Chapter XII: Introduction: To Henry King (3)

They whom the rising blood tempts not to taste,
Preserve a stock of love can never waste;
When easy people who their wish enjoy,
Like prodigals at once their wealth destroy. 10
Adam till now had stay'd in Paradise
Had his desires been bounded by his eyes.
When he did more than look, that made th' offence,
And forfeited his state of innocence.
Fruition therefore is the bane t' undo
Both our affection and the subject too.
'Tis Love into worse language to translate,
And make it into Lust degenerate:
'Tis to dethrone, and thrust it from the heart,
To seat it grossly in the sensual part. 20
Seek for the star that 's shot upon the ground,
And nought but a dim jelly there is found.
Thus foul and dark our female stars appear,
If fall'n or loos'ned once from Virtue's Sphere.
Glow-worms shine only look'd on, and let lie,
But handled crawl into deformity:
So beauty is no longer fair and bright,
Than whilst unstained by the appetite:
And then it withers like a blasted flower,
Some pois'nous worm or spider hath crept o'er. 30
Pygmalion's dotage on the carved stone,
Shows amorists their strong illusion.
Whilst he to gaze and court it was content,
He serv'd as priest at Beauty's monument:
But when by looser fires t' embraces led,
It prov'd a cold hard statue in his bed.
Irregular affects, like madmen's dreams
Presented by false lights and broken beams,
So long content us, as no near address
Shows the weak sense our painted happiness. 40
But when those pleasing shadows us forsake,
Or of the substance we a trial make,
Like him, deluded by the fancy's mock,
We shipwrack 'gainst an alabaster rock.
What though thy mistress far from marble be?
Her softness will transform and harden thee.
Lust is a snake, and Guilt the Gorgon's head,
Which Conscience turns to stone, and Joys to lead.
Turtles themselves will blush, if put to name
The act, whereby they quench their am'rous flame. 50
Who then that 's wise or virtuous, would not fear
To catch at pleasures which forbidden were,
When those which we count lawful, cannot be
Requir'd without some loss of modesty?
Ev'n in the marriage-bed, where soft delights
Are customary and authoriz'd rites;
What are those tributes to the wanton sense,
But toleration of Incontinence?
For properly you cannot call that Love
Which does not from the soul, but humour move. 60
Thus they who worship'd Pan or Isis' Shrine,
By the fair front judg'd all within divine:
Though ent'ring, found 'twas but a goat or cow
To which before their ignorance did bow.
Such temples and such goddesses are these
Which foolish lovers and admirers please:
Who if they chance within the shrine to pry,
Find that a beast they thought a Deity.
Nor makes it only our opinion less
Of what we lik'd before, and now possess; 70
But robs the fuel, and corrupts the spice
Which sweetens and inflames Love's sacrifice,
After fruition once, what is Desire
But ashes kept warm by a dying fire?
This is (if any) the Philosopher's Stone
Which still miscarries at projection.
For when the Heat _ad Octo_ intermits,
It poorly takes us like Third Ague fits,
Or must on embers as dull drugs infuse,
Which we for med'cine not for pleasure use. 80
Since lovers' joys then leave so sick a taste,
And soon as relish'd by the sense are past;
They are but riddles sure, lost if possest,
And therefore only in reversion best.
For bate them expectation and delay,
You take the most delightful scenes away.
These two such rule within the fancy keep,
As banquets apprehended in our sleep;
After which pleasing trance next morn we wake
Empty and angry at the night's mistake. 90
Give me long dreams and visions of content,
Rather than pleasures in a minute spent.
And since I know before, the shedding rose
In that same instant doth her sweetness lose,
Upon the virgin-stock still let her dwell
For me, to feast my longings with her smell.
Those are but counterfeits of joy at best,
Which languish soon as brought unto the test.
Nor can I hold it worth his pains who tries
To in that harvest which by reaping dies. 100

Resolve me now what spirit hath delight,
If by full feed you kill the appetite?
That stomach healthi'st is, that ne'er was cloy'd,
Why not that Love the best then, ne'er enjoy'd?
Since nat'rally the blood, when tam'd or sated,
Will cool so fast it leaves the object hated.
Pleasures, like wonders, quickly lose their price
When Reason or Experience makes us wise.

To close my argument then. I dare say
(And without Paradox) as well we may 110
Enjoy our Love and yet preserve Desire,
As warm our hands by putting out the fire.

[_Paradox. That Fruition, &c._] Put less tersely but
perhaps better by Dryden's most original heroine, Doralice,
in _Marriage à la Mode_, 'The only way to keep us true to
each other is never to enjoy'. The notion is old enough, and
several other seventeenth-century poets have treated it.]

[Line: 22 Nobody has ever assigned a (to me, at least)
plausible reason for this universal fancy of the seventeenth
century about the jellification of shooting-stars. It is
curious, but not inexplicable, that Browne does not touch it.]

[Line: 31 King has very coolly turned the Pygmalion story
upside down to suit his thesis.]

[Line: 50 The talking and blushing turtle (i.e. dove) is
another remarkable poetical licence.]

[Line: 77 Heat _ad Octo_] An obviously alchemical phrase which
I have not interpreted.]

[Line: 100 in] Orig. 'inne' = 'get in'. Cf. _All's Well that
Ends Well_, 1. iii, 'to in the crop'.]

_The Change._

_El sabio muda conscio: El loco persevera._

We lov'd as friends now twenty years and more:
Is't time or reason, think you, to give o'er?
When, though two prenti'ships set Jacob free,
I have not held my Rachel dear at three.

Yet will I not your levity accuse;
Continuance sometimes is the worse abuse.
In judgement I might rather hold it strange,
If, like the fleeting world, you did not change:
Be it your wisdom therefore to retract,
When perseverance oft is folly's act. 10

In pity I can think, that what you do
Hath Justice in't, and some Religion too;
For of all virtues Moral or Divine,
We know, but Love, none must in Heaven shine:
Well did you the presumption then foresee
Of counterfeiting immortality:
Since had you kept our loves too long alive,
We might invade Heaven's prerogative;
Or in our progress, like the Jews, comprise
The Legend of an earthly Paradise. 20

Live happy, and more prosperous in the next.
You have discharg'd your old friend by the text.
Farewell, fair Shadow of a female faith,
And let this be our friendship's Epitaph:

Affection shares the frailty of our fate,
When (like ourselves) 'tis old and out of date:
'Tis just all human loves their period have,
When friends are frail and dropping to the grave.

