But she's Juno when she walks, And Minerva when she talks. VI. CLAIMING A SECOND KISS BY DESERT. CHARIS, guess, and do not miss, Whether we have lost or won, Or that did you sit or walk, And did think such rites were due Or, if you did move to-night Or if you would yet have stayed, Or have charged his sight of crime, to Luce deas; video tres quoque luce deas: Hoc majus, tres uno in corpore; Calia ridens Est Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens. This quotation (says Dr. Farmer) recalls to my memory a very extraordinary fact. A few years ago, at a great court on the continent, a countryman of ours (Sir Charles Hanbury Williams) exhibited with many other candidates his complimental epigram on the birthday, and carried the prize in triumph O Regina orbis prima et pulcherrima: ridens Es Venus, incedens Juno, Minerva loquens. The compliment has since passed through other hands, and was not long ago applied to one who VII. BEGGING ANOTHER, ON COLOUR OF MENDING THE FORMER." Why do you doubt or stay? I'll taste as lightly as the bee, That doth but touch his flower, and flies away. Once more, and, faith, I will be gone, And all your bounty wrong: This could be called but half a kiss; What we're but once to do, we should do long. I will but mend the last, and tell Each suck the other's breath, And whilst our tongues perplexed lie, Let who will think us dead, or wish our death. VIII. URGING HER OF A PROMISE. CHARIS one day in discourse Had of Love, and of his force, Lightly promised she would tell What a man she could love well: And that promise set on fire All that heard her with desire. With the rest, I long expected When the work would be effected; But we find that cold delay, And excuse spun every day, As, until she tell her one, We all fear she loveth none. Therefore, Charis, you must do't, For I will so urge you to't, had as little of Venus and Juno in her as her panegyrist had of originality. Minerva had nothing to do with either. in Jonson's days were always led to the altar With the advantage of her hair.] Brides with their hair hanging down. To this he alludes in several of his masques; and H. Peacham, in describing the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Palsgrave, says that "the bride came into the chapell with a coronet of pearle on her head, and her haire disheveled, and hanging down over her shoulders." * [Drummond mentions that these lines were amongst "the most commonplace of his repetition; i.e., special favourites of the author, and frequently on his tongue."-F. C.) You shall neither eat nor sleep, To fetch in the forms go by, And pronounce, which band or lace IX. HER MAN DESCRIBED BY HER OWN Of your trouble, BEN, to ease me, And a woman God did make me; Young I'd have him too, and fair, With your emissary eye.] Oculis emissitiis. Plautus.-WHAL. 2 To say over every purl.] i.e., to try. Purl, I believe, is wire whipt with cotton or silk, for puffing out fringe, lace, hair, &c. In some places it seems to mean the fringe itself: the old word is purrel. Or were set up in a brake.] The inclosure used by blacksmiths and farriers, in which they put vicious and untractable horses, which they He should have a hand as soft As the down, and shew it oft; Skin as smooth as any rush, And so thin to see a blush Rising through it ere it came; All his blood should be a flame, Quickly fired, as in beginners In Love's school, and yet no sinners. "Twere too long to speak of all: What we harmony do call In a body should be there. Well he should his clothes, too, wear, Valiant he should be as fire, Such a man, with every part, X. ANOTHER LADY'S EXCEPTION, PRESENT For his mind I do not care, His clothes rich, and band sit neat, What you please, you parts may call, cannot dress or shoe without that assistance, is commonly called a smith's brake.-WHAL. But see vol. i. p. 449 a. This lively, gallant, and graceful description is above all praise. Anacreon is not more gay, nor Catullus more elegant, nor Horace more courtly than this poet, who is taken on the faith of the Shakspeare commentators, for a mere compound of dulness and spleen. Miscellaneous Poems.' 1. THE MUSICAL STRIFE. A PASTORAL DIALOGUE. She. Come, with our voices let us war, And challenge all the spheres, Till each of us be made a star, And all the world turn ears. He. At such a call, what beast or fowl Of reason empty is? What tree or stone doth want a soul, What man but must lose his? She. Mix then your notes, that we may prove To stay the running floods; And call the walking woods. He. What need of me? do you but sing, Sleep, and the grave will wake : No tunes are sweet nor words have sting, But what those lips do make. II. A SONG. Oh do not wanton with those eyes, For then their threats will kill me; For then my hopes will spill me. Oh do not steep them in thy tears, For so will sorrow slay me; Nor spread them as distract with fears; Mine own enough betray me.2 III. IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND. Men, if you love us, play no more She. They say the angels mark each deed To make us still sing o'er and o'er, And exercise below; And out of inward pleasure feed On what they viewing know. He. O sing not you then, lest the best Of angels should be driven To fall again at such a feast, Mistaking earth for heaven. She. Nay, rather both our souls be strained So they in state of grace retained, 1 I have little to add to what is already said (p. 277), except that many allowances must be made for what follows. Few of these poems are dated, and fewer still bear titles explanatory of their subject. I have availed myself of such collateral helps as I could anywhere find; but much is necessarily left to the reader's own sagacity. The original text, which is grossly incorrect, has however been revised with great care. Mine own enough betray me.] How is it that this song is never mentioned by the critics? Simply, I believe, because they never read it. Our own false praises, for your ends: We have both wits and fancies too, And if we must, let's sing of you. Nor do we doubt but that we can, If we would search with care and pain, Find some one good in some one man ; So going thorough all your strain, We shall at last, of parcels make One good enough for a song's sake. And as a cunning painter takes In any curious piece you see, Two or three of Jonson's lyrics are noticed by the earlier compilers of our Anthologies, and these have been copied and recopied a thousand times. Hence the Aikins et id genus omne form their opinion of the poet, and groan over his "tedious effusions." With respect to the present, if it be not the most beautiful song in the language, I freely confess, for my own part, that I know not where it is to be found. [Mr. Bell, in his edition of Jonson's Poems, has made a strange muddle by assigning this note of Gifford's to the Song No. III.-F. C.] More pleasure while the thing he makes, Than when 'tis made; why, so will we. And having pleased our art, we'll try To make a new, and hang that by. IV. ANOTHER, IN DEFENCE OF THEIR INCONSTANCY. Hang up those dull and envious fools That talk abroad of woman's change. We were not bred to sit on stools, Our proper virtue is to range : Take that away, you take our lives, We are no women then, but wives. Such as in valour would excel, Do change, though man, and often fight, Which we in love must do as well, If ever we will love aright: The frequent varying of the deed, Nor is't inconstancy to change For what is better, or to make, The good from bad is not descried, And this profession of a store In love doth not alone help forth Our pleasure; but preserves us more $ I'll tell, that if they be not glad, They yet may envy me; But then if I grow jealous mad, And of them pitied be, It were a plague 'bove scorn, He is, if they can find him, fair, That are this morning blown; But he hath eyes so round and bright, Where Love may all his torches light But then, t' increase my fears, Will be my rival, though she have but ears. One unbecoming thought doth move But so exempt from blame, As it would be to each a fame, From being forsaken, than doth worth: If love or fear would let me tell his name. For were the worthiest woman curst To love one man, he'd leave her first. VII. MY PICTURE, LEFT IN SCOTLAND. To vent that poor desire, That others should not warm them at my fire I wish the sun should shine I now think, Love is rather deaf than blind, On all men's fruit and flowers, as well as mine. But under the disguise of love, Think'st thou that love is helped by Go, get thee quickly forth, Love's sickness, and his noted want of worth. Seek doubting men to please, I ne'er will owe my health to a disease. IX. THE DREAM. Or scorn, or pity on me take, I must the true relation make, Love in a subtle dream disguised, Hath both my heart and me surprised, Whom never yet he durst attempt awake; Nor will he tell me for whose sake He did me the delight, Or spight; But leaves me to inquire, In all my wild desire, Of Sleep again, who was his aid, As since he dares not come within my sight. Ingenious and elegant of the modern Italian venomous accusations against the moral and poets. religious character of his unsuspecting guest. To the Friendship contracted with I Benjamin Jonson, Whom he hath honoured with the leave to be called his, Have with my own hand, to satisfy his Request, On a Lover's Dust, made sand for an The verses then follow, miserably printed, it must be confessed; after which Jonson, with the same warmth of heart subjoins: "Yet that love, when it is at full, may admit heaping, receive another: and this a Picture of myself." It would seem from the above, that Drummond kept a kind of Album, in which he had desired our author to insert something in his own writing. The second piece is No. VII. [The Drummond Versions will be found in the Conversations, post.-F. C.J |