A lily of a day, Is fairer far, in May, Although it fall and die that night; THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN. ALL, noble Lucius, then for wine, And let thy looks with gladness shine: Accept this Garland, plant it on thy head, And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead. He leap'd the present age, Possest with holy rage, To see that bright eternal day ; Of which we priests and poets say Such truths, as we expect for happy men : THE EPODE, or Stand. ONSON, who sung this of him, ere he went, Or taste a part of that full joy he meant In this bright asterism! Where it were friendship's schism, rest of Jonson's "Pindarics" (where are they to be found?) is treated with the most sovereign contempt. "In reading Jonson (it is added) we have often to marvel how his conceptions could have occurred to any human being. Shakspeare is like an ancient statue, the beauty of which, &c. Jonson is the representation of a monster, which is at first only surprising, and ludicrous and disgusting ever after." p. xii. Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, To separate these twi Lights, the Dioscuri; And keep the one half from his Harry. But fate doth so alternate the design, Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine,— IV. THE STROPHE, or Turn. END shine as you exalted are; Two names of friendship, but one star : Of hearts the union, and those not by chance Made, or indenture, or leased out t' advance The profits for a time. No pleasures vain did chime, Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts, But simple love of greatness and of good, That knits brave minds and manners, more than blood. THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN. HIS made you first to know the why That liking; and approach so one the t'other, Till either grew a portion of the other : Each styled by his end, The copy of his friend. You liv'd to be the great sir-names, And titles, by which all made claims Unto the Virtue: nothing perfect done, But as a Cary, or a Morison. THE EPODE, OR STAND. ND such a force the fair example had, The good, and durst not practise it, were glad Was left yet to mankind; Where they might read and find 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. 康 HEY talk of Fencing, and the use of arms, The art of urging and avoiding harms, The noble science, and the mastering skill To hit in angles, and to clash with time: As all defence or offence were a chime! Of bodies meet like rarified air! 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, LXXXIX. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND," AN EPISTLE MENDICANT, MDCXXXI. MY LORD, OOR wretched states, prest by extremities, Disease the enemy, and his ingineers, 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, But lies block'd up, and straiten'd, narrow'd in, XC. TO THE KING ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, Nov. 19, MDCXXXII. 康 AN EPIGRAM ANNIVERSARY. HIS is king Charles his day. Speak it, thou Unto the ships, and they from tier to tier, As loud as thunder, and as swift as fire. Let Ireland meet it out at sea, half-way, 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. |