[_The Change._] This poem is almost less of
a commonplace than any of King's, and the expression is
vigorous. The nearest parallel I know to it is Crabbe's
'Natural Death of Love', and like that it has a curious, if
not cheerful, ring of actuality. But the case is more unusual.
The Spanish motto (rather dog-Spanish in original) means: 'The
wise man changes consciously: the fool [or, rather, madman]
perseveres.']

[Line: 22 by the text] = 'formally'? as it were, 'by the
card'. Or perhaps with direct reference to the motto.]

_To my Sister Anne King, who chid me in verse for being angry._

Dear Nan, I would not have thy counsel lost,
Though I last night had twice so much been crost;
Well is a passion to the market brought,
When such a treasure of advice is bought
With so much dross. And couldst thou me assure,
Each vice of mine should meet with such a cure,
I would sin oft, and on my guilty brow
Wear every misperfection that I owe,
Open and visible; I should not hide
But bring my faults abroad: to hear thee chide 10
In such a note, and with a quill so sage,
It passion tunes, and calms a tempest's rage.

Well, I am charm'd, and promise to redress
What, without shrift, my follies do confess
Against myself: wherefore let me entreat,
When I fly out in that distemper'd heat
Which frets me into fasts, thou wilt reprove
That froward spleen in poetry and love:
So though I lose my reason in such fits
Thou'lt rhyme me back again into my wits. 20

[_To my Sister, &c._] Anne King, afterwards Mrs.
Dutton and Lady Howe. Howell, the epistoler, admitted her (in
rather execrable verse) to that Tenth Museship which has had
so many fair incumbents. Izaak Walton left her a ring and
called her 'a most generose and ingenious Lady'. The verses
assigned to her, which may be found in Hannah's notes, are not
of the worst Tenth Muse quality.]

[Line: 2 It has been observed, once or twice, that a placid
and philosophical temper does not seem to have been one of the
Bishop's gifts, and he here acknowledges the fact.]

[Line: 8 'Owe', as so often noted, = 'own'.]

[Line: 17 And seems to have done due penance for it.]

_An Elegy upon the immature loss of the most vertuous Lady Anne Rich._

[Died August 24, 1638.]

I envy not thy mortal triumphs, Death
(Thou enemy to Virtue, as to breath),
Nor do I wonder much, nor yet complain
The weekly numbers by thy arrow slain.
The whole world is thy factory, and we,
Like traffic, driven and retail'd by Thee:
And where the springs of life fill up so fast,
Some of the waters needs must run to waste.

It is confess'd, yet must our griefs dispute
That which thine own conclusion doth refute, 10
Ere we begin. Hearken! for if thy ear
Be to thy throat proportion'd, thou canst hear.
Is there no order in the work of Fate?
Nor rule, but blindly to anticipate
Our growing seasons? or think'st thou 'tis just,
To sprinkle our fresh blossoms with thy dust,
Till by abortive funerals, thou bring
That to an Autumn, Nature meant a Spring?
Is't not enough for thee, that wither'd age
Lies the unpitied subject of thy rage; 20
But like an ugly amorist, thy crest
Must be with spoils of Youth and Beauty drest?
In other camps, those which sat down to-day
March first to-morrow, and they longest stay,
Who last came to the service: but in thine,
Only confusion stands for discipline.
We fall in such promiscuous heaps, none can
Put any diff'rence 'twixt thy rear or van;
Since oft the youngest lead thy files. For this,
The grieved world here thy accuser is, 30
And I a plaintiff, 'mongst those many ones,
Who wet this Lady's urn with zealous moans;
As if her ashes, quick'ning into years,
Might be again embodied by our tears.
But all in vain; the moisture we bestow
Shall make as soon her curled marble grow,
As render heat or motion to that blood,
Which through her veins branch't like an azure flood;
Whose now still current in the grave is lost,
Lock'd up, and fetter'd by eternal frost. 40

Desist from hence, doting Astrology!
To search for hidden wonders in the sky;
Or from the concourse of malignant stars,
Foretell diseases, gen'ral as our wars:
What barren droughts, forerunners of lean dearth,
Threaten to starve the plenty of the earth:
What horrid forms of darkness must affright
The sickly world, hast'ning to that long night
Where it must end. If there no portents are,
No black eclipses for the Kalendar, 50
Our times sad annals will rememb'red be
I' th' loss of bright Northumberland and Thee:
Two stars of Court, who in one fatal year
By most untimely set drop'd from their sphere.
She in the winter took her flight, and soon
As her perfections reach'd the point of noon,
Wrapt in a cloud, contracted her wish'd stay
Unto the measure of a short-liv'd day.
But _Thou_ in Summer, like an early rose,
By Death's cold hand nipp'd as _Thou_ didst disclose, 60
Took'st a long day to run that narrow stage,
Which in two gasping minutes summ'd thy age.
And, as the fading rose, when the leaves shed,
Lies in its native sweetness buried,
_Thou_ in thy virtues bedded and inhearst,
Sleep'st with those odours thy pure fame disperst,
Where till that Rising Morn thou must remain,
In which thy wither'd flowers shall spring again,
And greater beauties thy wak'd body vest,
Than were at thy departure here possest. 70
So with full eyes we close thy vault. Content
(With what thy loss bequeaths us) to lament,
And make that use of thy griev'd funeral,
As of a crystal broken in the fall;
Whose pitied fractures, gather'd up, and set,
May smaller mirrors for thy sex beget;
There let them view themselves, until they see
The end of all their glories shown in _Thee_.
Whilst in the truth of this sad tribute, I
Thus strive to canonize thy memory. 80

[_Elegy on Lady Anne Rich._] Properly Lady Rich,
who had been Lady Anne Cavendish. Her brother Charles was that
leader of the 'Ca'ndishers' in Lincolnshire whose defeat and
death at Gainsborough, after repeated victories in the spring
and summer of 1643, was one of the first and most serious
blows to the Royal cause. Waller wrote epitaphs both on him
and on his sister, but the best on her is Sidney Godolphin's
(_v. sup._, vol. ii, p. 248). She is one of the candidates
for the personage of Waller's 'Amoret', and was not impossibly
King's 'A. R.' (_v. sup._, p. 172).]

