ON MARGAret RatclIFFE. M arble, weep, for thou dost cover T han they might in her bright eyes. R are as wonder was her wit; Fate in a brother.] Of this lady, Margaret Ratcliffe, I can give the reader no information. She was probably a collateral branch of the family of the Earl of Sussex, for the marriage of whose daughter Jonson wrote the beautiful Masque of the Hue and Cry after Cupid. From a subsequent epigram I collect that she had five brothers, of whom she had the misfortune to lose four; two in the field in Ireland, and two by sickness in the Low Countries. Jonson had reason, therefore, to say that few had rued such fate in their relations. 2 To will and nill The self-same things, &c.] Idem velle atque nolle, ea demum amicitia est. Robert, Earl of Salisbury.] Younger son of Lord Burghley. He and his elder brother, William, were both created earls in the same TO ROBERT, Earl of Salisbury.' What need hast thou of me, or of my muse, Whose actions so themselves do celebrate? day. Robert in the morning; to give his descendants precedency of those of William. "This man," Walpole says, "who had the fortune or misfortune" (why misfortune?-but this poor stuff was meant for wit) "to please both Elizabeth and James I.; who like the son of the Duke of Lerma had the uncommon fate of succeeding his own father as prime minister, and who unlike that son of Lerma did not, though treacherous to everybody else, supplant his own father, is sufficiently known; his public story may be found in all our histories, his par ticular in the Biographia."—Cat. of Royal and Noble Authors. In none of these, however, dil Walpole look for the "story" of this eminent statesman; but in the ignorant, impure, and scandalous reports of the Weldons, Peytons, and other puritanical disseminators of falsehood, as better suited to the base and envious nature of his own spirit. When the time shall come for Walpole himself to be added to the number of "noble authors," by a sterner biographer than Mr. Parke, he will, if fairly represented, be found to be one of the most odious and contemptible of the whole "Catalogue." [Walpole was one of Gifford's special aversions. He may have derived the feeling from his bosom friend Hoppner, the painter, who however expressed his dislike in more measured terms. See Hoppner's excellent article in the first number of the Quarterly Review, p. 41. For further abuse of Horace Walpole, see notes on the Pindaric Ode, post.-F. C.] 1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy.] The expression here must be explained: thou child of my right hand shews us his son's name was Benjamin; that word being usually taken as a compound of two Hebrew words, which imply that meaning. But some modern commentators more justly interpret the word Benjamin to signify the son of days, or of old age. Benjamin was the youngest son, and probably born when his father was advanced in years.-WHAL. My predecessor seems to write without read ing what he is about to explain. The title declares the epitaph to be written on his first son; Benjamin, says the critic, was the youngest son, and probably born when the father was advanced in years! This is sad trifling: but Whalley appears to me to have contented himself upon all occasions with second-hand authorities, which are commonly worse than none at all. In one of the spiteful attempts made to injure Jonson by his "friend" Drummond, he relates the following anecdote, which he had (he says) from the poet's own mouth. While the plague raged in London, he was on a visit with Camden at the house of Sir Robert Cotton, in the country. Here he saw, in a dream, his eldest son, with the mark of a bloody cross (the token of the plague) on his forehead. Alarmed at this, he prayed to God for him, and went in the morning to Camden's room, and told him what he had seen. Camden desired him not to be dejected, for that it was merely the creation of his own fears: but there came a letter from his wife, to inform him that the child was dead of the plague. Jonson added, that his son appeared to him of a manly stature, and of such growth as he thought he would be at the Resurrection." There is enough in this narrative to convince any one but the vile calumniator who reports it, that the fond father was not, as he asserts, void of all religion:-but to the purpose of the note. The plague broke out in 1603, the child was then in his seventh year; he was born therefore in 1596, when Jonson, instead of being "advanced in years," was just turned of twoand-twenty! The last couplet contains a pretty allusion to the cheerless advice of Martial, in one of his melancholy moods: Si vitare velis acerba quædam, [This insanely rabid note is best disposed of by referring the reader to "the vile calumniator's" own words. See Conversations, postF. C.] XLVI. TO SIR LUCKLESS WOO-ALL. take, L. TO SIR COD. Is this the sir, who, some waste wife to win, Leave, COD, tobacco-like, burnt gums to A knighthood bought, to go a wooing in? 'Tis LUCKLESS, he that took up one on band | Or fumy clysters, thy moist lungs to bake: To pay at's day of marriage. By my hand Arsenic would thee fit for society make. The knight-wright's cheated then! he'll never pay: Of bearing them in field, he threw 'em away.] The arms were usually portrayed upon the shield; so that on his entering into battle, he flung away his shield, that he might not be encumbered in his flight. This marks him for his cowardice.