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, 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 Fuño, 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: 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; ie., special favourites of the author, and frequently on his tongue."F. C.10 2009 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 DICTAMEN. Of your trouble, BEN, to ease me, will tell what Man would please me. I would have him, if I could, Noble; or of greater blood; Titles, I confess, do take me, And a woman God did make me; French to boot, at least in fashion, And his manners of that nation. Young I'd have him too, and fair, Yet a man; with crisped hair, Cast in thousand snares and rings, For Love's fingers, and his wings: Chestnut colour, or more slack, Gold, upon a ground of black. Venus and Minerva's eyes, For he must look wanton-wise. Eyebrows bent like Cupid's bow, Front, an ample field of snow; Even nose, and cheek withal, Smooth as is the billiard-ball: Chin as woolly as the peach; And his lip should kissing teach, Till he cherished too much beard, And made Love or me afeard. With your emissary eye.] Oculis emissitiis. Plautus.-WHAL. 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.' I. 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, Oh be not angry with those fires, For then their threats will kill me; Nor look too kind on my desires, 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 vith fears; Mine own enough betray me.* 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 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, 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, 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 From being forsaken, than doth worth: For were the worthiest woman curst To love one man, he'd leave her first. 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 What nymph soe'er his voice but Will be my rival, though she have but ears. I'll tell no more, and yet I love, And he loves me; yet no One unbecoming thought doth move But so exempt from blame, As it would be to each a fame, If love or fear would let me tell his name. VI. THE HOUR-GLASS.' Consider this small dust, here in the glass, By atoms moved: Could you believe that this the body was And in his mistress' flame playing like a fly, Even ashes of lovers find no rest. Would you believe that it the body was And in his mistress' flames playing like a flie, WHAL It matters little which we take the version in Drummond's folio is the worst, but all are imperfect. I have made a trifling change or two in the arrangement; for as the lines stood be fore, some of them had no correspondent rhymes. The whole, as Whalley observes, is from the Latin of Jerom Amaltheus, one of the most 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 That she Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind: I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, In sentence of as subtle feet, That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. Oh! but my conscious fears, That fly my thoughts between, Tell me that she hath seen My hundreds of gray hairs Read so much waste as she cannot embrace My mountain belly and my rocky face, And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears. VIII. AGAINST JEALOUSY. Wretched and foolish jealousy, How cam'st thou thus to enter me? I ne'er was of thy kind: Nor have I yet the narrow mind mine. But under the disguise of love, Thou say'st, thou only cam'st to prove Go, get thee quickly forth, Love's sickness, and his noted want of worth. Seek doubting men to please, IX. THE DREAM. Or scorn, or pity on me take, I must the true relation make, Hath both my heart and me surprised, 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. HOROLOGIUM pulvereum, Tumulus Alcippi. Perspicuo in vitro pulvis qui dividit horas, Dum vagus angustum sæpe recurrit iter, Olim erat Alcippus, qui Gallæ ut vidit ocellos, Arsit, et est cæco factus ab igne cinis Irrequiete cinis, miseros testabere amantes More tuo nulla posse quiete frui. IOLA TUMUlus. Horarum in vitro pulvis nunc mensor, Iola Sunt cineres, urnam condidit acer amor; Ut, si quæ extincto remanent in amore favillæ, Nec jam tutus eat, nec requietus amet. It appears that this little translation was made by Jonson, at the request of his "friend" Drummond, on his auspicious visit to that mirror of sincerity and hospitality. In Drummond's folio it is prefaced with an address so respectful, so cordial and affectionate, as to raise a doubt whether the perversity was in the head or the heart of the man, who could withdraw, upon receiving it, to his closet, and deliberately commit to his note-book a series of base and religious character of his unsuspecting guest. To the Friendship contracted with And the Perpetuating the same by all Offices of 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.] 1 |