Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

A SHORT HYMN UPON THE BIRTH OF PRINCE CHARLES.

[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.

1

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."*

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.]

[5]

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. "Thon 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.)

In ed. 1651, misprinted Chastesse'-. Corrected in ed. 1654. The signature in both those editions is H. W.

[15] Thy glorious sweetness shower;

And first let Myrtles Crown his Head;
Then Palms and Lawrels wreath'd between,
But let the Cypress late be seen.

And so succeeding Men,

[20] When they the fulness see

Of this our Joy, shall then

In consort joyn, as well as we,

To celebrate his Praise above,

That spreads our Land with Fruits of Love.

H. WOTTON.

[graphic][merged small]

AN ODE TO THE KING,

AT HIS RETURNING FROM SCOTLAND TO THE QUEEN, AFTER HIS CORONATION THERE.

[THIS piece occurs in Ben Jonson's Underwoods, cvii. (Gifford's Jonson, ix. 52); where Gifford has the following note: "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." I should be sorry to find that Jonson wrote it, and that the poor author must resign his claim to the rich; for what to Jonson is only "not his worst," is to Sir Henry one of his best. But the authority of the second folio of Jonson's Works is constantly disputed by Gifford. All the papers found in Jonson's study seem to have been hastily published, whether they were originals or mere copies. Gifford tells us more than once, that "there was undoubtedly an intercommunity of verse between" Jonson and Donne (viii. 378, 406); and there are grounds for supposing that a similar "intercommunity" existed between Jonson and Wotton. (See Introd,

to No. viii.) It is quite possible, therefore, that Jonson had merely transcribed the poem.-Mr. Dyce says nothing of this double claim upon the piece, either in his edit. of Wotton's Poems, or in his Remarks on Gifford's Jonson.

Archbishop Sancroft has transcribed it on the same page with two others of Sir Henry's, (Nos. vii. and ix.) and assigns all three to him. (MS. Tann. 465, fol. 61, vo.) Another copy in MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 96, also bears the signature of "Sr Henry Wotton." Both these MSS. were written in 1647 or 1648,-that is, after it was published as Jonson's, and before it was printed as Wotton's in Rel. Wotton.

Sir Henry Wotton wrote a Latin tract upon the same occasion, with the title, "Ad Regem è Scotiâ reducem Henrici Wottonii plausus et vota. MDCXXXIII." An English translation of it, by "a Friend of the Authours," was inserted in the two earlier edits. of Rel. Wotton. and the original tract was added in ed. 1672. The motives which he assigned for this composition may be gathered from some of the letters in Rel. Wotton. (pp. 358, 569, 570, ed. 1672.) Garrard speaks of its first publication in a letter to Wentworth, dated Dec. 6: 1633: and says that it had come forth that week. The Parallel between Essex and Buckingham, which he mentions in the same sentence, continued in MS. some time longer. (Straff. Letters, i. 167, 265.)

Some of the phrases in this Poem are characteristic of Wotton's style; for example, the second line may be compared with the following passage in one of his letters to the Queen of Bohemia's Secretary, John Dinely, under the date of Aug. 12: 1628: “I have gotten, with much adoe, some of the Psalms translated by my late most blessed Master, for

*The Psalter of James I. was not published till 1631. In fact, it was not finished when its reputed Author died. The Commission which was given to Sir W. Alexander (Lord Stirling) to "consider and revew the mecter and poesie thairof," was doubtless meant to have a much wider

« ForrigeFortsæt »