TO MY BEST BROTHER ON HIS POEMS CALLED "LUCASTA."
Now y' have oblieg'd the age, thy wel known worth
Is to our joy auspiciously brought forth.
Good morrow to thy son, thy first borne flame
Which, as thou gav'st it birth, stamps it a name,
That Fate and a discerning age shall set
The chiefest jewell in her coronet.
Why then needs all this paines, those season'd pens,
That standing lifeguard to a (kinde friends),
That with officious care thus guard thy gate,
As if thy Child were illigitimate?
Forgive their freedome, since unto their praise
They write to give, not to dispute thy bayes.
As when some glorious queen, whose pregnant wombe
Brings forth a kingdome with her first-borne Sonne,
Marke but the subjects joyfull hearts and eyes:
Some offer gold, and others sacrifice;
This slayes a lambe, that, not so rich as hee,
Brings but a dove, this but a bended knee;
And though their giftes be various, yet their sence
Speaks only this one thought, Long live the prince.
So, my best brother, if unto your name
I offer up a thin blew-burning flame,
Pardon my love, since none can make thee shine,
Vnlesse they kindle first their torch at thine.
Then as inspir'd, they boldly write, nay that,
Which their amazed lights but twinkl'd at,
And their illustrate thoughts doe voice this right,
Lucasta held their torch; thou gav'st it light.
Francis Lovelace, Col.
AD EUNDEM.
En puer Idalius tremulis circumvolat alis,
Quem prope sedentem4.1 castior4.2 uret amor.
Lampada sic videas circumvolitare Pyrausta,4.3
Cui contingenti est flamma futura rogus.
Ergo procul fugias, Lector, cui nulla placebunt
Carmina, ni fuerint turpia, spurca, nigra.
Sacrificus Romae lustralem venditat undam:
Castior est illa Castalis unda mihi:
Limpida, et eulikrines, nulla putredine spissa,
Scilicet ex puro defluit illa jugo.
Ex pura veniunt tam dia poemata mente,
Cui scelus est Veneris vel tetigisse fores.
Thomas Hamersley, Eques Auratus.
4.1 Old ed. SIDENTEM.
4.2 Old ed. CARTIOR.
4.3 See Scheller's LEX. TOT. LAT. voce PYRAUSTA and PYRALIS
ON THE POEMS.
How humble is thy muse (Deare) that can daign
Such servants as my pen to entertaine!
When all the sonnes of wit glory to be
Clad in thy muses gallant livery.
I shall disgrace my master, prove a staine,
And no addition to his honour'd traine;
Though all that read me will presume to swear
I neer read thee: yet if it may appear,
I love the writer and admire the writ,
I my owne want betray, not wrong thy wit.
Did thy worke want a prayse, my barren brain
Could not afford it: my attempt were vaine.
It needs no foyle: All that ere writ before,
Are foyles to thy faire Poems, and no more.
Then to be lodg'd in the same sheets with thine,
May prove disgrace to yours, but grace to mine.
Norris Jephson, Col.
TO MY MUCH LOVED FRIEND, RICHARD LOVELACE Esq.
CARMEN EROTICUM.
Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write love.
On such a subject as thy I coo'd
Write much greater, but not half so good.
But as the humble tenant, that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox5.1
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted than a stiver),5.2
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver-stile write love as well as they.
I write so well that I no criticks feare;
For who'le read mine, when as thy 's so neer,
Vnlesse thy selfe? then you shall secure mine
From those, and Ile engage my selfe for thine.
They'l do't themselves; thee this allay you'l take,
I love thy and yet not for thy sake.
John Jephson, Col.5.3
5.1 TO FOX usually means to intoxicate. To fox oneself is TO GET DRUNK, and to fox a person is TO MAKE HIM DRUNK. The word in this sense belongs to the cant vocabulary. But in the present case, fox merely signifies TO FARE or TO FEAST.
