CVIII.

TO TRUE SOLDIERS."

TRENGTH of my country, whilst I bring to view

Such as are miscall'd captains, and wrong you,
And your high names; I do desire that thence
Be nor put on you, nor you take offence.

I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love
Your great profession, which I once did prove;
And did not shame it with my actions then,
No more than I dare now do with my pen.
He that not trusts me, having vow'd thus much,
But's angry for the captain, still; is such."

6 To true soldiers.] We have this epigram in the Apologetical Dialogue, printed at the end of the Poetaster: and it seems to have been written as a kind of compensation for the character of captain Tucca, in that play. WHAL.

This was written before the Poetaster. Could not Whalley see that it alluded to the captain in the preceding epigram? If there was any soldier stupid enough to take the character of Tucca as a reflection on the army, he was not to be reclaimed to sense by the power of verse. Jonson produced the epigram in his Apology to shew that he entertained no disrespectful opinion of the profession of a soldier. In a word, it is impossible to read that comedy, and listen to the complaints which the men of arms and of law are said to have made on the occasion, without discovering that they were more captious than just, and that the poet himself was the calumniated person.

7

is such,] i. e. is the captain Hungry whom I have just satirized. The observation is well-timed.

CIX.

TO SIR HENRY NEVIL.8

HO now calls on thee, Nevil, is a muse,

That serves not fame, nor titles; but doth

chuse

Where virtue makes them both, and that's in thee: Where all is fair beside thy pedigree.

8 To sir Henry Nevil.] Son to Edward lord Abergavenny: he succeeded his father in the title in 1622, and died in December, 1641. Holland, in his additions to Camden's Britannia, mentions a place in Berkshire, called Bilingsbere, the inhabitation of sir Henry Nevil, issued from the lord Abergavenny. WHAL.

Surely Whalley has mistaken the person to whom this is addressed, or confounded two different characters. The sir Henry Neville of the poet was the son of sir H. Neville of Billingbear, by Elizabeth, a daughter of sir John Gresham. He was a very distinguished statesman, and much employed by the Queen, to whom he was introduced by Cecil. He was connected with the secretary by marriage; but he was less indebted to this for his promotion at court than to his own merits: "being," as Mr. Lodge says, "a person of great wisdom and integrity." He was sent ambassador to France in 1599, whence he returned in the following year, time enough, unfortunately for his future peace and prosperity, to be implicated in the wild treason of the earl of Essex. He was committed to the Tower, "which," says Cecil to sir Ralph Winwood, "being rather matter of form than substance, if any of his friends should have industriously opposed, it had been the ready way to have forced a course of more severity." What more was to be feared, I know not, but he was heavily fined; and his release from the Tower did not take place till some months after the accession of James. That he had really been in some danger, may be collected from the following passage:

"Thou rather striv'st the matter to possess,

And elements of honour, than the dress;

To make thy lent life good against the fates,
And thence," &c.

But though restored to liberty, he was not advanced, as was generally expected. "All men (sir Henry Wotton says) contemplate sir Henry Neville for the future secretary; some saying that

Thou art not one seek'st miseries with hope,
Wrestlest with dignities, or feign'st a scope
Of service to the public, when the end

Is private gain, which hath long guilt to friend.
Thou rather striv'st the matter to possess,
And elements of honour, than the dress;

To make thy lent life good against the fates:
And first to know thine own state, then the state's;
To be the same in root thou art in height;

And that thy soul should give thy flesh her weight.
Go on, and doubt not what posterity,

Now I have sung thee thus, shall judge of thee.
Thy deeds unto thy name will prove new wombs,
Whilst others toil for titles to their tombs.

it is but deferred till the return of the queen (Anne, who was then at Bath) that she may be allowed a hand in his introduction!" James, however, had strong prepossessions against him, which no interest could overcome, and the little remainder of this able statesman's life (for his correspondence is among the best in Winwood's collection) passed in dejection and comparative obscurity. It is to the honour of Jonson's steady friendship, that he liberally praises, and commends to the notice of posterity a worthy man depressed by two sovereigns, by each of whom he was himself favoured and patronized.

Sir Henry died 1615. He married Anne, daughter of sir Henry Killigrew of Cornwall; by whom he had seven sons, whose descendants yet enjoy the family seat of their great ancestor.

CX.

TO CLEMENT EDMONDS,

ON HIS CÆSAR'S COMMENTARIES OBSERVED AND
TRANSLATED.9

OT Cæsar's deeds, nor all his honours won,
In these west parts,' nor, when that war was
done,

The name of Pompey for an enemy,
Cato's to boot; Rome, and her liberty,
All yielding to his fortune, nor, the while,

To have engraved these acts with his own style,
And that so strong and deep, as't might be thought
He wrote with the same spirit that he fought;
Nor that his work lived in the hands of foes,
Unargued then, and yet hath fame from those;
Not all these, Edmonds, or what else put to,
Can so speak Cæsar, as thy labours do.
For where his person lived scarce one just age,
And that midst envy and parts; then fell by rage :
His deeds too dying, but in books, whose good
How few have read! how fewer understood!
Thy learned hand and true Promethean art,
As by a new creation, part by part,
In every counsel, stratagem, design,
Action, or engine, worth a note of thine,
To all future time not only doth restore
His life, but makes, that he can die no more.

9 To Clement Edmonds, on his Cæsar's Commentaries.] Of this learned gentleman, who bore several public offices, during the reigns of queen Elizabeth and James I., the reader has an account in the Athenæ Oxoniensis. WHAL.

This, and the following poem were prefixed, with other commendatory verses, to Observations upon Cæsar's Commentaries: by Clement Edmundes, Remembrancer of the city of London. fol.

In these west parts,] i. e. in Gaul and Britain. WHAL.

CXI.

TO THE SAME. ON THE SAME.

HO, Edmonds, reads thy book, and doth not

see

What the antique soldiers were, the modern

be?

Wherein thou shew'st, how much the later are
Beholding to this master of the war;

And that in action there is nothing new,
More, than to vary what our elders knew ;
Which all but ignorant captains will confess;
Nor to give Cæsar this, makes ours the less.
Yet thou, perhaps, shalt meet some tongues will
grutch,

That to the world thou should'st reveal so much,
And thence deprave thee and thy work: to those
Cæsar stands up, as from his urn late rose,

By thy great help; and doth proclaim by me,
They murder him again, that envy thee.

CXII.

TO A WEAK GAMESTER IN POETRY.

ITH thy small stock, why art thou venturing
still,

At this so subtle sport, and play'st so ill?
Think'st thou it is mere fortune, that can win,
Or thy rank setting? that thou dar'st put in
Thy all, at all: and whatsoe'er I do,

Art still at that, and think'st to blow me' up too?
I cannot for the stage a drama lay,

Tragic or comic; but thou writ'st the play.