Ask me no more, by what strange slight
London's Lord Mayor was made a knight?
Since there's a strength sprung out of war,
That can at once both make and mar.

Ask me no more, why in this age
I sing so free without a cage?
My answer is, I need not fear:
All England doth the burden bear.

Ask me no more (for I grow dull),
Why Hotham keeps the town of Hull?
This answer I in brief do sing:

All things were thus when Pym was K[ing].

Tom Jordan altered these words, after 1648, into 'I'll answer ye one word for all: All things are thus when kings do fall.' The last stanza, unless it were a postscript, serves to date the ballad as immediately following after Sir John Hotham's treasonable refusal to admit King Charles into Hull, at the end of April 1642. Hotham met his fate, nevertheless, at the hands of the Parliament, along with his son: 'Treason doth never prosper,' Harrington said.

Page 73.-See note on p. 65. There are variations in the other version, which is No. 582 in the Hesperides, 1648; where it reads, "This sweet Infanta of the Year? thus bepearl'd. I will whisper are mix'd with tears.' Second stanza, I will answer: These discover What fainting hopes are in a lover.' Carew's own rendering is

the earlier and better: we need not doubt that he wrote it.

Page 78.-1640 text is, Rose, sticking upon,' not 'worn.'

Page 81.-See note p. 248, on Cecilia Crofts and Thomas Killigrew. The Bride's strewing of nuts at wedding feasts preceded throwing the stocking, and struggling for points.

But

Page 82.-Sir John Finch (cf. p. 233) failed to confirm his 'election' of the lady, and she remained Anne Wentworth until she was married by John, 2nd Lord Lovelace. Whether she had been fickle, or some difficulty about dower flutter'd the Finch and made it take wing, is not apparent. criminals on trial found out how the stern Law breathes' harsh sentences after personal disappointment had invaded the Bench. When 'cruelty is sunk to hell' it finds a way back again. It had not far to travel, upward, at that time.

Sir Isaac
Pennington.

[i.e. outside.

Page 88.-'Grieve not, my Celia,' was added in 1651 (with pp. 90, 91): Some Additional Poems by the Same Author.

Page 89.-There is no external evidence to confirm the attribution of this song to Carew. Given anonymously in Wit's Interpreter. It were well to see it established as his, even on manuscript authority, although such is frequently valueless. 'Come, my Celia !' is worthy of him.

Page 90.-We have to transpose words, not innovate fresh, to make the fourth stanza intelligible. It reads, 'As two fair Pillars understand Statues two.' These two suns in a heaven of snow' meet us on p. 186. They shone before, on p. 64. They reappear at beginning of 'The Lover's Mistake' (our p. 232), in answer to Carew's 'Ask me no more.'

,

Also, in the song beginning "Swift as the feet of Leda I, will to Olympus' flower'd bosom fly," we read, 'Her neck's a tower of snow,' and of her eyes 'You'd swear two Suns at once broke through the skies.' With the 'Lover's Mistake,' it was printed in New Academy of Complements, 1669.

The external evidence

Page 92.-'Farewell, fair Saint!' is wholly in favour of the other T. C., Thomas Cary, or Carey, of the Bedchamber, whom Henry Lawes, or his publisher, John Playford, distinctly names in 1655 as the author. Anthony à Wood, in his Fasti, i. 352, mentions Henry Carey, 'the frequent translator of books,' afterwards Earl of Monmouth, having been admitted B.A. of Exeter College, Oxon., Feb. 17, 164, and then adds :-' Thomas Carey of the same Coll. was admitted on the same day. This Thomas (who was younger brother to the said Henry Carey) was born in Northumberland (while his father, Sir Robert Carey, was Warden of the Marches towards Scotland), proved afterwards a most ingenious poet, and was author of several poems printed scatteredly in divers books; one of which, beginning, "Farewell, fair Saint," etc., had a vocal composition of two parts set to it, by the sometime famed musician, Henry Lawes. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion in 1642, he adhered to his Majesty, being then of the bedchamber to, and much esteemed by, him. But after that good king had lost his head, he [T. C.] took it so much to heart, that he fell suddenly sick, and died before the expiration of the year 1648 [i.e. which extended to 25 March 1648, Old Style], aged 58, or thereabouts. Soon after, his body was buried in a vault (the burying-place of his family) under St. John Bapt. chappel, within the precincts of St. Peter's Church in Westminster.'

H. Lawes' Ayres, 1653, has both names in full :-Ist. Mr. Tho. Cary, son to the Earl of Monmouth, and of the Bedchamber to his late Majesty. 2nd. Mr. Thomas Carew, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and Sewer to his late Majesty.

'Carew of ancient Caru is, and Carru is a plough;
Romans the trade, Frenchmen the word, I do the name avow,'
-Tho. Westcote's View of Devonshire, p. 106.

