| PAGE | | Introduction | 424 | | Commendatory Poems | 428 | To the right honourable, right worthy, and truly ennobled hero,
John, Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurley, N.W. S.P.O. | 428 | | To the Reader | 429 | | To the right virtuous and equally beautiful, Sra Inconstanza Bellarizza | 431 | | The Author's Apology | 432 | | The Author to his Book | 433 | | To his loving friend the Author | 435 | | To the Reader | 436 | | To his loving kinsman the Author | 436 | | Amico suo carissimo N. W. huius Poematis authori Collegii Reg[i]nalis Canta. in artibus magistro | 437 | | In Authorem, amicissimum suum, Encomiasticon | 437 | | To his Friend, a Panegyric upon his lovers, Albino and Bellama | 438 | | THE PLEASING HISTORY OF ALBINO AND BELLAMA | 439 | | To those worthy Heroes of our Age, whose noble Breasts are wet and water'd with the dew of Helicon | 539 | | Il Insonio Insonnadado | 540 | To the right honourable, right worthy, and truly ennobled hero,
John, Lord Lovelace, Baron of Hurley, N.W. S.P.O. The law-enactors, whilst time fear'd the rod, Feign'd in their laws the presence of a god, Whose awful nod and wisdom grave should be As hand and signet unto their decree; And such commanding awe that sacred name Struck in the vulgar breasts, it teen'd a flame Of love and duty to their pious hests. Thus Rhadamanthus in his laws invests Him whom profaner times styl'd heaven's king. 10Minos and others strike the selfsame string. The moral's mine: for, in this quirking season, When pride and envy steer the helm of reason, It is, has with press-taskers been, in use To press the issue of their prose and muse Under the ensigns of some worthy peer, Whose very name unsatire can a jeer, And lock detraction up in beds of clay, To sleep their suns as rearmice do the day. Then do they bravely march, with honour arm'd, 20Which, as the gods the people, charmeth charm'd. On this known privilege feet I these lines, In which, though dimmer than your native, shines Your worth, enfired by my kneÈd quill, Which claims the scale not of deserts, but will, In your acceptance and the world's surmise. Then, cynics, bark, and, critics, beam your eyes! My quill's no pencil to emblazon forth Your stainless honour and your matchless worth. As dust-born flies, which 'bout the candle play, 30Glide through its arch, encircle, fan, survey, Wink at the presence of day's beamy blaze, Purr on the glass, or on herb-pillows laze, Just so my downy muse in distichs dare Feet the perfection of a silkless fair, Pumex each part so trimly that her foe Swears her cheeks roses and her bosom snow; Nay, has strew'd flowers of desertless praise T'adorn the tomb of good sir Worthy Crayse. Under this (ah me!) stone is laid (alas!) 40A man—a knight—the best that ever was. His prowess war, his wisdom state did prove, His kindness kindred, and the world his love; But when she should with her weak feathers soar To court a star, or with her feeble oar Strike such a sea of worth, ride honour's ring, She dares not touch or snaffle, sail, or wing. Only as he which limn'd those tears and sighs Which Iphigenia's death from hearts and eyes Of kindred drew, but o'er her father's brow 50(Telling the world he mourn'd without an how) He drew a veil spake sorrow in excess, So with a —— —— must my muse express Your sacred worth, concluding it to be Too high for any bard, if not, for me. Beside, the world of late has nicknam'd praise, Calls it an elbow-claw and scraping bays. Then pardon, sir, this dearth, and judge the why Is your worth soar'd above Parnasse's eye. Let not your slights or nescio's (though most just) 60Condemn my muse to be enseil'd with dust, Nor let presumption hoist to your embrace. But rather let your honour bate its place And stoop unto my measures, since the name Of patron awes oft times the breath of fame; And by this honour shall you e'er engage The knee, hand, duty, air, and thriving age Of your honour's ever humbly devoted, N. W. Title. S. P. O.] = it may be just desirable to say, Salutem plurimam optat. The object of the wish was, I suppose, the second Lord Lovelace. The better known third, prominent at the Revolution and also a John, was born in the same year with this poem. 6 'teen'd' or 'tined' = 'kindled', as in 'tinder'. The forms 'tened' and 'tind' also exist, and Il Insonio, l. 368, has 're-teined'. 21 'feet', orig. 'fate', seems at first to equal 'foot', i.e. I 'base', 'establish'. But cf. l. 34 and Albino, 3558, which give it the sense of 'metre', 'versify'. 23 my kneÈd quill]—paying homage, as if on bent knee. 32 The verb to 'laze', revived in late nineteenth century as slang, is as old as Robert Greene's Alphonsus. 35 'Pumex' = pumice. Greene used this Latin form as a noun. part] misprinted 'parr' in orig. 47 Orig., 'limb'd', a lax seventeenth-century spelling. 48 'Iphigenia' will scan with the proper pronunciation. But, as all students of literature have always known, though some editors of it seem to have thought it an esoteric discovery, classical names were very loosely accented, not merely by men of whose education we know nothing, like Shakespeare, but by University wits like Spenser and Dryden. 60 enseil'd] Same as 'ensealed', 'stamped', 'marked', or perhaps 'closed up'. 66 age] 'agre' in orig. must be wrong.
