Chapter VI: Introduction: To John Cleveland (5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Line: 35 antick heads] = 'gargoyles'.]

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

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

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

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

The Antiplatonic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Line: 19 sectaries of] = 'heretics in'.]

[Line: 20 This is good: 'calcining flame' is good.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuscara, or the Bee Errant.

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

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

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

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

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

'Who knows but the world may end to night?'
]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 30 Neat, i' faith!]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 62 The correcter form is 'lancep_e_sade'.]

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

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

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

(_Occasioned by his long-deferred funeral._)

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

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

*Mary's Spikenard.

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

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

To Julia to expedite her Promise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Line: 1 'Shrieve' of course = 'Sheriff'.]

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

[Line: 9 rebated] The opposite of '_un_bated' in
_Hamlet_--with the button _on_.]

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

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

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

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

'When the locks are crisp and curl'd?'

(_The Vision of Sin._)]

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

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

Poems in 1677 but not in 1653.

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

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

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

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

[Line: 5 brother] Charles II.]

The General Eclipse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Upon the King's Return from Scotland.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Elegy on Ben Jonson.

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

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

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

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

J. CL.

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

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

News from Newcastle:

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

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

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

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

[Line: 5 'obortive' _1668_.]

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

[Line: 8 'nature's' _MS._]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 16 Indies] India _1660._]

[Line: 17 mines] times _MS._]

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

[Line: 20 none] no _MS._]

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

'Should make men atheists and not women whores'.
]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 32 suns] Sun _MS._]

[Line: 33 that] the _1660_.]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 42 or] and _MS._]

[Line: 43 the] this _MS._]

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

[Line: 47 Thus] Then _MS._]

[Line: 49 'offends' _1660_. 'affords' _1660_.]

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

[Line: 61 rivals] vitals _1660_.]

[Line: 63 dare] do _1660_.]

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

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

[Line: 73 'em] them _1660_, _MS._]

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

[Line: 76 better] richer _MS._]

[Line: 78 extremities] extremity _1660_.]

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

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

[Line: 83 wonder] wonders _1660_.]

[Line: 84 both] with _MS._]

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

[Line: 86 of] for _1660_.]

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

[Line: 88 inversed] inverse _1660_.]

[Line: 89 you'd] you'l _1660_.]

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

[Line: 91 And] Or _MS._]

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

[Line: 93 boasts] boast _1660_.]

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

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

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

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

[Line: 102 swap] swop _1660_.]

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

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

[Line: 110 life] youth _1660_.]

[Line: 113 tailor's] sailor's _MS._]

[Line: 115 with] in _1660_.]

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

[Line: 117 that] this _1660_.]

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

[Line: 121 chilblains] chilblain _1660_.]

[Line: 126 fruitful] pregnant _1660_.]

[Line: 128 and] or _MS._]

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

[Line: 138 grow] are _1660_.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Line: 35 paints = 'tries to disguise'.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 concorporate one.

11 And vindicate whate'er.

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

* * *

* * * * *

POEMS

AND

TRANSLATIONS.

BY

_THOMAS STANLEY_ Esquire.

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

Tout vient a poinct qui peut attendre.

Printed for the Author, and his Friends, 1647.

POEMS,

BY

_THOMAS STANLEY_ ESQUIRE.

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

Printed in the Year,

1651.