Mary lost their beams! 20 Criminal Valours, who commit Your gallantry, whose paean brings A psalm of mercy after it, In this sad solstice of the King’s, Your victory hath mewed her wings!

See, how your soldier wears his cage Of iron like the captive Turk, And as the guerdon of his rage! See, how your glimmering Peers do lurk, Or at the best, work journey-work! 30

Thus ’tis a general eclipse, And the whole world is al-a-mort; Only the House of Commons trips The stage in a triumphant sort. Now e’en John Lilburn take ’em for’t!

[_The General Eclipse._ The poem is of course a sort of variation or _scherzo_ on ‘You meaner beauties of the night’.]

[Line: 20 We are so accustomed to the double name ‘Henrietta Maria’ that the simple ‘Queen Mary’ may seem strange. But it was the Cavalier word at Naseby.]

[Line: 32 al-a-mort] Formerly quite naturalized, especially in the form all-amort. See _N.E.D._, s.v. ‘Alamort’.]

Upon the King’s Return from Scotland.

Returned, I’ll ne’er believe ‘t; first prove him hence; Kings travel by their beams and influence. Who says the soul gives out her gests, or goes A flitting progress ‘twixt the head and toes? She rules by omnipresence, and shall we Deny a prince the same ubiquity? Or grant he went, and, ’cause the knot was slack, Girt both the nations with his zodiac, Yet as the tree at once both upward shoots, And just as much grows downward to the roots, 10 So at the same time that he posted thither By counter-stages he rebounded hither. Hither and hence at once; thus every sphere Doth by a double motion interfere; And when his native form inclines him east, By the first mover he is ravished west. Have you not seen how the divided dam Runs to the summons of her hungry lamb; But when the twin cries halves, she quits the first? Nature’s commendam must be likewise nursed. 20 So were his journeys like the spider spun Out of his bowels of compassion. Two realms, like Cacus, so his steps transpose, His feet still contradict him as he goes. England ‘s returned that was a banished soil. The bullet flying makes the gun recoil. Death ‘s but a separation, though endorsed With spade and javelin; we were thus divorced. Our soul hath taken wing while we express The corpse, returning to our principles. 30 But the Crab-tropic must not now prevail; Islands go back but when you’re under sail. So his retreat hath rectified that wrong; Backward is forward in the Hebrew tongue. Now the Church Militant in plenty rests, Nor fears, like th’ Amazon, to lose her breasts. Her means are safe; not squeezed until the blood Mix with the milk and choke the tender brood. She, that hath been the floating ark, is that She that ‘s now seated on Mount Ararat. 40 Quits Charles; our souls did guard him northward thus Now he the counterpart comes south to us.

[_Upon the King’s Return, &c._ In 1641–an ill-omened and unsuccessful journey, which lasted from August to November. The piece is one of the very few of those in _Cleaveland Revived_ acknowledged and admitted by _Clievelandi Vindiciae_.]

[Line: 3 _1659_ ‘ghests’; _1662_, _1668_ ‘guests’; _1677_ ‘gests’. See _N.E.D._, s.v. ‘gest’ _sb._^{4}. which defines it as ‘the various stages of a journey, especially of a royal progress; the route followed or planned’.]

[Line: 20 commendam] (misprinted ‘-dum’ from _1659_ to _1677_). A benefice held with another; something additional.]

[Line: 21: ‘spider’ _1677_; ‘spider’s’ _1659_, _1662_, _1668_.]

[Line: 25 ‘banished’ _1677_: ‘barren’ _1659_, _1662_, _1668_.]

[Line: 30 In this very obscure and ultra-Clevelandian line _1677_ reads ‘their’. I think ‘our’–the reading of _Cleaveland Revived_, followed by _1662_ and _1668_–is better. But the whole poem (one of Cleveland’s earliest political attempts) is weak and pithless.]

[Line: 33 ‘that’ _1687_: ‘the’ _1659_, _1662_, _1668_.]

[Line: 42 ‘counterpart’ _1677_: ‘counterpane’ _1659_, _1662_, _1668_.]

Poems certainly or almost certainly Cleveland’s but not included in 1653 or 1677.

[_Poems, &c._ I have been exceedingly chary of admission under this head, for there seems to me to be no reasonable _via media_ between such severity and the complete reprinting of _1687_–with perhaps the _known_ larcenies in that and its originals left out. Thus, of eleven poems given–but as ‘not in _1677_’–by Mr. Berdan I have kept but three, besides one or two which, though not in _1677_, are in _1653_, and so appear above. Of these the Jonson Elegy from _Jonsonus Virbius_ is signed, and as well authenticated as anything can be; _News from Newcastle_ is quoted by Johnson and therefore of importance to students of the _Lives_. The _Elegy upon Charles I_ is in _1654_ among the poems which that collection adds to _1653_, is very like him, and relieves Cleveland partly, if not wholly, from the charge of being wanting to the greatest occasion of his life and calling.]

An Elegy on Ben Jonson.

Who first reformed our stage with justest laws, And was the first best judge in his own cause; Who, when his actors trembled for applause, Could (with a noble confidence) prefer His own, by right, to a whole theatre; From principles which he knew could not err:

Who to his fable did his persons fit, With all the properties of art and wit, And above all that could be acted, writ:

Who public follies did to covert drive, 10 Which he again could cunningly retrive, Leaving them no ground to rest on and thrive:

Here JONSON lies, whom, had I named before, In that one word alone I had paid more Than can be now, when plenty makes me poor.

J. CL.

[_An Elegy, &c._ Although this appears neither in _1653_ nor in _1677_, it is included, with some corruptions not worth noting, in some editions both before and after the latter. Gifford ascribed to Cleveland another unsigned Elegy in _Jonsonus Virbius_ and one of the Odes to Ben Jonson on his own Ode to himself, ‘Come, quit the loathèd stage’. There is no authority for the ascription in either case, and the styles of both pieces are as unlike as possible to Cleveland’s.]

[Line: 2 Orig., by a slip, ‘_your_ own cause’. Cleveland may have meant to address the poet throughout, or till the last verse; but, if so, he evidently changed his mind.]

News from Newcastle:

Upon the Coal-pits about Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

England ‘s a perfect world, has Indies too; Correct your maps, Newcastle is Peru! Let th’ haughty Spaniard triumph till ’tis told Our sooty min’rals purify his gold. This will sublime and hatch the abortive ore, When the sun tires and stars can do no more. No! mines are current, unrefined, and gross; Coals make the sterling, Nature but the dross. For metals, Bacchus-like, two births approve; Heaven’s heat ‘s the Semele, and ours the Jove. 10 Thus Art doth polish Nature; ’tis her trade: So every madam has her chambermaid. Who’d dote on gold? A thing so strange and odd, ‘Tis most contemptible when made a god! All sins and mischiefs thence have rise and swell; One Indies more would make another Hell. Our mines are innocent, nor will the North Tempt poor mortality with too much worth. Th’ are not so precious; rich enough to fire A lover, yet make none idolater. 20 The moderate value of our guiltless ore Makes no man atheist, nor no woman whore. Yet why should hallowed Vesta’s glowing shrine Deserve more honour than a flaming mine? These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, Than a few embers, for a deity. Had he our pits, the Persian would admire No sun, but warm ‘s devotion at our fire. He’d leave the trotting Whipster, and prefer This profound Vulcan ‘bove that Wagoner. 30 For wants he heat, or light? would he have store Of both? ‘Tis here. And what can suns give more? Nay, what ‘s that sun but, in a different name, A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame? Then let this truth reciprocally run, The sun ‘s Heaven’s coalery, and coals our sun; A sun that scorches not, locked up i’ th’ deep; The bandog ‘s chained, the lion is asleep. That tyrant fire, which uncontrolled doth rage, Here ‘s calm and hushed, like Bajazet i’ th’ cage. 40 For in each coal-pit there doth couchant dwell A muzzled Etna, or an innocent Hell. Kindle the cloud, you’ll lightning then descry; Then will a day break from the gloomy sky; Then you’ll unbutton though December blow, And sweat i’ th’ midst of icicles and snow; The dog-days then at Christmas. Thus is all The year made June and equinoctial. If heat offend, our pits afford us shade, Thus summer ‘s winter, winter ‘s summer made. 50 What need we baths, what need we bower or grove? A coal-pit’s both a ventiduct and stove. Such pits and caves were palaces of old; Poor inns, God wot, yet in an age of gold; And what would now be thought a strange design, To build a house was then to undermine. People lived under ground, and happy dwellers Whose jovial habitations were all cellars! These primitive times were innocent, for then Man, who turned after fox, but made his den. 60 But see a fleet of rivals trim and fine, To court the rich infanta of our mine; Hundreds of grim Leanders dare confront, For this loved Hero, the loud Hellespont. ‘Tis an armado royal doth engage For some new Helen with this equipage; Prepared too, should we their addresses bar, To force their mistress with a ten years’ war, But that our mine ‘s a common good, a joy Made not to ruin but enrich our Troy. 70 Thus went those gallant heroes of old Greece, The Argonauts, in quest o’ th’ Golden Fleece. But oh! these bring it with ’em and conspire To pawn that idol for our smoke and fire. Silver ‘s but ballast; this they bring ashore That they may treasure up our better ore. For this they venter rocks and storms, defy All the extremities of sea and sky. For the glad purchase of this precious mould, Cowards dare pirates, misers part with gold. 80 Hence ’tis that when the doubtful ship sets forth The knowing needle still directs it north, And Nature’s secret wonder, to attest Our Indies’ worth, discards both east and west. For ’tis not only fire commends this spring, A coal-pit is a mine of everything. We sink a jack-of-all-trades shop, and sound An inversed Burse, an Exchange under ground. This Proteus earth converts to what you’d ha’ ‘t: Now you may weave ‘t to silk, then coin ‘t to plate, 90 And, what ‘s a metamorphosis more dear, Dissolve it and ’twill melt to London beer. For whatsoe’er that gaudy city boasts, Each month derives to these attractive coasts. We shall exhaust their chamber and devour Their treasures of Guildhall, the Mint, the Tower. Our staiths their mortgaged streets will soon divide, Blathon owe Cornhill, Stella share Cheapside. Thus will our coal-pits’ charity and pity At distance undermine and fire the City. 100 Should we exact, they’d pawn their wives and treat To swap those coolers for our sovereign heat. ‘Bove kisses and embraces fire controls; No Venus heightens like a peck of coals. Medea was the drudge of some old sire And Aeson’s bath a lusty sea-coal fire. Chimneys are old men’s mistresses, their inns, A modern dalliance with their measled shins. To all defects the coal-heap brings a cure, Gives life to age and raiment to the poor. 110 Pride first wore clothes; Nature disdains attire; She made us naked ’cause she gave us fire. Full wharfs are wardrobes, and the tailor’s charm Belongs to th’ collier; he must keep us warm. The quilted alderman with all ‘s array Finds but cold comfort on a frosty day; Girt, wrapped, and muffled, yet with all that stir Scarce warm when smoth’red in his drowsy fur; Not proof against keen Winter’s batteries Should he himself wear all ‘s own liveries, 120 But chilblains under silver spurs bewails And in embroid’red buckskins blows his nails. Rich meadows and full crops are elsewhere found: We can reap harvest from our barren ground. The bald parched hills that circumscribe our Tyne Are no less fruitful in their hungry mine. Their unfledged tops so well content our palates, We envy none their nosegays and their sallets. A gay rank soil like a young gallant grows And spends itself that it may wear fine clothes, 130 Whilst all its worth is to its back confined. Our wear ‘s plain outside, but is richly lined; Winter ‘s above, ’tis summer underneath, A trusty morglay in a rusty sheath. As precious sables sometimes interlace A wretched serge or grogram cassock case. Rocks own no spring, are pregnant with no showers, Crystals and gems grow there instead of flowers; Instead of roses, beds of rubies sweat And emeralds recompense the violet. 140 Dame Nature not, like other madams, wears, Where she is bare, pearls on her breasts or ears. What though our fields present a naked sight? A paradise should be an adamite. The northern lad his bonny lass throws down And gives her a black bag for a green gown.

[_News from Newcastle_, if not Cleveland’s, is infinitely more of a Clevelandism than any other attributed piece, either in the untrustworthy (or rather upside-down-trustworthy) _Cleaveland Revived_ or elsewhere. It first appeared as a quarto pamphlet, ‘London. Printed in the year 1651. By William Ellis’, and with a headline to the poem ‘Upon the Coalpits about Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. This quarto furnishes the only sound text. It was reprinted very corruptly in _Cleaveland Revived_, _1660_, and thence in the editions of _1662_, _1668_, _1687_, and later. A collation of _1660_ is given. Title in _1660_ ‘News from Newcastle, Or, Newcastle Coal-pits’. MS. Rawlinson Poet, 65 of the Bodleian has a version agreeing in the main with _1660_.]

[Line: 1 has] hath _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 5 ‘obortive’ _1668_.]

[Line: 7 _1651_, later texts, and _MS._ ‘No mines’, which has no meaning without a stop or interjection.]

[Line: 8 ‘nature’s’ _MS._]

[Line: 10 ‘Heaven heats’ _1660_. The mine is the womb of Semele warmed by the sun: the furnace the thigh of Jove heated by coal.]

[Line: 11 her] the _1660_: its _MS._]

[Line: 12 has] hath _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 15 ‘sin and mischief hence’ _1660_: ‘sin and mischief thence’ _MS._]

[Line: 16 Indies] India _1660._]

[Line: 17 mines] times _MS._]

[Line: 19 _1660_ ‘so’: _1651_ ‘too’, unconsciously repeating the ‘too much’ of l. 18.]

[Line: 20 none] no _MS._]

[Line: 22 Simply an adaptation of the earlier conclusion–

‘Should make men atheists and not women whores’. ]

[Line: 23 Vesta’s glowing] Vestals’ sacred _1660_. shrine] shine _MS._]

[Line: 29 trotting Whipster] Phoebus, of course.]

[Line: 30 This] Our _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 31 light? would he] light, or would _1660_. store] Misprinted ‘more’ in _1651_.]

[Line: 32 suns] Sun _MS._]

[Line: 33 that] the _1660_.]

[Line: 34 on flame] or flame _1660_.]

[Line: 36 coalery] Original and pleasing. ‘Collier’ is used below.]

[Line: 37 scorches] scorcheth _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 38 bandog’s] lion’s _1660_. lion] bandog _1660_.]

[Line: 42 or] and _MS._]

[Line: 43 the] this _MS._]

[Line: 45 ‘Un_bottom_,’ by evident error, in _1668_.]

[Line: 47 Thus] Then _MS._]

[Line: 49 ‘offends’ _1660_. ‘affords’ _1660_.]

[Line: 60 but made] made but _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 61 rivals] vitals _1660_.]

[Line: 63 dare] do _1660_.]

[Line: 68 their] this _1660_, _MS._]

[Lines: 71-2 Omitted in _1660_ and all later texts. _1651_ misprints ‘Argeuauts’.]

[Line: 73 ’em] them _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 75 ashore] on shore _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 76 better] richer _MS._]

[Line: 78 extremities] extremity _1660_.]

[Line: 81 ’tis that] is it _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 82 knowing] naving _1660_: knavish _MS._]

[Line: 83 wonder] wonders _1660_.]

[Line: 84 both] with _MS._]

[Line: 85 For ’tis not] For Tyne. Not _1660_ (without the period at l. 84), _MS._]

[Line: 86 of] for _1660_.]

[Line: 87 _1651_ mispunctuates with a comma at ‘sink’; _1660_ adds comma at ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and ‘sound’: _MS._ punctuates correctly.]

[Line: 88 inversed] inverse _1660_.]

[Line: 89 you’d] you’l _1660_.]

[Line: 90 weave ‘t] wear’t _1660_. then] now _1660_. coin ‘t] com’t _1660_.]

[Line: 91 And] Or _MS._]

[Line: 92 melt] turn _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 93 boasts] boast _1660_.]

[Line: 94 derives] doth drive _1660_, _MS._ these] our _1660_, _MS._ coasts] coast _1660_.]

[Line: 96 treasures] treasure _1660_, _MS._ the Mint, the] and mint o’ th’ _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 97 staiths] Wooden erections projecting into the river, which were used to store the coal and fitted with spouts for shooting it into the ships. divide] deride _1660_.]

[Line: 98 ‘Blathon their Cornhill, Stella’ _MS_: ‘Blazon their Cornhill-stella,’ _1660_.] Blathon, now Blaydon, the mining district. ‘owe’ = own. ‘Stella’ Hall, near Blaydon, was a nunnery before the Dissolution, when it passed into the hands of the Tempests. (Mr. Nichol Smith kindly supplied this information.)]

[Line: 102 swap] swop _1660_.]

[Line: 105 drudge] drugge _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 109 the] a _1659_. brings] gives _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 110 life] youth _1660_.]

[Line: 113 tailor’s] sailor’s _MS._]

[Line: 115 with] in _1660_.]

[Line: 116 on] in _1660_, _MS._]

[Line: 117 that] this _1660_.]

[Line: 119 Not] Nor’st _MS._ ‘proof enough’ _1651_: ‘enough’ is omitted in _1660_, and deleted by a seventeenth-century corrector in the Bodleian copy of _1651_.]

[Line: 121 chilblains] chilblain _1660_.]

[Line: 126 fruitful] pregnant _1660_.]

[Line: 128 and] or _MS._]

[Line: 134 Cleveland has used ‘morglay’, Bevis’s sword, as a common noun elsewhere; but of course an imitator might seize on this.]

[Line: 138 grow] are _1660_.]

[Line: 139 sweat] sweet _1668_, _1687_, _MS._]

[Line: 142 on] in _1660_. or] and _1660_. ‘breasts, not ears’ _MS._]

[Lines: 145-6 Or as a modern Newcastle song, more decently but less picturesquely, puts it in the lass’s own mouth–

‘He sits in his hole, As black as a coal, And brings the white money to me–O!’ ]

An Elegy upon King Charles the First, murdered publicly by his Subjects.

