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B C, Est, and Mr. Dyce. In Rel. Wotton. 'Sun.'-The second and third stanzas are transposed in all the copies but Rel. Wotton.-6. 'Ye'-C. 'Yee wandring chaunts.'-B. ' warbling chanters'-A.-7. That fill the aire with natures laies'-A. So also B, except Which fill'. 8. Passions' is the reading of all the copies but Rel. Wotton, which has ' Voices'—,and in ed. 1672, a semicolon at the end of the line.-9. By accents weake, what is' -B.' forc't accents.... where's the praise'-A.-10. her notes doe rayse'-B.-11. ' Ye'-BC.-12. Are by your'-A. ‘By yo1 new'-B.-15. 'What' altered to Where'-in A.-A fourth stanza is introduced in A, as well as a sixth, the last in Rel. Wotton. being the fifth in that copy. The fourth is as follows:

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"4. You Rubies, that doe gemmes adorne,
And Saphyres with yo1 azure hewe,
Like to the skies, or blushing morne,
How pale's your brightnes in our veiw,
When Diamonds are mixt with you?"

In B, the last stanza is made up of the one just quoted, and the last of Rel. Wotton. by means which some new variations, not worth marking, are introduced.-16. 'Princesse'-B. A gives both words.-17. (Not in B.) 'In brightnes of her lookes & mind' -A, altered to 'In sweetnes-' which is the reading of C.-18. For beauty passing loues faire Queene'-A.-19. 'be not'-A. was not'-C.' assigned'-B. The following is the sixth verse in A:

<

"6. The rose, the violett, all the spring
Vnto her breath for sweetnes runne;
The Diamond's dark'ned in the ring;
If she appeare, the Moones vndone,
As in the presence of the Sunne."]

IIIII

IV.

IIIII

TO A NOBLE FRIEND IN HIS SICKNESS.

[IN MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 101, this Poem is entitled, “On ye Duke of Buckingham sicke of a feaver.” It has the signature, "Sr. Henry Wotton."]

NTIMELY Fever, rude insulting guest, How didst thou with such unharmonious heat

Dare to distune his well-composed rest, Whose Heart so just and noble strokes did beat?

[5] What if his Youth and Spirits well may bear More thick Assaults, and stronger Siege than this?

We measure not his Courage, but our fear:
Not what ourselves, but what the Times may
miss.

[10]

Had not that Blood, which thrice his Veins did

yield,

Been better treasur'd for some glorious day,
At farthest West to paint the liquid Field,
And with new Worlds his Masters love to pay?

But let those Thoughts, sweet Lord, repose a while;

Tend only now thy vigour to regain ;

[15] And pardon these poor Rhimes, that would be

guile,

With mine own Grief, some portion of thy pain.
H. W.

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[VARIATIONS in MS. Rawl.-2. 'in such'-. 4. Who hart so just so'-. 5. Wt though.... Spirritt'—. 6. 'A more deepe seige & strong assault then this'-. 9. 'the' for that'-. 10. ‘better day'—. 13. 'tell those thoughts'.—]

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[THE allusion in the first stanza of this piece, to the noonday planet which appeared at the birth of Charles II. (May 29: 1630) has been sufficiently illustrated elsewhere.* Besides Wotton and King, it was commemorated in verse, directly or indirectly, by Corbet, Cleveland, and Herrick at the time; and again, after the Restoration, by Cowley and Waller. The figure of a star is found on some of the medals of Charles II.

The twelfth linet seems to have been a favourite with

* See notes to Bp. Henry King's Poems (1843) pp. 206-7. (Add, Herrick's Hesp. p. 250, as well as p. 96, 1648: and Cleveland, p. 74, ed. 1677.)

+ Perhaps Wotton here alludes to the circumstance, that the mother of the new-born English Prince had been a French Princess; as Quarles, (Ded. of Divine Fancies, 1632:) "Let the English Rose and the French Lilly flourish in thy lovely cheeke." But the passages are not exactly parallel. Compare Jonson, viii. 457, line 3.

Wotton, as it is repeated, with a slight alteration, in the next piece," His Roses and His Lilies [blowne];"-the imagery is common also with Jonson ;

"See how with roses and with lilies shine
Lilies and roses, flowers of either sex"-

and again, on the Christening of James II;—

"At land she triumphs in the triple shade,
Her rose and lily inter-twined have made."

[5]

But it is by no means so peculiar as to form any evidence that Jonson wrote either of the pieces. It was the ordinary language of the time.]

OU that on Stars do look,
Arrest not there your sight,
Though Nature's fairest Book,
And signed with propitious light;
Our Blessing now is more Divine
Than Planets that at Noon did shine.

To thee alone be praise,

From whom our Joy descends,
Thou Chearer of our Days,

[10] Of Causes first, and last of Ends: +
To thee this May we sing, by whom
Our Roses from the Lilies bloom.

Upon this Royal Flower,
Sprung from the chastest Bed,

* Gifford's Jonson, ix. 37, 53.

+ Compare Wotton's Medit. on Gen. xxii. "Thou then (Eternal maker and Mover, whose Will is the first of Causes, and whose Glory is the last of Ends) direct my Feet," &c. (Rel. Wotton. p. 269.)

Corrected in ed. 1654. The

In ed. 1651, misprinted Chastesse'-. signature in both those editions is H. W.'