with
singularapplause at the BLACKFRIERS. Being the Noble,
Last, and Onely REMAINES of those Incomparable DRAMATISTS,
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gent. London: Printed for
Humphrey Moseley, 1652," folio.
<92.2> Singer reads HE, but original SHE, as above. Of course
Cleopatra is meant.
<92.3> Fletcher's MAD LOVER.
<92.4> Fletcher's FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.
<92.5> THE MAID'S TRAGEDY, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1619.
<92.6> Should we not read FIFTY, and understand the collected
edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's Works in 1647?
<92.7> The WILD-GOOSE CHASE, which is also
apparently the CARBUNCLE
mentioned two lines lower down.
TO
MY NOBLE KINSMAN THOMAS STANLEY,<93.1> ESQ.
ON HIS LYRICK POEMS COMPOSED
BY MR. JOHN GAMBLE.<93.2>
I.
What means this
stately tablature,
The ballance of thy streins,
Which seems, in stead of sifting pure,
T' extend and rack thy veins?
Thy Odes first their own
harmony did break:
For singing, troth, is but in tune to speak.
II.
Nor trus<93.3> thy golden feet and wings.
It may<93.4> be thought false melody<93.5>
T'
ascend to heav'n by silver strings;
This is Urania's heraldry.
Thy royal poem now we may extol,
As<93.6> truly Luna blazon'd upon Sol.
III.
As when Amphion first did call
Each listning stone from's den;
And with his<93.7> lute did form the<93.8> wall,
But with his words the men;
So in your twisted numbers now you thus
Not only stocks perswade, but ravish us.
IV.
Thus do your ayrs eccho ore
The notes and anthems of the sphaeres,
And their whole
consort back restore,
As if earth too would blesse Heav'ns ears;
But yet the spoaks, by which they scal'd so high,
Gamble hath
wisely laid of UT RE MI.<<AN.5>>
<93.1> Thomas Stanley, Esq., author of the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY,
and an
elegant poet and translator, v. SUPRA.
Lovelace wrote these lines for AYRES AND DIALOGUES. TO BE SUNG
TO THE THEORBO, LUTE, OR BASE-VIOLL: By John Gamble, London,
Printed by William Godbid for the Author, 1656. folio. [The words
are by Stanley.]
<93.2> "Wood, in his
account of this person, vol. i. col. 285,
conjectures that many of the songs in the above collection
(Gamble's AYRES, &c. 1659), were written by the
learned Thomas
Stanley, Esq., author of the HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, and seemingly
with good reason, for they
resemble, in the conciseness and
elegantturn of them, those poems of his printed in 1651, containing
translations from Anacreon, Bion, Moschus and others."--Hawkins.
<93.3> LUCASTA and AYRES AND DIALOGUES read THUS, which leaves
no meaning in this passage.
<93.4> Old editions have MAY IT.
<93.5> Harmonie--AYRES AND DIALOGUES, &c.
<93.6> Original reads AND, and so also the AYRES AND DIALOGUES.
<93.7> Old editions have THE.
<93.8> So the AYRES AND DIALOGUES. LUCASTA has HIS.
<<AN.5>> P. 249. UT RE MI.
See LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, 1598, iv. 3:--
"Hol. Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not,
loves thee not--UT, RE, SOL, la, mi, FA"----
And Singer's SHAKESPEARE, ed. 1856, ii. 257, NOTE 15.
TO DR. F. B[EALE]; ON HIS BOOK OF CHESSE.<94.1>
Sir, how unravell'd is the golden fleece:
Men, that could only fool at FOX AND GEESE,
Are new-made polititians<94.2> by thy book,
And both can judge and
conquer with a look.
The
hidden fate<94.3> of princes you unfold;
Court,
clergy, commons, by your law control'd.
Strange, serious wantoning all that they
Bluster'd and clutter'd for, you PLAY.
<94.1> These lines, among the last which Lovelace ever wrote,
were
originally prefixed to "The Royal Game of Chesse-Play.
Sometimes the Recreation of the late King, with many of the
Nobility. Illustrated with almost an hundred gambetts. Being
the Study of Biochino, the famous Italian [Published by Francis
Beale.]" Lond. 1656, 12mo.
<94.2> The text of 1656 has, erroneously no doubt, POLITIANS.
<94.3> Text of 1656 has FATES.
TO THE GENIUS OF MR. JOHN HALL.
ON HIS EXACT TRANSLATION OF HIEROCLES
HIS COMMENT UPON THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS.<95.1>
Tis not from cheap thanks
thinly to repay
Th'
immortal grove of thy fair-order'd bay
Thou planted'st round my
humble fane,<95.2> that I
Stick on thy hearse this sprig of Elegie:
Nor that your soul so fast was link'd in me,
That now I've both, since't has
forsaken thee:
That thus I stand a Swisse before thy gate,
And dare, for such another, time and fate.