Were not my faith buoyed up by sacred blood, It might be drowned in this prodigious flood; Which reason’s highest ground doth so exceed, It leaves my soul no anch’rage but my creed; Where my faith, resting on th’ original, Supports itself in this, the copy’s fall. So while my faith floats on that bloody wood, My reason ‘s cast away in this red flood Which near o’erflows us all. Those showers past Made but land-floods, which did some valleys waste. 10 This stroke hath cut the only neck of land Which between us and this red sea did stand, That covers now our world which curséd lies At once with two of Egypt’s prodigies (O’ercast with darkness and with blood o’errun), And justly since our hearts have theirs outdone. Th’ enchanter led them to a less known ill To act his sin, than ’twas their king to kill; Which crime hath widowed our whole nation, Voided all forms, left but privation 20 In Church and State; inverting every right; Brought in Hell’s state of fire without light. No wonder then if all good eyes look red, Washing their loyal hearts from blood so shed; The which deserves each pore should turn an eye To weep out even a bloody agony. Let nought then pass for music but sad cries, For beauty bloodless cheeks and blood-shot eyes. All colours soil but black; all odours have Ill scent but myrrh, incens’d upon this grave. 30 It notes a Jew not to believe us much The cleaner made by a religious touch Of this dead body, whom to judge to die Seems the Judaical impiety. To kill the King, the Spirit Legion paints His rage with law, the Temple and the saints. But the truth is, he feared and did repine To be cast out and back into the swine. And the case holds, in that the Spirit bends His malice in this act against his ends; 40 For it is like the sooner he’ll be sent Out of that body he would still torment. Let Christians then use otherwise this blood; Detest the act, yet turn it to their good; Thinking how like a King of Death he dies We easily may the world and death despise. Death had no sting for him and its sharp arm, Only of all the troop, meant him no harm. And so he looked upon the axe as one Weapon yet left to guard him to his throne. 50 In his great name then may his subjects cry, ‘Death, thou art swallowed up in victory.’ If this, our loss, a comfort can admit, ‘Tis that his narrowed crown is grown unfit For his enlargéd head, since his distress Had greatened this, as it made that the less. His crown was fallen unto too low a thing For him who was become so great a king. So the same hands enthroned him in that crown They had exalted from him, not pulled down. 60 And thus God’s truth by them hath rendered more Than e’er man’s falsehood promised to restore; Which, since by death alone he could attain, Was yet exempt from weakness and from pain. Death was enjoined by God to touch a part, Might make his passage quick, ne’er move his heart, Which even expiring was so far from death It seemed but to command away his breath. And thus his soul, of this her triumph proud, Broke like a flash of lightning through the cloud 70 Of flesh and blood; and from the highest line Of human virtue, passed to be divine. Nor is ‘t much less his virtues to relate Than the high glories of his present state. Since both, then, pass all acts but of belief, Silence may praise the one, the other grief. And since upon the diamond no less Than diamonds will serve us to impress, I’ll only wish that for his elegy This our Josias had a Jeremy. 80

[_An Elegy, &c._ See above. First printed in _Monumentum Regale_, _1649,_ p. 49; then in the _1654_ edition of Cleveland.]

[Line: 3 _1654_, _1657_, _1669_ ‘doth’. Other (it is true inferior) texts, such as _1659_, _1665,_ and the successors of _1677_, ‘do’: which any one who has ever read his Pepys must know to be possible in the singular.]

[Line: 33 ‘this’ _1649_: ‘their’ _1653_ and later editions.]

[Line: 35 paints = ‘tries to disguise’.]

[Since these sheets were last revised, and when they were ready for press, Mr. Simpson discovered and communicated to me some variants (from Bodley MSS.) of Cleveland’s pieces on Chadderton (_v. sup._ p. 81) and Williams (p. 69). His note is as follows:

“There is a version of the _Elegy upon Doctor Chadderton_ (page 81) in Ashmole MS. 36-7, fol. 263. After l. 14 four lines are inserted:

We thought, for so we would it have, Thou hadst outlived death and the grave, Hadst been past dying, and by thine own Brave virtue been immortal grown.

Not very brilliant, but no one would have any motive for interpolating such lines. Further, ll. 17-18 are omitted.

25 ‘dear S^{nt}.’ i.e. as conjectured in the note, ‘Saint.’

30 ‘Kend’ written in a larger hand, with a view to emphasis. Query, a favourite word of Chadderton?

In the same MS. is a version of the poem on Archbishop Williams (p. 69). Most readings are bad, but the following are noteworthy:

4 concorporate one.

11 And vindicate whate’er.

55 when happier ages (which of late The viper cherish’d) with unpartial fate.” ]

* * *

* * * * *

POEMS

AND

TRANSLATIONS.

_THOMAS STANLEY_ Esquire.

_Quæ mea culpa tamen, nisi si lusisse vocari Culpa potest: nisi culpa potest & amasse, vocari?_

Tout vient a poinct qui peut attendre.

Printed for the Author, and his Friends, 1647.

POEMS,

_THOMAS STANLEY_ ESQUIRE.

_Quæ mea culpa tamen, nisi si lusisse vocari Culpa potest: nisi culpa potest & amasse, vocari?_

[Illustration]

Printed in the Year,

1651.

INTRODUCTION TO THOMAS STANLEY

Thomas Stanley, poet, scholar, translator, and historian of philosophy, occupies a position in literary history, and in the general knowledge of fairly instructed people, which is less unenviable than that of Cleveland, almost equally curious, but more distinctly accidental. In a way–in more ways than one–he cannot be said to be exactly unknown. Everybody who has received the once usual ‘liberal education’, if not directly acquainted with his work on classical literature, has seen his _History of Philosophy_ referred to in later histories; and his notes on Aeschylus quoted, and sometimes fought over, in later editions. His translations have attained a place in that private-adventure Valhalla of English translations–Bohn’s Library. A few at least of his poems are in all or most of the anthologies. Not many writers have such an anchor with four flukes, lodged in the general memory, as this. And yet there are probably few people who have any very distinct knowledge or idea of his work as a whole; his _Poems_ (until a time subsequent to the original promise of them in this Collection) had never been issued since his own day save in one of the few-copied reprints of the indefatigable Sir Egerton Brydges; and he makes small figure in most literary histories.

The reasons of this, however, are not very far to seek. For a very considerable time during the later seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century, if not later, Stanley was a recognized authority on history and scholarship: but during this time a philosopher and a scholar would have been usually thought to derogate, strangely and not quite pardonably, by writing and translating love poetry in a style of ‘false wit’ the most contrary to the precepts of Mr. Addison. We cannot even be sure that Stanley himself would not have been short-sighted enough to feel a certain shame at his harmless _fredaines_ in verse, for he certainly never published or fully collected them at all after he was six and twenty, though he lived to double that age. He seems, moreover, though most forward to help other men of letters, to have been in all other ways a decidedly retiring person–a man of books rather than of affairs. Though an unquestioned Royalist, and not accused of any dishonourable compliance, he seems to have been quite undisturbed during the Civil War, no doubt because of his observation of the precept [Greek: lathe biôsas]. In short, he took no trouble to keep himself before any public except the public of letters, and the public of letters chose to keep him only in his capacity as scholar.

If, however, he put himself not forward it was not for want of means and opportunity to do so. After some mistakes about his genealogy, it has been made certain that he was descended, though with the bend sinister, from the great house that bears the same name, and through a branch which enriched itself by commerce and settled in Hertfordshire and Essex. His mother was a Hammond of the family which has been referred to in dealing with his uncle the poet (vol. ii), and he was also connected with Sandys, Lovelace, and Sherburne, all of whom were his intimate friends, as were John Hall and Shirley the dramatist. He seems always to have been a man of means: and used them liberally, though less thoughtlessly than Benlowes, in assisting brother men of letters. He is not said to have been at any of the great schools, but his private tutor William Fairfax (son of Edward of Tasso fame) appears to have grounded him thoroughly in scholarship. At thirteen he went to Pembroke College (then Hall), Cambridge, entering in June 1639 and matriculating in December. He is said to have entered at Oxford next year. He was co-opted at Cambridge in 1642 as (apparently) a gentleman pensioner or commoner. He married early, his wife’s name being Dorothy Enyon, and they had several children, of whom four survived him when he died, in 1678, at Suffolk Street, St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

There is a tendency–which is perhaps rather slightly unfair than positively unjust–to suspect a poet who is specially given to translation: and not exactly to discard the suspicion in the ratio of his excellence as a translator. The reason behind this is sufficient, as has been said, to free it from the charge of positive injustice as a general rule, for it may be plausibly contended that a true poet, with nature and his own soul to draw upon, will not experience any great necessity to go to some one else for matter. But these general rules are always dangerous in particular application, and therefore it has been said that the notion is not quite fair. In fact, if it is examined as it does apply to individuals, it becomes clear that it will not do as a general rule at all–that like some other general rules it is practically useless. That Chaucer was _grant translateur_ may be said to be neither here nor there in the circumstances. But Spenser did not disdain translation; Dryden evidently did it for love as well as for money, though the latter may have been its chief attraction for Pope; and a poet such as Shelley, who was very nearly _the_ poet, by no means despised it.

When, however, we come to examine Stanley’s work we may perhaps discover something in the very excellence of his translations which connects itself usefully with his original poems. These translations are excellent because he has almost unerringly selected writers who are suitable to the poetical style of his own day, and has transposed them into English verse of that style. But in his original poems there is perhaps a little too much suggestion of something not wholly dissimilar. They are (pretty as they almost always are, and beautiful as they sometimes are) a little devoid of the spontaneity and _élan_ which distinguish the best things of the time from Carew and Crashaw down to Kynaston and John Hall. There is a very little of the _exercise_ about them. Moreover, not quite as a necessary consequence of this, there is a want of decided character. Stanley is much more a typical minor Caroline poet than he is Stanley, and so much must needs be said critically in these volumes on the type that it seems unnecessary to repeat it on an individual who gives that type with little idiosyncrasy, even while giving it in some abundance and with real charm. Only let it be added that we could not have a better foil to Cleveland, who, though unpolished, is always ‘Manly, Sir, manly!’ than this scholarly and graceful but somewhat epicene poet.

There are, however, some peculiarities about his work which made me slow to make up my mind about the fashion of presenting it. His translations are numerous: but this collection was not originally intended to include translations unless they were inextricably connected with issues of original work, or where, as in Godolphin’s case, there was a special reason. Further, the translations, which are from a large number of authors, ancient and modern, sometimes include prose as well as verse. Thirdly, even the original poems were cross-issued in widely different arrangements. In short, the thing was rather a muddle, and though no one has occupied me in my various visits to the British Museum and the Bodleian during the past ten or twelve years oftener than Stanley, I postponed him from volume to volume. At last, and very recently a feasible plan suggested itself–to give the edition of 1651 as Brydges had done, this being after all the only one which at once represents revision and definite literary purpose, and to let the translations in this represent–as the poet seems himself to have selected them to do–his translating habits and studies. Before these I have printed the original poems of the first or 1647 edition, and after them the few which he seems to have allowed to be added to the set versions in Gamble’s _Airs and Dialogues_ ten years later. I think this will put Stanley on a fair level with the rest of our flock. Those who want his classical translations from Anacreon, Ausonius, the Idylls, and the _Pervigilium_, as well as from Johannes Secundus, will not have much difficulty in finding them; and I did not see my way to load this volume with Preti’s _Oronta_, Montalvan’s _Aurora_, &c. The bibliography of these things is rather complicated, and I do not pretend to have followed it out exhaustively. In fact this is certainly the case as far as my own collations of 1647, made at the British Museum, and those furnished me from the Bodleian copy are concerned.[1] But the differences are rarely of importance. 1647, a private issue, was reprinted in 1650 and 1651: while Gamble’s _Airs and Dialogues_ appeared in 1656 and was reissued with a fresh title-page in 1657. In the latter year Stanley furnished another composer–John Wilson, Professor of Music at Oxford–with the letterpress of _Psalterium Carolinum_, the King’s devotions from the _Eikon_ versified. His _History of Philosophy_ appeared in 1655: his _Aeschylus_ in 1663.

Some years ago (London, 1893) a beautiful illustrated edition of his _Anacreon_ appeared, and more recently–but, as I have noted, after the announcement of this collection–a carefully arranged and collated edition of the original _Lyrics_ with a few selected translations (Tutin, Hull, 1907), edited by Miss L. Imogen Guiney. I have not found Miss Guiney’s work useless, and if I have occasionally had to question her emendations that is only a matter of course.

[Footnote 1: I am informed by three subsequent collators more experienced in such work than myself–Mr. Percy Simpson, Mr. Thorn-Drury, and a Clarendon Press reader–that they have not found some differences which my own comparison-notes of some years ago seemed to show between the British Museum and the Bodleian copies of 1647. No doubt they are right. Some of the dates given above have also been corrected by them.]

CONTENTS

PAGE

THOMAS STANLEY 95 Introduction 97

POEMS NOT PRINTED AFTER 1647 101 Despair 101 The Picture 101 Opinion 101

POEMS PRINTED IN 1647 AND REPRINTED IN 1656 BUT NOT IN 1651 102 The Dream 102 To Chariessa, beholding herself in a Glass 102 The Blush 103 The Cold Kiss 103 The Idolater 104 The Magnet 104 On a Violet in her Breast 105 Song: ‘Foolish lover, go and seek’ 105 The Parting 106 Counsel 106 Expostulation with Love in Despair 107 Song: ‘Faith, ’tis not worth thy pains and care’ 108 Expectation 108

1651 POEMS 109 The Dedication: To Love 109 The Glow-worm 110 The Breath 111 Desiring her to burn his Verses 111 The Night 112 Excuse for wishing her less Fair 113 Chang’d, yet Constant 113 The Self-deceiver (_Montalvan_) 115 The Cure 115 Celia Singing 117 A la Mesme 117 The Return 118 Song: ‘When I lie burning in thine eye’ 119 The Sick Lover (_Guarini_) 119 Song: ‘Celinda, by what potent art’ 120 Song: ‘Fool, take up thy shaft again’ 120 Delay 121 Commanded by his Mistress to woo for her (_Marina_) 121 The Repulse 122 The Tomb 123 The Enjoyment (_St.-Amant_) 124 To Celia Pleading Want of Merit 126 The Bracelet (_Tristan_) 127 The Kiss 128 Apollo and Daphne (_Garcilasso Marino_) 128 Speaking and Kissing 129 The Snow-ball 129 The Deposition 130 To his Mistress in Absence (_Tasso_) 130 Love’s Heretic 130 La Belle Confidente 132 La Belle Ennemie 132 The Dream (_Lope de Vega_) 133 To the Lady D. 133 Love Deposed 134 The Divorce 134 Time Recovered (_Casone_) 135 The Bracelet 135 The Farewell 136 Claim to Love (_Guarini_) 137 To his Mistress, who dreamed he was wounded (_Guarini_) 137 The Exchange 138 Unaltered by Sickness 138 On his Mistress’s Death (_Petrarch_) 139 The Exequies 139 The Silkworm 140 A Lady Weeping (_Montalvan_) 140 Ambition 141 Song: ‘When, dearest beauty, thou shall pay’ 141 The Revenge 142 Song: ‘I will not trust thy tempting graces’ 142 Song: ‘No, I will sooner trust the wind’ 143 To a Blind Man in Love (_Marino_) 143 Answer 143 Song: ‘I prithee let my heart alone’ 144 The Loss 144 The Self-Cruel 145 Song (_by M. W. M._): ‘Wert thou yet fairer than thou art’ 145 Answer 146 The Relapse 146 To the Countess of S. with the Holy Court 147 Song (_De Voiture_): ‘I languish in a silent flame’ 147 Drawn for Valentine by the L. D. S. 148 The Modest Wish (_Barclay_) 148 E Catalectis Veterum Poetarum 149 On the Edition of Mr. Fletcher’s Works 149 To Mr. W. Hammond 150 On Mr. Shirley’s Poems 151 On Mr. Sherburn’s Translation of Seneca’s _Medea_, and Vindication of the Author 152 On Mr. Hall’s Essays 153 On Sir John Suckling his Picture and Poems 154 The Union (_by Mr. William Fairfax_) 154 The Answer 154 Pythagoras his Moral Rules 155

POEMS APPEARING ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1656 159 ‘On this swelling bank, once proud’ 159 ‘Dear, fold me once more in thine arms!’ 160 ‘The lazy hours move slow’ 160

POEMS NOT PRINTED AFTER 1647

_Despair._

No, no, poor blasted Hope! Since I (with thee) have lost the scope Of all my joys, I will no more Vainly implore The unrelenting Destinies: He that can equally sustain The strong assaults of joy or pain, May safely laugh at their decrees.

Despair, to thee I bow, Whose constancy disdains t’ allow 10 Those childish passions that destroy Our fickle joy; How cruel Fates so e’er appear, Their harmless anger I despise, And fix’d, can neither fall nor rise, Thrown below hope, but rais’d ‘bove fear.

[_Despair._] Note here the skill and success of the use of the short–almost ‘bob’–lines, and the _In Memoriam_ arrangement of rhyme in the last half of each stanza.]

_The Picture._

Thou that both feel’st and dost admire The flames shot from a painted fire, Know Celia’s image thou dost see: Not to herself more like is she. He that should both together view Would judge both pictures, or both true. But thus they differ: the best part Of Nature this is; that of Art.

[_The Picture._] The conceit wraps up the point of the epigram.]

