THE FOREST.] From the folio, 1616. Between this and the poem which now concludes the Epigrams, Whalley foisted in several compositions under that title, which appeared long after the publication of the volume. This was injudiciously done, for as the date of the folio was well known, it tended to confound the idea of time, and to mislead the general reader. Several of the pieces given by Whalley under the head of Epigrams, closed by the author in 1616, were written by him as late as 1630. WHY I WRITE NOT OF LOVE. OME act of Love's bound to rehearse, It is enough, they once did get II. TO PENSHURST.1 HOU art not, Penshurst, built to envious Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row Of polish'd pillars, or a roof of gold: Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told; 1 To Penshurst.] This place is pleasantly situated near the banks Or stair, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile, At his great birth, where all the Muses met.3 of the Medway; it was the ancient seat of sir Stephen Pencestre, warden of the Cinque Ports, and Constable of Dover Castle, in the reign of Henry III., and was granted by Edward VI. to sir William Sidney and his heirs :-having been forfeited to the crown by the rebellion of sir R. Fane, its last proprietor. 2 Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble.] The common kind of black marble frequently made use of in funeral monuments, was then called by this name; so Weaver, giving the account of a tomb at Hampstead: "Under a fair monument of marble and touch," &c. From its solidity and firmness it was used also as the test of gold: in this sense it occurs in Shakspeare : "Ah! Buckingham, now do I ply the touch." And from this use of it, the name itself was taken. It seems to be the same with that anciently called basalt. WHAL. 3 At his great birth, where all the Muses met,] i. e. sir Philip Sidney's, who was born at Penshurst in Kent. WHAL. Sir Philip Sidney was born 29th November, 1554. "That taller tree," produced from an acorn, planted on his birth-day, and which has been the theme of many poets, is no longer standing. It is said to have been felled by mistake in 1768; a wretched apology, if true, and, in a case of such notoriety, scarcely possible. Waller, in one of his poems, written at Penshurst, where he amused himself with falling in love, has an allusion to this oak: "Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark On which the commentator on his poems observes that though no tradition of the circumstance remained in the family, yet the obser There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names Thy copse, too, named of Gamage, thou hast there," Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do feed; vation of Cicero on the Marian oak might not unaptly be applied About a century after the date of Waller's verses, this oak was still standing, and the ingenious Mr. F. Coventry wrote the following lines under its shade: Stranger kneel here! to age due homage pay My growth began,-the same illustrious morn, An hundred years; and lo! my clefted rind, thy lady's oak.] There is an old tradition that a lady Leicester (the wife undoubtedly of sir Robert Sidney) was taken in travail under an oak in Penshurst park, which was afterwards called my Lady's oak. 5 Thy copse, too, named of Gamage.] "This coppice is now called lady Gamage's bower; it being said that Barbara Gamage, countess of Leicester, used to take great delight in feeding the deer therein from her own hands." Dug. Baron. This lady was daughter and heiress of John Gamage of Coytie, in Glamorganshire, and the first wife of sir Robert. |