Part 28

FOOTNOTES:

Besides the pieces above noticed, several smaller poems were undoubtedly in circulation during Earle's life, the titles of which are not preserved. Wood supposes (Ath. Oxon.) our author to have contributed to "some of the Figures, of which about ten were published" but is ignorant of the exact numbers to be attributed to his pen. In the Bodleian is "The Figvre of Fovre: Wherein are sweet flowers, gathered out of that fruitfull ground, that I hope will yeeld pleasure and profit to all sorts of people. The second Part, London, Printed for Iohn Wright, and are to bee sold at his shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible, 1636." This, however, was undoubtedly one of Breton's productions, as his initials are affixed to the preface. It is in 12mo. and consists of twenty pages, not numbered. The following extracts will be sufficient to shew the nature of the volume.

"There are foure persons not to be believed: a horse-courser when he sweares, a whore when shee weepes, a lawyer when he pleads false, and a traveller when he tels wonders.

"There are foure great cyphers in the world: hee that is lame among dancers, dumbe among lawyers, dull among schollers and rude amongst courtiers

"Foure things grievously empty: a head without braines, a wit without judgment, a heart without honesty, and a purse without money."

Ant. Wood possessed the figure of six, which, however, is now not to be found among his books left to the university of Oxford, and deposited in Ashmole's museum. That it once was there, is evident from the MS. catalogue of that curious collection.

8vo. L. 78. Art.

No. IV.

LINES ON SIR JOHN BURROUGHS,

KILLED BY A BULLET AT REEZ.

Why did we thus expose thee? what's now all That island to requite thy funeral? Though thousand French in murder'd heaps do lie, It may revenge, it cannot satisfy: We must bewail our conquest when we see Our price too dear to buy a victory. He whose brave fire gave heat to all the rest, That dealt his spirit in t' each English breast, From whose divided virtues you may take So many captains out, and fully make Them each accomplish'd with those parts, the which, Jointly, did his well-furnish'd soul enrich. Not rashly valiant, nor yet fearful wise, His flame had counsel, and his fury, eyes. Not struck in courage at the drum's proud beat, Or made fierce only by the trumpet's heat-- When e'en pale hearts above their pitch do fly, And, for a while do mad it valiantly. His rage was tempered well, no fear could daunt His reason, his cold blood was valiant. Alas! these vulgar praises injure thee; Which now a poet would as plenteously Give some brag-soldier, one that knew no more Than the fine scabbard and the scarf he wore. Fathers shall tell their children was he, (And they hereafter to posterity,) Rank'd with those forces scourged France of old, Burrough's and Talbot's names together told.

J. EARLES.

FOOTNOTES:

For an account of the unsuccessful expedition to the Isle of Ré, under the command of the Duke of Buckingham, see Carte's History of England, vol. iv. page 176, folio, Lond. 1755. Sir John Burroughs, a general of considerable renown, who possessed the chief confidence of the Duke, fell in an endeavour to reconnoitre the works of the enemy, Aug. 1627.

Sir John Talbot, first earl of Shrewsbury, of whom see Collins' Peerage, iii. 9. Holinshed, Rapin, Carte, &c.

No. V.

ON THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.

Come, Pembroke lives! Oh! do not fright our ears With the destroying truth! first raise our fears And say he is not well: that will suffice To force a river from the public eyes, Or, if he must be dead, oh! let the news Speak in astonish'd whispers: let it use Some phrase without a voice, and be so told, As if the labouring sense griev'd to unfold Its doubtfull woe. Could not the public zeal Conquer the Fates, and save your's? Did the dart Of death, without a preface, pierce your heart? Welcome, sad weeds--but he that mourns for thee, Must bring an eye that can weep elegy. A look that would save blacks: whose heavy grace Chides mirth, and bears a funeral in his face. Whose sighs are with such feeling sorrows blown, That all the air he draws returns a groan. Thou needst no gilded tomb--thy memory, Is marble to itself--the bravery Of jem or rich enamel is mis-spent-- Thy noble corpse is its own monument!