_Opinion._

Whence took the diamond worth? the borrow’d rays That crystal wears, whence had they first their praise? Why should rude feet contemn the snow’s chaste white, Which from the sun receives a sparkling light, Brighter than diamonds far, and by its birth Decks the green garment of the richer earth? Rivers than crystal clearer, when to ice Congeal’d, why do weak judgements so despise? Which, melting, show that to impartial sight Weeping than smiling crystal is more bright. 10 But Fancy those first priz’d, and these did scorn, Taking their praise the other to adorn. Thus blind is human sight: opinion gave To their esteem a birth, to theirs a grave; Nor can our judgements with these clouds dispense, Since reason sees but with the eyes of sense.

[_Opinion._] As in _The Dream_, distinctly nervous stopped couplet.]

POEMS PRINTED IN 1647 AND REPRINTED IN 1656 BUT NOT IN 1651

_The Dream._

That I might ever dream thus! that some power To my eternal sleep would join this hour! So, willingly deceiv’d, I might possess In seeming joys a real happiness. Haste not away: oh do not dissipate A pleasure thou so lately didst create! Stay, welcome Sleep; be ever here confin’d; Or if thou wilt away, leave her behind.

[_The Dream._] Closed couplets, already of considerable accomplishment. Reprinted in _1656_ in an enlarged form; after ll. 1-4 the poem continued:–

Death, I would gladly bow beneath thy charms, If thou couldst bring my Doris to my arms, That thus at last made happy I might prove In life the hell, in death the heaven of love. Haste not away so soon, mock not my joy, With the delusive sight or empty noise Of happiness; oh do not dissipate A pleasure thou so lately didst create! Shadows of life or death do such bliss give, That ’tis an equal curse to wake or live. Stay then, kind Sleep; be ever here confin’d; Or if thou wilt away, leave her behind. ]

_To Chariessa, beholding herself in a Glass._

Cast, Chariessa, cast that glass away, Nor in its crystal face thine own survey. What can be free from Love’s imperious laws When painted shadows real flames can cause? The fires may burn thee from this mirror rise By the reflected beams of thine own eyes; And thus at last, fallen with thyself in love, Thou wilt my rival, thine own martyr prove. But if thou dost desire thy form to view, Look in my heart where Love thy picture drew; 10 And then, if pleased with thine own shape thou be, Learn how to love thyself in loving me.

[_To Chariessa &c._] ]

[Line: 12 _1656_ ‘by loving’.]

_The Blush._

So fair Aurora doth herself discover (Asham’d o’ th’ aged bed of her cold lover) In modest blushes, whilst the treacherous light Betrays her early shame to the world’s sight. Such a bright colour doth the morning rose Diffuse, when she her soft self doth disclose Half drown’d in dew, whilst on each leaf a tear Of night doth like a dissolv’d pearl appear; Yet ’twere in vain a colour out to seek To parallel my Chariessa’s cheek; 10 Less are conferr’d with greater, and these seem To blush like her, not she to blush like them. But whence, fair soul, this passion? what pretence Had guilt to stain thy spotless innocence? Those only this feel who have guilty been, Not any blushes know, but who know sin. Then blush no more; but let thy chaster flame, That knows no cause, know no effects of shame.

[_The Blush._] Interesting to compare prosodically with _The Dream_ and _Opinion_. A much older fashion of couplet, here and there overlapped and breathless, but pointing towards the newer. In l. 11 Miss Guiney has unfortunately altered ‘conferr’d’ (_confero_ = ‘to set side by side’) to ‘compar’d’. In l. 15, _1647_ has the common ‘bin’ and l. 16 ‘knows’ for the second ‘know’.]

_The Cold Kiss._

Such icy kisses, anchorites that live Secluded from the world, to dead skulls give; And those cold maids on whom Love never spent His flame, nor know what by desire is meant, To their expiring fathers such bequeath, Snatching their fleeting spirits in that breath: The timorous priest doth with such fear and nice Devotion touch the Holy Sacrifice.

Fie, Chariessa! whence so chang’d of late, As to become in love a reprobate? 10 Quit, quit this dullness, Fairest, and make known A flame unto me equal with mine own. Shake off this frost, for shame, that dwells upon Thy lips; or if it will not so be gone, Let ‘s once more join our lips, and thou shalt see That by the flame of mine ’twill melted be.

[_The Cold Kiss._] There are some very trifling alterations, all for the worse, in _1656_ (Gamble).]

_The Idolater._

Think not, pale lover, he who dies, Burnt in the flames of Celia’s eyes, Is unto Love a sacrifice;

Or, by the merit of this pain, Thou shalt the crown of martyrs gain! Those hopes are, as thy passion, vain.

For when, by death, from these flames free, To greater thou condemn’d shalt be, And punish’d for idolatry,

Since thou (Love’s votary before 10 Whilst He was kind) dost him no more, But, in his shrine, Disdain adore.

Nor will this fire (the gods prepare To punish scorn) that cruel Fair, (Though now from flames exempted) spare;

But as together both shall die, Both burnt alike in flames shall lie, She in thy breast, thou in her eye.

[_The Idolater._] ]

[Line: 11 ‘He’ altered in _1656_ to ‘she’, which Miss Guiney adopts. But of course ‘He’ is Love.]

[Line: 18 breast _1647_: later, much worse, ‘heart’.]

_The Magnet._

Ask the empress of the night How the Hand which guides her sphere, Constant in unconstant light, Taught the waves her yoke to bear, And did thus by loving force Curb or tame the rude sea’s course.

Ask the female palm how she First did woo her husband’s love; And the magnet, ask how he Doth th’ obsequious iron move; 10 Waters, plants, and stones know this: That they love; not what Love is. Be not then less kind than these, Or from Love exempt alone! Let us twine like amorous trees, And like rivers melt in one. Or, if thou more cruel prove, Learn of steel and stones to love.

[_The Magnet._] ]

[Line: 9 ‘he’ _1647_, altered to ‘she’ in _1656_. One would expect ‘he’ to avoid identical rhyme, but Stanley was a scholar and the Greek is [Greek: hê Magnêtis lithos], and the other things to be ‘asked’ are feminine.]

[In l. 13 ‘then’ became ‘thou’, neither for better nor for worse.]

_On a Violet in her Breast._

See how this violet, which before Hung sullenly her drooping head, As angry at the ground that bore The purple treasure which she spread, Doth smilingly erected grow, Transplanted to those hills of snow.

And whilst the pillows of thy breast Do her reclining head sustain, She swells with pride to be so blest, And doth all other flowers disdain; 10 Yet weeps that dew which kissed her last, To see her odours so surpass’d.

Poor flower! how far deceiv’d thou wert, To think the riches of the morn, Or all the sweets she can impart, Could these or sweeten or adorn, Since thou from them dost borrow scent, And they to thee lend ornament!

[_On a Violet in her Breast._]

[Line: 6 ‘hills of snow’ is probably as old as the Garden of Eden (if there was snow there). But Stanley must have known the exquisite second verse of ‘Take, oh take those lips away’ in _The Bloody Brother_. I would ask any one who despises this as a mere commonplace love-poem to note–if he can–the splendid swell of the verse to the fourth line, and then the ‘turn’ of the final couplet. With Stanley and his generation that swell and turn passed–never to reappear till William Blake revived it nearly a century and a half afterwards.]

_Song._

Foolish Lover, go and seek For the damask of the rose, And the lilies white dispose To adorn thy mistress’ cheek;

Steal some star out of the sky, Rob the phoenix, and the east Of her wealthy sweets divest, To enrich her breath or eye!

We thy borrow’d pride despise: For this wine, to which we are 10 Votaries, is richer far Than her cheek, or breath, or eyes.

And should that coy fair one view These diviner beauties, she In this flame would rival thee, And be taught to love thee too.

Come, then, break thy wanton chain, That when this brisk wine hath spread On thy paler cheek a red, Thou, like us, mayst Love disdain. 20

Love, thy power must yield to wine! And whilst thus ourselves we arm, Boldly we defy thy charm: For these flames extinguish thine.

[_Song._] A Donne-inspired one, doubtless, but not ill justified. ‘Distinguish’ in the last line is one of the numerous misprints of _1656_.]

_The Parting._

I go, dear Saint, away, Snatch’d from thy arms By far less pleasing charms, Than those I did obey; But when hereafter thou shall know That grief hath slain me, come, And on my tomb Drop, drop a tear or two; Break with thy sighs the silence of my sleep, And I shall smile in death to see thee weep. 10

Thy tears may have the power To reinspire My ashes with new fire, Or change me to some flower, Which, planted ‘twixt thy breasts, shall grow: Veil’d in this shape, I will Dwell with thee still, Court, kiss, enjoy thee too: Securely we’ll contemn all envious force, And thus united be by death’s divorce. 20

[_The Parting._] ]

[Line: 19 contemn _1647_: contain _1656_.]

_Counsel._

When deceitful lovers lay At thy feet their suppliant hearts, And their snares spread to betray Thy best treasure with their arts, Credit not their flatt’ring vows: Love such perjury allows.

When they with the choicest wealth Nature boasts of, have possess’d thee; When with flowers (their verses’ stealth), Stars, or jewels they invest thee, 10 Trust not to their borrow’d store: ‘Tis but lent to make thee poor.

When with poems they invade thee, Sing thy praises or disdain; When they weep, and would persuade thee That their flames beget that rain; Let thy breast no baits let in: Mercy ‘s only here a sin!

Let no tears or offerings move thee, All those cunning charms avoid; 20 For that wealth for which they love thee, They would slight if once enjoy’d. Who would keep another’s heart With her own must never part.

[_Counsel._]

[Line: 7 ‘the’ altered in _1656_ to ‘their’, which is clearly wrong. But the untrustworthiness of Gamble’s text is still better illustrated by l. 10, which he twists into–

Stars _to_ jewels they _di_vest thee.

The copy was probably dictated to a very careless, ignorant, or stupid workman.]

[Lines: 23-4. This pointed if cynical conclusion was changed in _1657_ to the much feebler

Guard thy unrelenting mind; None are cruel but the kind. ]

_Expostulation with Love in Despair._

Love, with what strange tyrannic laws must they Comply, which are subjected to thy sway! How far all justice thy commands decline, Which though they hope forbid, yet love enjoin! Must all are to thy hell condemn’d sustain A double torture of despair and pain? Is ‘t not enough vainly to hope and woo, That thou shouldst thus deny that vain hope too? It were some joy, Ixion-like, to fold The empty air, or feed on hopes as cold; 10 But if thou to my passion this deny, Thou mayst be starv’d to death as well as I; For how can thy pale sickly flame burn clear When death and cold despair inhabit near? Rule in my breast alone, or thence retire; Dissolve this frost, or let that quench thy fire. Or let me not desire, or else possess! Neither, or both, are equal happiness.

[_Expostulation, &c._] The texts of _1647_ and _1656_ differ considerably here, and Miss Guiney has attempted a ‘composite text’–a thing for which I have small fancy. That given above is from _1647_: _1656_ runs as follows in the first quatrain:

Love, what tyrannic laws must they obey Who bow beneath thy uncontrolled sway; Or how unjust will that harsh empire prove Forbids to hope, and yet commands to love.

and reads in l. 9 ‘hope’ for ‘joy’; l. 10 ‘thought that’s cold’; l. 14 ‘old’ and ‘here’ for ‘cold’ and ‘near’; l. 15 (entirely different)

Then let thy dim heat warm, or else expire.

l. 16 ‘the’ for ‘thy’; and in the closing distich ‘_Thus_ let me not’ and ‘_Either_ or both’. The interest of this piece is almost wholly centred on the penultimate line, which, being an evident and intended contradiction to

Amare liceat si potiri non licet,

gives us at once the connexion, in Stanley’s mind, with that strange, Mrs. Grundy-shocking, but ‘insolent and passionate’ piece which is attributed, credibly enough, to Apuleius, but rather less credibly as a latinizing of Menander’s [Greek: _Anechomenos_]. The contrast of the sensuous fire of this with Stanley’s rather vapid and languid metaphysicalities is a notable one.]

_Song._

Faith, ’tis not worth thy pains and care To seek t’ ensnare A heart so poor as mine: Some fools there be Hate liberty, Whom with more ease thou mayst confine.

Alas! when with much charge thou hast Brought it at last Beneath thy power to bow, It will adore 10 Some twenty more, And that, perhaps, you’ll not allow.

No, Chloris, I no more will prove The curse of love, And now can boast a heart Hath learn’d of thee Inconstancy, And cozen’d women of their art.

[_Song._]

[Lines: 2, 3. The quality and value of _1656_ are again well illustrated by its readings of ‘inspire’ for ‘ensnare’ and ‘pure’ for ‘poor’.]

_Expectation._

Chide, chide no more away The fleeting daughters of the day, Nor with impatient thoughts outrun The lazy sun, Or think the hours do move too slow; Delay is kind, And we too soon shall find That which we seek, yet fear to know.

The mystic dark decrees Unfold not of the Destinies, 10 Nor boldly seek to antedate The laws of Fate; Thy anxious search awhile forbear, Suppress thy haste, And know that Time at last Will crown thy hope or fix thy fear.

[_Expectation._] There is a suggestion here of John Hall’s beautiful _Call_ (‘Romira, stay’), and the two pieces appeared so close together that it is difficult to say which may have been the first. Perhaps the resemblance was what made Stanley omit it in _1651_. In l. 5 _1656_ reads ‘_N_or’.]

1651 POEMS

THE DEDICATION

_To Love._

Thou, whose sole name all passions doth comprise, Youngest and oldest of the Deities; Born without parents, whose unbounded reign Moves the firm earth, fixeth the floating main, Inverts the course of heaven; and from the deep Awakes those souls that in dark Lethe sleep, By thy mysterious chains seeking t’ unite, Once more, the long-since torn Hermaphrodite. He, who thy willing pris’ner long was vow’d, And uncompell’d beneath thy sceptre bow’d, 10 Returns at last in thy soft fetters bound, With victory, though not with freedom crown’d: And, of his dangers pass’d a grateful sign, Suspends this tablet at thy numerous shrine.

[_The Dedication._ In 1647 printed at p. 49 with the title ‘Conclusion, to Love’, and obviously intended to end that collection, but a number of unpaged leaves were subsequently added containing the complimentary verses addressed to Fletcher and others. The following variants occur: 11 ‘by thy kind power unbound’. 12 ‘At least with freedom, though not conquest crown’d’. 14 ‘Suspends these papers’. Stanley also appended a list of Greek quotations justifying the cento. There is an intrinsic interest attaching to them in that they _may_ have suggested a similar process to Gray. A further comparison-contrast may also interest some as to the lines themselves–that of the famous and magnificent opening of Mr. Swinburne’s _Tristram of Lyonesse_.

The notes annotate the following phrases:–1 ‘(_a_) all passions’, 2 ‘(_b_) Youngest and (_c_) oldest’, 3 ‘(_d_) Born’, 4 ‘(_e_) Moves’, 7 ‘(_f_) By thy mysterious …’ The Greek has been slightly corrected in spelling and accents.

(_a_) Alexis apud Athenaeum:

[Greek: synenênegmenos Pantachothen en heni topô poll’ eidê pherôn, Hê tolma men gar andros, hê de deilia Gynaikos], &c.

Sophocles:

[Greek: Kypris ou Kypris monon, All’ esti pantôn onomatôn epônymos].

(_b_) Plato, _Sympos._: [Greek: Phêmi neôtaton auton einai theôn, kai aei neon.]

(_c_. _d_) Plato: [Greek: To gar en tois presbytatois einai tôn theôn timion. Tekmêrion de toutou: goneis gar erôtos out’ eisin, oute legontai hyp’ oudenos oute idiôtou oute poiêtou.]

(_e_) Oppian. _Cyneg._ 2:

[Greek: Gaia pelei statherê, beleessi de soisi doneitai Astatos epleto pontos, atar sy ge kai ton epêxas; Êlythes eis aithêr’, oiden de se makros Olympos. Deimainei de se panta, kai ouranos eurys hyperthe Gaiês hossa t’ enerthe kai ethnea lygra kamontôn Hoi lêthês men aphyssan hypo stoma nêpathes hydôr.]

(_f_) Plato: [Greek: Prôton men gar tria ên ta genê ta tôn anthrôpôn (sc. [Greek: arren, thêly, kai androgynon]). Mox addit, [Greek: Esti dê oun ek tosou ho erôs emphytos allêlôn tois anthrôpois kai tês archaias physeôs synagôgeus kai epicheirôn poiêsai hen ek duoin, <kai> iasasthai tên physin tên anthrôpinên.] Phil. Jud. [Greek: peri tês kosmopoiias. Epei de eplasthê hê gynê theasamenos adelphon eidos kai syngenê morphên êsmenise tê thea erôs de epiginomenos kathaper henos zôon ditta tmêmata diestêkota synagôgôn eis tauton harmottetai.] ]

POEMS

_The Glow-worm._

Stay, fairest Chariessa, stay and mark This animated gem, whose fainter spark Of fading light its birth had from the dark.

A Star thought by the erring passenger, Which falling from its native orb dropt here, And makes the earth (its centre) now its sphere.

Should many of these sparks together be, He that the unknown light far off should see, Would think it a terrestrial Galaxy.

Take ‘t up, fair Saint; see how it mocks thy fright! 10 The paler flame doth not yield heat, though light, Which thus deceives thy reason, through thy sight.

But see how quickly it (ta’en up) doth fade, To shine in darkness only being made, By th’ brightness of thy light turn’d to a shade;

And burnt to ashes by thy flaming eyes, On the chaste altar of thy hand it dies, As to thy greater light a sacrifice.

[_The Glow-worm._] Sir Egerton Brydges thought that ‘A stile of poetry so full of quaint and far-fetched conceits cannot be commended as the most chaste and classical’; but that, ‘among trifles of this kind, _The Glow-worm_ is singularly elegant and happy’. Perhaps a later judgement, while waiving the indispensableness, or even pre-eminence, of chastity and classicality in verse, may doubt whether _The Glow-worm_ itself is not rather too ‘elegant’ to be as ‘happy’ as some other things even of its author’s. The last verse redeems it, though, to some extent.]

