LXXV. ON LIPPE THE TEACHER. CANNOT think there's that antipathy away, To inveigh 'gainst plays, what did he then but play? Ridley, Cheshire, by Alice, daughter of Mr. Sparke, also of Cheshire. He was born in 1539, sent to Oxford when he was about 17, and thence to Lincoln's Inn. In 1584 he was appointed Solicitor General, and two years afterwards, he was made Master of the Rolls, which office he held together with that of Lord Keeper until the accession of James I., 1603, when he was advanced to the dignity of baron of Ellesmere, and constituted Lord High Chancellor of England. In 1610 he was created viscount Brackley, and died at York House in the Strand, 15th March, 1617, having on the third of that month obtained the king's leave, after long and earnest importunity, to resign the great seal. He was in his seventyeighth year. His person, as to its exterior, was so grave and dignified, that many people, Fuller says, have gone to the Chancery on purpose only to see his venerable garb, and were highly pleased at so acceptable a spectacle. But his interior presented a subject of higher admiration. "His apprehension was keen and ready; his judgment deep and sound, his reason clear and comprehensive, his elocution eloquent and easy. As a lawyer he was prudent in council, extensive in information, honest in principle, so that while he lived he was excelled by none; and when he died, he was lamented by all." Coll. Peerage, vol. iii. p. 190. Jonson has some allusions to the Ode to Lollius, who was very far from an Egerton: "Consulque non unius anni Sed quoties bonus atque fidus LXXVI. ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD. HIS morning, timely rapt with holy fire, 6 I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, What kind of creature I could most desire, To honour, serve, and love; as poets use. I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat. I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned, and a manly soul I purposed her; that should, with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the sheers control Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. Such when I meant to feign, and wish'd to see, My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she! LXXVII. TO ONE THAT DESIRED ME NOT TO NAME HIM. B E safe, nor fear thyself so good a fame, That, any way, my book should speak thy name: For, if thou shame, rank'd with my friends, to go, I'm more ashamed to have thee thought my foe. • This morning, timely rapt with holy fire.] The English language, rich as it is in effusions of this kind, does not furnish a complimentary poem that for delicacy of sentiment, and beauty of diction, can at all be compared with this exquisite epigram; which has yet the further merit of being consonant to truth. See vol. vii. p. 18. LXXVIII. TO HORNET. ORNET, thou hast thy wife drest for the stall, To draw thee custom: but herself gets all. LXXIX. TO ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF Rutland. HAT poets are far rarer births than kings," Or then, or since, about our Muses' springs, (Save that most masculine issue of his brain) No male unto him; who could so exceed Nature, they thought, in all that he would feign. At which, she happily displeased, made you: On whom, if he were living now, to look, He should those rare, and absolute numbers view, As he would burn, or better far his book. "That poets are far rarer births than kings, Your noblest father prov'd.] This lady, wife to Roger earl of Rutland, was daughter to sir Philip Sidney, by his wife Frances, only daughter to sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state to queen Elizabeth. It is necessary to know such trivial circumstances, as, in these smaller poems, their chief merit often consists in the turns of thought which allude to them. WHAL. It is somewhat singular that Whalley should entertain this opinion, and yet that this should be almost the only person whom he has noticed. This celebrated lady, who was also the patroness of Donne and Daniel, and to whom Jonson wrote other verses, died before these poems were published. The "masculine issue" of her father was the Arcadia. LXXX. OF LIFE AND DEATH. HE ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds; meeds. How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray, LXXXI. TO PROWLE, The Plagiary. ORBEAR to tempt me, Prowle, I will not show A line unto thee, till the world it know; Or that I've by two good sufficient men, To be the wealthy witness of my pen: 8 For all thou hear'st, thou swear'st thyself didst do. LXXXII. ON CASHIERED CAPTAIN SURLY. URLY'S old whore in her new silks doth swim: him. 8 To be the wealthy witness of my pen.] This is a pure Latinism: testis locuples is the phrase for a full and sufficient evidence. WHAL. LXXXIII. TO A FRIEND. O put out the word, whore, thou dost me woo, too. LXXXIV. TO LUCY COUNTESS OF Bedford. ADAM, I told you late, how I repented, I ask'd a lord a buck, and he denied me; And, ere I could ask you, I was prevented: For your most noble offer had supplied me. Straight went I home; and there, most like a poet, I fancied to myself, what wine, what wit I would have spent ; how every muse should know it, LXXXV. TO SIR HENRY GOODYERE. GOODYERE, I'm glad,' and grateful to report, And why that bird was sacred to Apollo: 9 O, madam, if your grant, &c.] She had probably offered him a warrant for one: the object of the epigram seems to be that it should be sent home to him. 1 Goodyere, I'm glad, &c.] Sir Henry Goodyere, to whom this |