Epithalamion, or a Song, Celebrating the Nuptials of that noble Gentleman, Mr. HIEROME WESTON, Son and heir of the Lord WESTON, Lord High Treasurer of England, with the Lady FRANCES STEWART, daughter of ESME, Duke of Lenox, deceased, and sister of the surviving Duke of the same name. EPITHALAMION, &c.] Jerome returned from his embassy in 1632, and became Earl of Portland in 1634, so that this poem was probably written in the intermediate year. This marriage was much forwarded by Charles, in compliment (Lord Clarendon says) to the Treasurer; the bride, who was distantly related to the king, was the youngest daughter of Esme, third Duke of Lenox, the friend and patron of Jonson; she is celebrated for her beauty and amiable qualities, and was happy in a husband altogether worthy of her. In her issue she was less fortunate; her only son, whom Lord Clarendon mentions (in his "Life") as a young man of excellent parts, being killed in the action with the Dutch fleet under Opdam in 1665. "He died fighting very bravely." The title fell to his uncle, who died without issue, when it became extinct: and thus was verified the pious and prophetic hope of that rancorous puritan Sir Antony Weldon, that "God would reward Weston, and that he and his posterity, which, like a Jonas's gourd, sprang up suddenly from a beggarly estate to much honour and great fortunes, would shortly wither !"-Court of King Charles, p. 43. XCIV. EPITHALAMION. Though thou hast past thy summer-stand ing, stay Awhile with us, bright sun, and help our Thou canst not meet more glory on the way, We woo thee stay; The bounty of a king, and beauty of his queen. Bearing the promise of some better fate, When looked the year, at best, Or were affairs in tune, By all the spheres' consent, so in the heart Through which not only we, but all our of June? species are. Hark how the bells upon the waters play Their sister-tunes from Thames his either side, As they had learned new changes for the day, And all did ring the approaches of the bride; The Lady FRANCES drest Above the rest Of all the maidens fair; In graceful ornament of garland, gems, and hair. See how she paceth forth in virgin-white, Like what she is, the daughter of a duke, And sister; darting forth a dazzling light On all that come her simplesse to rebuke! Her tresses trim her back, As she did lack Nought of a maiden queen, With modesty so crowned, and adoration seen. Stay, thou wilt see what rites the virgins do, The choicest virgin-troop of all the land! Porting the ensigns of united two, Both crowns and kingdoms in their either hand: Whose majesties appear, To make more clear This feast, than can the day, Although that thou, O sun, at our entreaty stay! See how with roses, and with lilies shine, Lilies and roses, flowers of either sex, The bright bride's paths, embellished more than thine, With light of love this pair doth intertex! Where she shall go, O, now thou smil'st, fair sun, and shin'st, as thou wouldst stay! With what full hands, and in how plen teous showers Have they bedewed the earth, where she doth tread, As if her airy steps did spring the flowers, And all the ground were garden where she led ! 1 Save the preceding two, &c.] The king and queen. In Love's Welcome at Bolsover, Jonson compliments this illustrious pair on the strictness and purity of their union; if that can be called compliment which is merely truth. In all his domestic relations, Charles I. stood unparalleled; he was an indulgent master, a faithful and affectionate husband, and a tender parent. This must have been a very splendid ceremony. Both the king and the favourite were to be gratified by assisting at it, and it is probable that few of the young nobility were absent. Charles himself acted as father to the bride, and gave her away. To the dull a spur It is, to the envious meant A mere upbraiding grief and torturing punishment. See now the chapel opens, where the king And bishop stay to consummate the rites; The holy prelate prays, then takes the ring, Asks first, who gives her?-I, CHARLES -then he plights One in the other's hand, Whilst they both stand Do long to make themselves so' another way: There is a feast behind, To them of kind, Which their glad parents taught One to the other, long ere these to light were brought. Haste, haste, officious sun, and send them night Some hours before it should, that these may know All that their fathers and their mothers might Of nuptial sweets, at such a season, owe, To propagate their names, And keep their fames Alive, which else would die; For fame keeps virtue up, and it posterity. The ignoble never lived, they were awhile Like swine, or other cattle here on earth: Their names are not recorded on the file Of life, that fall so; Christians know their birth Alone, and such a race, We pray may grace Your fruitful spreading vine, But dare not ask our wish in language Fescennine. Yet as we may, we will,-with chaste desires, The holy perfumes of the marriage-bed, The solemn quire cries Joy! and they re- Be kept alive, those sweet and sacred fires turn Amen! Of love between you and your lovely head! That when you both are old, You find no cold There; but renewed, say, After the last child born, This is our wedding-day. Till you behold a race to fill your hall, A Richard, and a Hierome, by their names And 'tween their grandsires' thighs, Peep forth a gem; to see How each one plays his part, of the large pedigree ! there. Stow thus describes it: "On the northwest side of this city, near unto Red-cross Street, there was a tower, commonly called Barbican, or Burhkenning, for that the same being placed on a high ground, and also being builded of some good height, was in old time used as a watch-tower for the city."