[Line: 2 _1647_ ‘This living star of earth’. I suppose Stanley did not like the recurrence of ‘star’, or he may have thought that the same sound (-_ar_) recurred still more excessively in the rhymes. In itself the earlier reading is certainly the better.]

[Line: 4 erring] deceiv’d _1647_.]

[Line: 12 ‘Which doth deceive’ _1647_.]

[Line: 15 thy] the _1647_.]

_The Breath._

Favonius the milder breath o’ th’ Spring, When proudly bearing on his softer wing Rich odours, which from the Panchean groves He steals, as by the Phoenix’ pyre he moves, Profusely doth his sweeter theft dispense To the next rose’s blushing innocence, But from the grateful flower, a richer scent He back receives than he unto it lent. Then laden with his odours’ richest store, He to thy breath hastes; to which these are poor! 10 Which whilst the amorous wind to steal essays, He like a wanton Lover ’bout thee plays, And sometimes cooling thy soft cheek doth lie, And sometimes burning at thy flaming eye: Drawn in at last by that breath we implore, He now returns far sweeter than before, And rich by being robb’d, in thee he finds The burning sweets of Pyres, the cool of Winds.

[_The Breath._] This appears in all three editions, _1656_ following _1647_ in the following variants: l. 8 ‘He doth receive’; l. 11 ‘while he sportively’; l. 16 ‘back’ for ‘now’.]

_Desiring her to burn his Verses._

These papers, Chariessa, let thy breath Condemn; thy hand unto the flames bequeath; ‘Tis fit, who gave them life, should give them death.

And whilst in curled flames to Heaven they rise, Each trembling sheet shall as it upwards flies, Present itself to thee a sacrifice.

Then when about its native orb it came, And reach’d the lesser lights o’ th’ sky, this flame Contracted to a star should wear thy name.

Or falling down on earth from its bright sphere, 10 Shall in a diamond’s shape its lustre bear, And trouble (as it did before) thine ear.

But thou wilt cruel even in mercy be, Unequal in thy justice, who dost free Things without sense from flames, and yet not Me.

[_Desiring her to burn his Verses._] _Title_, _1647_ ‘To Chariessa, desiring’, &c.]

[Line: 4 whilst] as _1647_.]

[Line: 7 about] above _1647_.]

[Line: 14 who] that _1647_.]

_The Night._

A DIALOGUE.

_Chariessa._

What if Night Should betray us, and reveal To the light All the pleasures that we steal?

_Philocharis._

Fairest, we Safely may this fear despise; How can She See our actions who wants eyes?

_Chariessa._

Each dim star And the clearer lights, we know, 10 Night’s eyes are; They were blind that thought her so!

_Philocharis._

Those pale fires Only burn to yield a light T’ our desires, And though blind, to give us sight.

_Chariessa._

By this shade That surrounds us might our flame Be betray’d, And the day disclose its name. 20

_Philocharis._

Dearest Fair, These dark witnesses we find Silent are; Night is dumb as well as blind.

_Chorus._

Then whilst these black shades conceal us, We will scorn Th’ envious Morn, And the Sun that would reveal us. Our flames shall thus their mutual light betray, And night, with these joys crown’d, outshine the day. 30

[_The Night._] Entitled in _1647_ ‘Amori Notturni. A Dialogue between Philocharis and Chariessa’.]

[Line: 2 and] or _1647_.]

[Line: 8 who] that _1647_.]

[Line: 18 surrounds] conceals _1647_.]

The metrical arrangement here is very delightful, and the Chorus-adjustment particularly happy.]

_Excuse for wishing her less Fair._

Why thy passion should it move That I wish’d thy beauty less? Fools desire what is above Power of nature to express; And to wish it had been more. Had been to outwish her store!

If the flames within thine eye Did not too great heat inspire, Men might languish yet not die, At thy less ungentle fire; 10 And might on thy weaker light Gaze, and yet not lose their sight.

Nor wouldst thou less fair appear, For detraction adds to thee; If some parts less beauteous were, Others would much fairer be: Nor can any part we know Best be styl’d, when all are so.

Thus this great excess of light, Which now dazzles our weak eyes, 20 Would, eclips’d, appear more bright; And the only way to rise, Or to be more fair, for thee, Celia, is less fair to be.

[_Excuse for wishing her less Fair._] _1647_ prefixes ‘To Celia’.]

[Line: 7 the] thy _1647_.]

[Line: 9 yet] and _1647_.]

[Line: 10 less ungentle] then less scorching _1647_.]

[Line: 23 for] _1656_ ‘than’, which, like much else in this edition, is pure nonsense.

Brydges thought that ‘one cannot avoid admiring the ingenuity exercised in this continual play upon words’. But surely

In things like this the play of words became A play of thought, and therefore shames all shame. ]

_Chang’d, yet Constant._

Wrong me no more In thy complaint, Blam’d for inconstancy; I vow’d t’ adore The fairest Saint, Nor chang’d whilst thou wert she: But if another thee outshine, Th’ inconstancy is only thine.

To be by such Blind fools admir’d, 10 Gives thee but small esteem, By whom as much Thou’dst be desir’d, Didst thou less beauteous seem: Sure why they love they know not well, Who why they should not cannot tell.

Women are by Themselves betray’d, And to their short joys cruel, Who foolishly 20 Themselves persuade Flames can outlast their fuel; None (though Platonic their pretence) With reason love unless by sense.

And He, by whose Command to thee I did my heart resign, Now bids me choose A Deity Diviner far than thine; 30 No power can Love from Beauty sever; I’m still Love’s subject, thine was never.

The fairest She Whom none surpass To love hath only right, And such to me Thy beauty was Till one I found more bright; But ’twere as impious to adore Thee now, as not t’ have done ‘t before. 40

Nor is it just By rules of Love Thou shouldst deny to quit A heart that must Another’s prove, Ev’n in thy right to it; Must not thy subjects captives be To her who triumphs over Thee?

Cease then in vain To blot my name 50 With forg’d Apostasy, Thine is that stain Who dar’st to claim What others ask of Thee. Of Lovers they are only true Who pay their hearts where they are due.

[_Chang’d, yet Constant._] Here, perhaps for the first time, we get the _fire_ of the period communicating to the verse its own glow and flicker. It is a pity he allowed himself double rhymes in stanza 3, which break the note (those at the end of st. 4 do not). There are no variants; the poem is not in _1647_. But Miss Guiney has proposed to substitute ‘hearts’ for ‘they’ in the last line.]

_The Self-deceiver._

MONTALVAN.

Deceiv’d and undeceiv’d to be At once I seek with equal care, Wretched in the discovery, Happy if cozen’d still I were: Yet certain ill of ill hath less Than the mistrust of happiness.

But if when I have reach’d my aim (That which I seek less worthy prove), Yet still my love remains the same, The subject not deserving love; 10 I can no longer be excus’d, Now more in fault as less abus’d.

Then let me flatter my desires, And doubt what I might know too sure, He that to cheat himself conspires, From falsehood doth his faith secure; In love uncertain to believe I am deceiv’d, doth undeceive.

For if my life on doubt depend, And in distrust inconstant steer, 20 If I essay the strife to end (When Ignorance were Wisdom here), All thy attempts how can I blame To work my death? I seek the same.

[_The Self-deceiver._] (On Stanley’s translations see Introduction.) Juan Perez de Montalvan (1602-1638) belonged to the best age of Spanish literature, and was, in proportion, almost as prolific in plays and _autos_ as his master Lope. He was accused of ‘Gongorism’, and this piece is one somewhat of ‘conviction’.]

_The Cure._

_Nymph._

What busy cares too timely born (Young Swain!) disturb thy sleep? Thy early sighs awake the Morn, Thy tears teach her to weep.

_Shepherd._

Sorrows, fair Nymph, are full alone; Nor counsel can endure.

_Nymph._

Yet thine disclose, for until known Sickness admits no cure.

_Shepherd._

My griefs are such as but to hear Would poison all thy joys, 10 The pity which thou seem’st to bear My health, thine own destroys.

_Nymph._

How can diseaséd minds infect? Say what thy grief doth move!

_Shepherd._

Call up thy virtue to protect Thy heart, and know ’twas love.

_Nymph._

Fond Swain!

_Shepherd._

By which I have been long Destin’d to meet with hate.

_Nymph._

Fy, Shepherd, fy: thou dost love wrong, To call thy crime thy fate. 20

_Shepherd._

Alas what cunning could decline What force can love repel?

_Nymph._

Yet, there ‘s a way to unconfine Thy heart.

_Shepherd._

For pity tell.

_Nymph._

Choose one whose love may be allur’d By thine: who ever knew Inveterate diseases cur’d But by receiving new?

_Shepherd._

All will like her my soul perplex.

_Nymph._

Yet try.

_Shepherd._

Oh could there be, 30 But any softness in that sex, I’d wish it were in thee.

_Nymph._

Thy prayer is heard: learn now t’ esteem The kindness she hath shown, Who thy lost freedom to redeem Hath forfeited her own.

[_The Cure_. As this appears only in _1651_ there are no variants. The ‘common measure’ has little of the magic common at the time, and is sometimes banal to eighteenth-century level. But we rise in the next.]

_Celia Singing._

Roses in breathing forth their scent, Or stars their borrowed ornament; Nymphs in the wat’ry sphere that move, Or Angels in their orbs above; The wingéd chariot of the light, Or the slow silent wheels of night; The shade, which from the swifter sun Doth in a circular motion run; Or souls that their eternal rest do keep, Make far more noise than Celia’s breath in sleep. 10

But if the Angel, which inspires This subtile flame with active fires, Should mould this breath to words, and those Into a harmony dispose, The music of this heavenly sphere Would steal each soul out at the ear, And into plants and stones infuse A life that Cherubins would choose; And with new powers invert the laws of Fate, Kill those that live, and dead things animate. 20

[_Celia Singing._] _1647_ ‘Celia sleeping or singing’, and printed without stanza-break.]

[Line: 10 more] Some imp of the press altered ‘more’ to ‘less’ in the later ‘edition’. _1647_ has ‘more’, which has been restored in text.]

[Line: 12 _1647_ ‘frame’–tempting, but perhaps not certain.]

[Line: 13 _1647_ ‘his’–again _nescio an recte_.]

[Line: 19 _1647_ ‘power’.]

_A la Mesme._

Belle voix, dont les charmes desrobent mon âme, Et au lieu d’un esprit m’animent d’une flamme, Dont je sens la subtile et la douce chaleur Entrer par mon oreille et glisser dans mon c[oe]ur; Me faisant esprever par cette aimable vie, Nos âmes ne consistent que d’une harmonie; Que la vie m’est douce, la mort m’est sans peine, Puisqu’on les trouve toutes deux dans ton haleine: Ne m’espargne donc pas; satisfais tes rigueurs; Car si tu me souffres de vivre, je me meurs. 10

[_A la Mesme_] _1647_ ‘A une Dame qui chantoit’. Stanley does not, like some more modern English writers of French verse, neglect his final _e_’s, but he takes remarkable liberties with the caesura. ‘Esprever’ (l. 5) is not wrong necessarily.]

_The Return._

Beauty, whose soft magnetic chains _Beauty, thy harsh imperious chains_ Nor time nor absence can untie, _As a scorned weight I here untie_, Thy power the narrow bounds disdains _Since thy proud empire those disdains_ Of Nature or philosophy, _Of reason or philosophy_, That canst by unconfinéd laws _That wouldst within tyrannic laws_ A motion, though at distance, cause. _Confine the power of each free cause._

Drawn by the sacred influence _Forced by the potent influence_ Of thy bright eyes, I back return; _Of thy disdain I back return_, And since I nowhere can dispense _Thus with those flames I do dispense_, With flames that do in absence burn, 10 _Which, though they would not light, did burn;_ I rather choose ‘midst them t’ expire _And rather will through cold expire_ Than languish by a hidden fire. _Than languish at a frozen fire._

But if thou the insulting pride _But whilst I the insulting pride_ Of vulgar Beauties dost despise, _Of thy vain beauty do despise_, Who by vain triumphs deified, _Who gladly wouldst be deified_, Their votaries do sacrifice, _By making me thy sacrifice;_ Then let those flames, whose magic charm _May love thy heart, which to his charm_ At distance scorch’d, approach’d but warm. _Approached seemed cold, at distance warm._

[_The Return–(Palinode.)_] The _1647_ edition contains _two_ poems, _The Return_ and _Palinode_, which stand to each other in a curious relation. In _1651_ _Palinode_ has disappeared. I have thought it best to print them together. The lines in roman type are those of _The Return_, those in italic belong to _Palinode_. The latter reappeared in _1657_, with slight alterations as below. In _Pal._ 5 Miss Guiney reads ‘would’ for ‘wouldst’, evidently not quite understanding the sense or the grammar of the time. The second person connects itself with the vocative in ‘Beauty’ and the ‘thou’ twice implied in ‘thy’.]

[In _Palinode_, l. 7, _1657_ reads ‘powerful’ for ‘potent’; l. 12 ‘in’ for ‘at’.]

[In _The Return_, l. 2, _1651_ ‘unite’–an obvious misprint; l. 3, _1647_ ‘bound’; l. 5, _1647_ ‘That’, _1651_ ‘Thou’; l. 10, _1657_ ‘which’ for ‘that’; l. 11, ‘twixt’–not so well; l. 13, ‘the’ is dropped by mere accident in _1651_–‘the’, not ‘th’,’ is required.]

_Song._

When I lie burning in thine eye. Or freezing in thy breast, What Martyrs, in wish’d flames that die, Are half so pleas’d or blest?

When thy soft accents through mine ear Into my soul do fly, What Angel would not quit his sphere, To hear such harmony?

Or when the kiss thou gav’st me last My soul stole in its breath, 10 What life would sooner be embrac’d Than so desir’d a death?

[When I commanded am by thee, Or by thine eye or hand, What monarch would not prouder be To serve than to command?]

Then think no freedom I desire, Or would my fetters leave, Since Phoenix-like I from this fire Both life and youth receive. 20

[_Song._] Sir Egerton thought this (which, by the way, Lovelace may have seen, or _vice versa_) ‘a very elegant little song, with all the harmony of _modern_ rhythm’. One might perhaps substitute ‘with more of the harmony of _contemporary_ rhythm than Stanley always attains’. It is certainly much better than _The Cure_. The bracketed stanza was dropped in _1651_, but it seemed better to restore it thus in text than to degrade it hither. One or two extremely unimportant misprints occur in one or other version, but are not worth noting.]

_The Sick Lover._

GUARINI.

My sickly breath Wastes in a double flame; Whilst Love and Death To my poor life lay claim; The fever, in whose heat I melt, By her that causeth it not felt.

Thou who alone Canst, yet wilt grant no ease, Why slight’st thou one To feed a new disease? 10 Unequal fair! the heart is thine; Ah, why then should the pain be mine?

[_The Sick Lover._] Not a great thing. In l. 6, Miss Guiney thinks ‘it’, which is in all texts, should be ‘is’. But ‘it’ is wanted and ‘is’ is not. ‘The fever not [_being_] felt’ is no excessively ‘absolute’ construction.]

_Song._

Celinda, by what potent art Or unresisted charm, Dost thou thine ear and frozen heart Against my passion arm?

Or by what hidden influence Of powers in one combin’d, Dost thou rob Love of either sense, Made deaf as well as blind?

Sure thou, as friends, united hast Two distant Deities; 10 And scorn within thy heart hast plac’d, And love within thine eyes.

Or those soft fetters of thy hair, A bondage that disdains All liberty, do guard thine ear Free from all other chains.

Then my complaint how canst thou hear, Or I this passion fly, Since thou imprison’d hast thine ear, And not confin’d thine eye? 20

[_Song–Celinda, &c._] Again, mere commonplace common measure. ‘_Those_ soft fetters of thy hair’ (l. 13) is at least as good as ‘mobled queen’, but otherwise the phrase rather sinks to the measure. ‘friends’ (l. 9) is misprinted ‘friend’ in _1647_, and Sir Egerton has mispunctuated ‘friends united’.]

_Song._

Fool, take up thy shaft again; If thy store Thou profusely spend in vain, Who can furnish thee with more? Throw not then away thy darts On impenetrable hearts.

Think not thy pale flame can warm Into tears, Or dissolve the snowy charm Which her frozen bosom wears, 10 That expos’d, unmelted lies To the bright suns of her eyes.

But since thou thy power hast lost, Nor canst fire Kindle in that breast, whose frost Doth these flames in mine inspire, Not to thee but her I’ll sue, That disdains both me and you.

[_Song–Fool, &c._] An extremely pretty measure, not ill-parted with phrase and imagery. The ‘Take, oh! take’ motive reappears.]

_Delay._

Delay! Alas, there cannot be To Love a greater tyranny: Those cruel beauties that have slain Their votaries by their disdain, Or studied torments, sharp and witty, Will be recorded for their pity, And after-ages be misled To think them kind, when this is spread. Of deaths the speediest is despair, Delays the slowest tortures are; 10 Thy cruelty at once destroys, But Expectation starves my joys. Time and Delay may bring me past The power of Love to cure, at last; And shouldst thou wish to ease my pain, Thy pity might be lent in vain; Or if thou hast decreed, that I Must fall beneath thy cruelty, O kill me soon! Thou wilt express More mercy, ev’n in showing less. 20

_Commanded by his Mistress to woo for her._

MARINO.

Strange kind of love! that knows no president, A faith so firm as passeth Faith’s extent, By a tyrannic beauty long subdu’d, I now must sue for her to whom I su’d, Unhappy Orator! who, though I move For pity, pity cannot hope to prove: Employing thus against myself my breath, And in another’s life begging my death.