To the Reader. Courteous Reader—for to such I write— With native candour view this chequer'd white, Be truly candid to a candidate Whom importunings force to antedate The travails of his quill, and, like a grape Ere ripened, press it. Yet if I escape The censure of these times, this critic age, My muse (like parrots) in a wire cage Shall not do penance; but I'll not promise it, 10'Cause 't doth too much o' th' lips of greatness sit. And 'tis a fault for me to sympathize, I bring no antic mask in strange disguise, No sharp invective, nor no comic mirth Which may to laughter give an easy birth. Though 'tis in use with them that seek to please These humorous times (it being a disease Half epidemical to keep a phrase Or fancy at stave's end; nought merits praise Unless with quibbles every staff does end— 20Conceited jests which unto lightness tend) Though every page swells with ingenuous plots, Yet, cry our carps, the authors are but sots. An elbow-pillow or a motley coat With them are now the chiefest men of note. But I nor am, nor hope that name to gain Of pantomimic: yet did nature deign The optic-glass of humours to descry Each man's rank humour only by the eye, I would have tun'd my muse, that every page 30Might swell with humours suiting to this age; This leaf should talk of love and that of state, This of alarums, that of wonders prate, This of knights errant, of enchantment that, This to the itching ears of novels chat. But ... since my starv'd Fortunes missed that, I have drawn A picture shadowed o'er with double lawn, Lest some quick Lyncist with a piercing eye, Should the young footsteps of a truth espy, Yet something, I confess, was born of late 40Which makes me age it with an ancient date, But let no antic-hunter post to Stow, To trace out truth upon his even snow. Annals are dumb of such and such a lord, Nor of our amorous pair speak half a word, Monastic writs do not Bellama limn, Nor abbey-rolls do teem a line of him, This story has no sires (as 'tis the use) But weak invention and a feeble muse. These are the parents that abortive birth 50Give to this embryon of desired mirth, Which in the author's name does humbly crave A charitable censure or a grave. The purest-bolted flour that is has bran, Venus her naeve, Helen her stain, nor can I think these lines are censure-free, impal'd By th' muses and 'gainst envy's javelins mail'd. Yet where the faults but whisper, use thy pen With the quod non vis of the heathen men; And, if the crimes do in loud echoes speak, 60Thy sponge; but not with lashing satires break That sacred bond of friendship, for 't may be I may hereafter do as much for thee. Nor do thou think to trample on my muse; Nor in thy lofty third-air braves accuse My breast of faintness, or the ballad-whine. For know my heart is full as big as thine, And as pure fire heats my octavo bulk As the grand-folio, or the Reamish hulk, If but oppos'd with envy, but unless 70I truly am what these few words express. Thy ready friend, N. W. 22 'carp' for 'carper' seems to be much rarer than for 'carping'. Cf. In Insonio, 218. 41 Stow] The famous antiquary had been dead long enough (since 1605) to 'become a name'. 55 'impal'd', orig. 'impalde', is clearly 'paled-in', 'palisaded',' fortified'. 64 third-air] = 'third hand', or what? 68 Reamish] 'N. W.'s' Protestantism would naturally have a fling at anything connected with Rheims.