[Line: 4 _MS._ 'arrows'.]

[Line: 38 Which] _MS._ 'Once'.]

[Line: 48 _MS._ 'hasting'.]

[Line: 52 Northumberland] Lady Anne Cecil, first wife of
Algernon Percy, tenth Earl.]

[Line: 55 winter] December 6, 1637.]

_An Elegy upon Mrs. Kirk, unfortunately drowned in Thames._

For all the shipwracks, and the liquid graves
Lost men have gain'd within the furrow'd waves,
The Sea hath fin'd, and for our wrongs paid use,
When its wrought foam a Venus did produce.
But what repair wilt thou, unhappy Thames,
Afford our loss? thy dull unactive streams
Can no new beauty raise, nor yet restore
Her who by thee was ravish'd from our shore:
Whose death hath stain'd the glory of thy flood,
And mix'd the guilty channel with her blood. 10

O Neptune! was thy favour only writ
In that loose element where thou dost sit?
That, after all this time, thou shouldst repent
Thy fairest blessing to the continent?
Say, what could urge this Fate? is Thetis dead,
Or Amphitrite from thy wet arms fled?
Wast thou so poor in Nymphs, that thy moist love
Must be maintain'd with pensions from above?
If none of these, but that, whilst thou didst sleep
Upon thy sandy pillow in the deep, 20
This mischief stole upon us; may our grief
Waken thy just revenge on that sly thief,
Who, in thy fluid empire, without leave,
And unsuspected, durst her life bereave.
Henceforth, invert thy order, and provide
In gentlest floods a pilot for our guide.
Let rugged seas be lov'd, but the brook's smile
Shunn'd like the courtship of a crocodile;
And where the current doth most smoothly pass,
Think for her sake, that stream Death's looking-glass, 30
To show us our destruction is most near,
When pleasure hath begot least sense of fear.

Else break thy forked sceptre 'gainst some rock,
If thou endure a flatt'ring calm to mock
Thy far-fam'd pow'r, and violate that law
Which keeps the angry Ocean in awe.
Thy trident will grow useless, which doth still
Wild tempests, if thou let tame rivers kill.

Meantime, we owe thee nothing. Our first debt
Lies cancell'd in thy wat'ry cabinet. 40
We have for Her thou sent'st us from the main,
Return'd a Venus back to thee again.

[_An Elegy upon Mrs. Kirk, &c._] This and the
following were not in Hannah's MS. He, perhaps not quite
accurately, regards this as King's _only_ indulgence in what
he also regarded as 'the frigid and artificial style popular
among his contemporaries'. But he thought it better than the
companion piece in Heath's _Clarastella_ (_v. inf._). From
this latter we learn that Mrs. Kirk was one of the numerous
victims of 'shooting the bridge'. The piece is frigid enough
certainly, but rather from want of 'conceit' than because
of it. (Mr. Thorn-Drury has reminded me of Glapthorne's two
elegies on the same subject. They form the last contents of
the 1874 reprint and give more detail in their title, 'On the
noble and much to be lamented Mrs. Anne Kirk, wife to Mr. Geo.
Kirk, Gent. of the Robes and of his Majesty's Bed Chamber,
who was unfortunately drowned passing London Bridge, July 6.
1641'.)]

[Line: 3 fin'd] = '_paid_ fine', as often.]

_An Elegy upon the death of Mr. Edward Holt_.

Whether thy father's, or disease's rage,
More mortal prov'd to thy unhappy age,
Our sorrow needs not question; since the first
Is known for length and sharpness much the worst.
Thy fever yet was kind; which the ninth day
For thy misfortunes made an easy way.
When th' other barbarous and hectic fit,
In nineteen winters did not intermit.

I therefore vainly now not ask thee why
Thou didst so soon in thy youth's mid-way die: 10
But in my sense the greater wonder make,
Thy long oppressed heart no sooner brake.
Of force must the neglected blossom fall,
When the tough root becomes unnatural,
And to his branches doth that sap deny,
Which them with life and verdure should supply.
For parents' shame, let it forgotten be,
And may the sad example die with thee.

It is not now thy grieved friend's intent
To render thee dull Pity's argument. 20
Thou hast a bolder title unto fame,
And at Edge Hill thou didst make good the claim;
When, in thy Royal Master's cause and war,
Thy ventur'd life brought off a noble scar.
Nor did thy faithful services desist,
Till death untimely strook thee from the list.

Though in that prouder vault, then, which doth tomb
Thy ancestors, thy body find not room,
Thine own deserts have purchas'd thee a place,
Which more renowned is than all thy race; 30
For in this earth thou dost ennobled lie
With marks of valour and of loyalty.

[_Mr. Edward Holt._] Holt was King's brother-in-law,
having married his sister Elizabeth (_v. sup._, p. 173). He
died at Oxford in 1643 while attending the King as Groom of
the Bedchamber, and was buried in the Cathedral. His father,
who outlived him, was a Baronet, and is again abused by
King in his will as having been 'implacable'; but the Bishop
apparently thought better of his nephew Sir Robert, who was
a stout Royalist and churchman both before and after the
Restoration. Walton dedicated his _Life of Donne_ to this Sir
Robert Holt. His much-abused grandfather had at any rate set
the example of loyalty, and is said to have been plundered or
extortioned by Parliamentary 'contributions' or 'compositions'
to the amount of about £20,000.]

_To my dead friend Ben. Jonson._

[Died August 6, 1637.]

I see that wreath, which doth the wearer arm
'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm
To keep off Death's pale dart. For, Jonson, then
Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.
Time's scythe had fear'd thy laurel to invade,
Nor thee this subject of our sorrow made.