But if such moving powers my accents have, Why first my own redress do I not crave? 10 What hopes that I to pity should incline Another’s breast, who can move none in thine? Or how can the griev’d patient look for ease, When the physician suffers the disease? If thy sharp wounds from me expect their cure, ‘Tis fit those first be heal’d that I endure.

Ungentle fair one! why dost thou dispense Unequally thy sacred influence? Why pining me, offer’st the precious food To one by whom nor priz’d, nor understood; 20 So some clear brook to the full main, to pay Her needless crystal tribute hastes away, Profusely foolish; whilst her niggard tide Starves the poor flowers that grow along her side.

Thou who my glories art design’d to own, Come then, and reap the joys that I have sown: Yet in thy pride acknowledge, though thou bear The happy prize away, the palm I wear. Nor the obedience of my flame accuse, That what I sought, myself conspir’d to lose: 30 The hapless state where I am fix’d is such, To love I seem not, ’cause I love too much.

[_Commanded by his Mistress, &c._] Marino[i]’s name is so frequent in books on literature, and his work so little known to the ordinary reader, that this example may be welcome. The rather snip-snap antithesis, and the somewhat obvious conceit, show the famous Italian really at his worst. ‘President’ (l. 1), though not impossible, is probably for ‘pre_ce_dent’. The whole piece has a special interest as showing how this ‘conceit’ and ‘false wit’ actually encouraged the growth of the stopped antithetic couplet which was to be turned against both.]

_The Repulse._

Not that by this disdain I am releas’d, And freed from thy tyrannic chain, Do I myself think bless’d;

Nor that thy flame shall burn No more; for know That I shall into ashes turn, Before this fire doth so.

Nor yet that unconfin’d I now may rove, 10 And with new beauties please my mind, But that thou ne’er didst love:

For since thou hast no part Felt of this flame, I only from thy tyrant heart Repuls’d, not banish’d am.

To lose what once was mine Would grieve me more Than those inconstant sweets of thine Had pleas’d my soul before. 20

Now I have not lost the bliss I ne’er possest; And spite of fate am blest in this, That I was never blest.

[_The Repulse._] In the third line of this rather fine poem _1656_ reads ‘romantic’ for ‘tyrannic’, and Miss Guiney adopts it. To me it seems quite inappropriate, and one of the errors of dictation so common in that ‘edition’.]

[Line: 21 _1647_ reads ‘_that_ bliss’.]

_The Tomb._

When, cruel fair one, I am slain By thy disdain, And, as a trophy of thy scorn, To some old tomb am borne, Thy fetters must their power bequeath To those of Death; Nor can thy flame immortal burn, Like monumental fires within an urn; Thus freed from thy proud empire, I shall prove There is more liberty in Death than Love. 10

And when forsaken Lovers come, To see my tomb, Take heed thou mix not with the crowd And (as a Victor) proud To view the spoils thy beauty made Press near my shade, Lest thy too cruel breath or name Should fan my ashes back into a flame, And thou, devour’d by this revengeful fire, His sacrifice, who died as thine, expire. 20

[Or should my dust thy pity move That could not love, Thy sighs might wake me, and thy tears Renew my life and years. Or should thy proud insulting scorn Laugh at my urn, Kindly deceived by thy disdain, I might be smil’d into new life again. Then come not near, since both thy love and hate Have equal power to love or animate.] 30

But if cold earth, or marble, must Conceal my dust, Whilst hid in some dark ruins, I Dumb and forgotten lie, The pride of all thy victory Will sleep with me; And they who should attest thy glory, Will, or forget, or not believe this story. Then to increase thy triumph, let me rest, Since by thine eye slain, buried in thy breast. 40

[_The Tomb._] Brydges, though thinking the end of this poem ‘a feeble conceit’, admits that ‘there are passages in it that are more than pretty’. It is certainly one of Stanley’s best, and he seems to have taken some trouble with it. In _1651_ he dropped the bracketed stanza 3 and substituted the text for the last couplet of stanza 2, which reads in _1647_:

And (thou in this fire sacrificed to me) We might each other’s mutual martyr be.

In the last line of the omitted stanza ‘love’ is certainly wrong, and Miss Guiney’s suggestion of ‘kill’ is almost _certissima_. But she seems to have had a different copy of _1647_ before her from that which I collated, for she does not notice a variant, or set of variants, in ll. 37-9:

And they _that_ should _this triumph know_ Will or forget or not believe _it so_, Then to increase thy _glories_, &c.

In l. 5 _1647_ reads ‘thy power’.]

_The Enjoyment._

ST.-AMANT.

Far from the court’s ambitious noise Retir’d, to those more harmless joys Which the sweet country, pleasant fields, And my own court, a cottage, yields; I liv’d from all disturbance free, Though prisoner (Sylvia) unto thee; Secur’d from fears, which others prove, Of the inconstancy of Love; A life, in my esteem, more blest, Than e’er yet stoop’d to Death’s arrest. 10

My senses and desires agreed, With joint delight each other feed: A bliss, I reach’d, as far above Words, as her beauty, or my love; Such as compar’d with which, the joys Of the most happy seem but toys: Affection I receive and pay, My pleasures knew not Grief’s allay: The more I tasted I desir’d, The more I quench’d my thirst was fir’d. 20

Now, in some place where Nature shows Her naked beauty, we repose; Where she allures the wand’ring eye With colours, which faint art outvie; Pearls scatter’d by the weeping morn, Each where the glitt’ring flowers adorn; The mistress of the youthful year (To whom kind Zephyrus doth bear His amorous vows and frequent prayer) Decks with these gems her neck and hair. 30

Hither, to quicken Time with sport, The little sprightly Loves resort, And dancing o’er the enamel’d mead, Their mistresses the Graces lead; Then to refresh themselves, repair To the soft bosom of my fair; Where from the kisses they bestow Upon each other, such sweets flow As carry in their mixéd breath A mutual power of life and death. 40

Next in an elm’s dilated shade We see a rugged Satyr laid, Teaching his reed, in a soft strain, Of his sweet anguish to complain; Then to a lonely grove retreat, Where day can no admittance get, To visit peaceful solitude; Whom seeing by repose pursu’d, All busy cares, for fear to spoil Their calmer courtship, we exile. 50

There underneath a myrtle, thought By Fairies sacred, where was wrought By Venus’ hand Love’s mysteries, And all the trophies of her eyes, Our solemn prayers to Heaven we send, That our firm love might know no end; Nor time its vigour e’er impair: Then to the wingéd God we sware, And grav’d the oath in its smooth rind, Which in our hearts we deeper find. 60

Then to my dear (as if afraid To try her doubted faith) I said, ‘Would in thy soul my form as clear, As in thy eyes I see it, were.’ She kindly angry saith, ‘Thou art Drawn more at large within my heart; These figures in my eye appear But small, because they are not near, Thou through these glasses seest thy face, As pictures through their crystal case.’ 70

Now with delight transported, I My wreathéd arms about her tie; The flattering Ivy never holds Her husband Elm in stricter folds: To cool my fervent thirst, I sip Delicious nectar from her lip. She pledges, and so often past This amorous health, till Love at last Our souls did with these pleasures sate, And equally inebriate. 80

Awhile, our senses stol’n away, Lost in this ecstasy we lay, Till both together rais’d to life, We re-engage in this kind strife. Cythaera with her Syrian boy Could never reach our meanest joy. The childish God of Love ne’er tried So much of love with his cold bride, As we in one embrace include, Contesting each to be subdu’d. 90

[_The Enjoyment._] _La Jouissance_, one of Saint-Amant’s early lyric pieces, which is here translated, was not so famous as his _Solitude_, which will be found (Englished by the matchless Orinda a little after Stanley’s time) in vol. i, p. 601, of this collection; but it was popular and much imitated. Stanley has cut it down considerably, for the original has nineteen stanzas–some of them, I suppose, too ‘warm’ for the translator’s modest muse.]

[Line: 59 Brydges misprints ‘_k_ind’]

_To Celia Pleading Want of Merit._

Dear, urge no more that killing cause Of our divorce; Love is not fetter’d by such laws, Nor bows to any force: Though thou deniest I should be thine, Yet say not thou deserv’st not to be mine.

Oh rather frown away my breath With thy disdain, Or flatter me with smiles to death; By joy or sorrow slain, 10 ‘Tis less crime to be kill’d by thee, Than I thus cause of mine own death should be.

Thyself of beauty to divest, And me of love, Or from the worth of thine own breast Thus to detract, would prove In us a blindness, and in thee At best a sacrilegious modesty.

But, Celia, if thou wilt despise What all admire, 20 Nor rate thyself at the just price Of beauty or desire, Yet meet my flames, and thou shalt see That equal love knows no disparity.

[_To Celia Pleading, &c._] _1647_ has in title ‘To _One that Pleaded her own_’, and ‘Dearest’ for ‘Celia’ in l. 19.]

_Love’s Innocence._

See how this Ivy strives to twine Her wanton arms about the Vine, And her coy lover thus restrains, Entangled in her amorous chains; See how these neighb’ring Palms do bend Their heads, and mutual murmurs send, As whispering with a jealous fear Their loves, into each other’s ear. Then blush not such a flame to own, As like thyself no crime hath known; 10 Led by these harmless guides, we may Embrace and kiss as well as they. And like those blesséd souls above, Whose life is harmony and love, Let us our mutual thoughts betray, And in our wills our minds display; This silent speech is swifter far Than the ears’ lazy species are; And the expression it affords, As our desires, ‘bove reach of words. 20 Thus we, my dear, of these may learn A passion others not discern; Nor can it shame or blushes move, Like plants to live, like Angels love: Since all excuse with equal innocence, What above reason is, or beneath sense.

[_Love’s Innocence._] In _1647_ the following differences occur: Title, ‘The Innocence of Love’; l. 1, ‘(Dear) doth twine’ for ‘strives to twine’; l. 7, ‘To one another whispering there’; ll. 9-10, ‘Then blush not, _Fair, that_ flame to _show, Which_ like thyself no crime _can know_’; ll. 11-12, ‘_Thus led by those chaste_ guides, we may Embrace and kiss as _free_ as they’; l. 20, ‘As _are our flames_’; l. 21, ‘Thus, _Doris, we_’.]

_The Bracelet._

TRISTAN.

Now Love be prais’d! that cruel fair, Who my poor heart restrains Under so many chains, Hath weav’d a new one for it of her hair.

These threads of amber us’d to play With every courtly wind; And never were confin’d; But in a thousand curls allow’d to stray.

Cruel each part of her is grown; Nor less unkind than she 10 These fetters are to me, Which to restrain my freedom, lose their own.

[_The Bracelet._] Little survives, even in literary memories, of François Tristan l’Hermite (1601-1655), except the success of his _Marianne_ (Maria_m_ne), 1636, one of the most famous French tragedies of the period outside Corneille. M. Ed. Fournier gave him a niche in Crépet’s _Poètes Français_ (Paris, 1861), ii. 539-52, but did not include the original of this piece. The _In Memoriam_ rhyme-order, though the line lengths are different, is interesting. Stanley had perhaps borrowed, before translating it, the ‘soft fetters of her hair’, noted above, though the fancy is of course primaeval and perennial.]

_The Kiss._

When on thy lip my soul I breathe, Which there meets thine, Freed from their fetters by this death Our subtle forms combine; Thus without bonds of sense they move, And like two Cherubins converse by love.

Spirits, to chains of earth confin’d, Discourse by sense; But ours, that are by flames refin’d, With those weak ties dispense. 10 Let such in words their minds display; We in a kiss our mutual thoughts convey.

But since my soul from me doth fly, To thee retir’d, Thou canst not both retain: for I Must be with one inspir’d. Then, dearest, either justly mine Restore, or in exchange let me have thine.

Yet, if thou dost return mine own, Oh tak’t again! 20 For ’tis this pleasing death alone Gives ease unto my pain. Kill me once more, or I shall find Thy pity, than thy cruelty, less kind.

[_The Kiss._] Title in _1647_ ‘The _killing_ Kiss’, and several other variants. An answer to this poem appears in Jordan’s _Claraphi and Clarinda_.]

[Line: 4 _1647_ ‘They both unite and join’. But Miss Guiney’s suspicion that ‘forms’ may be a misprint obviously shows forgetfulness of the philosophical sense of the word = ‘ideas’, ‘immortal parts’. Cf. Spenser, ‘For soul is _form_’.]

[Line: 6 by] _1647_ ‘and’–perhaps better.]

[Line: 12 _1647_ ‘Our lips, not tongues, each other’s thoughts betray’. (Miss Guiney’s copy seems to have ‘_our_ tongues’, which cannot be right.)]

[Line: 15 for I] and I _1647_.]

[Line: 17 dearest] _1647_ ‘Doris’. This is the second time (_v. sup._, p. 126) that poor Doris has been disestablished.]

_Apollo and Daphne._

GARCILASSO MARINO.

When Phoebus saw a rugged bark beguile His love, and his embraces intercept, The leaves, instructed by his grief to smile, Taking fresh growth and verdure as he wept: ‘How can’, saith he, ‘my woes expect release, When tears the subject of my tears increase!’

His chang’d, yet scorn-retaining Fair he kiss’d, From the lov’d trunk plucking a little bough; And though the conquest which he sought he miss’d, With that triumphant spoil adorns his brow. 10 Thus this disdainful maid his aim deceives: Where he expected fruit he gathers leaves.

[_Apollo and Daphne._] Why Garcilasso I do not know. Marini’s name was Giambattista.]

[Line: 6 The first ‘tears’ certainly looks odd, and Miss Guiney conjectures ‘leaves’. But the ways of Marinism are not thus. Apollo’s tears _watered_ the laurel and so made it grow. His tears increased their subject, the vapid vegetable substitute for Daphne’s flesh and blood.]

_Speaking and Kissing._

The air, which thy smooth voice doth break, Into my soul like lightning flies; My life retires whilst thou dost speak, And thy soft breath its room supplies.

Lost in this pleasing ecstasy, I join my trembling lips to thine; And back receive that life from thee, Which I so gladly did resign.

Forbear, Platonic fools, t’ inquire What numbers do the soul compose! No harmony can life inspire, But that which from these accents flows.

[_Speaking and Kissing._] This is _smarter_ than Stanley’s usual style.]

_The Snow-ball._

Doris, I that could repel All those darts about thee dwell, And had wisely learn’d to fear, ‘Cause I saw a foe so near; I that my deaf ear did arm ‘Gainst thy voice’s powerful charm, And the lightning of thine eye Durst (by closing mine) defy, Cannot this cold snow withstand From the whiter of thy hand. 10 Thy deceit hath thus done more Than thy open force before: For who could suspect or fear Treason in a face so clear; Or the hidden fires descry Wrapt in this cold outside lie? Flames might thus involv’d in ice The deceiv’d world sacrifice; Nature, ignorant of this Strange antiperistasis, 20 Would her falling frame admire, That by snow were set on fire.

[_The Snow-ball._] Doris maintains here the place she lost above. The tripping seventeenth-century ‘sevens’ are well spent on her. In l. 10 Miss Guiney thinks that ‘whiter’, the sole reading, must be ‘winter’. [Greek: hêkista]: that Stanley meant ‘the whiter _snow_’ is, to me, certain.]

[Line: 20 ‘Antiperistasis’ = ‘reaction’ or ‘topsyturvyfication’ (Thackeray).]

_The Deposition._

Though when I lov’d thee thou wert fair, Thou art no longer so; Those glories all the pride they wear Unto opinion owe; Beauties, like stars, in borrow’d lustre shine; And ’twas my love that gave thee thine.

The flames that dwelt within thine eye Do now, with mine, expire; Thy brightest graces fade and die At once with my desire; 10 Love’s fires thus mutual influence return; Thine cease to shine, when mine to burn.

Then, proud Celinda, hope no more To be implor’d or woo’d, Since by thy scorn thou dost restore The wealth my love bestow’d; And thy despis’d disdain too late shall find That none are fair but who are kind.

[_The Deposition._] In _1647_ ‘_A_ Deposition _from Beauty_’. Also l. 3, ‘do’ for ‘all’; l. 9, ‘glories’ for ‘graces’; l. 16, ‘That’ for ‘The’ and ‘which’ for ‘my’.]

_To his Mistress in Absence._

TASSO.

Far from thy dearest self, the scope Of all my aims, I waste in secret flames; And only live because I hope. Oh, when will Fate restore The joys, in whose bright fire My expectation shall expire, That I may live because I hope no more!

_Love’s Heretic._

He whose active thoughts disdain To be captive to one foe, And would break his single chain, Or else more would undergo; Let him learn the art of me, By new bondage to be free!

What tyrannic mistress dare To one beauty love confine, Who, unbounded as the air, All may court but none decline? 10 Why should we the heart deny As many objects as the eye?

Wheresoe’er I turn or move, A new passion doth detain me: Those kind beauties that do love, Or those proud ones that disdain me; This frown melts, and that smile burns me; This to tears, that ashes turns me.

Soft fresh Virgins, not full blown, With their youthful sweetness take me; 20 Sober Matrons, that have known Long since what these prove, awake me; Here staid coldness I admire; There the lively active fire.

She that doth by skill dispense Every favour she bestows, Or the harmless innocence, Which nor court nor city knows, Both alike my soul enflame, That wild Beauty, and this tame. 30

She that wisely can adorn Nature with the wealth of Art, Or whose rural sweets do scorn Borrow’d helps to take a heart, The vain care of that’s my pleasure, Poverty of this my treasure.

Both the wanton and the coy, Me with equal pleasures move; She whom I by force enjoy, Or who forceth me to love: 40 This, because she’ll not confess, That not hide, her happiness.

She whose loosely flowing hair, Scatter’d like the beams o’ th’ morn, Playing with the sportive air, Hides the sweets it doth adorn, Captive in that net restrains me, In those golden fetters chains me.

Nor doth she with power less bright My divided heart invade, 50 Whose soft tresses spread like night O’er her shoulders a black shade; For the starlight of her eyes Brighter shines through those dark skies.