On the other hand, it is to be remembered that (except two songs in Lawes' Ayres, these in dispute) the available materials extant by which to judge of Thomas Carey's holding the requisite poetical powers, to contest even these few leaves of the wreath worn by Thomas Carew, are wofully inadequate. We take a favourable specimen, an extract, verbatim et literatim, from Thomas Carey's descriptions in Jean Puget de la Serre's The Mirrour which flatters not, translated in 1638, the very time of Carew's last sickness.

Relating to the First Emblem.

W Dictate thy selfe, Thou art but Man,

HEN haughtie thoughts impuffe thee, then

A fabrick of commixed Dust,

That's all the prop of humane trust.
How dares a Clod of mould'ring Clay
Be proud, decaying every day?
And yet there is a way beside,
Wherein may be a lawful Pride.
When sly temptations stirre thee, then
Againe the word, Thou art a Man!
Rouze up thy Spirits, doe not yeeld,
A brave resistance wins the Field.
Shall a soul of Heavenly breath
Grovell so farre, its worth beneath :
Foully to be pollute with slime,
Of any base and shameful crime?
Thou art a Man, for Heaven borne,
Reflect on Earth disdainefull scorne,
Bee not abus'd, since Life is short,
Squander it not away in sport:
Nor hazard heaven's eternal Joyes
For a small spurt of worldly Toyes.
Doe Something ere thou doe bequeath
To wormes thy flesh, to Aire thy breath;
Something that may, when thou art dead,
With honour of thy name be read;

[text, 'than.'

Something that may, when thou art cold,
Thaw frozen Spirits, when 'tis told;
Something that may the grave controule,
And show thou hast a noble Soule.

Doe SOMETHING, to advance thy bliss
Both in the other World and This.
TOWER-HILL,

Antepenultimâ Augusti, 1638.

By THOMAS CARY.

Page 97.-The Roman temple of 'Bifrons' Janus was closed during times of peace. Carew wrote this Ode before 1637, 'When first the Scottish wars began.'

Page 99.-Lucy Countess of Carlisle has been already mentioned on page 218; but seeing how Carew gave poetic expression to sympathy for the widowed Countess of Anglesea (p. 108), in 1630, we remember that Davenant's address to the Countess of Carlisle, in her similar bereavement, touches on her grief, so far as she chose to give any outward indication of mourning, in 1636. The lines deserve notice. They are entitled, 'To the Countess of Carlisle, on the Death of the Earl her Husband,' and begin thus :

'This cypress folded here, instead of lawn ;
These tapers winking, and these curtains drawn,
What may they mean? unless to qualify
And check the lustre of your eye, you'll try
To honour darkness and adorn the night,
So strive, thus with your Lord to bury light.
Call back your absent beauties to your care!
Though clouded and conceal'd, we know you are
The Morning's earliest beam, life of the day,
The Even's last comfort, and her parting ray.

But why these tears? that give him no relief,
For whom you waste the virtue of your grief :
Such as might be prescribed the earth to drink
For cure of her old curse; tears, you would think
Too rich to water (if you knew their price)

The chiefest plant derived from Paradise.
But O! where is a Poet's faith? how far

We are misled: how false our numbers are!
Our Love is passion; our Religion, rage;
Since to secure that mighty heritage

etc.

At the same date, on the same occasion, Edmund Waller apostrophized 'The Countess of Carlisle in Mourning'

:

'When from black clouds no part of sky is clear,
But just so much as lets the sun appear,
Heaven then would seem thy image, and reflect
Those sable vestments, and that bright aspect.
A spark of virtue by the deepest shade

Of sad adversity is fairer made;

Nor less advantage doth thy beauty get:
A Venus rising from a Sea of Jet!".

What follows does not make pretension to seriousness, but is insincere laudation only, unworthy of being called poetry. Thomas Carew in his more sustained elegiac verse always writes with tenderness and feeling. His friendship like his love was a reality. Whatever were his faults or follies, they in no degree exceeded the average failings of young men in his time, of good family but restricted means, alternately courted and repelled by the heartless women of beauty and gallantry who lured so many to destruction.

The adulation paid by Waller to the Countess of Carlisle was so entirely restricted to praise of her sensual charms, her beauty and amatory yielding, that he betrays himself in the lines to this Circe, celebrative Of Her Chamber:

THEY of death do at heaven

HEY taste of death that do at Heaven arrive;

Instead of DEATH, the dart of LOVE does strike
And renders all within these walls alike.
The high in titles, and the shepherd, here
Forgets his greatness, and forgets his fear :
All stand amazed, and gazing on the Fair,
Lose thought of what themselves or others are:
Ambition lose; and have no other scope,
Save CARLISLE's favour to employ their hope.
The Thracian could (tho' all those tales were true
The bold Greeks tell) no greater wonders do;
Before his feet so sheep and lions lay,
Fearless and wrathless, while they heard him play.
The gay, the wise, the gallant, and the grave,
Subdued alike, all but one passion have:
No worthy mind, but finds in hers there is
Something proportioned to the rule of his :
While she with cheerful but impartial grace,
(Born for no one, but to delight the race

Of men) like Phœbus, so divides her light,
And warms us, that she stoops not from her height.

[Orpheus.