vanus can; Cho. Hear, O ye groves, and, hills, re- Of brightest MIRA do we raise our song, Cho. Rivers and valleys, echo what we sing. Of Pan we sing, the chief of leaders, Pan, Of brightest Mira is our song; the grace life did bring; And were she lost, could best supply her place: Rivers and valleys, echo what we sing. his chemical reveries, his sympathetic powder, &c., than for his talents and accomplishments. He was, however, an eminent man, and a benefactor to the literature of his country. He died 1665. was mistaken, and did it for the rhyme sake.' Sir Kenelm Digby was one of our poet's adopted sons: he is now more remembered for 1 For he doth love my verses, and will look, Kenelm had a great affection for the Fairy Upon them, next to Spenser's noble book.] Sir Queen, and wrote a commentary on a single stanza of that poem. It is called, Observations on the 22nd stanza in the 9th canto of the zna book of Spenser's Fairy Queen, Lond. 1644. Octavo.-WHAL. I Shep. Where'er they tread the enamoured ground, The fairest flowers are always found: 2 Shep. As if the beauties of the year Still waited on them where they were. I Shep. He is the father of our peace; increase. I Shep. We know no other power than his; Where one's In truth of colours, both are best. Make first a song of joy and love, To this let all good hearts resound, Rect. Cho. Haste, haste you hither, all Long may he round about him see you gentler swains, That have a flock or herd upon these plains: Your teeming ewes, as well as mounting rams. Rect. Cho. Where'er he goes upon the The better grass and flowers are found. XCIX. ON THE KING'S BIRTHDAY. Rouse up thyself, my gentle Muse, To take thy Phrygian harp, and play 1 In the old copy several love verses are ridiculously tacked to this chorus: they have already appeared, and the circumstance is only noted here to mark the carelessness or ignorance of those who had the ransacking of the poet's study after his death. [See ante, Underwoods, No. xl. p. 307 a.-F. C.] This is probably Ben's last tribute of duty to his royal master: it is not his worst; it was perhaps better as it came from the poet, for a VOL. III. His roses and his lilies blown : Joy in ideas of their own 354 CI. AN ELEGY. ON THE LADY JANE PAWLET, MAR- What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew, A horror in me, all my blood is steel; Whose daughter?-Ha! great Savage of He's good as great. I am almost a stone! It is a large fair table, and a true, She was the Lady JANE, and Marchionisse Sound thou her virtues, give her soul a name. Had I a thousand mouths, as many tongues, I durst not aim at that; the dotes were such An Elegy on the Lady Fane Pawlet, &c.] The folio reads Lady Anne, though Jane, the true name, occurs, as Whalley observes, just below. This wretched copy is so full of errors, that the reader's attention would be too severely proved if called to notice the tithe of them; in general they have been corrected in silence. This Lady Jane was the first wife of that brave and loyal nobleman, John, fifth Marquis of Winchester. He was one of the greatest sufferers by the Usurpation; but he lived to see the restoration of the royal family, and died full of years and honour in 1674. The Marchioness died in 1631, which is therefore the date of the >Elegy. ? What gentle ghost besprent with April dew, Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?] Pope seems to have imitated the first lines of this elegy, in his poem to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady: Their caract was: I or my trump must break, But rather I, should I of that part speak; To touch these mysteries: we may admire From the inherent graces in her blood! Just as she in it lived, and so exempt "What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?" Pope's imitation, however, falls far short of the Then comforted her lord and blest her son, &c.] Warton calls this a "pathetic Elegy," and indeed this passage has both pathos and beauty. It is a little singular that Jonson makes no allusion to her dying in childbed, which it would appear from Milton's Epitaph, she actually did.' He To carry and conduct the complement "Twixt death and life, where her mortality Became her birth-day to eternity! And now through circumfused light she looks, On Nature's secret there, as her own books: Speaks heaven's language, and discourseth free To every order, every hierarchy ! Beholds her Maker, and in him doth see What the beginnings of all beauties be; And all beatitudes that thence do flow: Which they that have the crown are sure to know! Go now, her happy parents, and be sad, If you not understand what child you had. If you dare grudge at heaven, and repent T have paid again a blessing was but lent, speaks of a disease: she was delivered of a dead child; and some surgical operation appears to have been performed, or attempted, without success. There can be no doubt of Jonson's accuracy, for he was living on terms of respectful friendship with the Marquis of Winchester. Jonson principally dwells on the piety of this lady; she seems also to have been a person of rare endowments and accomplishments. Howell (p. 182) puts her in mind that he taught her Spanish, and sends her a sonnet which he had translated into that language from one in Eng. lish by her ladyship, with the music, &c., and Cartwright returns her thanks, in warm language, for two most beautiful pieces, wrought by herself in needlework, and presented to the University of Oxford, the one being the story of the Nativity, the other of the Passion of our Saviour:" "Blest mother of the church, he, in the list, When faith may come by seeing, and each leaf, 1 Sir John Beaumont has also an elegy on the death of this lady, beginning with these lines: "Can my poor lines no better office have, But lie like scritch-owls still about the grave? When shall I take some pleasure for my pain, Commending them that can commend again?" -WHAL. It may also be added that Eliot has an "Elegy on the Lady Jane Paulet, Marchioness of Winchester," &c., in which he follows Milton And trusted so, as it deposited lay And wish her state less happy than it is; And day, deceasing, with the prince of light, The sun, great kings, and mightiest kingdoms fall; Whole nations, nay, mankind! the world, with all That ever had beginning there, t' have end! With what injustice should one soul pretend T'escape this common known necessity? When we were all born, we began to die ; And, but for that contention, and brave strife The Christian hath t' enjoy the future life,1 Steevens says that the allusion is "to the ancient custom of writing on waxen tablets," and Malone proves, at the expense of two pages, that his friend has mistaken the poet's meaning, and that he himself is just as wide of it. In many parts of the Continent it is customary, upon the decease of an eminent person, for his friends to compose short laudatory poems, epitaphs, &c., and affix them to the herse or grave, which was once prevalent here also, I had colwith pins, wax, paste, &c. Of this practice, lected many notices, which, when the circumstance was recalled to my mind by Eliot's verses, I tried in vain to recover: the fact, however, is certain. In the Bishop of Chichester's verses to the memory of Dr. Donne is this couplet: "Each quill can drop his tributary verse, And pin it, like a hatchment, to his herse." Eliot's lines are these: "Let others, then, sad Epitaphs invent, And paste them up about thy monument: |