5.2 A Dutch penny. It is very likely that this individual had served with the poet in Holland.
5.3 Three members of this family, or at least three persons of this name, probably related, figure in the history of the present period, viz., Colonel John Jephson, apparently a military associate of Lovelace; Norris Jephson, who contributed a copy of verses to LUCASTA, and to the first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, 1647; and William Jephson, whose name occurs among the subscribers to the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, 1643.
TO MY NOBLE AND MOST INGENIOUS FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS "LUCASTA."
So from the pregnant braine of Jove did rise
Pallas, the queene of wit and beautious eyes,
As faire Lucasta from thy temples flowes,
Temples no lesse ingenious then Joves.
Alike in birth, so shall she be in fame,
And be immortall to preserve thy Name.
ANOTHER, UPON THE POEMS.
Now, when the wars augment our woes and fears,
And the shrill noise of drums oppresse our ears;
Now peace and safety from our shores are fled
To holes and cavernes to secure their head;
Now all the graces from the land are sent,
And the nine Muses suffer banishment;
Whence spring these raptures? whence this heavenly rime,
So calme and even in so harsh a time?
Well might that charmer his faire Caelia6.1 crowne,
And that more polish't Tyterus6.2 renowne
His Sacarissa, when in groves and bowres
They could repose their limbs on beds of flowrs:
When wit had prayse, and merit had reward,
And every noble spirit did accord
To love the Muses, and their priests to raise,
And interpale their browes with flourishing bayes;
But in a time distracted so to sing,
When peace is hurried hence on rages wing,
When the fresh bayes are6.3 from the Temple torne,
And every art and science made a scorne;
Then to raise up, by musicke of thy art,
Our drooping spirits and our grieved hearts;
Then to delight our souls, and to inspire
Our breast with pleasure from thy charming lyre;
Then to divert our sorrowes by thy straines,
Making us quite forget our seven yeers paines
In the past wars, unlesse that Orpheus be
A sharer in thy glory: for when he
Descended downe for his Euridice,
He stroke his lute with like admired art,
And made the damned to forget their smart.
John Pinchbacke, Col
6.1 Many poets have celebrated the charms of a CAELIA; but I apprehend that the writer here intends Carew.
6.2 Waller.
6.3 Original has IS.
P. 10. JOHN PINCHBACK, COL[ONEL]. Pinchback neither is nor was, I believe, a name of common occurrence; and it is just possible that the Colonel may be the very "old Jack Pinchbacke" mentioned by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, in his MERRY PASSAGES AND JESTS, of which a selection was given by Mr. Thoms in his ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS, 1839. L'Estrange, it is true, describes the Colonel as a "gamester and rufler, daubed with gold lace;" but this is not incompatible with the identity between the PINCHBACKE, who figures in LUCASTA, and OLD JACK, who had perhaps not always been "a gamester and ruffler," and whose gold lace had, no doubt, once been in better company than that which he seems to have frequented, when L'Estrange knew him. The "daubed gold lace," after all, only corresponds with the picture, which Lovelace himself may have presented in GUNPOWDER ALLEY days.
EXASTIKON.
Pseudetai hostis ephe-dolichos chronos oiden ameiben
Ounoma, kai panton mnemosynen olesai.
Oden gar poiein agathen ponos aphthonos esti,
Hon medeis aion oiden odousi phagein.
Oden soi, phile, doke men aphthiton, ogathe, mousa,
Hos eis aionas ounoma ee teon.
Villiers Harington, L.C.
TO HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS POEMS.
He that doth paint the beauties of your verse,
Must use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equall master to you prove.
My heart is all my eloquence, and that
Speaks sharp affection, when my words fall flat;
I reade you like my mistresse, and discry
In every line the quicknesse of her eye:
Her smoothnesse in each syllable, her grace
To marshall ev'ry word in the right place.
It is the excellence and soule of wit,
When ev'ry thing is free as well as fit:
For metaphors packt up and crowded close
Swath ye minds sweetnes, and display the throws,
And, like those chickens hatcht in furnaces,
Produce or one limbe more, or one limbe lesse
Then nature bids. Survey such when they write,
No clause but's justl'd with an epithite.