To the right virtuous and equally beautiful, Sra Inconstanza Bellarizza. Fairest, When, by much gazing on those glittering beams Which (if unmask'd) from day's bright henchman streams, The Rascians eyes do gain the curse of years, The loadstone's swarfy hue their tapers clears. When unicorns have gluts or surfeits ta'en By browsing liquorice, they to regain Their stomachs and a cure crash bitter grass. I leave the application: 'tis a glass Wherein the dimmest eye may plainly see 10What's due to me from you, to you from me. But—I'll only tell the world that for your sake, My willing muse this task did undertake At hours of recreation, when a thought Of your choice worth this and this fancy brought. Some to the bar will call the truth hereof, Some wonder why, some pass it by, some scoff. Because, in this full harvest of your sex, I 'mongst such thousands glean your name t'annex Unto, and usher in, these wanton verses, 20Some will be apt to think my pen rehearses Love passions 'twixt yourself and some choice he (The world I know will not suspect 'tis me) And that I age it lest quick eyes should see. But in this thought I'm silent; thoughts are free. Indeed your worth doth just proportion hold With this high worth which of Bellama's told. And well my knowledge can inform my pen To raise a spite in women, love in men. And if the Fates befriend me that my thread 30Outmeasures yours (your worth asleep, not dead, For such worth cannot die) I then will say You equall'd her and was—(but, truth, away). If these dull melancholy, grief, or sleep, From any prone thereto at distance keep; Let unto you their tribute thanks be paid For my invention by your worth was ray'd, My fancy rais'd, enliv'ned, and inspir'd, That my quick muse my agile hand has tir'd, Nay, more, methinks I might unchidden call 40You subject-object of this poem all; And all in this acknowledgement may trim You pros'd this poem but 'twas vers'd by him Who styles himself your servant, N. W. To Sra Inconstanza Bellarizza.] Who she was is a question much less answerable than 'Whose Song the Sirens sang?' 3 seq. 'Unnatural History' was getting past its greatest vogue, and only eight years later Pseudodoxia Epidemica was to deal it blows all the more deadly because not unsympathetic. But it was still popular, and a grand set-off to many poetic 'Rascians'. Whiting is here pilfering from Greene's Pandosto; a passage in the dedication runs, 'The Rascians (right honourable) when by long gazing against the sun, they become half-blind, recover their sights by looking at the black load-stone. Unicorns, being glutted, by browsing on roots of liquorice, sharpen their stomachs with crashing bitter grass'. 4 'swarfy' = swarthy. 7 That 'bitter' would be grateful to others besides unicorns after a surfeit of liquorice may be easily admitted. 'Crash' for 'crush' or 'crunch' in this sense is good. 11 The book is badly printed—in hardly any of my texts have I had to alter more trivial misspellings. Here intelligent 'setting' would of course have made 'But' a separate line or fragment of line. 23 age it] = 'throw it back in date'. 42 Not bad for 'You gave the subject' &c.
The Author's Apology. Some rigid stoic will (I doubt not) shoot A quipping censure at this wanton fruit, And say I better might have us'd my talents Than t' humour ladies and perfumÈd gallants. Know such that pamphlets, writ in metre, measure As much invention, judgement, wit, as pleasure. All learning's not lock'd up in si's and tum's. Roses, pinks, violets, as well as gums, Some native fragour have to equal civet. 10Minerva does not all her treasures rivet Into the screws of obs and sols: but we Are sea-born birds, and as our pedigree Came sailing o'er from Normandy and Troy, So we must have our pretty ermine joy. One part Italian and of French the other; Stout Belgia be her sire, and Spain her mother. So our apparel is so strange and antic That our great grandsires sure would call us frantic. And, should they see us on our knees for blessing, 20They'd skew aside as frighted at our dressing. We pack so many nations up that we Wear Spain in waist, and France below the knee. Thus are our backs affected and indeed Our brains do travail with the selfsame meed. We're Chaldees, Hebrews, Latins, Greeks, and yet But few pure Englishmen are lapped in jet. We scorn our mother language and had rather Say Pater noster twice than once Our Father. This makes our pulpits linsey-woolsey stut 30When buskined stages in stiff satin strut. Nay clowns can say, 'This parson knows enough', But that his language does his knowledge blough. Is it not time to polish then our Welsh When hinds and peasants such invectives belch? Then English bravely study: 'tis no shame For grave divines to win an English fame. I've heard a worthy man, approv'd for learning, Say that in plays and rhymes we may be earning Both wit and knowledge: and that Sidney-prose 40Outmusics Tully, if it 'scape the rose. Then purg'd from gall (ingenuous friends) peruse, And though you chide the author, spare the muse. N. W. The Authors Apology.] 9 'Fragour' for 'fragrance' is rare, and of course wrong—all the more so because it is right for 'crash'. But it had somehow got into Italian before it came thence into English. 11 This wonderful Whitingism is, I suppose, to be interpreted 'screws' ('scrues' in original), 'stamps for minting'; obs and sols, oboli and solidi. 14 ermine] = 'parti-coloured'. 20 'Skew', orig. 'scue', is vivid for the great grand-paternal revulsion. 22 'N. W.' is not likely to have been ignorant of W. S. 24-8 Browne, with a curious self-irony, had not long before said the same thing in Religio Medici. 32 blough] = 'hood-wink', 'muffle', as in Blount. Cf. Albino, l. 309. 40 the nose] The nasus aduncus.
