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THE EPODE, or Stand.

ND such a force the fair example had,
As they that saw

The good, and durst not practise it, were glad

That such a law

Was left yet to mankind;

Where they might read and find
Friendship, indeed, was written not in words;
And with the heart, not pen,

Of two so early men

Whose lines her rolls were, and records : Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin, Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in.

LXXXVIII.

AN EPIGRAM

5

TO WILLIAM EARL OF NEWCASTLE, ON HIS FENCING.

HEY talk of Fencing, and the use of arms,
The art of urging and avoiding harms,
The noble science, and the mastering skill
Of making just approaches how to kill;

To hit in angles, and to clash with time:
As all defence or offence were a chime!
I hate such measured, give me mettled, fire,
That trembles in the blaze, but then mounts higher!
A quick and dazzling motion; when a pair

Of bodies meet like rarified air!

5 Jonson's connection with the family of this distinguished nobleman was close and of long continuance.

[Here followed, in the edition of 1816, a footnote of ten pages, which it has been thought better to transfer to another part of the volume. See post, MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.]

Their weapons darted with that flame and force,
As they out-did the lightning in the course;
This were a spectacle, a sight to draw
Wonder to valour! No, it is the law
Of daring not to do a wrong; 'tis true
Valour to slight it, being done to you.
To know the heads of danger, where 'tis fit
To bend, to break, provoke, or suffer it;
All this, my lord, is valour: this is yours,
And was your father's, all your ancestors!
Who durst live great 'mongst all the colds and heats
Of human life; as all the frosts and sweats
Of fortune, when or death appear'd, or bands:
And valiant were, with or without their hands.

6

LXXXIX.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LORD HIGH treasurer of England,

AN EPISTLE MENDICANT, MDCXXXI.

MY LORD,

OOR wretched states, prest by extremities,
Are fain to seek for succours and supplies
Of princes' aids, or good men's charities.

Disease the enemy, and his ingineers,
Want, with the rest of his conceal'd compeers,
Have cast a trench about me, now five years,

All this, my lord, is valour: this is yours, &c.] This was written many years before the earl of Newcastle, (or, as the MS. terms him, of Mansfield) took up arms in the defence of his king and country. Jonson knew his patrons; and it may be added, to the credit of his discernment, that few of them belied his praises.

7 Richard, lord Weston. He was appointed to this office in 1628, and was succeeded at his death, in 1634, by a commission,

And made those strong approaches by false brays,
Redouts, half-moons, horn-works, and such close ways,
The muse not peeps out, one of hundred days;

But lies block'd up, and straiten'd, narrow'd in,
Fix'd to the bed and boards, unlike to win
Health, or scarce breath, as she had never been;
Unless some saving honour of the crown,
Dare think it, to relieve, no less renown,
A bed-rid wit, than a besieged town.

XC.

TO THE KING ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, Nov. 19, MDCXXXII.

AN EPIGRAM ANNIVERSARY.

HIS is king Charles his day. Speak it, thou
Tower,

Unto the ships, and they from tier to tier,
Discharge it 'bout the island in an hour,
As loud as thunder, and as swift as fire.
Let Ireland meet it out at sea, half-way,
Repeating all Great Britain's joy and more,
Adding her own glad accents to this day,
Like Echo playing from the other shore.
What drums or trumpets, or great ordnance can,
The poetry of steeples, with the bells,
Three kingdoms mirth, in light and aëry man,
Made lighter with the wine. All noises else,
At bonfires, rockets, fire-works, with the shouts
That cry that gladness which their hearts would pray,
Had they but grace of thinking, at these routs,
On the often coming of this holy-day:

at the head of which was Laud. This Epistle enables us to ascertain the commencement of that illness which, after a tedious and painful conflict of eleven years, terminated the poet's life in 1637.

And ever close the burden of the song,

Still to have such a Charles, but this Charles long. The wish is great; but where the prince is such, What prayers, people, can you think too much!

XCI.

ON THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND VIRTUOUS Lord Weston, LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND,

UPON THE DAY HE WAS MADE EARL OF

PORTLAND,

FEB. 17, MDCXXXII.

TO THE ENVIOUS. 8

BOOK
up, thou seed of envy, and still bring
Thy faint and narrow eyes to read the king
In his great actions: view whom his large
hand

Hath raised to be the PORT unto his LAND!
Weston! that waking man, that eye of state!
Who seldom sleeps! whom bad men only hate!
Why do I irritate or stir up thee,

Thou sluggish spawn, that canst, but wilt not see!
Feed on thyself for spight, and shew thy kind :
To virtue and true worth be ever blind.

8 To the Envious.] Weston had many enemies, and his sudden rise was not seen without jealousy. Charles appears to have entertained an extraordinary regard for him, probably on account of his being warmly recommended by the duke of Buckingham, whose favour, however, he is said to have outlived. The treasurer seems to have been an imprudent, improvident man; with considerable talents for business, but fickle and irresolute. He died, lord Clarendon says, without being lamented, " bitterly mentioned by those who never pretended to love him, and severely censured by those who expected most from him and deserved best of him."

Dream thou couldst hurt it, but before thou wake To effect it, feel thou'st made thine own heart ache.

XCII.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HIEROME, LORD WESTON,9

AN ODE GRATULATORY,

FOR HIS RETURN FROM HIS EMBASSY, MDCXXXII.

UCH pleasure as the teeming earth
Doth take in easy nature's birth,

When she puts forth the life of every thing;
And in a dew of sweetest rain,

She lies deliver'd without pain,

Of the prime beauty of the year, the Spring.
The rivers in their shores do run,
The clouds rack clear before the sun,
The rudest winds obey the calmest air;
Rare plants from every bank do rise,
And every plant the sense surprise,
Because the order of the whole is fair!

The very verdure of her nest,
Wherein she sits so richly drest,

As all the wealth of season there was spread,
Doth shew the Graces and the Hours1

Have multiplied their arts and powers,

In making soft her aromatic bed.

The eldest son of the earl of Portland; a young man of amiable manners, and of talents and worth.

1 Doth shew the Graces and the Hours.] The Hours are the poetical goddesses, which in common language mean only the seasons; but our poet has the authority of his Greek and Roman predecessors. WHAL.

I do not quite understand what was meant to be said in this note; but I will venture to add to it, that there is a great deal of grace and beauty in this little compliment.

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