LXXVII.

AN EPITAPH

ON HENRY LORD LA-WARE.

F, Passenger, thou canst but read,
Stay, drop a tear for him that's dead :
Henry, the brave young lord La-ware,
Minerva's and the Muses' care!

What could their care do 'gainst the spite
Of a disease, that lov'd no light
Of honour, nor no air of good;

But crept like darkness through his blood,
Offended with the dazzling flame
Of virtue, got above his name?
No noble furniture of parts,
No love of action and high arts;
No aim at glory, or in war,
Ambition to become a star,
Could stop the malice of this ill,
That spread his body o'er to kill :
And only his great soul envièd,
Because it durst have noblier died.

The son of Thomas, lord De-la-ware, the first settler of the colony of Virginia, of which he was appointed captain-general by James I. in 1609. Henry succeeded him as fourth lord De-laware, in 1618, and died in 1628, the date of this Epitaph, at the early age of 25. He was a young man of great promise.

LXXVIII.

AN EPIGRAM"

TO THE LORD-KEEPER.

HAT you have seen the pride, beheld the sport,
And all the games of fortune, play'd at Court,
View'd there the market, read the wretched

rate,

At which there are would sell the prince and state :
That scarce you hear a public voice alive,

But whisper'd counsels, and those only thrive;
Yet are got off thence, with clear mind and hands
To lift to heaven, who is't not understands
Your happiness, and doth not speak you blest,
To see you set apart thus from the rest,
T'obtain of God what all the land should ask?
A nation's sin got pardon'd! 'twere a task
Fit for a bishop's knees! O bow them oft,
My lord, till felt grief make our stone hearts soft,
And we do weep to water for our sin.
He, that in such a flood as we are in,
Of riot and consumption, knows the way,
To teach the people how to fast and pray,
And do their penance to avert the rod,
He is the Man, and favourite, of God.

5 This is not inscribed to any one in the folio; but was evidently addressed to the lord-keeper Williams, bishop of Lincoln. It was probably written in 1625, when the chancellorship was transferred from him to sir Thomas Coventry.

LXXIX.

AN EPIGRAM

TO KING CHARLES, FOR AN HUNDRED POUNDS HE

SENT ME IN MY SICKNESS.

MDCXXIX.6

REAT Charles, among the holy gifts of grace,
Annexed to thy person and thy place,
'Tis not enough (thy piety is such)

To cure the call'd king's-evil with thy touch;
But thou wilt yet a kinglier mastery try,
To cure the poet's-evil, poverty:

6 Jonson has given the date of this Epigram, 1629. In that wretched tissue of ignorance and malice called in Cibber's Collection, "the Life of Ben Jonson," it is stated that "in the year 1629, Ben fell sick, and was then poor, and lodged in an obscure alley; his Majesty was supplicated in his favour, who sent him ten guineas. When the messenger delivered the sum, Ben took it in his hand, and said, 'His Majesty has sent me ten guineas because I am poor and live in an alley; go and tell him that his soul lives in an alley." Vol. i. p. 238. Here is a fair specimen of the injustice with which the character of Jonson is universally treated. The writer of his "Life" had before him not only the poet's own acknowledgment that the sum sent to him by the king was one hundred pounds, but three poems in succession full of gratitude, thankfulness, and respectful duty, all written at the very period selected by his enemies for charging him with a rude and ungrateful message to his benefactor.

This fabrication was too valuable to be neglected; it has therefore been disseminated in a variety of forms by most of the Shakspeare commentators. Mr. Malone, indeed, rejects the falsehood, as well he might he goes farther, and "wonders," why Smollett should insert this contemptible lie in his "History of England," and above all, "where he found it." Mr. Malone's surprise is gratuitous. He could not be ignorant of Cibber's publication, for he has borrowed from it; and he must have been equally aware that it was the polluted source from which Smollett, who was probably acquainted with the writer, (Shiels, a Scotchman) derived his ridiculous anecdote. Smollett knew less of Jonson than even Mr. Malone; he

And in these cures dost so thyself enlarge,
As thou dost cure our evil at thy charge.
Nay, and in this, thou show'st to value more
One poet, than of other folks ten score."
O piety, so to weigh the poors' estates!
O bounty, so to difference the rates!
What can the poet wish his king may do,
But that he cure the people's evil too?

LXXX.

TO KING CHARLES AND QUEEN MARY, FOR THE LOSS

OF THEIR FIRST-BORN.

AN EPIGRAM CONSOLATORY,

MDCXXIX.

HO dares deny, that all first-fruits are due
To God, denies the Godhead to be true :
Who doubts those fruits God can with gain

restore,

Doth by his doubt distrust his promise more.
He can, he will, and with large interest, pay
What, at his liking, he will take away.

knew enough, however, of the public to be convinced that in calumniating him, he was on the right side.

Is it too much to hope that this palpable perversion of a recorded fact will be less current hereafter? Or is the calumniation of Jonson so indispensable to the interests of sound literature, that a falsehood once charged upon him must immediately assume a sacred character, and in despite of shame, be promulgated, as a duty, from book to book, and from age to age?

7

to value more

One poet, than of other folks ten score.] This alludes to the angel, or ten shilling piece which was given to all who presented themselves to be touched for the king's-evil, and which undoubtedly presents the true key both of the numerous applications and the Ten-score angels make an hundred pounds.

cures.

Then, royal Charles and Mary, do not grutch
That the Almighty's will to you is such :
But thank his greatness and his goodness too;
And think all still the best that he will do.
That thought shall make, he will this loss supply
With a long, large, and blest posterity:
For God, whose essence is so infinite,
Cannot but heap that grace he will requite.

LXXXI.

AN EPIGRAM

TO OUR GREAT AND GOOD King Charles,8

ON HIS ANNIVERSARY DAY,

MDCXXIX.

OW happy were the subject if he knew,
Most pious king, but his own good in you!
How
many times, Live long, Charles! would
he say,

If he but weigh'd the blessings of this day,

To our great and good king Charles.] In taking leave of the Epigrams of this year, let me pluck one solitary sprig to adorn the head of this "good king," (who has been stripped of all his honours by the insatiable rancour of the heirs of the ancient puritanism,) from the garland woven for him by Dr. Burney.

"This prince, (Charles I.) however his judgment, or that of his counsellors, may have misled him in the more momentous concerns of government, appears to have been possessed of an invariable good taste in all the fine arts; a quality which, in less morose and fanatical times, would have endeared him to the most enlightened part of the nation: but now his patronage of poetry, painting, architecture, and music, was ranked among the deadly sins, and his passion for the works of the best artists in the nation, profane, pagan, popish, idolatrous, dark, and damnable. As to the expenses of his government, for the levying which he was driven to illegal and violent expedients, if compared with what has