Amongst those many votaries who come
To offer up their garlands at thy tomb;
Whilst some more lofty pens, in their bright verse
(Like glorious tapers flaming on thy hearse), 10
Shall light the dull and thankless world to see,
How great a maim it suffers, wanting thee;
Let not thy learned shadow scorn, that I
Pay meaner rites unto thy memory;
And since I nought can add but in desire,
Restore some sparks which leap'd from thine own fire.

What ends soever others' quills invite,
I can protest, it was no itch to write,
Nor any vain ambition to be read,
But merely love and justice to the dead, 20
Which rais'd my fameless Muse; and caus'd her bring
These drops, as tribute thrown into that spring,
To whose most rich and fruitful bead we owe
The purest streams of language which can flow.

For 'tis but truth, thou taught'st the ruder age
To speak by grammar, and reform'dst the stage:
Thy comic sock induc'd such purged sense,
A Lucrece might have heard without offence.
Amongst those soaring wits that did dilate
Our English, and advance it to the rate 30
And value it now holds, thyself was one
Help'd lift it up to such proportion;
That thus refin'd and rob'd, it shall not spare
With the full Greek or Latin to compare.
For what tongue ever durst, but ours, translate
Great Tully's eloquence, or Homer's state?
Both which in their unblemish'd lustre shine,
From Chapman's pen, and from thy _Catiline_.
All I would ask for thee, in recompense
Of thy successful toil and time's expense, 40
Is only this poor boon; that those who can
Perhaps read French, or talk Italian,
Or do the lofty Spaniard affect,
To show their skill in foreign dialect,
Prove not themselves so unnaturally wise,
They therefore should their mother-tongue despise
(As if her poets, both for style and wit,
Not equall'd, or not pass'd, their best that writ),
Until by studying Jonson they have known
The height and strength and plenty of their own. 50

Thus in what low earth or neglected room
Soe'er thou sleep'st, thy book shall be thy tomb.
Thou wilt go down a happy corse, bestrew'd
With thine own flowers; and feel thyself renew'd,
Whilst thy immortal, never-with'ring bays
Shall yearly flourish in thy readers' praise.
And when more spreading titles are forgot,
Or spite of all their lead and cere-cloth rot,
Thou wrapp'd and shrin'd in thine own sheets wilt lie,
A relic fam'd by all posterity. 60

[_Ben. Jonson._] In orig., as so often, 'Jo_h_nson'.
A contribution to _Jonsonus Virbius_, which, printed nearly
twenty years before these _Poems_, has one slight variant =
'that' for 'who' in l. 7.]

[Line: 5 scythe] Orig. 'sithe', which some great ones
(including even the other Johnson) will have to be the proper
spelling, and which is certainly usual in Middle English.
But 'scythe' is consecrated by the only Sainte Ampoule of
orthography--usage; 'sithe' also means 'a path' and 'a
sigh', and may be mistaken for 'since', while 'scythe' is
unmistakable. And for my part, if I may not have 'scythe' I
stickle for 'sigðe'--the undoubted original.]

[Line: 38 It was a little dangerous, in Ben's lifetime, to
praise others in company with him. But King here corroborates
Drummond's _Conversations_, in which Ben is made to speak well
of Chapman on several occasions, and (more particularly) to
declare his _Iliad_, or part of it, 'well done'.]

[Line: 42 It is rather curious that Drummond (in one of
those _Marginalia_ in which he relieves his feelings somewhat
subacidly) declares that his robustious guest 'neither
understood French nor Italian'.]

_An Elegy upon Prince Henry's death_

[Died Nov. 6, 1612.]

Keep station, Nature, and rest, Heaven, sure
On thy supporters' shoulders, lest, past cure,
Thou dash'd in ruin fall, by a grief's weight
Will make thy basis shrink, and lay thy height
Low as the centre. Hark! and feel it read
Through the astonish'd Kingdom, Henry's dead.
It is enough; who seeks to aggravate
One strain beyond this, prove[s] more sharp his fate
Than sad our doom. The world dares not survive
To parallel this woe's superlative. 10
O killing Rhetoric of Death! two words
Breathe stronger terrors than plague, fire, or swords
Ere conquer'd. This were epitaph and verse,
Worthy to be prefix'd in Nature's hearse,
Or Earth's sad dissolution; whose fall
Will be less grievous, though more general:
For all the woe ruin e'er buried
Sounds in these fatal accents, Henry's dead.
Cease then, unable Poetry; thy phrase
Is weak and dull to strike us with amaze 20
Worthy thy vaster subject. Let none dare
To copy this sad hap, but with despair
Hanging at his quill's point. For not a stream
Of ink can write, much less improve, this theme.
Invention highest wrought by grief or wit
Must sink with him, and on his tombstone split;
Who, like the dying Sun, tells us the light
And glory of our Day set in his Night.

[_Prince Henry._] Besides composing these English
verses King contributed two Latin sets to _Justa Oxoniensium_,
one of several Oxford _tombeaux_ for the Prince who was taken
away from the evil to come. The present poem appears to me
(though, of course, the high-strung character of the mourning
seems to have been both general and sincere) to be much more
'frigid and artificial' than the _Mrs. Anne Kirk_. Hannah
gives several variants, not merely from his usual MS. but from
Malone 21. I have taken those which seem to have some point.]

[Lines: 5-6 For 'Hark ... dead.' the Malone reading is:

Death and horror wed
To vent their teeming mischief: Henry's dead.

The other MS., for l. 6, has:

Through the astonisht _world_, Henry _is_ dead.
]

[Line: 11 Malone MS. '_Compendious Eloquence_ of Death', &c.]

[Line: 18 For the first half, Malone MS. 'lies in this narrow
compass'; the other, 'throngs' for 'lies'.]

_An Elegy upon S. W. R._

[Sir W. Raleigh? Executed Oct. 29, 1618.]

I will not weep, for 'twere as great a sin
To shed a tear for thee, as to have bin
An actor in thy death. Thy life and age
Was but a various scene on fortune's stage,
With whom thou tugg'st and strov'st ev'n out of breath
In thy long toil: ne'er master'd till thy death;
And then, despite of trains and cruel wit,
Thou didst at once subdue malice and it.