-Ed. 4to, 1603, p. 70. A large hundred marks annuity, And that this so accepted sum, Please your Majesty to make Of This would all their envy burst: And so warm the poet's tongue, XCVI. TO TH' BEST OF MONARCHS, MASTERS, TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD ΜΕΝ, KING CHARLES. Doth most humbly show it, To your majesty, your poet : That whereas your royal father, JAMES the blessed, pleased the rather, Of his special grace to letters, To make all the Muses debtors To his bounty; by extension Of a free poetic pension, 1 Those your father's marks, your pounds.] The petition succeeded; the reader has, annexed to our poet's life, a copy of the warrant creating him poet laureate, with a salary of 100%. per annum.-WHAL. The warrant is dated March, 1630, the Petition must therefore be referred to the beginning of that year. 2 If to my mind, great lord, I had a state.] The learned reader may compare this with the 8th ode of the fourth book of Horace, as it seems to be copied from it. Our poet, as we find by some verses wrote by no well-wisher to him, received forty pounds for this Epigram. Let the reader judge which was greatest, the generosity of the treasurer, or the genius and address of Jonson.-WHAL. Whalley has strange notions of copying. Jonson has taken a hint from the opening of the Ode to Censorinus, and that is all. The verses to which Whalley alludes are in the 4to and 12mo editions, 1640, in which this Epigram also appears; in Eliot's Poems they are thus prefixed: TREASURER OF ENGLAND. TO BEN JONSON, UPON HIS VERSES TO THE EARL OF PORTLAND, LORD TREASUrer. "Your verses are commended, and 'tis true, That they were very good, I mean to you; For they returned you, Ben, as I was told, A certain sum of forty pound in gold; The verses then being rightly understood, His lordship, not Ben Jonson, made them good."-p. 27. This poor simpleton, who appears to have earned a wretched subsistence by harassing the charitable with doggrel petitions for meat and clothes, was answered (according to his folly) by some one in Jonson's name; for the lines, though published in the small edition so often quoted, were not written by him. What you have studied, are the arts of life; To compose men and manners; stint the strife Of murmuring subjects; make the nations know What worlds of blessings to good kings they owe: And mightiest monarchs feel what large increase Of sweets and safeties they possess These I look up at with a reverent eye, by Fool, do not rate my rhymes; I have found thy vice Is to make cheap the lord, the lines, the price. To be known what thou art, thou blatant beast: name Cannot work out unto it such a fame: The question proposed by Whalley for the exercise of the reader's judgment seems very unnecessary. Forty pounds was a very considerable present in those days, and whether bestowed on want or worth, or both, argues a liberal and a noble spirit. The "Epigram was probably written in 1632. " He's prudent, valiant, just and temperate: As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane: Jonson will have it), yet a pamphlet that was published the same year, giving an account of all the transactions of that fight, tells us it was on the 16th of the same month; which if true, then the fortune of that day is again marred." To all which we must answer, that this same pamphlet or letter, which gives the relation of this action, was dated indeed on the 16th of June, but it expressly says that the action happened on the 11th of the same month; and this is confirmed likewise by Mr. Ferrar's Epitaph on the Death of Sir Kenelm Digby, which makes the 11th of June memorable for his birthday, the day of his victory, and the day of his death. The epitaph is as follows: "Under this stone the matchless Digby lies, Digby the great, the valiant, and the wise: This age's wonder for his noble parts, Skilled in six tongues, and learned in all the arts: Born on the day he died, th' eleventh of June, It is remarkable that Antony Wood refers us to this epitaph, and quotes two verses from it, and yet disputes the authority of our poet for the time of his birth.-WHAL. Wood was probably influenced by Aubrey, who observes on the couplet quoted by Whalley, "Mr. Elias Ashmole assures me from two or three nativities by Dr. Napier, that Ben Jonson |