Black, or fair, or tall, or low, I alike with all can sport; The bold sprightly Thais woo, Or the frozen Vestal court; Every Beauty takes my mind, Tied to all, to none confin’d. 60

[_Love’s Heretic._] This, for Stanley, longish piece has few _vv. ll._ But _1647_ reads in l. 34 ‘that’ instead of ‘to’, and the singular ‘pleasure’ in l. 38. The piece is rather in the Suckling vein; but Stanley did not play the light-o’-love quite successfully.]

_La Belle Confidente._

You earthly souls that court a wanton flame, Whose pale weak influence Can rise no higher than the humble name, And narrow laws of sense, Learn by our friendship to create An immaterial fire, Whose brightness Angels may admire, But cannot emulate.

Sickness may fright the roses from her cheek, Or make the lilies fade; 10 But all the subtile ways that Death doth seek, Cannot my love invade. Flames that are kindled by the eye, Through time and age expire; But ours, that boast a reach far higher, Can nor decay nor die.

For when we must resign our vital breath, Our loves by Fate benighted, We by this friendship shall survive in death, Even in divorce united. 20 Weak Love, through fortune or distrust, In time forgets to burn, But this pursues us to the urn, And marries either’s dust.

[_La Belle Confidente._] On this Sir Egerton: ‘However far-fetched these ideas may be, there is uncommon elegance and ingenuity in the expression, and polish in the versification.’ There is also something more than polish–a _concerted_ effect which ‘elegance and ingenuity’ do not often reach. In l. 16, ‘Cannot’ appears in _1647_ for ‘Can nor’; ‘And’ for ‘For’ in l. 17; and ll. 18, 20 are changed over and run:

Even in divorce delighted, . . . . . . Still in the grave united. ]

_La Belle Ennemie._

I yield, dear enemy, nor know How to resist so fair a foe! Who would not thy soft yoke sustain, And bow beneath thy easy chain, That with a bondage bless’d might be, Which far transcends all liberty? But since I freely have resign’d At first assault my willing mind, Insult not o’er my captiv’d heart With too much tyranny and art, 10 Lest by thy scorn thou lose the prize Gain’d by the power of thy bright eyes, And thou this conquest thus shalt prove, Though got by Beauty, kept by Love!

_The Dream._

LOPE DE VEGA.

To set my jealous soul at strife, All things maliciously agree, Though sleep of Death the image be, Dreams are the portraiture of life.

I saw, when last I clos’d my eyes, Celinda stoop t’ another’s will; If specious Apprehension kill, What would the truth without disguise?

The joys which I should call mine own, Methought this rival did possess: 10 Like dreams is all my happiness; Yet dreams themselves allow me none.

[_The Dream._] The actual and full _In Memoriam_ arrangement is the point of interest here. Stanley, however, is even less successful than the few other seventeenth-century practitioners in getting the full rhythmical sweep of the form into operation. He breaks the circle and so loses the charm.]

_To the Lady D._

MADAM, The blushes I betray, When at your feet I humbly lay These papers, beg you would excuse Th’ obedience of a bashful Muse, Who, bowing to your strict command, Trusts her own errors to your hand, Hasty abortives, which, laid by, She meant, ere they were born should die: But since the soft power of your breath Hath call’d them back again from Death, 10 To your sharp judgement now made known, She dares for hers no longer own; The worst she must not, these resign’d She hath to th’ fire, and where you find Those your kind Charity admir’d, She writ but what your eyes inspir’d.

[_To the Lady D._] This in _1647_ is the Dedication ‘To my most honour’d Aunt the Lady Dormer’. She was a daughter of Sir William Hammond and wife of Sir Robert Dormer, Knight, of Chearsley, Bucks. In _1647_ Stanley added to the poem ‘_Madam, Your Ladyships Greatest admirer and most humble Servant_, THO. STANLEY’.]

_Love Deposed._

You that unto your mistress’ eyes Your hearts do sacrifice, And offer sighs or tears at Love’s rich shrine, Renounce with me Th’ idolatry, Nor this infernal Power esteem divine.

The brand, the quiver, and the bow, Which we did first bestow, And he as tribute wears from every lover, I back again 10 From him have ta’en, And the impostor, now unveil’d, discover.

I can the feeble child disarm, Untie his mystic charm, Divest him of his wings, and break his arrow; We will obey No more his sway, Nor live confin’d to laws or bounds so narrow.

And you, bright Beauties, that inspire The Boy’s pale torch with fire, 20 We safely now your subtle power despise, And unscorch’d may Like atoms play, And wanton in the sunshine of your eyes.

Nor think hereafter by new arts You can bewitch our hearts, Or raise this devil by your pleasing charm; We will no more His power implore, Unless, like Indians, that he do no harm. 30

_The Divorce._

Dear, back my wounded heart restore, And turn away thy powerful eyes; Flatter my willing soul no more! Love must not hope what Fate denies.

Take, take away thy smiles and kisses! Thy love wounds deeper than disdain; For he that sees the heaven he misses, Sustains two hells, of loss and pain.

Shouldst thou some other’s suit prefer, I might return thy scorn to thee, 10 And learn apostasy of her, Who taught me first idolatry.

Or in thy unrelenting breast Should I disdain or coyness move, He by thy hate might be releas’d, Who now is prisoner to thy love.

Since then unkind Fate will divorce Those whom Affection long united, Be thou as cruel as this force, And I in death shall be delighted. 20

Thus while so many suppliants woo. And beg they may thy pity prove, I only for thy scorn do sue: ‘Tis charity here not to love.

[_The Divorce._] A rise from one or two preceding pieces.]

[Line: 12 Who] That _1647_.]

[Line: 14 I] cold _1647_.]

[Line: 15 He] I _1647_.]

[Line: 16 is] am _1647_.]

[Line: 21 while] whilst _1647_. woo] do _1647_.]

[Line: 22 ‘Implore thy pity they may prove’ _1647_.]

_Time Recovered._

CASONE.

Come, my dear, whilst youth conspires With the warmth of our desires; Envious Time about thee watches, And some grace each minute snatches; Now a spirit, now a ray, From thy eye he steals away; Now he blasts some blooming rose, Which upon thy fresh cheek grows; Gold now plunders in a hair; Now the rubies doth impair 10 Of thy lips; and with sure haste All thy wealth will take at last; Only that of which thou mak’st Use in time, from time thou tak’st.

[_Time Recovered._] This ‘very light and good’ version is from Guido Casoni (so more usually), a poet of the Trevisan March (1587-1640), and founder of the Academy of the _Incogniti_ at Venice, to the Transactions of which he contributed most of his work.]

_The Bracelet._

Rebellious fools that scorn to bow Beneath Love’s easy sway, Whose stubborn wills no laws allow, Disdaining to obey, Mark but this wreath of hair, and you shall see, None that might wear such fetters would be free!

I once could boast a soul like you, As unconfin’d as air; But mine, which force could not subdue, Was caught within this snare; 10 And, by myself betray’d, I, for this gold, A heart that many storms withstood, have sold.

No longer now wise Art inquire, With this vain search delighted, How souls, that human breasts inspire, Are to their frames united; Material chains such spirits well may bind, When this soft braid can tie both arm and mind

Now, Beauties, I defy your charm, Rul’d by more powerful art: 20 This mystic wreath which crowns my arm, Defends my vanquish’d heart; And I, subdu’d by one more fair, shall be Secur’d from Conquest by Captivity.

[_The Bracelet._] Almost certainly suggested by Donne. If so the suggestion was very rashly taken, but the result might have been worse.]

[Line: 7 soul] heart _1647_. l. 12 is an alteration–as Miss Guiney very rightly says to its detriment–of _1647_, which reads–

Have to mine enemy my freedom sold. ]

[Line: 15 _1647_ ‘that do our life inspire’.]

[Line: 22 _1647_ ‘Guards and defends my heart’.]

_The Farewell._

Since Fate commands me hence, and I Must leave my soul with thee, and die, Dear, spare one sigh, or else let fall A tear to crown my funeral, That I may tell my grievéd heart, Thou art unwilling we should part, And Martyrs, that embrace the fire, Shall with less joy than I expire.

With this last kiss I will bequeath My soul transfus’d into thy breath, 10 Whose active heat shall gently slide Into thy breast, and there reside, And be in spite of Fate, thus bless’d By this sad death, of Heaven possess’d. Then prove but kind, and thou shalt see Love hath more power than Destiny.

[_The Farewell._] In lines 13 and 14 of this all editions vary slightly. _1647_ has ‘may’ for ‘be’, which latter word opens the next line, turning out ‘sad’. The text is _1651_, _1656_, keeping l. 13 of _1647_, has for l. 14 the text of _1651_.]

_Claim to Love._

GUARINI.

Alas! alas! thou turn’st in vain Thy beauteous face away, Which, like young sorcerers, rais’d a pain Above its power to lay.

Love moves not, as thou turn’st thy look, But here doth firmly rest; He long ago thy eyes forsook, To revel in my breast.

Thy power on him why hop’st thou more Than his on me should be? 10 The claim thou lay’st to him is poor, To that he owns from me.

His substance in my heart excels His shadow in thy sight; Fire, where it burns, more truly dwells, Than where it scatters light.

_To his Mistress, who dreamed he was wounded._

GUARINI.

Thine eyes, bright Saint, disclose, And thou shalt find Dreams have not with illusive shows Deceiv’d thy mind: What sleep presented to thy view, Awake, and thou shalt find is true.

Those mortal wounds I bear, From thee begin, Which though they outward not appear, Yet bleed within. 10 Love’s flame like active lightning flies, Wounding the heart, but not the eyes.

But now I yield to die Thy sacrifice, Nor more in vain will hope to fly From thy bright eyes: Their killing power cannot be shunn’d, Open or closed alike they wound.

[_To his Mistress, &c._] _1647_ ‘To Doris dreaming he was wounded’. Guarini is not there mentioned.]

_The Exchange._

DIALOGUE.

_Phil._

That kiss, which last thou gav’st me, stole My fainting life away, Yet, though to thy breast fled, my soul Still in mine own doth stay;

_Char._

And with the same warm breath did mine Into thy bosom slide; There dwell contracted unto thine, Yet still with me reside.

_Chor._

Both souls thus in desire are one, And each is two in skill; 10 Doubled in intellect alone, United in the will. Weak Nature no such power doth know: Love only can these wonders show.

[_The Exchange._] _1647_ ‘Exchange of Souls’. In editions other than _1651_ there is a refrain after each stanza-speech:

Weak Nature no such power doth know, Love only can these wonders show. ]

_Unaltered by Sickness._

Sickness, in vain thou dost invade A Beauty that can never fade! Could all thy malice but impair One of the sweets which crown this fair, Or steal the spirits from her eye, Or kiss into a paler dye The blushing roses of her cheek, Our drooping hopes might justly seek Redress from thee, and thou might’st save Thousands of lovers from the grave: 10 But such assaults are vain, for she Is too divine to stoop to thee; Blest with a form as much too high For any change, as Destiny, Which no attempt can violate; For what’s her Beauty, is our Fate.

[_Unaltered by Sickness._] Lines 1 and 2 are expanded in _1656_ to:

Pale, envious Sickness, hence! no more Possess our breast, too cold before. In vain, alas! thou dost invade Those beauties which can never fade. ]

[Line: 4 ‘On those sweets which crown the fair’ _1656_.]

[Line: 7 blushing] blooming _1657_.]

[Line: 8 drooping] dropping _1647_: suffering _1656_.]

[Line: 14 For any] _1656_ _But_ any–nonsensically.]

_On his Mistress’s Death._

PETRARCH.

Love the ripe harvest of my toils Began to cherish with his smiles, Preparing me to be indued With all the joys I long pursued, When my fresh hopes, fair and full blown, Death blasts, ere I could call my own.

Malicious Death! why with rude force Dost thou my Fair from me divorce? False Life! why in this loathéd chain Me from my Fair dost thou detain? 10 In whom assistance shall I find? Alike are Life and Death unkind.

Pardon me, Love; thy power outshines, And laughs at their infirm designs. She is not wedded to a tomb, Nor I to sorrow in her room. They, what thou join’st, can ne’er divide She lives in me, in her I died.

_The Exequies._

Draw near, You Lovers that complain Of Fortune or Disdain, And to my ashes lend a tear; Melt the hard marble with your groans, And soften the relentless stones, Whose cold embraces the sad subject hide, Of all Love’s cruelties, and Beauty’s pride!

No verse, No epicedium bring, 10 Nor peaceful requiem sing, To charm the terrors of my hearse; No profane numbers must flow near The sacred silence that dwells here. Vast griefs are dumb; softly, oh! softly mourn, Lest you disturb the peace attends my urn.

Yet strew Upon my dismal grave Such offerings as you have, Forsaken cypress and sad yew; 20 For kinder flowers can take no birth, Or growth, from such unhappy earth. Weep only o’er my dust, and say, Here lies To Love and Fate an equal sacrifice.

[_The Exequies._] A very good stanza, the rhythm rising and swelling admirably. In the final couplet of the first, _1647_ reads–

do a victim hide, That, paid to Beauty, on Love’s altar died. ]

_The Silkworm._

This silkworm, to long sleep retir’d, The early year hath re-inspir’d, Who now to pay to thee prepares The tribute of her pleasing cares; And hastens with industrious toil To make thy ornament, her spoil: See with what pains she spins for thee The thread of her own destiny; Then growing proud in Death, to know That all her curious labours thou 10 Wilt, as in triumph, deign to wear, Retires to her soft sepulchre. Such, dearest, is that hapless state, To which I am design’d by Fate, Who by thee, willingly, o’ercome, Work mine own fetters and my tomb.

[_The Silkworm._] ]

[Line: 1 This] The _1647_.]

[Line: 6 Miss Guiney insists, in the teeth of all texts, upon changing over ‘thy’ and ‘her’, saying that ‘facts and the context force’ the reversal. I am afraid that the genius of seventeenth-century poetry did not care much for facts or context at any time. But here no violence is done to either. Nine men out of ten wishing to say ‘to make out of the spoil of herself an ornament for thee’ would have probably put it in the same way, especially if they wanted the rhyme ‘spoil’.]

[Line: 10 ‘That _her rich work and_ labours’ _1647_.]

[Line: 14 ‘I destined am’ _1647_.]

_A Lady Weeping._

MONTALVAN.

As when some brook flies from itself away, The murmuring crystal loosely runs astray; And as about the verdant plain it winds, The meadows with a silver riband binds, Printing a kiss on every flower she meets, Losing herself to fill them with new sweets, To scatter frost upon the lily’s head, And scarlet on the gilliflower to spread; So melting sorrow, in the fair disguise Of humid stars, flow’d from bright Cloris’ eyes, 10 Which wat’ring every flower her cheek discloses, Melt into jasmines here, there into roses.

[_A Lady Weeping._] Few people, I think, will accept Miss Guiney’s suggestion of ‘tears’ for ‘stars’ in l. 10, especially after ‘humid’. The shooting star, which dissolved on reaching earth into dew or ‘jelly’, is very common with Carolines.]

_Ambition._

I must no longer now admire The coldness which possess’d Thy snowy breast, That can by other flames be set on fire. Poor Love, to harsh Disdain betray’d, Is by Ambition thus out-weigh’d.

Hadst thou but known the vast extent Of constant faith, how far ‘Bove all that are Born slaves to Wealth, or Honour’s vain ascent; 10 No richer treasure couldst thou find Than hearts with mutual chains combin’d.

But Love is too despis’d a name, And must not hope to rise Above these ties; Honour and Wealth outshine his paler flame; These unite souls, whilst true desire Unpitied dies in its own fire.

Yet, cruel fair one, I did aim With no less justice too, 20 Than those that sue For other hopes, and thy proud fortunes claim. Wealth honours, honours wealth approve, But Beauty’s only meant for Love.

[_Ambition._] ]

[Line: 16 Miss Guiney thinks that the singular ‘Honour’, though in all texts, is obviously wrong. I should say that the plural would be more obviously wronger. The mistake, of course, comes from importing a modern distinction.]

_Song._

When, dearest beauty, thou shalt pay Thy faith and my vain hope away To some dull soul that cannot know The worth of that thou dost bestow; Lest with my sighs and tears I might Disturb thy unconfin’d delight, To some dark shade I will retire, And there, forgot by all, expire.

Thus, whilst the difference thou shalt prove Betwixt a feign’d and real love, 10 Whilst he, more happy, but less true, Shall reap those joys I did pursue, And with those pleasures crownéd be By Fate, which Love design’d for me, Then thou, perhaps, thyself wilt find Cruel too long, or too soon kind.

[_Song._] Not one of Stanley’s worst.]

_The Revenge._

RONSARD.

Fair Rebel to thyself and Time, Who laugh’st at all my tears, When thou hast lost thy youthful prime, And Age his trophy rears,

Weighing thy inconsiderate pride Thou shalt in vain accuse it, Why beauty am I now denied, Or knew not then to use it?

Then shall I wish, ungentle fair, Thou in like flames mayst burn; 10 Venus, if just, will hear my prayer, And I shall laugh my turn.

[_The Revenge._] Not one of his best, even as a translation. The suspicion of _flatness_ which occurs too often in him could not be more fatal than in connexion with Ronsard’s famous and beautiful sonnet. But Stanley has handicapped himself almost inconceivably. He has thrown away the half-sad, half-scornful burst of the opening ‘Quand vous serez bien vieille’–the vivid picture of the crone half boasting, half regretting her love and her disdain, by the flicker of fire and candle, to the listening handmaiden, and the final touch as to the use of life. In fact I have sometimes wondered whether he really meant this masterpiece.]

_Song._

I will not trust thy tempting graces, Or thy deceitful charms; Nor pris’ner be to thy embraces, Or fetter’d in thy arms; No, Celia, no, not all thy art Can wound or captivate my heart.

