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

man,

The king of creatures, take his parity
With angels, Muse, to speak these: no-
thing can

Illustrate these, but they
Themselves to-day,

Who the whole act express; All else we see beside, are shadows and go less.

It is their grace and favour that makes seen, And wondered at the bounties of this day;

All is a story of the king and queen:
And what of dignity and honour may
Be duly done to those

Whom they have chose,
And set their mark upon,
To give a greater name and title to! their

own!

raised,

It brings friends joy, foes grief, posterity

fame;

In him the times, no less than prince, are praised,

And by his rise, in active men his name Doth emulation stir;

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
Hearing their charge, and then

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,

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
Upon a Thomas, or a Francis call;
A Kate, a Frank, to honour their grand-
dames,

And 'tween their grandsires' thighs,
Like pretty spies,

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.

350

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF POOR BEN;

A large hundred marks annuity,
To be given me in gratuity
For done service, and to come:

And that this so accepted sum,
Or dispensed in books or bread,
(For with both the Muse was fed)
Hath drawn on me from the times,
All the envy of the rhymes,
And the ratling pit-pat noise
Of the less poetic boys,

When their pot-guns aim to hit,
With their pellets of small wit,
Parts of me they judged decayed;
But we last out still unlayed.

Please your Majesty to make
Of your grace, for goodness sake,
Those your Father's marks, your pounds:1
Let their spite, which now abounds,
Then go on and do its worst;

This would all their envy burst:
And so warm the poet's tongue,
You'd read a snake in his next song.

XCVI.

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 2th 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.

AN EPIGRAM.

If to my mind, great lord, I had a state,*
I would present you now with curious plate
Of Noremberg or Turkey; hang your rooms,
Not with the Arras, but the Persian looms:
I would, if price or prayer could them get,
Send in what or Romano, Tintoret,
Titian, or Raphael, Michael Angelo,
Have left in fame to equal or out-go

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, 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.

TO MY DETRACTOR.

"My verses were commended, thou dost say, And they were very good, yet thou thinkst nay. For thou objectest, as thou hast been told, 'Th' envyed return of forty pound in gold.

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
peace.

These I look up at with a reverent eye,
And strike religion in the standers-by;
Which though I cannot, as an architect,
In glorious piles or pyramids erect
Unto your honour; I can tune in song
Aloud and, haply, it may last as long.

by

Fool, do not rate my rhymes; I have found thy vice

Is to make cheap the lord, the lines, the price.
But bark thou on; I pity thee poor cur,
That thou shouldst lose thy noise, thy foam,
thy stur,

To be known what thou art, thou blatant beast:
But writing against me, thou thinkst at least
I now would write on thee; no, wretch, thy

name

Cannot work out unto it such a fame:
No man will tarry by thee as he goes,
To ask thy name, if he have half a nose,
But flee thee like the pest. Walk not the street
Out in the dog-days, lest the killer meet
Thy noddle with his club, and dashing forth
Thy dirty brains, men see thy want of worth."
p. 119.

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.

"

1 Witness his action done at Scanderoon, Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June.] This refers to an action in the bay of Scanderoon, in 1628, wherein he beat certain vessels belonging to the states of Venice. "This onset was made," says Antony Wood, "as 'tis reported, on the eleventh of June (his birthday, as Ben

He's prudent, valiant, just and temperate:
In him all virtue is beheld in state;
And he is built like some imperial room
For that to dwell in, and be still at home.
His breast is a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic ample thoughts do meet :
Where nature such a large survey hath
ta'en,

As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane:
Witness his action done at Scanderoon,
Upon his birth-day, the eleventh of June;1
When the apostle Barnaby the bright
Unto our year doth give the longest light,
In sign the subject, and the song will live,
Which I have vowed posterity to give.
Go, Muse, in, and salute him. Say he be
Busy, or frown at first, when he sees thee,

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,
On which he bravely fought at Scanderoon;
"Tis rare that one and self-same day should be
His day of birth, of death, and victory."

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