I dare not then so blast thy memory
As say I do lament or pity thee. 10
Were I to choose a subject to bestow
My pity on, he should be one as low
In spirit as desert;--that durst not die,
But rather were content by slavery
To purchase life: or I would pity those,
Thy most industrious and friendly foes;
Who, when they thought to make thee scandal's story,
Lent thee a swifter flight to Heav'n and glory;--
That thought, by cutting off some wither'd days
(Which thou couldst spare them), to eclipse thy praise; 20
Yet gave it brighter foil, made thy ag'd fame
Appear more white and fair, than foul their shame:
And did promote an execution
Which (but for them) Nature and Age had done.

Such worthless things as these were only born
To live on Pity's alms (too mean for scorn).
Thou diedst an envious wonder, whose high fate
The world must still admire, scarce imitate.

[_S. W. R._] The initials are not in _MS._, and the
identification, though almost certain, is a conjecture of
Hannah's. Almost every line fits Raleigh.]

[Line: 27 envious] Spenser has this sense, to which in some
cases the original 'invidious' comes very close.]

_An Elegy upon the L. Bishop of London, John King._

[Died on Good Friday, 1621.]

Sad relic of a blessed soul! whose trust
We sealed up in this religious dust:
O do not thy low exequies suspect,
As the cheap arguments of our neglect.
'Twas a commanded duty, that thy grave
As little pride as thou thyself should have.

Therefore thy covering is an humble stone,
And but a word for thy inscription.
When those that in the same earth neighbour thee,
Have each his chronicle and pedigree: 10
They have their waving pennons and their flags
(Of matches and alliance formal brags),
When thou (although from ancestors thou came,
Old as the Heptarchy, great as thy name,)
Sleep'st there inshrin'd in thy admired parts,
And hast no heraldry but thy deserts.
Yet let not them their prouder marbles boast,
For they rest with less honour, though more cost.

Go, search the world, and with your mattocks wound
The groaning bosom of the patient ground: 20
Dig from the hidden veins of her dark womb
All that is rare and precious for a tomb;
Yet when much treasure, and more time, is spent,
You must grant his the nobler monument,

Whose Faith stands o'er him for a hearse, and hath
The Resurrection for his epitaph.

[_John King._] Hannah thought this piece in bad
taste, and a neglect of the dead Bishop's wishes. As epitaphs
go this seems rather severe.]

[Line: 8 but a word] _Resurgam_. Orig. note.]

[Line: 9 neighbour] In St. Paul's.]

[Line: 13 ancestors] The Kings of Devonshire referred to in
Introduction.]

_Upon the death of my ever desired friend, Doctor Donne, Dean of Paul's._

[Died March 31, 1631.]

To have lived eminent, in a degree
Beyond our loftiest flights, that is, like thee;
Or t' have had too much merit is not safe;
For such excesses find no epitaph.
At common graves, we have poetic eyes,
Can melt themselves in easy elegies;
Each quill can drop his tributary verse,
And pin it, with the hatchments, to the hearse:
But at thine, poem or inscription
(Rich soul of wit and language!) we have none; 10
Indeed a silence does that tomb befit,
Where is no herald left to blazon it.
Widow'd invention justly doth forbear
To come abroad, knowing thou art not here,
Late her great patron; whose prerogative
Maintain'd and cloth'd her so, as none alive
Must now presume to keep her at thy rate,
Though he the Indies for her dower estate:
Or else that awful fire, which once did burn
In thy clear brain, now fall'n into thy urn, 20
Lives there to fright rude empirics from thence,
Which might profane thee by their ignorance.
Who ever writes of thee, and in a style
Unworthy such a theme, does but revile
Thy precious dust, and wake a learned spirit
Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit.
For all a low-pitch'd fancy can devise,
Will prove, at best, but hallow'd injuries.

Thou, like the dying swan, didst lately sing
Thy mournful dirge in audience of the king; 30
When pale looks, and faint accents of thy breath,
Presented so to life that piece of death,
That it was fear'd and prophesied by all
Thou thither cam'st to preach thy funeral.
O! hadst thou in an elegiac knell
Rung out unto the world thine own farewell;
And in thy high victorious numbers beat
The solemn measure of thy griev'd retreat,
Thou might'st the poet's service now have miss'd,
As well as then thou didst prevent the priest: 40
And never to the world beholden be
So much as for an epitaph for thee.

I do not like the office. Nor is 't fit,
Thou, who didst lend our age such sums of wit,
Shouldst now reborrow from her bankrupt mine
That ore to bury thee, which once was thine.
Rather still leave us in thy debt; and know
(Exalted soul!) more glory 'tis to owe
Unto thy hearse what we can never pay,
Than with embased coin those rites defray. 50

Commit we then thee to thyself: nor blame
Our drooping loves, which thus to thine own fame
Leave thee executor; since, but thy own,
No pen could do thee justice, nor bays crown
Thy vast desert; save that, we nothing can
Depute to be thy ashes' guardian.

So jewellers no art or metal trust
To form the diamond, but the diamond's dust.

[_Dr. Donne._] This is also found in some editions
of Donne's _Poems_ and in Walton's _Life_, and Hannah took
repeated pains to record the variants. I have borrowed those
which seemed of importance. King's friendship with Donne
(whose executor he was) was peculiarly intimate, as Walton, a
friend of both, elaborately testifies. But the greatest of the
many great Deans of St. Paul's was certainly 'beyond' King's
'loftiest flights' (or, as Walton read, 'thoughts'), and the
Bishop is here below even these.]

[Line: 8 pin it] This was literally done.]

[Line: 30 Refers to Donne's last sermon at Court, to his long
illness, and to the ghastly pallor perpetuated by the famous
picture of him in his shroud.]

[Line: 37 'High victorious numbers' is not bad, and the whole
passage does bare justice to Donne's mastery of the graver
epicede, which equalled Jonson's of the lighter.]

[Line: 41 beholden] Some versions have the common form
'behold_ing_'.]

[Line: 44 'Wit'--in that seventeenth-century sense of which
Sir Henry Craik has so well defined the object--'not to excite
laughter but to compel attention'--was regarded, and rightly,
as Donne's special glory, and the best thing written on his
death was Carew's

A king who ruled as he thought fit
The universal monarchy of Wit.
]

[Line: 49 For 'Unto thy hearse' the Walton version reads 'Thy
memory'.]

