Chapter V: Introduction: To John Cleveland (4)

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.