XLIII. AN ODE TO JAMES EARL OF DESMOND.1 HERE art thou, Genius? I should use Wake, and put on the wings of Pindar's To tower with my intention High as his mind, that doth advance My bolder numbers to thy golden lyre: Thy priest in this strange rapture! heat my brain That I may sing my thoughts in some unvulgar strain. 1 One of our author's earliest pieces. "It was written," (the folio says,) "in queen Elizabeth's time, since lost, and recovered." This earl was, I believe, the son of Gerald, sixteenth earl of Desmond, a most powerful nobleman, and a formidable rebel, who gave Elizabeth a world of uneasiness. He was, however, mastered at length, and his vast possessions, which extended over several counties, were in 1582 forfeited to the crown. His son James, the person, I presume, to whom this ode was addressed, was restored in blood and honour in 1600. From the allusions to his state of disfavour, and the call upon him to continue in his loyalty, and wait the reward of his virtue, the poem must have been written before that period. There is something prophetic in the last stanza: "If I auspiciously divine, As my hope tells-then our fair Phoebe's shine With lustrous graces Where darkness, with her gloomy-scepter'd hand, Rich beam of honour, shed your light Then shall my verses, like strong charms, And keeps your merit Lock'd in her cold embraces, from the view Who would with judgment search, searching conclude, As prov'd in you, True noblêsse. Palm grows straight, though handled ne'er so rude. Nor think yourself unfortunate; Of politic pretext, that wries a state, Sink not beneath these terrors : Of such as savour Nothing, but practise upon honour's thrall. When her dead essence, like the anatomy Is but a statist's theme to read phlebotomy. Let Brontes, and black Steropes, Sweat at the forge, their hammers beating; Pyracmon's hour will come to give them ease, Though but while the metal's heating: And, after all the Ætnæan ire, Gold, that is perfect, will outlive the fire. As patience lasteth. No armour to the mind! he is shot-free That is not hurt; not he, that is not hit; Oft scape an imputation, more through luck than wit. But to yourself, most loyal lord, (Whose heart in that bright sphere flames Though many gems be in your bosom stor'd, As my hope tells, that our fair Phoebe's shine,2 With lustrous graces, Where darkness, with her gloomy scepter'd hand, O then, my best-best lov'd let me importune, As far from all revolt, as you are now from fortune. XLIV. AN ODE. IGH-SPIRITED friend, I send nor balms, nor corsives to your wound; Your faith hath found A gentler, and more agile hand, to tend And doubtful days, which were nam'd critical, 2 Our fair Phoebe's shine.] Whalley corrupted this into fair Phœbus' shine. Fair is not the best epithet for the god; but he did not see the author's meaning, nor that the allusion was to "the beautified" Elizabeth, who loved to be flattered with the appella tion of Phabe or Diana. Have made their fairest flight, Yet doth some wholsome physic for the mind, Which in the taking if you misapply, Your covetous hand, You are unkind. Happy in that fair honour it hath gain'd, True valour doth her own renown command This same which you have caught, Such thoughts will make you more in love with truth: 'Tis wisdom, and that high, For men to use their fortune reverently, Even in youth. XLV. AN ODE. ELEN, did Homer never see Thy beauties, yet could write of thee? Of Phaon's form? or doth the boy, In whom Anacreon once did joy, 3 as yet it is not mute, &c.] From Horace : Spirat adhuc amor, Vivuntque commissi calores Eolia fidibus puellæ. Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon, Delevit atas, &c. Lie drawn to life in his soft verse, Made Dian not his notes refuse ?4 4 Or Constable's ambrosiac muse Made Dian not his notes refuse?] This author, though honour'd with so ample a testimony from Jonson, is almost unknown in this age. "Henry Constable," in the words of Antony Wood, “was a great master of the English tongue; and there was no gentleman of our nation who had a more pure, quick, and higher delivery of conceit than he witness, among all others, that sonnet of his before the poetical translation called the Furies, made by king James the first of England, while he was king of the Scots. He hath also several sonnets extant, written to sir Philip Sidney; some of which are set before the Apology for Poetry, written by the said knight." This author flourished in the reign of queen Elizabeth. WHAL. Antony's taste in poetry was not very refined, and he did not therefore discover that his author (Edmund Bolton) had unluckily fixed upon one of Constable's worst sonnets. The Diana of which Jonson speaks, was published in 1594. Constable seems to have been the most voluminous sonnet-writer of those sonneteering times; and to have acquired a reputation rather more than equal to his |