Mr. EARLES, Merton.

FOOTNOTES:

William, third Earl of Pembroke, son of Henry, Earl of Pembroke, and Mary, sister to Sir Philip Sidney, was the elder brother of Earle's patron, and Chancellor of Oxford. He died at Baynard's castle, April 10, 1630.

No. VI.

ON MR. BEAUMONT.

WRITTEN THIRTY YEARS SINCE, PRESENTLY AFTER HIS DEATH.

Beaumont lies here: And where now shall we have A muse like his to sigh upon his grave? Ah! none to weep this with a worthy tear, But he that cannot, Beaumont that lies here. Who now shall pay thy tomb with such a verse As thou that lady's didst, fair Rutland's herse. A monument that will then lasting be, When all her marble is more dust than she. In thee all's lost: a sudden dearth and want Hath seiz'd on wit, good epitaphs are scant. We dare not write thy elegy, whilst each fears He ne'er shall match that copy of thy tears. Scarce in an age a poet, and yet he Scarce live the third part of his age to see, But quickly taken off and only known, Is in a minute shut as soon as shown. Why should weak Nature tire herself in vain In such a piece, to dash it straight again? Why should she take such work beyond her skill, Which, when she cannot perfect, she must kill? Alas! what is't to temper slime and mire? But Nature's puzzled when she works in fire. Great brains (like brightest glass) crack straight, while those Of stone or wood hold out, and fear not blows; And we their ancient hoary heads can see Whose wit was never their mortality. Beaumont dies young, so Sidney did before, There was not poetry he could live to more, He could not grow up higher, I scarce know If th' art itself unto that pitch could grow, Were't not in thee that hadst arriv'd the height Of all that wit could reach, or nature might. O when I read those excellent things of thine, Such strength, such sweetness couched in ev'ry line, Such life of fancy, such high choice of brain, Nought of the vulgar wit or borrow'd strain, Such passion, such expressions meet my eye, Such wit untainted with obscenity, And these so unaffectedly exprest, All in a language purely flowing drest, And all so born within thyself, thine own, So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon: I grieve not now that old Menander's vein Is ruin'd to survive in thee again; Such, in his time, was he of the same piece, The smooth, even, nat'ral wit and love of Greece. Those few sententious fragments shew more worth, Than all the poets Athens e'er brought forth; And I am sorry we have lost those hours On them, whose quickness comes far short of ours, And dwell not more on thee, whose ev'ry page May be a pattern for their scene and stage. I will not yield thy works so mean a praise; More pure, more chaste, more sainted than are plays: Nor with that dull supineness to be read, To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed. How do the Muses suffer every where, Taken in such mouth's censure, in such ears, That 'twixt a whiff, a line or two rehearse, And with their rheume together spaul a verse? This all a poem's leisure after play, Drink, or tobacco, it may keep the day: Whilst ev'n their very idleness they think Is lost in these, that lose their time in drink. Pity then dull we, we that better know, Will a more serious hour on thee bestow. Why should not Beaumont in the morning please, As well as Plautus, Aristophanes? Who, if my pen may as my thoughts be free, Were scurril wits and buffoons both to thee; Yet these our learned of severest brow Will deign to look on, and to note them too, That will defy our own, 'tis English stuff, And th' author is not rotten long enough, Alas! what phlegm are they compar'd to thee, In thy Philaster, and Maid's-Tragedy? Where's such a humour as thy Bessus? pray Let them put all their Thrasoes in one play, He shall out-bid them; their conceit was poor, All in a circle of a bawd or whore; A coz'ning dance; take the fool away And not a good jest extant in a play. Yet these are wits, because they'r old, and now Being Greek and Latin, they are learning too: But those their own times were content t'allow A thirsty fame, and thine is lowest now. But thou shalt live, and, when thy name is grown Six ages older, shall be better known, When th' art of Chaucer's standing in the tomb, Thou shalt not share, but take up all his room.

JOHN EARLE.

No. VII.

DEDICATION TO THE LATIN TRANSLATION