'Twas but a bud, yet did contain This hopeful Beauty did create But now his empire ends, and we From fire and wounding darts are free; With this and the following epitaphs compare Beaumont's 'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.' CCCXXX Page 295-'Here a pretty baby lies.' I cannot forbear from adding here in the notes another of Herrick's epitaphs upon children: UPON A CHILD 'But born, and like a short delight, I glided by my parents' sight. If, pitying my sad parents' tears, You'll spill a tear or two with theirs, And with some flowers my grave bestrew, Love and they'll thank you for 't, Adieu.' CCCXXXI Page 296-'As I in hoary winter's night.' Ben Jonson (it is worth remarking) told Drummond of Hawthornden that he had been content to destroy many of his own writings to have written 'The Burning Babe.' CCCXXXII Page 299-'I sing the birth was born to-night.' With stanza 2, lines 4-6, compare Giles Fletcher's lines 'A Child He was, and had not learn'd to speak CCCXXXVIII Page 304-Yet if His Majesty, our sovereign lord.' From Mr. Bullen's More Lyrics from the Elizabethan Song-books. Mr. Bullen discovered this fine poem-a fragment, apparently, but flawless in itself-among a collection of early MS. music in the library of Christ Church, Oxford (where he also found that 'odd little snatch,' printed as No. XXI.). He writes, 'The detailed description of the preparations made by a loyal subject for the coming of his "earthly king" is singularly impressive. Few could have dealt with common household objects-tables and chairs and candles and the rest-in so dignified a spirit.' CCCXLI Page 306-'Now winter nights enlarge. From Campion's Third Book of Airs, circ. 1617. 30 CCCXLIII Page 308-Let not the sluggish sleep. From William Byrd's Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets, 1611. CCCXLV Page 31-'Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.' From Divine and Moral Songs, circ. 1613. CCCLV Page 320-'In the hour of my distress.' Barron Field, who reviewed Dr. Nott's edition of Herrick in the Quarterly, August 1810, gives an account of a visit he paid to Dean Prior in the summer of 1809, for the purpose of making some inquiries concerning the poet. He says, 'The person, however, who knows more of Herrick than all the rest of the neighbourhood, we found to be an old woman in the ninety-ninth year of her age, named Dorothy King. She repeated to us, with great exactness, five of his Noble Numbers, among which was the beautiful Litany... These she had learnt from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's successor in the vicarage. She called them her prayers, which, she said, she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could not sleep and she therefore began the Litany at the second stanza 'When I lie within my bed,' etc. Another of her midnight orisons was the poem beginning 'Every night thou dost me fright And keep mine eyes from sleeping,' etc. She had no idea that these poems had ever been printed, and could not have read them if she had seen them,' CCCLIX, CCCLX Pages 324, 325-'Give me my scallop-shell of quiet.' 'Even such is Time, that takes in trust.' Of each of these poems it is asserted, probably upon inference, that Raleigh wrote them in the Tower on the night before his death. But, if Raleigh neither wrote them then nor at any time, that they should have been attributed to him as appropriate is evidence in favour of a character that has been judged so variously. INDEX OF FIRST LINES A Rose as fair as ever saw the North Greene 170 Greene 51 Anon. 263 Anon. 279 Webster 284 Ah, what is Love! It is a pretty thing. All the flowers of the Spring. All ye that lovely lovers be And wilt thou leave me thus? And yet I cannot reprehend the flight Peele 39 Daniel 175 Anon. 176 Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden As careful merchants do expecting stand As virtuous men pass mildly away Ask me no more where Jove bestows treated. Dekker 48 Browne 210 Barnefield 105 Donne 208 Beauty, sweet Love is like the morning dew Being your slave, what should I do but J. Fletcher 227 J. Fletcher 125 Munday 69 Daniel 20 Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren Can I not come to Thee, my God, for Webster 282 Raleigh 186 Herrick 312 Daniel 158 Fletcher 158 Herrick 162 Herrick 129 Clear had the day been from the dawn Come hither, shepherd's swain ! Come live with me and be my love Earl of Oxford Shakespeare 173 81 Come, Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot 40 Jonson 18 |