The Author to his Book. Go gall-less infant of my teeming quill. Not yet bedew'd in Syracusa's rill, And like a forward plover gadd'st abroad, Ere shell-free or before full age has strow'd On thy smooth back a coat of feathers, To arm thee 'gainst the force of weathers, Doom'd to the censure of all ages, Ere mail'd against the youngest rages. Perchance some nobles will thee view. 10Smile at thee, on thee, like thee new, But when white age has wrinkled thee, Will slight thy measures, laugh at me. At first view called pretty, And perchance styled witty, By some ladies, until thou Wearest furrows on thy brow. Some plumed gallants may Unclasp thy leaves and say, Th'art mirthful, but ere long 20Give place unto a song. Some courteous scholar, Purg'd from all choler, May like, but at last, Say thou spoil'st his taste. First, lawyers will Commend thy skill, Last, throw thy wit With Trinit's writ. Chamber-she's 30On their knee will thee praise, and thy bays. At first, till thirst of new death you, then all men shall Flee 40 thee Bee me. This is thy doom, I by prophetic spirit Presage will be the guerdon of my merit: Yet be no burr, no trencher-fly, nor hound, To fawn on them whose tongues thy measures wound. Nor beg those niggards' eyes, who grudge to see A watch unwinded in perusing thee. And if state-scratchers do condemn thy jests, 50For ruffling satins, and bespangled vests, Tell them they're cozen'd and in vain they puff, Thou neither aim'st at half-ell band or ruff: And if thy lines perchance some ermines gash, 'Tis not thy fault, 'twas no intended lash. Thy pencil limns Don Fuco's portraiture, And only dost his native worth immure Within these tilic rinds: nor is thy rage Against the Cowlists of this youngest age. Thy rhymes cry Pax to all, nor dost thou scatter 60Abuses on their shrines, their saints, or water, And if some civil satire lash thee back, Because he reads my title, sees my black, Answer i' th' poet's phrase, and tell them more, My tale of years had scarce outsummed a score When my young fancy these light measures meant The press: but Fate since cancell'd that intent. Nor claim'd the Church as then a greater part In me than others, bate my title Art— But now the scene is changed? confess'd it is. 70Must we abjure all youth, born, bury this? Such closet death's desertless, in this glass Read not what now I am but then I was: In this reflection may the gravest see How true we suit—I this, and this with me. These thorns pick'd out whose venom might have bred A gangrene in thy reader, struck thee dead. Thou mayst perhaps invited be to court, And have a brace of smiles t' approve thy sport. Those whose grave wisdoms wise do them entitle 80(Whose learned nods loud ignorance can stifle), Some of time's numbers on thy lines will scatter, If not call'd from thee by some higher matter. Laugh out a rubber, like, and say 'tis good For pleasure, youth, and leisure, wholesome food. Some jigging silk-canary, newly bloomed, When he is crispÈd, bathÈd, oiled, perfumed (Which till the second chime will scarce be done), Upon thy feet will make his crystals run, Commend the author, vow him service ever, 90But from such things his genius him deliver! Some sleekÈd Nymphs of country, city, court Will, next their dogs and monkeys, like thy sport: Smile, and admire, and, wearied, will (perhaps) Lay thee to sleep encurtained in their laps. Oh, happy thou! who would not wish to be (To gain such dainty lodging) such, or thee? Say, to please them, the poet undertook To make thee, from a sheet, thrive to a book, And if he has to beauty giv'n a gem, 100He challengeth a deck of thanks from them: And if some winning creature smile on thee She shall his L. and his Bellama be. Betwixt eleven and one some pro and con Will snatch a fancy from thee and put on A glove or ring of thine to court his lass, 'Twixt term and term when they are turn'd to grass. Some Titius will lay by his wax and books, And nim a phrase to bait his amorous hooks. But stay, I shall be chid, methinks I hear 110A censure spread its wings to reach my ear, Tell me I am conceited: then no more, Go take thy chance, I turn thee out o' th' door. Mart. ad lib. suum. Epig. 4 Aetherias lascive cupis volitare per auras, I, fuge, sed poteras tutior esse domi. Mart. lib. 4. Si vis auribus Aulicis probari, Exhortor moneoque te, libelle, Ut docto placeas Apollinari. Nam si pectore te tenebit ore, Nec ronchos metues maligniorum. Nec scombris tunicas dabis molestas. Et cum carmina floridis Camoenis, Litesque gloriam canas poetum Non est pollicem capitis veraris. The Author to his Book.] Most of this wedge-shaped address is clear enough. But the reader must fit his own sense to 'Bee me' (ll. 41-2). Whiting's fantastic wit was quite Habakkukian in its possibilities. 