Alas! our faiths made different essays,
Our Minds and Merits brake two several ways;
Justice commands I wake thy
learned dust,
And truth, in whom all causes center must.
Behold! when but a youth, thou
fierce didst whip
Upright the
crooked age, and gilt vice strip;
A senator praetext,<95.3> that knew'st to sway<95.4>
The fasces, yet under the ferula;
Rank'd with the sage, ere blossome did thy chin,
Sleeked without, and hair all ore within,
Who in the school could'st argue as in schools:
Thy lessons were ev'n academie rules.
So that fair Cam saw thee matriculate,
At once a tyro and a graduate.
At nineteen, what ESSAYES<95.5> have we beheld!
That well might have the book of Dogmas swell'd;
Tough Paradoxes, such as Tully's, thou
Didst heat thee with, when snowy was thy brow,
When thy undown'd face mov'd the Nine to shake,
And of the Muses did a decad make.
What shall I say? by what
allusion bold?
NONE BUT THE SUN WAS ERE SO YOUNG AND OLD.
Young
reverend shade,
ascend awhile!
whilst we
Now
celebrate this posthume victorie,
This
victory, that doth contract in death
Ev'n all the pow'rs and labours of thy breath.
Like the Judean Hero,<95.6> in thy fall
Thou pull'st the house of
learning on us all.
And as that soldier
conquest doubted not,
Who but one
splinter had of Castriot,<95.7>
But would
assault ev'n death so
strongly charmd,
And naked oppose rocks, with his<95.8> bone<95.9> arm'd;
So we, secure in this fair relique, stand<95.10>
The slings and darts shot by each
profane hand.
These soveraign leaves thou left'st us are become
Sear clothes against all Times infection.
Sacred Hierocles, whose heav'nly thought
First acted ore this
comment, ere it wrote,<95.11>
Thou hast so spirited, elixir'd, we
Conceive there is a noble alchymie,
That's turning of this gold to something more
Pretious than gold, we never knew before.
Who now shall doubt the metempsychosis
Of the great Author, that shall peruse this?
Let others dream thy shadow wandering strays
In th' Elizian mazes hid with bays;
Or that, snatcht up in th' upper region,
'Tis kindled there a constellation;
I have inform'd me, and declare with ease
THY SOUL IS FLED INTO HIEROCLES.
<95.1> These lines were
originally prefixed to "Hierocles
upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras. Teaching a Virtuous
and Worthy Life. Translated by John Hall, of Durham, Esquire.
OPUS POSTHUMUM." Lond. 1657, 12mo. (The copy among the King's
pamphlets in the British Museum appears to have been purchased
on the 8th Sept. 1656.) The variations between the texts of 1656
and 1659 are
chiefly literal, but a careful collation has enabled
me to rectify one or two errors of the press in LUCASTA.
<95.2> Lovelace refers to the lines which Hall wrote in
commendation of LUCASTA, 1649.
<95.3> The HORAE VACIVAE of Hall, 1646, 16mo., are here meant.
<95.4> See Beloe's
translation of Aulus Gellius, ii. 86.
<95.5> HORAE VACIVAE, or Essays and some Occasional Considerations.
Lond. 1646, 16mo., with a
portrait of Hall by William Marshall,
au. aet. 19.
<95.6> Sampson.
<95.7> Scanderbeg, whose real name was George Castriot.
CASTRIOT is also one of the DRAMATIS PERSONAE in Fletcher'
KNIGHT OF MALTA.
<95.8> So the text of 165 , .e. of the lines as originally
written by the poet. Lucasta, <1>659, erroneously has THIS.
<95.9> "And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth
his hand and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith."
--JUDGES, xv. 15.
<95.10> i.e. withstand.
<95.11> So the text of 1656. LUCASTA has WROUGHT.
TRANSLATIONES / TRANSLATIONS.
<-------------------->
SANAZARI HEXASTICON.
Viderat Adriacis quondam Neptunus in undis
Stare urbem et toto ponere Jura mari:
Nunc mihi Tarpeias<96.1> quantumvis, Jupiter, Arces
Objice et illa mihi moenia Martis, ait,
Seu pelago Tibrim praefers, urbem aspice utramque,
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.
SANAZAR'S HEXASTICK.
In Adriatick waves when Neptune saw,
The city stand, and give the seas a law:
Now i' th' Tarpeian tow'rs Jove rival me,
And Mars his walls impregnable, said he;
Let seas to Tyber yield; view both their ods!<96.2>
You'l grant that built by men, but this by gods.
<96.1> Rome.
<96.2> Points of difference or contrast. For LET SEAS, &c., we
ought to read SHALL SEAS, &c.
<-------------------->
IN VIRGILIUM. PENTADII.
Pastor, arator, eques; pavi, colui, superavi;
Capras, rus, hostes; fronde, ligone, manu.
IN ENGLISH.
A swain, hind, knight: I fed, till'd, did command:
Goats, fields, my foes: with leaves, a spade, my hand.
<-------------------->