I will not gaze upon thy eyes, Or wanton with thy hair, Lest those should burn me by surprise, Or these my soul ensnare; 10 Nor with those smiling dangers play, Or fool my liberty away.

Since then my wary heart is free, And unconfin’d as thine, If thou wouldst mine should captiv’d be, Thou must thine own resign, And gratitude may thus move more Than Love or Beauty could before.

[_Song._] Another capital stanza-mould, especially in 1. The next is even better.

This Song is also in _Select Airs and Dialogues, set by Mr. Jeremy Savill_, _1659_.]

_Song._

No, I will sooner trust the wind, When falsely kind It courts the pregnant sails into a storm, And when the smiling waves persuade, Be willingly betray’d, Than thy deceitful vows or form.

Go, and beguile some easy heart With thy vain art; Thy smiles and kisses on those fools bestow, Who only see the calms that sleep 10 On this smooth flatt’ring deep, But not the hidden dangers know.

They that like me thy falsehood prove, Will scorn thy love. Some may, deceiv’d at first, adore thy shrine; But he that, as thy sacrifice, Doth willingly fall twice, Dies his own martyr, and not thine.

[_Song._]

[Line: 12 the] thy _1647_.]

_To a Blind Man in Love._

MARINO.

Lover, than Love more blind, whose bold thoughts dare Fix on a woman is both young and fair! If Argus, with a hundred eyes, not one Could guard, hop’st thou to keep thine, who hast none?

[_To a Blind Man in Love._] 2 The ellipsis of ‘who’ before ‘is’ is one of the few grammatical licences which are really awkward in poetry. In _Oronta 1647_, where this poem also appeared with two other translations from Marino, the reading is ‘woman that is young’; and in 7 ‘Senses too’.]

_Answer._

I’m blind, ’tis true, but, in Love’s rules, defect Of sense is aided by the intellect; And senses by each other are supplied: The touch enjoys what’s to the sight denied.

_Song._

I Prithee let my heart alone, Since now ’tis rais’d above thee, Not all the beauty thou dost own, Again can make me love thee:

He that was shipwreck’d once before By such a Syren’s call, And yet neglects to shun that shore, Deserves his second fall.

Each flatt’ring kiss, each tempting smile, Thou dost in vain bestow, 10 Some other lovers might beguile, Who not thy falsehood know.

But I am proof against all art. No vows shall e’er persuade me Twice to present a wounded heart To her that hath betray’d me.

Could I again be brought to love Thy form, though more divine, I might thy scorn as justly move, As now thou sufferest mine. 20

[_Song._] Pretty, and the double rhymes in stanzas 1 and 4 well brought off.]

[Line: 7 _1656_ ‘_the_ shore’.]

_The Loss._

Yet ere I go, Disdainful Beauty, thou shall be So wretched, as to know What joys thou fling’st away with me.

A faith so bright, As Time or Fortune could not rust; So firm, that lovers might Have read thy story in my dust,

And crown’d thy name With laurel verdant as thy youth, 10 Whilst the shrill voice of Fame Spread wide thy beauty and my truth.

This thou hast lost; For all true lovers, when they find That my just aims were crost, Will speak thee lighter than the wind.

And none will lay Any oblation on thy shrine, But such as would betray Thy faith, to faiths as false as thine. 20

Yet, if thou choose On such thy freedom to bestow, Affection may excuse, For love from sympathy doth flow.

[_The Loss._] Still good. But I have once more to demur to Miss Guiney’s opinion that ‘Thy’ in l. 20, though found in all texts, should ‘almost certainly’ be ‘Their’. In the first place, conjectural emendations in the teeth of text-agreement are never to be made without absolute necessity. In the second, the hackneyed observation about the less obvious reading is never so true as of the Caroline poets. In the third, this particular correction, if obvious in one sense, is but specious in another, and ‘_Their_ faith’ will be found on examination to make less, not more, sense than ‘Thy’. The meaning is, ‘Such faith as thou mightest repose in them after being false to me’, i.e. ‘They would leave thee for other light-o’-loves’.]

_The Self-Cruel._

Cast off, for shame, ungentle Maid, That misbecoming joy thou wear’st; For in my death, though long delay’d, Unwisely cruel thou appear’st. Insult o’er captives with disdain, Thou canst not triumph o’er the slain.

No, I am now no longer thine, Nor canst thou take delight to see Him whom thy love did once confine, Set, though by Death, at liberty; 10 For if my fall a smile beget, Thou gloriest in thy own defeat.

Behold how thy unthrifty pride Hath murder’d him that did maintain it! And wary souls, who never tried Thy tyrant beauty, will disdain it: But I am softer, and that me Thou wouldst not pity, pity thee.

[_The Self-Cruel._] Merely ‘Song’ in _1647_.

The observations in the preceding note apply to Miss Guiney’s supposition that ‘that’ in the penultimate line is a misprint for ‘though’. ‘I pity thee _in_ (or ‘for’) that thou wouldst not pity me.’]

_Song._

BY M. W. M.

Wert thou yet fairer than thou art, Which lies not in the power of Art; Or hadst thou in thine eyes more darts Than ever Cupid shot at hearts; Yet if they were not thrown at me, I would not cast a thought on thee,

I’d rather marry a disease, Than court the thing I cannot please; She that will cherish my desires, Must meet my flames with equal fires. 10 What pleasure is there in a kiss To him that doubts the heart’s not his?

I love thee not because th’ art fair, Softer than down, smoother than air; Nor for the Cupids that do lie In either corner of thine eye: Wouldst thou then know what it might be? ‘Tis I love you, ’cause you love me.

[_Song._] In _1647_ the song itself is not given, and the title of Stanley’s piece is ‘_In Answer to a Song_, Wert thou much fairer than thou art, &c.’ I do not know who Master W. M. was–possibly Walter Montagu, Abbé de Saint-Martin, whom we have met once or twice in commendatory poems, and who was of the Cavalier literary set.]

_Answer._

Wert thou by all affections sought, And fairer than thou wouldst be thought; Or had thine eyes as many darts As thou believ’st they shoot at hearts; Yet if thy love were paid to me, I would not offer mine to thee.

I’d sooner court a fever’s heat, Than her that owns a flame as great; She that my love will entertain, Must meet it with no less disdain; 10 For mutual fires themselves destroy, And willing kisses yield no joy.

I love thee not because alone Thou canst all beauty call thine own Nor doth my passion fuel seek In thy bright eye or softer cheek: Then, fairest, if thou wouldst know why I love thee, ’cause thou canst deny.

_The Relapse._

Oh, turn away those cruel eyes, The stars of my undoing! Or Death, in such a bright disguise, May tempt a second wooing.

Punish their blindly impious pride, Who dare contemn thy glory; It was my fall that deified Thy name, and seal’d thy story.

Yet no new sufferings can prepare A higher praise to crown thee; 10 Though my first Death proclaim thee fair, My second will unthrone thee.

Lovers will doubt thou canst entice No other for thy fuel, And if thou burn one victim twice, Both think thee poor and cruel.

[_The Relapse._] One of the author’s best. Double rhymes often brought him luck. It was reprinted in Lawes’s _Airs and Dialogues, the Second Book_, 1655, p. 7, with the heading ‘He would not be tempted’. In _1647_ called ‘Song’ only. This edition also reads in l. 5 ‘blind and impious’, and in l. 7 ‘thy name’ for ‘my fall’. This last, which doubtless is a slip, seems to occur in some copies of _1651_, but Brydges prints it correctly.]

_To the Countess of S. with the Holy Court._

MADAM, Since every place you bless, the name This book assumes may justlier claim, (What more a court than where you shine? And where your soul, what more divine?) You may, perhaps, doubt at first sight, That it usurps upon your right; And praising virtues, that belong To you, in others, doth yours wrong; No; ’tis yourself you read, in all Perfections earlier ages call 10 Their own; all glories they e’er knew Were but faint prophecies of you. You then have here sole interest whom ’tis meant As well to entertain, as represent.

[_To the Countess of S._] This lady has been supposed, probably enough, to be Dorothy Sidney or Spencer, Countess of Sunderland, and Waller’s ‘Sacharissa’. _The Holy Court_ was a manual of devotion by the Jesuit Caussin, translated into English as early as 1626.]

_Song._

DE VOITURE.

I languish in a silent flame; For she, to whom my vows incline, Doth own perfections so divine, That but to speak were to disclose her name If I should say that she the store Of Nature’s graces doth comprise, The love and wonder of all eyes, Who will not guess the beauty I adore?

Or though I warily conceal The charms her looks and soul possess; 10 Should I her cruelty express, And say she smiles at all the pains we feel;

Among such suppliants as implore Pity, distributing her hate, Inexorable as their fate, Who will not guess the beauty I adore?

[_Song._] Stanley was less _impar congressus_ with Voiture than with Ronsard, and this is well done. The stanza is well framed and is different from the French (‘Je me tais et me sens brûler’, Chanson LIV, _[Oe]uvres_ de Voiture, ed. Ubicini, Paris, 1855, ii. 336).]

_Drawn for Valentine by the L. D. S._

Though ‘gainst me Love and Destiny conspire, Though I must waste in an unpitied fire, By the same Deity, severe as fair, Commanded adoration and despair; Though I am mark’d for sacrifice, to tell The growing age what dangerous glories dwell In this bright dawn, who, when she spreads her rays, Will challenge every heart, and every praise; Yet she who to all hope forbids my claim, By Fortune’s taught indulgence to my flame. 10 Great Queen of Chance! unjustly we exclude Thy power an interest in beatitude, Who, with mysterious judgement, dost dispense The bounties of unerring Providence, Whilst we, to whom the causes are unknown, Would style that blindness thine, which is our own; As kind in justice to thyself as me, Thou hast redeem’d thy name and votary; Nor will I prize this less for being thine, Nor longer at my destiny repine: 20 Counsel and choice are things below thy state; Fortune relieves the cruelties of Fate.

_The Modest Wish._

BARCLAY.

Reach incense, boy! thou pious Flamen, pray! To genial Deities these rites we pay. Fly far from hence, such as are only taught To fear the Gods by guilt of crime or thought! This is my suit; grant it, Celestial Powers, If what my will affects, oppose not yours. First, pure before your altars may I stand, And practise studiously what you command; My parents’ faith devoutly let me prize, Nor what my ancestors esteem’d, despise; 10 Let me not vex’d inquire (when thriving ill Depresseth good) why thunder is so still? No such ambitious knowledge trouble me; Those curious thoughts advance not Piety: Peaceful my house, in wife and children bless’d, Nor these beyond my fortunes be increas’d: None cozen me with Friendship’s specious gloss; None dearly buy my friendship with their loss: To suits nor wars my quiet be betray’d; My quiet, to the Muses justly paid: 20 Want never force me court the rich with lies, And intermix my suit with flatteries: Let my sure friends deceive the tedious light, And my sound sleeps, with debts not broke, the night: Cheerful my board, my smiles shar’d by my wife, O Gods! yet mindful still of human life, To die nor let me wish nor fear; among My joys mix griefs, griefs that not last too long: My age be happy; and when Fate shall claim My thread of life, let me survive in fame. 30 Enough: the gods are pleas’d; the flames aspire, And crackling laurel triumphs in the fire.

_E Catalectis Vet[erum] Poet[arum]_

A small well-gotten stock and country seat I have, yet my content makes both seem great. My quiet soul to fears is not inur’d, And from the sins of Idleness secur’d. Others may seek the camp, others the town, And fool themselves with pleasure or renown; Let me, unminded in the common crowd, Live master of the time that I’m allow’d.

_On the Edition of Mr. Fletcher’s Works._

Fletcher (whose fame no age can ever waste; Envy of ours, and glory of the last) Is now alive again; and with his name His sacred ashes wak’d into a flame; Such as before did by a secret charm The wildest heart subdue, the coldest warm, And lend the ladies’ eyes a power more bright, Dispensing thus to either, heat and light. He to a sympathy those souls betray’d, Whom Love or Beauty never could persuade; 10 And in each mov’d spectator could beget A real passion by a counterfeit: When first Bellario bled, what lady there Did not for every drop let fall a tear? And when Aspasia wept, not any eye But seem’d to wear the same sad livery. By him inspir’d, the feign’d Lucina drew More streams of melting sorrow than the true; But then the Scornful Lady did beguile Their easy griefs, and teach them all to smile. 20 Thus he affections could or raise or lay; Love, Grief, and Mirth thus did his charms obey: He Nature taught her passions to outdo, How to refine the old, and create new; Which such a happy likeness seem’d to bear, As if that Nature Art, Art Nature were. Yet all had nothing been, obscurely kept In the same urn wherein his dust hath slept, Nor had he ris’ the Delphic wreath to claim, Had not the dying scene expir’d his name. 30 Oh the indulgent justice of this age, To grant the Press, what it denies the Stage! Despair our joy hath doubled; he is come Twice welcome by this _post-liminium_; His loss preserv’d him; they that silenc’d wit Are now the authors to eternize it: Thus poets are in spite of Fate reviv’d, And plays, by intermission, longer liv’d.

[_On [the Edition of Mr.] Fletcher’s Works._] The bracketed words omitted in _1647_, when, as the book itself (the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher) had just appeared, they were unnecessary. The variants are slight: ‘could’ and ‘did’ in lines 5 and 11 are changed over; in l. 19, ‘doth’ (again reflecting the immediate presentation). In l. 29 ‘rise’: the form ‘ris” is recognized by Ben Jonson. In l. 30 Miss Guiney thinks ‘not’ ‘clearly a misprint’ for ‘with’. But this is clearly a misunderstanding of ‘expir’d’, which is used with its proper transitive force as in Latin. ‘Had not the dying stage [the suppressed and decadent theatre of 1647] expired [uttered with its passing breath] his name, the book would not have been published [and so made him rise and claim the crown].’ ll. 31, 32 were omitted in the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, 1647.

It can hardly be necessary to annotate the well-known characters of ‘the twins’ that Stanley introduces. Brydges, by printing ‘Scornful Lady’ without capitals, unnecessarily obscured one of them.]

_To Mr. W. Hammond._

Thou best of friendship, knowledge, and of art! The charm of whose lov’d name preserves my heart From female vanities (thy name, which there, Till Time dissolves the fabric, I must wear), Forgive a crime which long my soul opprest, And crept by chance in my unwary breast, So great, as for thy pardon were unfit, And to forgive were worse than to commit, But that the fault and pain were so much one, The very act did expiate what was done. 10 I, who so often sported with the flame, Play’d with the Boy, and laugh’d at both as tame, Betray’d by Idleness and Beauty, fell At last in love, love, both the sin and hell: No punishment great as my fault esteem’d, But to be that which I so long had seem’d. Behold me such, a face, a voice, a lute, The sentence in a minute execute! I yield; recant; the faith which I before Denied, profess; the power I scorn’d, implore. 20 Alas, in vain! no prayers, no vows can bow Her stubborn heart, who neither will allow. But see how strangely what was meant no less Than torment, prov’d my greatest happiness: Delay, that should have sharpen’d, starv’d Desire, And Cruelty not fann’d, but quench’d my fire; Love bound me: now by kind Disdain set free, I can despise that Love as well as she. That sin to friendship I away have thrown: My heart thou mayst without a rival own, 30 While such as willingly themselves beguile, And sell away their freedoms for a smile, Blush to confess our joys as far above Their hopes, as Friendship’s longer liv’d than Love.

[_To Mr. W. Hammond._] In _1647_, as usually, initials only. His relation (see Introduction) and the author of the poems in vol. ii. As in some other cases, this poem shows the _nisus_ of the more or less stopped couplet–the way in which it was communicating energy to writers of the time even when they mainly belong to the older division.]

[Line: 30 _1647_ ‘Nor any flame, but what is thine, will own’.]

_On Mr. Shirley’s Poems._

When, dearest friend, thy verse doth re-inspire Love’s pale decaying torch with brighter fire, Whilst everywhere thou dost dilate thy flame, And to the world spread thy Odelia’s name, The justice of all ages must remit To her the prize of Beauty, thee of Wit. Then, like some skilful artist, that to wonder Framing a piece, displeas’d, takes it asunder, Thou Beauty dost depose, her charms deny, And all the mystic chains of Love untie: 10 Thus thy diviner Muse a power ‘bove Fate May boast, that can both make and uncreate. Next thou call’st back to life that love-sick boy, To the kind-hearted nymphs less fair than coy, Who, by reflex beams burnt with vain desire, Did, Phoenix-like, in his own flames expire: But should he view his shadow drawn by thee, He with himself once more in love would be. Echo (who though she words pursue, her haste Can only overtake and stop the last) 20 Shall her first speech and human veil obtain To sing thy softer numbers o’er again. Thus, into dying poetry, thy Muse Doth full perfection and new life infuse; Each line deserves a laurel, and thy praise Asks not a garland, but a grove of bays; Nor can ours raise thy lasting trophies higher, Who only reach at merit to admire. But I must chide thee, friend: how canst thou be A patron, yet a foe to poetry? 30 For while thou dost this age to verse restore, Thou dost deprive the next of owning more; And hast so far e’en future aims surpast, That none dare write: thus being first and last, All, their abortive Muses will suppress, And poetry by this increase grow less.

[_On Mr. Shirley’s Poems._] _1647_ initials (I. S.), as usual. The same remark applies here as to the last piece. Shirley’s _Poems_ (which include a reciprocal compliment to our author’s) appear at the end of the sixth volume of Dyce’s standard edition of his plays, and therefore are not included in this collection. They are, however, interesting, though there is nothing in them so good as the famous ‘Glories of our blood and state’. ‘Odelia’ (a curious and rather suspicious name) appears pretty frequently in them. Shirley was a friend not merely of Stanley, but of Hammond and Prestwich (_v. inf._) and others of the set. Some of the poems usually attributed to Carew appear to be really his. His _Poems_ were published in 1646, a year before Stanley’s.–There are some quite unimportant variants between _1647_ and _1651_: ‘that’ and ‘who’ in l. 7; ‘a’ and ‘some’ in l. 8; ‘words’ and ‘speech’ in l. 19; and l. 30 has the absurd reading ‘A patron, yet a _friend_ to poesy’. _1647_ omits lines 31 and 32, and reads

Thou hast so far all future times surpassed

in l. 33. Miss Guiney suggests ‘voice’ for ‘veil’ in l. 21. But ‘veil’ is far more poetical as = The _body_ of her disguise and humiliation after her aerial enfranchisement.]