53 'ermines' here = 'peers or other persons of distinction'. 57 'tilic[k]' = 'linden', from the use of lime-tree bark for paper. 58 Cowlists] Nothing to do (as I at first thought) with Cowley's early vogue, but one of Whiting's coinages, and frequently repeated infra, for 'monk'. Cf. l. 1945. 79-80 entitle—stifle] One of those assonances which we have seen frequently in Marmion, and which were among the rather too numerous licences of mid-seventeenth century prosody. 88 'crystals' = eyes. 100 deck] = 'pack' as with cards. 102 Whether 'L.' stands merely for 'Love', or whether the 'Signora Inconstanza' &c. bore the initial, or what else it means, one cannot say. Let us hope that Whiting's 'L.' wore better than Sterne's. Mart. Lib. 4] This epigram, the 86th of the Book, is partly compressed, and the three final lines are different from those of the usual texts, which run: Si damnaverit, ad salariorum Curras scrinia protinus licebit, Inversa pueris arande charta. But I suppose Whiting did not choose to use evil words.
To his loving friend the Author. To laud thy muse, or thee to crown with praise, Is but to light my tapers to the rays Of gold-locked Phoebus: since the scheme Of fabled truth, thy waking seeming dream, Thy ever-living-loving fame in arts— Of arts, to us in whole and part imparts. In arts, thy judgement, phrase, invention, Of arts, thy poet's vindication. In mourning elegies I admired thy skill, 10In mirthful lays we now admire thy quill. Let Albine, Bellame, by thee live in fame; Riv'lezzo, Beldame Pazza, live in shame. Lash on and slash the vice of shavÈd crowns In thy Bardino, nuns, and sylvan clowns. Give virtue beauty, beauty desert and praise, And that thy monument of brass shall raise. To his Loving Friend.] This anonymous commendator has dropped (hardly by intention) a foot in his third line.
To the Reader. Reader take heed, complain not of the sting, Lest others of thy galled sores do sing. No faulty person, party, here is meant, Only the vice o' th' age and place is shent. He that expounds it of himself doth show Some guilty fault or vice from him doth flow. If touch'd to th' quick, conceal and them amend, So 'gainst thee shall all scourging satires end. William Purifey, Rector Ecclesiae de Markefield. To the Reader.] 'William Purifey' at this date has an uncomfortable resemblance to William Purefoy (1580-1659) the regicide, who escaped meet guerdon by dying just before the Restoration. But he was a layman and a Member of Parliament.
To his loving kinsman the Author. When first I view'd the travails of thy quill, I lik'd, approv'd, admir'd thy nimble skill In sudden raptures, fancies, judgement, phrase, Invention, quickness, life, detraction, praise— So that I favour'd their conceit which feign'd The soul to be an harmony, and reign'd Amongst the senses with accounts and measures, All which thy lofty poesy entreasures, That quaintest warblers cannot with delight Outworth the poet in his lyric height. As those which with quick eyes where judgement sits, Thy vindication of poetic wits Do read, may see, whose swelling metres teach All aliens such high English that to reach Is harder than to like or belch forth scandals. Witness thy journey, Somnus, Morpheus, sandals, The orbs, gods, muses, critics, accusation, The poet's names, employments, vindication, These silencÈd my pen, it dared no more; Till, voic'd by thy Bellame again, her store Of suitors, one approv'd by friends, not her: Rivelezzo's wrath (wherein most parents err), Her grief, encloist'ring, entertainment high, Albino's heart and hers met in their eye, Their whisp'ring dalliance, Piazzella's care, Bardino's falsehood, their affections rare, Her disencloist'ring, and his nunning plot, The nuns' thick bellies, his repentant grot. His freedom, flight, encount'ring with his saint, His conjuration, prodigies, and plaint, The shepherd lout, Bellama's second quest, His ghosting, coming from th' Elysian rest, Their parles, his dis-enghosting, her denials, His rage, her kindness, both their loves and trials, Conrad's immuring, Piazzella's fury, His freedom, Foppo and his monkish jury, The lovers' ale-house cheer, bed, coarse apparel, The monks' strict quest, their finding, mirth, and quarrel, Their scape, fear, raddle, kinsman, and at length Their nuptial tede, when malice lost its strength. How thou hast shown (dear coz) thy art in arts, Let them express who brag of abler parts Than I, which have a bigger part in thee, Thy love, and blood, till being cease to be. John Whiting, Master of Arts, Clare Hall, Camb. Amico suo carissimo N. W. huius Poematis authori