-WHAL Jonson might have thrown his epigram after Mungril's arms, with no more loss of credit than the other of honour. LI. is altogether fixed by the line above, of which none of the commentators take the slightest notice. 3 The best comment upon this little piece to be found in Winwood's State Papers, în a letter from Mr. Chamberlaine to that minister, dated April 5th, 1606; from which it appears that Jonson has not exaggerated the common feeling, which was the more alive as the story came so quickly upon the discovery of the GunI have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean.] powder Plot. The report was that the king had This expression sufficiently justifies Pope's been stabbed with a poisoned knife at Woking, emendation of the passage in Hamlet, "I re-in Surrey, where he was hunting. Mr. Lodge member one said there were no salts in the lines has also a letter on the subject from the Earl of to make the matter savoury. " The old copies Kent to the Earl of Shrewsbury, of which 'a read sallets, which being akin to nonsense is, part is subjoined: according to custom, replaced in the text by the last editors; though, as Mr. Steevens adds, "the alteration of Pope may be, in some measure, supported by the following passage in Decker's Satiromastix-A prepared troop of gallants, who shall distaste every unsalted line in their fly-blown comedies." If the change be in some measure supported by this quotation, it "My very hon'ble good Lo. I received yesterday yo'r hon'able and frendley lines by John Sibley, whereby it pleased yo'r L'p to adv'tise me of the untruthe of those bruits spread abroad of so horrible a treason against his Maj'ties precious life. Theis false bruits come very speedily not only to the Privie Councell at the Corte, and so to London, but also into theis pafts, and This but thy judgment fools: the other way LIII. TO OLD-END GATHERER. Long-gathering OLD-END, I did fear thee wise, When having pilled a book which no man buys, Thou wert content the author's name to lose: It was as if thou printed hadst an oath, LIV. ON CHEVERIL. CHEVERIL cries out my verses libels are; What are thy petulant pleadings, Cheveril, That quit'st the cause so oft, and rail'st at men? LV. TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT. How I do love thee, BEAUMONT, and thy That unto me dost such religion use ! brother poets. The passage to which the text not onlike, into a great p'te of the kingdom."the envious and malignant Ben" lived with his All thother daye being Sondaye, we here knew nothinge certenly to the contrary but that the worst might be feared: but the greater astonishment this sudden fearefull rumour hath ev'y where occasioned, the more sing'lar comfort and joye will now redounde to ev'ie true harted subject by the report of his Ma'tie's safetie, for w'ch they shall have so just cause to sounde forth God's praise, together with incessant prayers for his Highnes longe happie and perous raigne ov'r us." Wilson's account of the confusion and dismay which took place on this occasion, is given in yet stronger language. pros Where, out of motley, 's he, &c.] i.e., where out of a motley, or fool's coat is he, &c. In other words, who but a fool ?-Whalley seems to have strangely mistaken this simple expression. 2 When even there, where most thou praisest me, For writing better, I must envy thee.] This short poem is an answer to a letter which Beaumont, then in the country with Fletcher, sent to Jonson, together with two unfinished comedies. The letter is an excellent one, and proves the interesting frankness and cordiality in which The way of knowledge for me, and then I, mine. [See vol. i. p. cxiv. Jonson, however, told Drummond "that Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses."-F. C.] 8 Poor Poet-ape, &c.] Mr. Chalmers will take it on his death that the person here meant is Shakspeare! Who can doubt it? For my part I am persuaded that GROOM IDIOT in the next epigram is also Shakspeare; and indeed, generally, that he is typified by the words "fool and knave," so exquisitely descriptive of him, wherever they occur in Jonson. 1 To William, Lord Mounteagle.] This was the nobleman who received the remarkable letter about the gunpowder plot, taken notice of by our historians, and which gave the first apprehensions of what was then contriving.-WHAL Many angry attacks have been made on James for assuming to himself the merit of discovering the import of this letter; of which Cecil takes the credit in an excellent official paper to Sir Charles Cornwallis (Winwood Mem. vol. ii. p. 170,) but surely without much cause. The fact seems to be that Cecil allowed the king (who was always tenacious of his own sagacity) to imagine that he had detected the latent meaning of the letter. Cecil was the most shrewd, and James the most simple and unsuspicious of mortals:-there is, therefore, not the smallest reason to believe that the king meant to mislead the parliament, or that he thought otherwise than he spoke. We deceive ourselves grossly if we assume that all which is known now was known at the time when the event took place. Cecil's letter was a sealed letter to the parliament and the nation; and, after all, we have only the minister's word for his share in the discovery. The hint to Lord Mounteagle, which was given to him by his sister, Mary Parker, wife of Thomas Habington, and mother of the amiable and virtuous author of Castara, was not the only one conveyed to the Earl of Salisbury on this mysterious business. |