Of your blest womb, made fruitful from above This makes, that your affections still be new, Of your blest womb, &c.] If this was the first child (as seems probable) the "Epistle" was written in 1608. Lady Aubigny brought her husband four sons and three daughters. Of the sons, three fell nobly in the field in the cause of their sovereign; the fourth, the eldest, lived to perform the last duties to his mangled remains, and died in 1655. To this nobleman Herrick has a poem in which he alludes to the disastrous fate of his family. Hesperides, p. 197. "Of all those three brave brothers, faln in war, Live that one still! and as long years do pass, XIV. ODE. TO SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.9 OW that the hearth is crown'd with smiling fire, And some do drink, and some do dance, Some ring, Some sing, And all do strive to advance The gladness higher; Wherefore should I Who not the least, Both love the cause, and authors of the feast? 9 To sir William Sidney, on his birth-day.] He was the eldest son of sir Robert Sidney, created earl of Leicester by king James, and a nephew of sir Philip Sidney. He died unmarried, and was buried in St. Paul's cathedral. WHAL. Sir William Sidney appears to have died about the same time with prince Henry; so that this Ode must be placed among our author's earlier pieces. G. Wither (the Satyromastix) drew up some "Mournful Elegies" on the death of the latter, and addressed them to sir William's father, in which he tells the noble lord that "His haplesse loss had more apparent been, But darken'd by the Other, 'twas unseen!" Furthermore to comfort him he presents him with an anagram on his son's name, which is about the worst that ever appeared. Give me my cup, but from the Thespian well, And he with his best Genius left alone. This day says, then, the number of glad years Your vow Must now Strive all right ways it can, T'outstrip your peers: Doth urge Since he doth lack Of going back Little, whose will him to run wrong, or to stand still. Nor can a little of the common store Of nobles' virtue, shew in you; Nor weary, rest On what's deceas't. For they, that swell With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell. And which, lest the consolatory part of it should escape him, is thus explained at large : "Nor do I think it can be rightly said, You are unhappy in this One that's dead: 'Twill be exacted of your name, whose son, Whose nephew, whose grandchild you are; And men Will then Say you have follow'd far, When well begun : Which must be now, They teach you how. And he that stays To live until to-morrow', hath lost two days. So may you live in honour, as in name, So may Be more, and long desired; And with the flame The birth-day shines, when logs not burn, but men. XV. TO HEAVEN. SOOD and great God! can I not think of But it must straight my melancholy be? That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease? First, midst, and last, converted One, and Three! My judge, my witness, and my advocate. I know my state, both full of shame and scorn, I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground, Upon my flesh to inflict another wound.] Opposite to this passage, Whalley has written, in the margin of the old folio, "Des Barreaux' Sonnet." What resemblance he found between this lowly expression of a broken spirit, and the daring familiarity of Des Barreaux' defiance, it is not easy to discover. I have nothing to object to the poetry of the Sonnet: its language too is good, but its sentiments are dreadful. If Jonson had any thing in view besides the Scriptures, in this place, it might be the following verse of Euripides, which is quoted by Longinus, and praised for its nervous conciseness: Γεμω κακων δη' κ' ουκετ' εσθ' όπη τέθη 2 This is an admirable prayer: solemn, pious, and scriptural. Jonson's religious impressions were deep and awful. He had, like all of us, his moments of forgetfulness; but whenever he returned to himself, he was humble, contrite, and believing. |