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On Captain Hazard, the cheater.] i.e., the gamester. The terms were synonymous in Jonson's age, and perhaps have been so in every age since.-WHAL.

2 Farther than half-way tree.] In the way to Dover, in the poet's time, 'tis probable some remarkable tree might be standing in the road about half-way thither.-WHAL.

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TO EDWARD ALLEN.3

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age,
Feared not to boast the glories of her stage,
As skilful Roscius, and grave Æsop, men
Yet crowned with honours, as with riches
then ;

Who had no less a trumpet of their name,

How can so great example die in me,
Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame:

That, ALLEN, I should pause to publish
thee?

Who both their graces in thyself hast more
Outstript, than they did all that went be-
fore:

And present worth in all dost so contract,
As others speak, but only thou dost act.

lent epigram-first, that Jonson had other acquaintance on the stage than Shakspeare; and secondly, that when he spoke of "some better natures among the players, who had been drawn in to abuse him," he did not, as MMessrs. Steevens and Malone are pleased to suggest, necessarily mean that great poet.

Hurd has two or three pages of vapid pom3 To Edward Allen.] The fame of this cele- posity, to prove that doctus, applied by Horace brated actor yet lives n these verses of our author to Roscius, ought to be translated skilful, and and in those of his cotemporary poets; but a not learned. Jonson, who had ten times Hurd's more durable monument of his name and good-learning, without a tithe of his pedantry, had Of this, however, no ness is existing in Dulwich College, near Lon- done it in one word. don, of which he was the munificent and pious notice is taken! The verse which Jonson, had in view is in the Epistle to Augustus: Quæ gravis Æsopus, quæ doctus Roscius egit,

founder.-WHAL.

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Wear this renown. "Tis just, that who did give

So many poets life, by one should live.

XC.

ON MILL, MY LADY'S WOMAN. When MILL first came to court, th' unprofiting fool,

Unworthy such a mistress, such a school, Was dull, and long ere she would go to man: At last, ease, appetite, and example wan The nicer thing to taste her lady's page; And, finding good security in his age, Went on: and proving him still day by day, Discerned no difference of his years or play. Not though that hair grew brown which once was amber,

And he, grown youth, was called to his lady's chamber;

Still Mill continued: nay, his face growing

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1 To Sir Horace Vere.] He was created Lord Tilbury, and was the famous general in the Low Country wars in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Many of the nobility at that time served under him.-WHAL.

Sir Horace was grandson of John Vere, fifteenth Earl of Oxford. He was a celebrated warrior, as well as his elder brother, Sir Francis. Fuller, in his quaint but forcible manner, says, that "he had more meekness, and as much valour as his brother; so pious, that he first made his peace with God before he went out to war with

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Throughout, might flattery seem; and to be mute

To any one, were envy; which would live Against my grave, and time could not forgive.

I speak thy other graces, not less shown, Nor less in practice; but less marked, less known:

Humanity, and piety, which are

As noble in great chiefs, as they are rare; And best become the valiant man to wear, Who more should seek men's reverence than fear.

XCII.

THE NEW CRY.

Ere cherries ripe! and strawberries! be

gone,

Unto the CRIES OF LONDON I'll add one. Ripe statesmen, ripe! they grow in every street;

At six and twenty, ripe. You shall them meet,

And have them yield no savour but of state. Ripe are their ruffs, their cuffs, their beards, their gait,

And grave as ripe, like mellow as their faces. They know the states of Christendom, not the places;

Yet they have seen the maps, and bought

them too,

And understand them, as most chapmen do. The councils, projects, practices they know, And what each prince doth for intelligence

owe,

And unto whom; they are the almanacks, For twelve years yet to come, what each state lacks.

They carry in their pockets Tacitus,
And the Gazetti, or Gallo-Belgicus;
And talk reserved, locked up, and full of fear,
Nay ask you how the day goes, in your ear;
Keep a Star-chamber sentence close twelve
days,

And whisper what a Proclamation says.
They meet in sixes, and at every mart
Are sure to con the catalogue by heart;

Rowland Whyte (in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated Court, 7th Nov. 1607,) says, "Sir Horacio Vere shall marry within these eight days, one Mrs. Hoby, a widdow, sister to Sir John Tracey; a fine, comely, well graced gentlewoman." To this lady, who outlived Sir Horace nearly forty years, the Parliament confided the care of the younger children of their unfortunate sovereign. They could not be in better hands, for she was a person of excellent character." Sir Horace was created Lord Vere of Tilbury in 1625, being, as Fuller says, the first baron made by Charles I.

Or every day, some one at Rimee's looks, Or Bill's, and there he buys the names of books.

They all get Porta, for the sundry ways
To write in cipher, and the several keys
To ope the character; they've found the
slight

With juice of limons, onions, piss, to write; To break up seals, and close them and they know,

If the States make peace, how it will go With England. All forbidden books they get, And of the powder-plot, they will talk yet: At naming the French king their heads they shake,

And at the Pope and Spain slight faces make; Or 'gainst the bishops for the brethren rail, Much like those brethren; thinking to prevail

With ignorance on us, as they have done On them and therefore do not only shun Others more modest, but contemn us too, That know not so much state, wrong, as they do.

