He drives diseases from our folds, XCVIII. ON THE KING'S BIRTH-DAY.9 OUSE up thyself, my gentle Muse, Though now our green conceits be gray, And yet once more do not refuse To take thy Phrygian harp, and play In honour of this cheerful day : Long may they both contend to prove, Make first a song of joy and love, To this let all good hearts resound, In the old copy, several love verses are ridiculously tacked to this chorus: they have already appeared, and the circumstance is only noted here, to mark the carelessness or ignorance of those who had the ransacking of the poet's study, after his death. This is probably Ben's last tribute of duty to his royal master: it is not his worst; it was, perhaps, better as it came from the poet, for a stanza has apparently been lost, or confounded with the opening one. Long may he round about him see His roses and his lilies blown: And kingdom's hopes so timely sown. XCIX. TO MY LORD THE KING, ON THE CHRISTENING HIS SECOND SON JAMES.1 HAT thou art lov'd of God, this work is done, Great king, thy having of a second son : Oceano secura meo, securior umbris. 1 James II. was born October 15, 1633, and the ceremony, here mentioned, took place in the succeeding month. In the Diary of Laud's Life, (fol. 1695, p. 49,) is the following memorandum by the archbishop. "November 24, 1633. Sunday in the afternoon, I christened king Charles his second son, James duke of York, at St. James's." C. AN ELEGY ON THE LADY JANE PAWLET, MARCHIONESS OF WINTON.2 HAT gentle ghost, besprent with April dew, I do obey you, beauty! for in death You seem a fair one. O that you had breath Stiff, stark! my joints 'gainst one another knock! 2 An Elegy on the lady Jane Pawlet, &c.] The folio reads lady Anne, though Jane, the true name, occurs, as Whalley observes, just below. This wretched copy is so full of errors, that the reader's attention would be too severely proved, if called to notice the tithe of them; in general, they have been corrected in silence. This lady Jane was the first wife of that brave and loyal nobleman, John, fifth marquis of Winchester. He was one of the greatest sufferers by the Usurpation; but he lived to see the restoration of the royal family, and died full of years and honour in 1674. The marchioness died in 1631, which is therefore the date of the Elegy. 3 What gentle ghost besprent with April dew, Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?] Pope seems to have imitated the first lines of this elegy, in his poem to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady: "What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade, Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?" WHAL. Pope's imitation, however, falls far short of the picturesque and awful solemnity of the original. 4 A Great Savage of the Rock.] The seat of that family in He's good as great. I am almost a stone, Thou would'st have written, Fame, upon my breast: And the disposure will be something new, Sound thou her virtues, give her soul a name. Cheshire, from which the lady was descended. Camden gives us the following account of it: "The Wever flows between Frodsham, a castle of ancient note, and Clifton, at present called Rock Savage, a new house of the Savages, who by marriage have got a great estate here." Brit. p. 563. WHAL. And Piety the centre where all met. How did she leave the world, with what contempt Let angels sing her glories, who did call Who saw the way was made it, and were sent 5 Then comforted her lord, and blest her son, &c.] Warton calls this a "pathetic Elegy," and indeed this passage has both pathos and beauty. It is a little singular that Jonson makes no allusion to her dying in childbed, which, it would appear from Milton's Epitaph, she actually did. He speaks of a disease: she was delivered of a dead child; and some surgical operation appears to have been performed, or attempted, without success. There can be no doubt of Jonson's accuracy; for he was living on terms of respectful friendship with the marquis of Winchester. Jonson principally dwells on the piety of this lady; she seems also to have been a person of rare endowments and accomplishments. Howell (p. 182) puts her in mind that he taught her Spanish, and sends her a sonnet which he had translated into that language from one in English by her ladyship, with the music, &c., and Cartwright returns her thanks, in warm language, "for two |