Collegii Reg[i]nalis Canta. in artibus magistro. Pan petat Arcadiam: Druides effundite cantus, Et iuvenes flores spargite, Bardus adest. Tu qui struxisti memoranda trophaea poesi, Dicere multa tibi nescio, nolo nihil. Vota, preces, calamus, cor, carmen, singula, laudes Ultro perdignas, concelebrare student. An decus, ingenium, tua laus, tua facta, peribunt? Dignum laude virum musa perire vetat. Corpore defuncto te candida musa sequetur 10Admiratur opus, primitiasque tuas. Fata, precor, faustae plectant tua stamina vitae Ut scribas opera plurima digna tua. Jacobus Bernard sacrosanctae & individuae Trinitatis Collegii in artibus magister. In Authorem, amicissimum suum, Encomiasticon. The privilege that pen and paper find 'Mongst men falls short, reflecting to the mind. Virtue herself no other worth displays Than cank'red censure leaves behind, as rays. But mental cabonets are they that yield No forfeiture to batt'ring critics' shield. If thoughts might character deserts, I dare Challenge my pencil for the largest share. But when the vultures of our age must gnaw, 10I'll cease for modesty, and say, 'tis law. It's safer far to fail of debt than t' be Soaring in terms that badge of flattery. I hate the name, and therefore freely give My verdict thus as may have power to live 'Gainst calumny. If wit and learning may Pass with applause, the author hath the day. Crown'd be those brows with everlasting bays, Whose worth a pattern is to future days. 'Tis not a poem dropp'd from strength of grape. 20That's debtor to the wine's inspiring sap, He to himself alone. Cease urging, earth, The father well deserve[s] so fair a birth. And, if a witness may be lawful, then I'll undertake 't shall fear no vote of men. But wherein Art is bold itself to glory Is that which crowns the verge of Whiting's story. In Authorem.] 5 cabonets] Sic in orig. It is a possible form of 'cabinets' (for we have 'cabon'), but in which particular sense of that word the reader must judge. That of a 'locked up', 'jealously guarded' receptacle might do. 22 'Deserve' in orig. John Rosse, though less eccentric in phrase, is rather more obscure in sense than even his amicissimus.
To his Friend, a Panegyric upon his lovers, Albino and Bellama. Though I have vow'd a silence, and as yet ResolvÈd not to travel out in jet, Chiefly in print, yet your intending press Makes me my thoughts with courage, language, dress. With smooth-strain'd metre, that the world may know My strict engagements, and how much I owe To you your worth, which may command a line From him which swears 'gainst all but what's divine. The highness of your style, the quickness, life, 10Will in judicious readers raise a strife, (More than the ball amongst th' engoddess'd three) Which gains the best, but all are best by me, Matchless in my conceit: add then to these The neatness of your plots, and swear a please To the grim stoic and the satir'd brow Forceth delight, through strictness, neatness, vow, Grow abler still in fancy, imp thy quill, Write anything, if something, fear not ill, If poesy be thus revenged by thy dream, 20How will it flourish when 'ts thy morning theme? Sleeping or waking, let us have thy quill, And sleep and vigils shall admire thy skill. To his Friend.] The extraordinary badness of the orthography in the original may be judged from its form for panegyric—'Panagericke', which is, of course, mere ignorant setting from dictation, with no 'reading' to correct. 11 Does 'engoddessed' occur elsewhere? If not, I think I. Pickering should score for it, though it does not apply very well to three actual goddesses.]
Imprimatur.
Sa. Baker.
June 22, 1637. Imprimatur.] Samuel Baker, Fellow of Christ's, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and Canon of Windsor and Canterbury, who was deprived of his preferments in the Rebellion, and seems not to have lived quite long enough to recover them. The reverse of the imprimatur leaf bears, in Professor Firth's copy, the inscription 'Rot Tebbutt His Book 1779'—a date at which the Carolines were not usually appreciated, though their turn was coming.
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