_An Elegy upon the most victorious King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus._

[Killed at the battle of Lützen, Nov. 6, 1632.]

Like a cold fatal sweat which ushers death,
My thoughts hang on me, and my lab'ring breath
Stopp'd up with sighs, my fancy, big with woes,
Feels two twinn'd mountains struggle in her throes,--
Of boundless sorrow one,--t' other of sin;--
For less let no one rate it, to begin
Where honour ends.--In great Gustavus' flame,
That style burnt out, and wasted to a name,
Does barely live with us. As when the stuff
That fed it, fails, the taper turns to snuff, 10
With this poor snuff, this airy shadow, we
Of Fame and Honour must contented be;
Since from the vain grasp of our wishes fled
Their glorious substance is, now He is dead.

Speak it again, and louder, louder yet;
Else, whilst we hear the sound, we shall forget
What it delivers. Let hoarse rumour cry,
Till she so many echoes multiply,
Those may like num'rous witnesses confute
Our unbelieving souls, that would dispute 20
And doubt this truth for ever. This one way
Is left our incredulity to sway;
To waken our deaf sense, and make our ears
As open and dilated as our fears;
That we may feel the blow, and feeling, grieve,
At what we would not fain, but must believe.
And in that horrid faith, behold the world
From her proud height of expectation hurl'd,
Stooping with him, as if she strove to have
No lower centre now than Sweden's grave. 30

O could not all thy purchas'd victories
Like to thy fame thy flesh immortalize?
Were not thy virtue nor thy valour charms
To guard thy body from those outward harms
Which could not reach thy soul? could not thy spirit
Lend somewhat which thy frailty might inherit
From thy diviner part, that Death, nor Hate,
Nor Envy's bullets e'er could penetrate?
Could not thy early trophies in stern fight
Torn from the Dane, the Pole, the Moscovite? 40
Which were thy triumph's seeds, as pledges sown,
That when thy honour's harvest was ripe grown,
With full-summ'd wing thou falcon-like wouldst fly,
And cuff the Eagle in the German sky:
Forcing his iron beak and feathers feel
They were not proof 'gainst thy victorious steel.
Could not all these protect thee? or prevail
To fright that coward Death, who oft grew pale
To look thee and thy battles in the face?
Alas! they could not: Destiny gives place 50
To none; nor is it seen that princes' lives
Can saved be by their prerogatives.
No more was thine; who, clos'd in thy cold lead,
Dost from thyself a mournful lecture read
Of man's short-dated glory: learn, you kings,
You are, like him, but penetrable things;
Though you from demi-gods derive your birth
You are at best but honourable earth:
And howe'er sifted from that coarser bran,
Which does compound and knead the common man, 60
Nothing's immortal, or from earth refin'd
About you, but your office and your mind.
Here then break your false glasses, which present
You greater than your Maker ever meant:
Make truth your mirror now, since you find all
That flatter you, confuted by his fall.

Yet, since it was decreed, thy life's bright Sun
Must be eclips'd ere thy full course was run,
Be proud thou didst, in thy black obsequies,
With greater glory set, than others rise. 70
For in thy death, as life, thou heldest one
Most just and regular proportion.
Look how the circles drawn by compass meet
Indivisibly joined, head to feet,
And by continued points which them unite,
Grow at once circular and infinite:
So did thy Fate and Honour now contend
To match thy brave beginning with thy end.
Therefore thou hadst, instead of passing bells,
The drums' and cannons' thunder for thy knells; 80
And in the field thou didst triumphing die,
Closing thy eyelids with a victory:
That so by thousands who there lost their breath,
King-like thou might'st be waited on in death.
Lived Plutarch now, and would of Caesar tell,
He could make none but Thee his parallel;
Whose tide of glory, swelling to the brim,
Needs borrow no addition from him. 90
When did great Julius, in any clime,
Achieve so much, and in so small a time?
Or if he did, yet shalt Thou in that land
Single, for him, and unexampled stand.
When o'er the Germans first his Eagle towr'd,
What saw the legions which on them he pour'd?
But massy bodies, made their swords to try,
Subjects, not for his fight, but slavery.
In that so vast expanded piece of ground
(Now Sweden's theatre and tomb), he found 100
Nothing worth Caesar's valour or his fear,
No conqu'ring army, nor a Tilly there,
Whose strength, nor wiles, nor practice in the war
Might the fierce torrent of thy triumphs bar,
But that thy winged sword twice made him yield,
Both from his trenches beat, and from the field.

Besides, the Roman thought he had done much,
Did he the bank of Rhenus only touch.
But though his march was bounded by the Rhine,
Not Oder nor the Danube thee confine; 110
And, but thy frailty did thy fame prevent,
Thou hadst thy conquests stretch'd to such extent,
Thou might'st Vienna reach, and after span
From Mulda to the Baltic Ocean.

But death hath spann'd thee: nor must we divine
What heir thou leav'st to finish thy design,
Or who shall thee succeed, as champion
For liberty and for religion.

Thy task is done; as in a watch, the spring,
Wound to the height, relaxes with the string: 120
So thy steel nerves of conquest, from their steep
Ascent declin'd, lie slack'd in thy last sleep.

Rest then, triumphant soul! for ever rest!
And, like the Ph[oe]nix in her spicy nest,
Embalm'd with thine own merit, upward fly,
Born in a cloud of perfume to the sky.
Whilst as in deathless urns, each noble mind
Treasures thy ashes which are left behind.

And if perhaps no Cassiopeian spark
(Which in the North did thy first rising mark) 130
Shine o'er thy hearse; the breath of our just praise
Shall to the firmament thy virtues raise;
Then fix, and kindle them into a star,
Whose influence may crown thy glorious war.

_----O Famâ ingens, ingentior armis,
Rex Gustave, quibus Coelo te laudibus aequem?_
Virgil. _Aeneid. lib. 2._ [11?]