_On Mr. Sherburn’s Translation of Seneca’s Medea, and Vindication of the Author._

That wise philosopher, who had design’d To life the various passions of the mind, Did wrong’d Medea’s jealousy prefer To entertain the Roman theatre; Both to instruct the soul, and please the sight, At once begetting horror and delight. This cruelty thou dost once more express, Though in a strange, no less becoming dress; And her revenge hast robb’d of half its pride, To see itself thus by itself outvied, 10 That boldest ages past may say, our times Can speak, as well as act their highest crimes. Nor was ‘t enough to do his scene this right, But what thou gav’st to us, with equal light Thou wouldst bestow on him, nor wert more just Unto the author’s work, than to his dust; Thou dost make good his title, aid his claim, Both vindicate his poem and his name, So shar’st a double wreath; for all that we Unto the poet owe, he owes to thee. 20 Though change of tongues stol’n praise to some afford, Thy version hath not borrow’d, but restor’d.

[_On Mr. Sherburn’s Translation, &c._] Title in _1647_ rather longer, but with initials, ‘To Mr. E. S. on his Translation of Medea, with the other Tragedies of Seneca the Philosopher and vindicating of their Author’. Sherburn (afterwards Sir Edward) had the rather capriciously adjudged honour of appearing in Chalmers’s _Poets_, which accounts for his absence here.]

[Line: 20 _1647_ reads ‘author’ for ‘poet’, an obvious overlooking of the occurrence of the word just before.]

_On Mr. Hall’s Essays._

Wits that matur’d by time have courted praise, Shall see their works outdone in these Essays; And blush to know, thy earlier years display A dawning, clearer than their brightest day. Yet I’ll not praise thee, for thou hast outgrown The reach of all men’s praises, but thine own. Encomiums to their objects are exact; To praise, and not at full, is to detract. And with most justice are the best forgot, For praise is bounded when the theme is not: 10 Since mine is thus confin’d, and far below Thy merit, I forbear it, nor will show How poor the autumnal pride of some appears, To the ripe fruit thy vernal season bears. Yet though I mean no praise, I come t’invite Thy forward aims still to advance their flight; Rise higher yet, what though thy spreading wreath Lessen to their dull sight who stay beneath? To thy full learning how can all allow Just praise, unless that all were learn’d as thou? 20 Go on in spite of such low souls, and may Thy growing worth know age, though not decay, Till thou pay back thy theft; and live to climb As many years as thou hast snatch’d from Time.

[_On Mr. Hall’s Essays._] _1647_ ‘To Mr. I. H. on his Essays’. These were the much-praised _Horae Vacivae_ (see Introduction to Hall, vol. ii). Besides the slight difference in general title the _1647_ version divides itself. The first division consists of the first four lines only. A second, to Mr. I. H., appears elsewhere, beginning:

_I’ll not commend thee_, for thou hast outgrown–

and going on as above, except that ‘full’ is foisted up from l. 8 to l. 7 (‘full objects’), to the destruction of sense and metre.]

[Line: 3 earlier] early _1647_.]

[Line: 13 ‘The pride of others’ autumns poor appears’ _1647_.]

_On S[ir] J[ohn] S[uckling], his Picture and Poems._

Suckling, whose numbers could invite Alike to wonder and delight, And with new spirit did inspire The Thespian scene and Delphic lyre, Is thus express’d in either part, Above the humble reach of Art. Drawn by the pencil, here you find His form, by his own pen, his mind.

[_On Sir John Suckling, his Picture and Poems._] Initials only in original titles. These poems were the _Fragmenta Aurea_ of 1646.]

_The Union._

[Greek: Mia psychê duo sômata.]

BY MR. WILLIAM FAIRFAX.

As in the crystal centre of the sight, Two subtle beams make but one cone of light, Or when one flame twin’d with another is, They both ascend in one bright pyramis; Our spirits thus into each other flow, One in our being, one in what we know, In what we will, desire, dislike, approve, In what we love, and one is that pure love, As in a burning glass th’ aërial flame, With the producing ray, is still the same: 10 We to Love’s purest quintessence refin’d, Do both become one undefilèd mind. This sacred fire into itself converts Our yielding spirits, and our melting hearts, Till both our souls into one spirit run, So several lines are in their centre one. And when thy fair idea is imprest In the soft tablet of my easier breast, The sweet reflection brings such sympathy, That I my better self behold in thee; 20 And all perfections that in thee combine, By this resultance are entirely mine; Thy rays disperse my shades, who only live Bright in the lustre thou art pleas’d to give.

[_The Union_] ]

[Line: 12 undefiled] undivided _1647_.]

[Line: 18 tablet] table _1647_.]

_Answer._

If we are one, dear friend! why shouldst thou be At once unequal to thyself and me? By thy release thou swell’st my debt the more, And dost but rob thyself to make me poor. What part can I have in thy luminous cone? What flame, since my love’s thine, can call my own? The palest star is less the son of night, Who, but thy borrow’d, know no native light: Was ‘t not enough thou freely didst bestow The Muse, but thou wouldst give the laurel too? 10 And twice my aims by thy assistance raise, Conferring first the merit, then the praise? But I should do thee greater injury, Did I believe this praise were meant to me, Or thought, though thou hast worth enough to spare, T’ enrich another soul, that mine should share. Thy Muse, seeming to lend, calls home her fame, And her due wreath doth in renouncing claim.

[_Answer._] In l. 10 of the ‘Answer’ _1647_ has ‘must’. At the end of the poem in _1647_ is the couplet

[Greek: Dysmore thêlymanôn glyky mê lege kentron erôtôn; Mounos TAS MOUSAS olbios esti THELÔN.] ]

_Pythagoras, his Moral Rules._

First to immortal God thy duty pay, Observe thy vow, honour the saints: obey Thy prince and rulers, nor their laws despise: Thy parents reverence, and near allies: Him that is first in virtue make thy friend; And with observance his kind speech attend: Nor, to thy power, for light faults cast him by; Thy power is neighbour to necessity. These know, and with intentive care pursue; But Anger, Sloth, and Luxury subdue. 10 In sight of others, or thyself, forbear What ‘s ill; but of thyself stand most in fear. Let Justice all thy words and actions sway, Nor from the even course of reason stray; For know that all men are to die ordain’d, And riches are as quickly lost as gain’d. Crosses that happen by divine decree, If such thy lot, bear not impatiently. Yet seek to remedy with all thy care, And think the just have not the greatest share. 20 ‘Mongst men discourses good and bad are spread, Despise not those, nor be by these misled. If any some notorious falsehood say, Thou the report with equal judgement weigh. Let not men’s smoother promises invite, Nor rougher threats from just resolves thee fright. If ought thou wouldst attempt, first ponder it, Fools only inconsiderate acts commit. Nor do what afterward thou mayst repent, First learn to know the thing on which th’art bent. 30 Thus thou a life shalt lead with joy replete. Nor must thou care of outward health forget; Such temperance use in exercise and diet, As may preserve thee in a settled quiet. Meats unprohibited, not curious, choose, Decline what any other may accuse: The rash expense of vanity detest, And sordidness: a mean in all is best. Hurt not thyself; act nought thou dost not weigh; And every business of the following day 40 As soon as by the morn awak’d, dispose; Nor suffer sleep at night thy eyes to close, Till thrice that diary thou hast o’errun; How slipt? what deeds, what duty left undone? Thus thy account summ’d up from first to last, Grieve for the ill, joy for what good hath past. These, if thou study, practise, and affect, To sacred Virtue will thy steps direct. Nature’s eternal fountain I attest, Who did the soul with fourfold power invest. 50 Ere thou begin, pray well thy work may end, Then shall thy knowledge to all things extend, Divine and human; where enlarg’d, restrain’d; How Nature is by general likeness chain’d. Vain Hope nor Ignorance shall dim thy sight: Then shalt thou see that hapless men invite Their ills; to good, though present, deaf and blind; And few the cure of their misfortunes find: This only is the fate that harms, and rolls, Through miseries successive, human souls. 60 Within is a continual hidden fight, Which we to shun must study, not excite: Good God! how little trouble should we know, If thou to all men wouldst their genius show! But fear not thou; men come of heav’nly race, Taught by diviner Nature what t’ embrace; Which, if pursued, thou all I nam’d shalt gain, And keep thy soul clear from thy body’s stain: In time of prayer and cleansing meats denied Abstain from; thy mind’s reins let reason guide: 70 Then rais’d to Heaven, thou from thy body free, A deathless saint, no more shalt mortal be.

[_Pythagoras, his Moral Rules._] Stanley’s three vocations of poet, translator, and philosopher come well together in this closing piece, and the prose commentary completes the exposition in little.]

The common received opinion that _Pythagoras_ is not the author of these verses, seems to be defended by _Chrysippus_ in _Agellius_, _Plutarch_, _Laertius_, and _Iamblichus_, who affirm that the rules and sense only were his, digested into verse by some of his scholars. But it is not improbable that they did no more than collect the verses, and so gave occasion to the mistake; for _Laertius_ confesseth that _Pythagoras_ used to deliver his precepts to his disciples in verse, one of which was

[Greek: Pê parebên? ti d’ erexa? ti moi deon ouk etelesthê?] _How slipt? what deeds, what duty left undone?_

Of this opinion I believe _Clemens Alexandrinus_, who cites one of these lines under his name, and _Proclus_, when he calls him [Greek: tôn chrysôn epôn patera], _the father of the golden verses_.

[_thy duty pay_]

[Greek: Nomô hôs diakeitai]; though _Hierocles_ in another sense read [Greek: diakeintai].

[_thy vow_]

[Greek: Horkos]. _Hierocles_, [Greek: têrêsis tôn theiôn nomôn], _observance of religious rules_.

[_honour the saints_]

[Greek: Hêrôas]. _Laertius_ on these words explains _souls whereof the air is full. Hierocles, angels, the sons of God, &c._

[_Thy prince and rulers_]

[Greek: Katachthonious daimonas], _Hierocles_, [Greek: Tous epi gês politeuesthai dynamenous]; _capable of government_.

[_nor their laws despise_]

[Greek: Ennoma rhezein]. _Hierocles_ [Greek: Peithesthai hois apoleloipasin hêmin parangelmasi]; _to obey their commands_.

[_with observance_]

[Greek: Erga epôphelima], _that is_, [Greek: euergesia, therapeia]: _yet, Hierocles otherwise_.

[_Thy power is neighbour to necessity_]

Whatsoever necessity can force thee to bear, it is in thy power to bear voluntarily. If thy friend have wronged thee, how canst thou say, thou art not able to endure his company, when imprisonment might constrain thee to it? See _Hierocles_.

[_’Mongst men discourses good and bad are spread;_ _Despise not these,[1] nor be by those misled._]

So _Hierocles_; _Marcilius_ reads [Greek: ôn] (that is, [Greek: oun]) for [Greek: hôn] which best agrees with this sense.

[_what any other may accuse_]

[Greek: phthonon]. _Hierocles_ interprets [Greek: mempsin], _invidia_, so taken sometimes by _Cicero_, _Marcell._

[_And every business of the following day As soon as by the morn awak’d, dispose_]

These two lines I have inserted upon the authority of _Porphyrius_,

[Greek: Pro men oun tou hypnou tauta heautô ta epê epadein hekaston. Mêd’ hypnon malakoisin], &c.

[Greek: Pro de tês exanastaseôs ekeina: Prôta men ex hypnoio meliphronos exypanistas Eu mala poipneuein hos’ en hêmati erga telessei].

_He advised every one before he slept to repeat these verses to himself, Nor suffer sleep at night, &c. And before he rose these, And every business, &c._

How much this confirms _Pythagoras_ the author, and his scholars but disposers of the verses (who, as it appears, forgot these two), is evident enough. The main argument they insist upon, who labour to prove the contrary, is derived from these words,

[_Nature’s eternal fountain I attest, Who did the soul with fourfold power invest_]

Where _Marcilius_ expounds [Greek: paradonta tetrakên][2] _illum a quo scientiam_ [Greek: tetraktyos], _acceperant, is autem doctor eorum Pythagoras_, as if it were

_Him who the Tetrad to our souls exprest, (Nature’s eternal fountain) I attest;_

And then takes pains to show that his scholars used to swear by him. But [Greek: paradidonai psychê mathêtôn] for [Greek: didaskein] is not without a little violence to [Greek: hametera psycha] (which makes _Iamblic[h]us_ read [Greek: hameteras sophias]) _Marcilius_ in this being the less excusable for confessing immediately, _Animae vero nostrae dixerunt Pythagorei quoniam quaternarius animae numerus est_, an explanation inconsistent with the other, but (as I conceive) truer; _Macrobius_ expressly agreeth with it; _Iuro tibi per eum qui dat animae nostrae quaternarium numerum_; or, as others,

_Per qui nostrae animae numerum dedit ipse quaternum._

_By him who gave us life–God._ In which sense, [Greek: pagan aennaou physeôs] much more easily will follow [Greek: paradonta] than [Greek: tetrakên]. The four powers of the soul are, _mens_, _scientia_, _opinio_, _sensus_, which _Aristotle_ calls _the four instruments of judgement_, _Hierocles_, [Greek: kritikas dynameis]. The _mind_ is compared to a unit, in that of many singulars it makes one. _Science_ to the number _two_ (which amongst the Pythagoreans is _numerus infinitatis_), because it proceeds from things certain and granted to uncertain and infinite. _Opinion_ to _three_, a number of indefinite variety. _Sense_ to _four_, as furnishing the other three. In this exposition I am the more easily persuaded to dissent from _Plutarch_, _Hierocles_, _Iamblichus_, and other interpreters, since they differ no less amongst themselves.

[_Within is a continual hidden fight_]

Betwixt Reason and Appetite.

[_how little trouble_]

As _Marcilius_ reads, [Greek: Ê pollôn], &c.

[_their genius_]

[Greek: Hoiô daimoni], _Hierocles_ expounds [Greek: hoia psychê]. _Genius_ includes both.

[_what t’ embrace_]

_Hierocles_ [Greek: panta ta deonta], _all that they ought to do._

[_from the[3] body’s stain_]

_Hierocles from the infection of the body._

[_In times[3] of prayer_]

[Greek: En te lysei psychês], _Meditation_. See _Plato in Phaedone_.

[_and cleansing_]

Which extended (saith _Hierocles_) [Greek: heôs sitiôn kai potôn kai tês holês diaitês tou thnêtou hêmôn sômatos] _to meat and drink_, &c.

[_meats denied_]

What they were is expressed by _Laertius_, _Suidas_, _Hierocles_, _Agellius_, &c. _Hierocles_ affirms that in these words [Greek: hôn eipomen], he cites his _sacred Apothegms_: [Greek: ta de epi merous en tois hierois apophthegmasin, en aporrhêtô paredidoito], _Concerning meat is particularly delivered in his holy Apothegms, that which was not lawful to make known to every one._ Which is a great testimony that _Pythagoras_, and not any of his disciples, writ these verses; for if the author had cited him before in the third person (as they argue from [Greek: paradonta tetrakên][4]), he would have cited him now in the first.

[Footnote 1: ‘These’ and ‘those’ are originally ‘crossed over’ in text and note.]

[Footnote 2: [Greek: tetrakên] should, as indeed the context proclaims, be [Greek: tetraktyn].]

[Footnote 3: Slight alteration of text in notes again original.]

[Footnote 4: See above. The mistake is an odd one because the original oath is in hexameters and [Greek: tetraktyn] is absolutely necessary as the last word.]

FINIS.

POEMS APPEARING ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1656

On this swelling bank, once proud Of its burden, Doris lay: Here she smil’d, and did uncloud Those bright suns eclipse the day; Here we sat, and with kind art She about me twin’d her arms, Clasp’d in hers my hand and heart, Fetter’d in those pleasing charms.

Here my love and joys she crown’d, Whilst the hours stood still before me, 10 With a killing glance did wound, And a melting kiss restore me. On the down of either breast, Whilst with joy my soul retir’d, My reclining head did rest, Till her lips new life inspir’d. Thus, renewing of these sights Doth with grief and pleasure fill me, And the thought of these delights Both at once revive and kill me! 20

Dear, fold me once more in thine arms! And let me know Before I go There is no bliss but in those charms. By thy fair self I swear That here, and only here, I would for ever, ever stay: But cruel Fate calls me away.

How swiftly the light minutes slide! The hours that haste 10 Away thus fast By envious flight my stay do chide. Yet, Dear, since I must go, By this last kiss I vow, By all that sweetness which dwells with thee, Time shall move slow, till next I see thee.

The lazy hours move slow, The minutes stay; Old Time with leaden feet doth go, And his light wings hath cast away. The slow-pac’d spheres above Have sure releas’d Their guardians, and without help move, Whilst that the very angels rest.

The number’d sands that slide Through this small glass, 10 And into minutes Time divide, Too slow each other do displace; The tedious wheels of light No faster chime, Than that dull shade which waits on night: For Expectation outruns Time.

How long, Lord, must I stay? How long dwell here? O free me from this loathèd clay! Let me no more these fetters wear! 20 With far more joy Shall I resign my breath, For, to my griev’d soul, not to die Is every minute a new death.

[The three pieces which appear in _1656_ only have no great character, and were very likely written for Gamble _to_ tunes–seldom a very satisfactory process.]

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