So powerfully you draw when you perswade,
Passions in you in us are vertues made;
Such is the magick of that lawfull shell
That where it doth but talke, it doth compell:
For no Apelles 'till this time e're drew
A Venus to the waste so well as you.
W. Rudyerd.7.1
7.1 Only son of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Kt., known as a poet and a friend of poets, and as a warm advocate of Episcopacy. See MEMOIRS OF SIR B. R., edited by Manning, 1841, 8vo, p. 257.
The world shall now no longer mourne nor vex
For th' obliquity of a cross-grain'd sex;
Nor beauty swell above her bankes, (and made
For ornament) the universe invade
So fiercely, that 'tis question'd in our s,
Whether kils most the Amazon's sword or lookes.
Lucasta in loves game discreetly makes
Women and men joyntly to share the stakes,
And lets us know, when women scorne, it is
Mens hot love makes the antiparisthesis;
And a lay lover here such comfort finds
As Holy Writ gives to affected minds.
The wilder nymphs, lov's power could not comand,
Are by thy almighty numbers brought to hand,
And flying Daphnes, caught, amazed vow
They never heard Apollo court till now.
'Tis not by force of armes this feat is done,
For that would puzzle even the Knight o' th' Sun;8.1
But 'tis by pow'r of art, and such a way
As Orpheus us'd, when he made fiends obay.
J. Needler, Hosp. Grayensis.
8.1 A celebrated romance, very frequently referred to by our old writers. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his CHARACTERS, represents a chambermaid as carried away by the perusal of it into the realms of romance, insomuch that she can barely refrain from forsaking her occupation, and turning lady-errant. The is better known under the title of THE MIRROR OF PRINCELY DEEDES AND KNIGHTHOOD, wherein is shewed the worthinesse of the Knight of the Sunne, c. It consists of nine parts, which appear to have been published at intervals between 1585 and 1601.
TO HIS NOBLE FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS POEMS.
SIR,
Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men.
These vertues now are banisht out of towne,
Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others fame his owne employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the faire blossome of each growing wit.
The ayre's already tainted with the swarms
Of insects, which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, paper-rats, scorpions,
Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons.
The barbed censurers begin to looke
Like the grim Consistory on thy ;
And on each line cast a reforming eye
Severer then the yong presbytery.
Till, when in vaine they have thee all perus'd,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus'd.
Some reading your LUCASTA will alledge
You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e're seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spight
(She knew what pain 't would be to lose that sight).
O no, mistake not, I reply'd: for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would dy.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or mine aid doth clime.
Him valianst men and fairest nymphs approve,
His in them finds judgement, with you, love.
Andr. Marvell
TO COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, ON THE PUBLISHING OF HIS INGENIOUS POEMS.
If the desire of glory speak a mind
More nobly operative and more refin'd,
What vast soule moves thee, or what hero's spirit
(Kept in'ts traduction pure) dost thou inherit,
That, not contented with one single fame,
Dost to a double glory spread thy name,
And on thy happy temples safely set
Both th' Delphick wreath and civic coronet?
Was't not enough for us to know how far
Thou couldst in season suffer, act and dare
But we must also witnesse, with what height
And what Ionick sweetnesse thou canst write,
And melt those eager passions, that are
Stubborn enough t' enrage the god of war
Into a noble love, which may expire9.1
In an illustrious pyramid of fire;
Which, having gained his due station, may
Fix there, and everlasting flames display.
This is the braver path: time soone can smother
The dear-bought spoils and tropheis of the other.
How many fiery heroes have there been,
Whose triumphs were as soone forgot as seen?
Because they wanted some diviner one
To rescue thee from night, and make thee known.
Such art thou to thy selfe. While others dream
Strong flatt'ries on a fain'd or borrow'd theam,
Thou shalt remaine in thine owne lustre bright,
And adde unto 't LUCASTA'S chaster light.