[_Gustavus Adolphus._] This piece had been
previously printed in the _Swedish Intelligencer_, 1633, with
other elegies on the subject, one of which (in Malone MS. 21)
is also ascribed to King, but without any other evidence, and
(as Hannah seems to be right in thinking) very improbably. He
gives some variants, only two of which seem to me important
enough to reproduce. There are also versions in Rawlinson
Poetic MS. 26, fol. 51, and 160, fol. 39.]

[Line: 4 throes] Orig. 'thro_w_s'.]

[Lines: 6-7 Hannah in his note, though in his text he
had followed _1657_, as above, prefers the reading of the
_Intelligencer_--a full-stop at 'it', and 'To begin', which
is to a certain extent supported by a capitalized 'To' in his
MS., though there is not a full-stop. He has two notes on the
subject, and for a moment I was perplexed. But I feel certain
that the _1657_ text is right. Hannah's parallel from King's
prose, 'I begin there where all must end', is specious, but
not convincing. On the other hand, 'To begin, &c.' is wanted
to complete 'for less' and to explain 'sin'. Honour, as the
next sentence further tells us, perished with Gustavus, and it
is a solecism to attempt to continue it in verse. This is,
in the Archdeacon's words elsewhere, 'frigid and artificial'
enough; but it is also sufficiently 'metaphysical'.]

[Line: 10 Orig. has full-stop at 'snuff', but this (which
Hannah keeps and does not comment on) leaves nothing to
complete 'as'.]

[Line: 11 airy] For the 'ayerie' of edition and Malone MS.,
the _Intelligencer_, and Rawlinson MS. 160 have 'fiery'--I
think, in the context, better.]

[Line: 96. Orig. note. _Magis triumphati quam victi_. Tacit.
_de Mor. Ger._]

[Lines: 135-7 The end quotation (from _Aen._ xi. 124-5) is not
in MS.]

_To my Noble and Judicious Friend Sir Henry Blount upon his Voyage._

Sir, I must ever own myself to be
Possess'd with human curiosity
Of seeing all that might the sense invite
By those two baits of profit and delight:
And since I had the wit to understand
The terms of native or of foreign land;
I have had strong and oft desires to tread
Some of those voyages which I have read.
Yet still so fruitless have my wishes prov'd,
That from my Country's smoke I never mov'd: 10
Nor ever had the fortune (though design'd)
To satisfy the wand'rings of my mind.
Therefore at last I did with some content,
Beguile myself in time, which others spent;
Whose art to provinces small lines allots,
And represents large kingdoms but in spots.
Thus by Ortelius and Mercator's aid
Through most of the discover'd world I stray'd.
I could with ease double the Southern Cape,
And in my passage Afric's wonders take: 20
Then with a speed proportion'd to the scale
Northward again, as high as Zemla sail.
Oft hath the travel of my eye outrun
(Though I sat still) the journey of the Sun:
Yet made an end, ere his declining beams
Did nightly quench themselves in Thetis' streams.
Oft have I gone through Egypt in a day,
Not hinder'd by the droughts of Lybia;
In which, for lack of water, tides of sand
By a dry deluge overflow the land. 30
There I the Pyramids and Cairo see,
Still famous for the wars of Tomombee,
And its own greatness; whose immured sense
Takes forty miles in the circumference.
Then without guide, or stronger caravan
Which might secure the wild Arabian,
Back through the scorched deserts pass, to seek
Once the world's Lord, now the beslaved Greek,
Made by a Turkish yoke and fortune's hate
In language as in mind, degenerate. 40

And here all wrapp'd in pity and amaze
I stand, whilst I upon the Sultan gaze;
To think how he with pride and rapine fir'd
So vast a territory hath acquir'd;
And by what daring steps he did become
The Asian fear, and scourge of Christendom:
How he achiev'd, and kept, and by what arts
He did concentre those divided parts;
And how he holds that monstrous bulk in awe,
By settled rules of tyranny, not Law: 50
So rivers large and rapid streams began,
Swelling from drops into an Ocean.

Sure who e'er shall the just extraction bring
Of this gigantic power from the spring;
Must there confess a higher Ordinance
Did it for terror to the earth advance.
For mark how 'mongst a lawless straggling crew,
Made up of Arab, Saracen, and Jew,
The world's disturber, faithless Mahomet
Did by impostures an opinion get: 60
O'er whom he first usurps as Prince, and than
As prophet does obtrude his Alcoran.
Next, how fierce Ottoman his claim made good
From that unblest religion, by blood;
Whilst he the Eastern kingdoms did deface,
To make their ruin his proud Empire's base.
Then like a comet blazing in the skies,
How death-portending Amurath did rise,
When he his horned crescents did display
Upon the fatal plains of Servia; 70
And farther still his sanguine tresses spread,
Till Croya life and conquests limited.
Lastly, how Mahomet thence styl'd the Great,
Made Constantine's his own Imperial seat;
After that he in one victorious bond
Two Empires grasp'd, of Greece and Trebizond.

This, and much more than this, I gladly read,
Where my relators it had storyed;
Besides that people's manners and their rites,
Their warlike discipline and order'd fights; 80
Their desp'rate valour, hard'ned by the sense
Of unavoided Fate and Providence:
Their habit, and their houses, who confer
Less cost on them than on their sepulchre:
Their frequent washings, and the several bath
Each Meschit to itself annexed hath:
What honour they unto the Mufty give,
What to the Sovereign under whom they live:
What quarter Christians have; how just and free
To inoffensive travellers they be: 90
Though I confess, like stomachs fed with news,
I took them in for wonder, not for use,
Till your experienc'd and authentic pen
Taught me to know the places and the men;
And made all those suspected truths become
Undoubted now, and clear as axiom.