XCIII.

TO SIR JOHN Radcliffe.

How like a column, RADCLIFFE, left alone,2 For the great mark of virtue, those being gone

1 Some one at Rimee's looks, Or Bill's

They all get Porta.] The two first were booksellers in that age: the last was the famous Neapolitan, Johannes Baptista Porta, who has a treatise extant in Latin, De furtivis literarum notis, vulgo de Ziferis, printed at Naples 1563. He died 1615.-WHAL.

2 How like a column, Radcliffe, &c.] This epigram (a very admirable one) is addressed to the surviving brother of Margaret Radcliffe, (See Epig. xl.) It undoubtedly furnished Edwards with the model for his affecting sonnet, On a Family Picture, which the reader will find subjoined, and which may be counted among the best of this polished and amiable man.

"ON A FAMILY PICTURE.

"When pensive on that portraiture I gaze,
Where iny four brothers round about me stand,
And four fair sisters smile with graces bland,
The goodly monument of happier days;
And think how soon insatiate death, who preys
On all, has cropt the rest with ruthless hand:
While only I survive of all that band,
Which one chaste bed did to my father raise:
It seems that like a column left alone,

The tottering remnant of some splendid fane, Scaped from the fury of the barbarous Gaul, And wasting time which has the rest o'erthrown, Amidst our house's ruins I remain

Single, unpropt, and nodding to my fall."

Who did, alike with thee, thy house up-bear, Stand'st thou, to shew the times what you all were?

Two bravely in the battle fell and died,* Upbraiding rebels' arms and barbarous pride:

And two that would have fall'n as great as they,

The Belgic fever ravished away.
Thou, that art all their valour, all their spirit,
And thine own goodness to encrease thy
merit,

Than whose I do not know a whiter soul,
Nor could I, had I seen all nature's roll,
Thou yet remain'st, unhurt in peace or war,
Though not unproved; which shows thy
fortunes are

Willing to expiate the fault in thee, Wherewith, against thy blood, they' offenders be.

XCIV.

TO LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD, WITH
MASTER DONNE'S SATIRES.3
LUCY, you brightness of our sphere, who are
Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
If works, not th' authors, their own grace
should look,

Whose poems would not wish to be your book?

66

It is melancholy to add to the little history of Sir J. Radcliffe's family, that this "column" also, this great mark of virtue," fell, not many years afterwards, like the rest. That valiant and generally beloved gentleman (Weever says,) Sir John Radcliffe, lieutenant colonell, was slaine fighting against the French in the isle of Rhee, the 29th of October, in the year of our Lord, 1627.

3 Daniel, who has a poem addressed to the countess, terms her "learned;" undoubtedly she was a most accomplished lady, and skilled in a variety of arts not much studied by the females of those days. Sir Thomas Roe has a letter to her, in which he speaks of her proficiency in the knowledge of ancient medals; and Sir William Temple mentions her with applause in his Essay on the gardens of Epicurus, for "projecting the most perfect figure of a garden that he ever saw." Granger attempts to be severe on her bounty to the poets; but as Drayton, Donne, Daniel, and our author were among the number, her liberality seems to be nearly as secure from censure as her judgment.

It is pleasing to mark the habitual kindness with which Jonson recommends his friend's works, and the ingenious mode in which he compliments his patroness for desiring to have a

copy of the Satires.

* In Ireland.

But these, desired by you, the maker's ends Crown with their own: Rare poems ask rare friends.

Yet satires, since the most of mankind be
Their unavoided subject, fewest see;
For none e'er took that pleasure in sin's

sense,

But, when they heard it taxed, took more offence.

They then, that living where the matter's bred,

Dare for these poems yet both ask, and read, And like them too; must needfully, though few,

Be of the best, and 'mongst those best are you:

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are The Muses' evening, as their morning star!

XCV.

TO SIR HENRY SAVILE.

If, my religion safe, I durst embrace
That stranger doctrine of Pythagoras,
I should believe the soul of Tacitus
In thee, most weighty SAVILE, lived to us :
So hast thou rendered him in all his bounds,
And all his numbers, both of sense and
sounds.