For none so fit to sing great things as he,
That can act o're all lights of poetry.
Thus had Achilles his owne gests design'd,
He had his genius Homer far outshin'd.
Jo. Hall.9.2
9.1 Original has ASPIRE.
9.2 The precocious author of HORAE VACIVAE, 1646, and of a volume of poems which was printed in the same year. In the LUCASTA are some complimentary lines by Lovelace on Hall's translation of the commentary of Hierocles on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1657.
TO THE HONORABLE, VALIANT, AND INGENIOUS COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS EXQUISITE POEMS.
Poets and painters have some near relation,
Compar'd with fancy and imagination;
The one paints shadowed persons (in pure kind),
The other paints the pictures of the mind
In purer verse. And as rare Zeuxes fame
Shin'd, till Apelles art eclips'd the same
By a more exquisite and curious line
In Zeuxeses (with pensill far more fine),
So have our modern poets late done well,
Till thine appear'd (which scarce have paralel).
They like to Zeuxes grapes beguile the sense,
But thine do ravish the intelligence,
Like the rare banquet of Apelles, drawn,
And covered over with most curious lawn.
Thus if thy careles draughts are cal'd the best,
What would thy lines have beene, had'st thou profest
That faculty (infus'd) of poetry,
Which adds such honour unto thy chivalry?
Doubtles thy verse had all as far transcended
As Sydneyes Prose, who Poets once defended.
For when I read thy much renowned pen,
My fancy there finds out another Ben
In thy brave language, judgement, wit, and art,
Of every piece of thine, in every part:
Where thy seraphique Sydneyan fire is raised high
In valour, vertue, love, and loyalty.
Virgil was styl'd the loftiest of all,
Ovid the smoothest and most naturall;
Martiall concise and witty, quaint and pure,
Iuvenall grave and learned, though obscure.
But all these rare ones which I heere reherse,
Do live againe in Thee, and in thy Verse:
Although not in the language of their time,
Yet in a speech as copious and sublime.
The rare Apelles in thy picture wee
Perceive, and in thy soule Apollo see.
Wel may each Grace and Muse then crown thy praise
With Mars his banner and Minerva's bayes.
Fra. Lenton.10.1
10.1 The author of the YOUNG GALLANT'S WHIRLIGIGG, 1629, and other poetical works. Singer does not give these lines. In the WHIRLIGIG there is a curious picture of a young gallant of the time of Charles I., to which Lovelace might have sat, had he been old enough at the time. But Lenton had no want of sitters for his portrait.
TO HIS HONOURED AND INGENIOUS FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS "LUCASTA."
Chast as Creation meant us, and more bright
Then the first day in 's uneclipsed light,
Is thy LUCASTA; and thou offerest heere
Lines to her name as undefil'd and cleere;
Such as the first indeed more happy dayes
(When vertue, wit, and learning wore the bayes
Now vice assumes) would to her memory give:
A Vestall flame that should for ever live,
Plac't in a christal temple, rear'd to be
The Embleme of her thoughts integrity;
And on the porch thy name insculpt, my friend,
Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.
The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.
Tho. Rawlins.11.1
11.1 A well known dramatist and poet. These lines are not in Singer's reprint.
TO MY DEAR BROTHER, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE.
Ile doe my nothing too, and try
To dabble to thy memory.
Not that I offer to thy name
Encomiums of thy lasting fame.
Those by the landed have been writ:
Mine's but a yonger-brother wit;
A wit that's hudled up in scarres,
Borne like my rough selfe in the warres;
And as a Squire in the fight
Serves only to attend the Knight,
So 'tis my glory in this field,
Where others act, to beare thy shield.