Sir, for this work more than my thanks is due;
I am at once inform'd and cur'd by you.
So that, were I assur'd I should live o'er
My periods of time run out before; 100
Ne'er needed my erratic wish transport
Me from my native lists to that resort,
Where many at outlandish marts unlade
Ingenuous manners, and do only trade
For vices and the language. By your eyes
I here have made my full discoveries;
And all your countries so exactly seen,
As in the voyage I had sharer been.
By this you make me so; and the whole land
Your debtor: which can only understand 110
How much she owes you, when her sons shall try
The solid depths of your rare history,
Which looks above our gadders' trivial reach,
The commonplace of travellers, who teach
But table-talk; and seldomly aspire
Beyond the country's diet or attire;
Whereas your piercing judgement does relate
The policy and manage of each State.
And since she must here without envy grant
That you have further journey'd the Levant 120
Than any noble spirit by her bred
Hath in your way as yet adventured;
I cannot less in justice from her look,
Than that she henceforth canonize your book
A rule to all her travellers, and you
The brave example; from whose equal view
Each knowing reader may himself direct,
How he may go abroad to some effect,
And not for form: what distance and what trust
In those remoter parts observe he must: 130
How he with jealous people may converse,
Yet take no hurt himself by that commerce.
So when he shall embark'd in dangers be,
Which wit and wary caution not foresee;
If he partake your valour and your brain,
He may perhaps come safely off again,
As you have done; though not so richly fraught
As this return hath to our staple brought.

I know your modesty shuns vulgar praise,
And I have none to bring; but only raise 140
This monument of Honour and of Love,
Which your long known deserts so far improve,
They leave me doubtful in what style to end,
Whether more your admirer or your friend.

[_Sir Henry Blount, &c._] Blount (1602-82) was of
Trinity College, Oxford, published his _Voyage to the Levant_
in 1636, and was knighted four years later. He was a good
Royalist in the early days of the Rebellion, but something of
a renegade later. His book has been variously judged, but was
very popular, and was translated into more than one foreign
language.]

[Line: 61 'Than' for 'then' as often.]

[Line: 76 Orig. 'Tr_a_b_e_zond', which at any rate keeps closer
than the usual form to Trapezus.]

[Line: 86 'Meschit' = of course 'mosque'. The form seems to be
nearest to the Spanish _mezquita_.]

[Line: 102 lists] Here in the sense (akin to the flannelly
one) of boundary, as in _Hamlet_, IV. v. 99, 'The ocean,
overpeering of his _list_', and several other Shakespearian
places.]

[Lines: 124-5 canonize ... rule] A play of words.]

_To my honoured Friend Mr. George Sandys._

It is, Sir, a confess'd intrusion here
That I before your labours do appear,
Which no loud herald need, that may proclaim
Or seek acceptance, but the Author's fame.
Much less that should this happy work commend,
Whose subject is its licence, and doth send
It to the world to be receiv'd and read,
Far as the glorious beams of truth are spread.

Nor let it be imagin'd that I look
Only with custom's eye upon your book; 10
Or in this service that 'twas my intent
T' exclude your person from your argument:
I shall profess, much of the love I owe,
Doth from the root of our extraction grow;
To which though I can little contribute,
Yet with a natural joy I must impute
To our tribe's honour, what by you is done
Worthy the title of a Prelate's son.

And scarcely have two brothers farther borne
A father's name, or with more value worn 20
Their own, than two of you; whose pens and feet
Have made the distant points of Heav'n to meet;
He by exact discoveries of the West,
Yourself by painful travels in the East

Some more like you might pow'rfully confute
Th' opposers of Priests' marriage by the fruit.
And (since 'tis known for all their straight vow'd life,
They like the sex in any style but wife)
Cause them to change their cloister for that state
Which keeps men chaste by vows legitimate: 30
Nor shame to father their relations,
Or under nephews' names disguise their sons.
This child of yours, born without spurious blot,
And fairly midwiv'd as it was begot,
Doth so much of the parent's goodness wear,
You may be proud to own it for your heir.
Whose choice acquits you from the common sin
Of such, who finish worse than they begin:
You mend upon yourself, and your last strain
Does of your first the start in judgement gain; 40
Since what in curious travel was begun,
You here conclude in a devotion.

Where in delightful raptures we descry
As in a map, Sion's chorography
Laid out in so direct and smooth a line,
Men need not go about through Palestine:
Who seek Christ here will the straight road prefer,
As nearer much than by the Sepulchre.
For not a limb grows here, but is a path;
Which in God's City the blest centre hath: 50
And doth so sweetly on each passion strike,
The most fantastic taste will somewhat like.
To the unquiet soul Job still from hence
Pleads in th' example of his patience.
The mortified may hear the wise King preach,
When his repentance made him fit to teach.
Nor shall the singing Sisters be content
To chant at home the Act of Parliament,
Turn'd out of reason into rhyme by one
Free of his trade, though not of Helicon, 60
Who did in his poetic zeal contend
Others' edition by a worse to mend.
Here are choice Hymns and Carols for the glad,
With melancholy Dirges for the sad:
And David (as he could his skill transfer)
Speaks like himself by an interpreter.
Your Muse rekindled hath the Prophet's fire,
And tun'd the strings of his neglected lyre;
Making the note and ditty so agree,
They now become a perfect harmony. 70

I must confess, I have long wish'd to see
The Psalms reduc'd to this conformity:
Grieving the songs of Sion should be sung
In phrase not diff'ring from a barbarous tongue.
As if, by custom warranted, we may
Sing that to God we would be loath to say.
Far be it from my purpose to upbraid
Their honest meaning, who first offer made
That book in metre to compile, which you
Have mended in the form, and built anew: 80
And it was well, considering the time,
Which hardly could distinguish verse and rhyme.
But now the language, like the Church, hath won
More lustre since the Reformation;
None can condemn the wish or labour spent
Good matter in good words to represent.

Yet in this jealous age some such there be,
So without cause afraid of novelty,
They would not (were it in their pow'r to choose)
An old ill practice for a better lose. 90
Men who a rustic plainness so affect,
They think God served best by their neglect.
Holding the cause would be profan'd by it,
Were they at charge of learning or of wit.
And therefore bluntly (what comes next) they bring
Coarse and unstudied stuffs for offering;
Which like th' old Tabernacle's cov'ring are,
Made up of badgers' skins, and of goat's hair.
But these are paradoxes they must use
Their sloth and bolder ignorance t'excuse. 100
Who would not laugh at one will naked go,
'Cause in old hangings truth is pictur'd so?
Though plainness be reputed honour's note,
They mantles use to beautify the coat;
So that a curious (unaffected) dress
Adds much unto the body's comeliness:
And wheresoe'er the subject's best, the sense
Is better'd by the speaker's eloquence.