But when I read that special piece restored,
Where Nero falls, and Galba is adored,
To thine own proper I ascribe then more,
And gratulate the breach I grieved before;

1

Were thy glad country blest,

To have her story woven in thy thread.] It was then imagined, that Sir Henry Savile intended to have compiled a general history of England but he gave over the design, and engaged in the excellent edition of Chrysostom, which he afterwards published.-WHAL

There is no date to this epigram; but it must have been written after 1604, as he did not receive the honour of knighthood till that year, and before 1613, in which year his magnificent edition of Chrysostom's Works, 8 vol. fol. appeared, which Jonson would not have omitted to mention. Sir Henry was one of the most learned men of that learned age, and published many valuable works, which raised his reputation no less abroad than at home. The translation of which Jonson speaks was published long before the death of Elizabeth, to whom it was dedicated to this he appended a large body of notes, in which the breaks in the original are occasionally supplied with great ingenuity. He was admirably skilled in the history of this country, and collected and printed the tracts of many of the best ancient writers on the subject; if therefore he really designed, as Whalley says, to compile a general history of England, we have to lament that one

Which Fate, it seems, caused in the history,
Only to boast thy merit in supply.
O, wouldst thou add like hand to all the rest!
Or, better work! were thy glad country
blest,

To have her story woven in thy thread ;'
Minerva's loom was never richer spread.
For who can master those great parts like
thee,

That liv'st from hope, from fear, from faction free?

That hast thy breast so clear of present crimes,

Thou need'st not shrink at voice of aftertimes;

Whose knowledge claimeth at the helm to stand,

But wisely thrusts not forth a forward hand,

No more than Sallust in the Roman state:
As then his cause, his glory emulate.
Although to write be lesser than to do,
It is the next deed, and a great one too.
We need a man that knows the several

graces

Of history, and how to apt their places; Where brevity, where splendour, and where height,

Where sweetness is required, and where weight;

We need a man can speak of the intents,2 The councils, actions, orders, and events Of state, and censure them; we need his pen

so well qualified for the task found cause to lay it aside.

Sir Henry was warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton. Aubrey says that he was a severe governor, and that the scholars hated him for his austerity: but all governors were severe in those days. The worst of him was that "he could not abide witts:"-"If a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt, 'Out upon him!' he would say, if I wold look for witts I wold go to Newgate, I'll have nothing to do with himthere be the witts.""-Letters by Eminent Persons, vol. ii. p. 525.

stories are the mere gossip of the day.-Sir Aubrey has other complaints; but his idle Henry Savile was, after all, everything that Jonson describes him to be; and we may securely acquiesce in the opinion of Bishop ing, whose memory will be honourable amongst Montague, a magazine of learnnot only the wise but the righteous for ever.'

that he was 66

2 We need a man can speak of the intents, The counsels, actions, orders, and events, &c.] These are the essentials of history, and are laid down by Cicero (de Oratore, lib. 2,) as treating : this sentiment is taken from thence.what a good historian should be capable of

WHAL

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ON THE NEW MOTION. See you yond' MOTION ? not the old fa-ding, Nor Captain Pod, nor yet the Eltham thing;3 But one more rare, and in the case so new:

1 That dares not, &c.] This is the primary feature of a good historian, according to Cicero : "Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.

2 Who shall doubt, Donne, whêre I a poet be.] This contraction of the interrogative whether, seems peculiar to the poet.-WHAL. Whalley is greatly mistaken: it is common to them all. Jonson has no peculiarities.

Nor Captain Pod, nor yet the Eltham thing.] Pod has been mentioned before as the master of a puppet-show: the Eltham thing is alluded to in the Silent Woman: "The petual motion is here, and not at Eltham."WHAL.

per

For fa-ding, see ante, p. 93 a. Nor did the King of Denmark, &c.] Christian IV, who visited this country in 1606. See vol. ii. p. 583.

5 Sir Thomas Roe.] Grandson of Sir Thomas Roe, and nephew of the Sir John, and William Roe already mentioned. In this great man," Granger truly says, "the accomplishments of the scholar, the gentleman, and the statesman, were eminently united. During his residence in the Mogul's court, he zealously promoted the trading interest of this kingdom, for which the East India Company is indebted

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His cloak with orient velvet quite lined through;

His rosy ties and garters so o'erblown,
By his each glorious parcel to be known!
He wont was to encounter me aloud,
Where-e'er he met me, now he's dumb or
proud.

Know you the cause? he has neither land nor lease,

Nor bawdy stock that travels for increase, Nor office in the town, nor place in court, Nor 'bout the bears, nor noise to make lords sport.

He is no favourite's favourite, no dear trust Of any madam hath need o' squires, and

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to him to this day. In his embassy to the Grand Signior, he collected many valuable Greek and Oriental manuscripts, which he presented to the Bodleian Library, to which he The fine left his valuable collection of coins. Alexandrian MS. of the Greek Bible which Cyrill, the patriarch of Constantinople, presented to Charles I., was procured by his means. This was afterwards published by Dr. Grabe. : His speech, at the council-table, against debasing the coin in the reign of Charles, gained him the highest reputation. His curious and interesting Negotiations' were first published by the Society for Promoting Learning, 1740, fol."

Sir Thomas was the son of Robert Roe: he was born in 1580, and about the close of Elizabeth's reign was made esquire of the body to that princess. He was knighted by James in 1604, and in 1614 appointed, at the request of the East India Company, ambassador to the Mogul: he continued at his court four years, and was dismissed with extraordinary honours. He died after a very active and useful life in 1644, and was buried in Woodford church, Essex.

6 He that is round, &c.] From Horace :
Totus teres atque rotundus,
In quem manca ruit fortuna, &c.

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