Dudley Lovelace, Capt.12.1
12.1 The youngest brother of the poet. Besides the present lines, and some to be found in the posthumous volume, of which he was the editor, this gentleman contributed the following commendatory poem to AYRES AND DIALOGUES [by Thomas Stanley Esq.] set by John Gamble, 1656. The verses themselves have little merit; and the only object which I had in introducing them, was to add to the completeness of the present edition:—
TO MY MUCH HONORED COZEN, MR. STANLEY, UPON HIS POEMS SET BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.
I.
Enough, enough of orbs and spheres,
Reach me a trumpet or a drum,
To sound sharp synnets in your ears,
And beat a deep encomium.
II.
I know not th' Eight Intelligence:
Those that do understand it, pray
Let them step hither, and from thence
Speak what they all do sing or say:
III.
Nor what your diapasons are,
Your sympathies and symphonies;
To me they seem as distant farre
As whence they take their infant rise.
IV.
But I've a grateful heart can ring
A peale of ordnance to your praise,
And volleys of small plaudits bring
To clowd a crown about your baies.
V.
Though laurel is thought thunder free,
That storms and lightning disallows,
Yet Caesar thorough fire and sea
Snatches her to twist his conquering brows.
VI.
And now me thinks like him you stand
I' th' head of all the Poets' hoast,
Whilest with your words you do command,
They silent do their duty boast.
VII.
Which done, the army ecchoes o're,
Like Gamble Ios one and all,
And in their various notes implore,
Long live our noble Generall.
Dudley Posthumus Lovelace.
DE DOMINO RICHARDO LOVELACIO,
ARMIGERO ET CHILIARCHA,13.1 VIRO INCOMPARABILI.
Ecce tibi, heroi claris natalibus orto;13.2
Cujus honoratos Cantia vidit avos.
Cujus adhuc memorat rediviva Batavia patrem,
Inter et Herculeos enumerare solet.
Qui tua Grollaferox, laceratus vulnere multo,
Fulmineis vidit moenia Pacta globis.
Et cum saeva tuas fudisset Iberia turmas,
Afflatu pyrii pulveris ictus obit.
Haec sint magna: tamen major majoribus hic est,
Nititur et pennis altius ire novis.
Sermonem patrium callentem et murmura Celtae,
Non piguit linguas edidicisse duas.
Quicquid Roma vetus, vel quicquid Graecia jactat,
Musarum nutrix alma Calena dedit.
Gnaviter Hesperios compressit Marte cachinnos,
Devictasque dedit Cantaber ipse manus.
Non evitavit validos Dunkerka lacertos,
Non intercludens alta Lacuna vias,
Et scribenda gerens vivaci marmore digna,
Scribere Caesareo more vel ipse potest.
Cui gladium Bellona dedit, calamumque Minerva,
Et geminae Laurus circuit umbra comam.
Cujus si faciem spectes vultusque decorem,
Vix puer Idalius gratior ore fuit.
13.1 Strictly speaking, the officer in command of a thousand men, from the Greek chiliarches, or chiliarchos, but in the present instance meaning nothing more than Colonel.
13.2 I have amended the text of these lines, which in the original is very corrupt. I suppose that the compositor was left to himself, as usual.
AD EUNDEM.
Herrico succede meo: dedit ille priora
Carmina, carminibus non meliora tuis.14.1
14.1 Herrick's HESPERIDES had appeared in 1648.
PERI TOY AYTOY.
Aoulakios pollaplasios philos estin emeio.
Tounoma esti philos, kai to noema philos.
Kai phylon antiphylo megaloisin agaklyton ergois:
Tes aretes cheiros kai phrenos anchinoos.
Hos neos en tytthais pinytos selidessin etheke
Poieton ekaston chromat epagromenos.
Phrouron Mousaon, pokinon essena Melisson,
En Charitessi charin, kai Meleessi meli.
Scripsit Jo. Harmarus,
Oxoniensis, C. W. M.15.1
15.1 A celebrated scholar and philologist. An account of him will be found in Bliss's edition of Wood's ATHENAE. He published an Elegy on St. Alban the Protomartyr and an Apology for Archbishop Williams, and edited Scapula. These lines are omitted by Singer.
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