  Title: Lucasta Author: Richard Lovelace Language: English Produced by Gary R. Young. LUCASTA.By Richard Lovelace TO WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ., OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, A REGISTRAR OF THE COURT OF BANKRUPTCY IN LONDON,This Little Volume IS INSCRIBED AS A SLIGHT TESTIMONY OF THE GREATEST RESPECT, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE SON, THE EDITOR.CONTENTS.PART I. PAGE I. Poems Addressed or Relating To Lucasta. Song. To Lucasta. Going beyond the Seas 25 II. Poems Addressed to Ellinda. To Ellinda, that lately I have not written 74 III. Miscellaneous Poems To Chloe, courting her for his Friend 81 <This is approximately the original location of footnote <TOC.1>. This footnote has been moved to a position after the poem 'La Bella Bona Roba.'> IV. Commendatory and Other Verses, prefixed to An Elegie. Princesse Katherine Borne, Christened, Buried PART II.I. Poems Addressed or Relating to Lucasta. Dedication 155 II. Miscellaneous Poems. Song. Strive not, &c. 170 III. Commendatory Verses, prefixed to Various To My Dear Friend, Mr. E[ldred] R[evett] on his Poems moral Translations 253 Elegies on the Death of the Author 279 INTRODUCTION.There is scarcely an UN-DRAMATIC writer of the Seventeenth Century, whose poems exhibit so many and such gross corruptions as those of the author of LUCASTA. In the present edition, which is the first attempt to present the productions of a celebrated and elegant poet to the admirers of this class of literature in a readable shape, both the text and the pointing have been amended throughout, the original reading being always given in the footnotes; but some passages still remain, which I have not succeeded in elucidating to my satisfaction, and one or two which have defied all my attempts at emendation, though, as they stand, they are unquestionably nonsense. It is proper to mention that several rather bold corrections have been hazarded in the course of the volume; but where this has been done, the deviation from the original has invariably been pointed out in the notes. On the title-page of the copy of LUCASTA, 1649, preserved among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, the original possessor has, according to his usual practice, marked the date of purchase, viz., June 21; perhaps, and indeed probably, that was also the date of publication. A copy of LUCASTA, 1649, occasionally appears in catalogues, purporting to have belonged to Anne, Lady Lovelace; but the autograph which it contains was taken from a copy of Massinger's BONDMAN (edit. 1638, 4to.), which her Ladyship once owned. This copy of Lovelace's LUCASTA is bound up with the copy of the POSTHUME POEMS, once in the possession of Benjamin Rudyerd, Esq., grandson and heir of the distinguished Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, as appears also from his autograph on the title.<1.1> In the original edition of the two parts of LUCASTA, 1649-59, the arrangement of the poems appears, like that of the text, to have been left to chance, and the result has been a total absence of method. I have therefore felt it part of my duty to systematise the contents of the volume, and, so far as it lay in my power, to place the various pieces of which it consisted in their proper order; all the odes, sonnets, &c. addressed or referring to the lady who is concealed under the names of LUCASTA and AMARANTHA have now been, for the first time, brought together; and the copies of commendatory and gratulatory verses, with one exception prefixed by Lovelace to various publications by friends during his life-time, either prior to the appearance of the first part of his own poems in 1649, or between that date and the issue of his Remains ten years later, have been placed by themselves, as an act of justice to the writer, of whose style and genius they are, as is generally the case with all compositions of the kind, by no means favourable specimens. The translations from Catullus, Ausonius, &c. have been left as they stood; they are, for the most part, destitute of merit; but as they were inserted by the Poet's brother, when he edited the posthumous volume, I did not think it right to disturb them, and they have been retained in their full integrity. Lovelace's LUCASTA was included by the late S. W. Singer, Esq., in his series of "Early English Poets;" but that gentleman, besides striking out certain passages, which he, somewhat unaccountably and inconsistently, regarded as indelicate, omitted a good deal of preliminary matter in the form of commendatory verses which, though possibly of small worth, were necessary to render the book complete; it is possible, that Mr. Singer made use of a copy of LUCASTA which was deficient at the commencement. It may not be generally known that, independently of its imperfections in other respects, Mr. Singer's reprint abounds with the grossest blunders. The old orthography has been preserved intact in this edition; but with respect to the employment of capitals, the entirely arbitrary manner in which they are introduced into the book as originally published, has made it necessary to reduce them, as well as the singularly capricious punctuation, to modern rules. At the same time, in those cases where capitals seemed more characteristic or appropriate, they have been retained. It is a singular circumstance, that Mr. Singer (in common with Wood, Bliss, Ellis, Headley, and all other biographers,) overlooked the misprint of ARAMANTHA for AMARANTHA, which the old compositor made, with one or two exceptions, wherever the word occurred. In giving a correct representation of the original title-page, I have been obliged to print ARAMANTHA. In the hope of discovering the exact date of Lovelace's birth and baptism, I communicated with the Rev. A. J. Pearman, incumbent of Bethersden, near Ashford, and that gentleman obligingly examined the registers for me, but no traces of Lovelace's name are to be found. W. C. H.Kensington, August 12, 1863. <1.1> Mr. B. R. was a somewhat diligent collector of books, both English and foreign. On the fly-leaves of his copy of Rosse's MYSTAGOGUS POETICUS, 1648, 8vo., he has written the names of a variety of works, of which he was at the time seemingly in recent possession. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.With the exception of Sir Egerton Brydges, who contributed to the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for 1791-2 a series of articles on the life and writings of the subject of the present memoir, all the biographers of Richard Lovelace have contented themselves with following the account left by Anthony Wood of his short and unhappy career. I do not think that I can do better than commence, at least, by giving word for word the narrative of Wood in his own language, to which I purpose to add such additional particulars in the form of notes or otherwise, as I may be able to supply. But the reader must not expect much that is new: for I regret to say that, after the most careful researches, I have not improved, to any large extent, the state of knowledge respecting this elegant poet and unfortunate man. "Richard Lovelace," writes Wood, "the eldest son of Sir William Lovelace<2.1> of Woollidge in Kent, knight, was born in that country [in 1618], educated in grammar learning in Charterhouse<2.2> School near London, became a gent. commoner of Gloucester Hall in the beginning of the year 1634,<2.3> and in that of his age sixteen, being then accounted the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the female sex. In 1636, when the king and queen were for some days entertained at Oxon, he was, at the request of a great lady belonging to the queen, made to the Archbishop of Canterbury [Laud], then Chancellor of the University, actually created, among other persons of quality, Master of Arts, though but of two years' standing; at which time his conversation being made public, and consequently his ingenuity and generous soul discovered, he became as much admired by the male, as before by the female, sex. After he had left the University, he retired in great splendour to the court, and being taken into the favour of Lord George Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, was by him adopted a soldier, and sent in the quality of an ensign, in the Scotch expedition, an. 1639. Afterwards, in the second expedition, he was commissionated a captain in the same regiment, and in that time wrote a tragedy called THE SOLDIER, but never acted, because the stage was soon after suppressed. After the pacification of Berwick, he retired to his native country, and took possession [of his estate] at Lovelace Place, in the parish of Bethersden,<2.4> at Canterbury, Chart, Halden, &c., worth, at least, <pounds>500 per annum. About which time he [being then on the commission of the peace] was made choice of by the whole body of the county of Kent at an assize, to deliver the Kentish petition<2.5> to the House of Commons, for the restoring the king to his rights, and for settling the government, &c. For which piece of service he was committed [April 30, 1642] to the Gatehouse at Westminster,<2.6> where he made that celebrated song called, STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE, &c. After three or four months' [six or seven weeks'] imprisonment, he had his liberty upon bail of <pounds>40,000 [<pounds>4000?] not to stir out of the lines of communication without a pass from the speaker. During the time of this confinement to London, he lived beyond the income of his estate, either to keep up the credit and reputation of the king's cause by furnishing men with horses and arms, or by relieving ingenious men in want, whether scholars, musicians, soldiers, &c. Also, by furnishing his two brothers, Colonel Franc. Lovelace, and Captain William Lovelace (afterwards slain at Caermarthen)<2.7> with men and money for the king's cause, and his other brother, called Dudley Posthumus Lovelace, with moneys for his maintenance in Holland, to study tactics and fortification in that school of war. After the rendition of Oxford garrison, in 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the French king, was colonel of it, and wounded at Dunkirk;<2.8> and in 1648, returning into England, he, with Dudley Posthumus before mentioned, then a captain under him, were both committed prisoners to Peter House,<2.9> in London, where he framed his poems for the press, entitled, LUCASTA: EPODES, ODES, SONNETS, SONGS, &c., Lond. 1649, Oct. The reason why he gave that title was because, some time before, he had made his amours to a gentlewoman of great beauty and fortune, named Lucy Sacheverell, whom he usually called LUX CASTA; but she, upon a stray report that Lovelace was dead of his wound received at Dunkirk, soon after married.<2.10> He also wrote ARAMANTHA [Amarantha], A PASTORAL, printed with LUCASTA.<2.11> Afterwards a musical composition of two parts was set to part of it by Henry Lawes,<2.12> sometimes servant to king Charles I., in his public and private music. "After the murther of king Charles I. Lovelace was set at liberty, and, having by that time consumed all his estate,<2.13> grew very melancholy (which brought him at length into a consumption), became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged cloaths (whereas when he was in his glory he wore cloth of gold and silver), and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of servants, &c. After his death his brother Dudley, before mentioned, made a collection of his poetical papers, fitted them for the press, and entitled them LUCASTA: POSTHUME POEMS, Lond. 1659,<2.14> Oct., the second part, with his picture before them.<2.15> These are all the things that he hath extant; those that were never published were his tragedy, called THE SOLDIER or SOLDIERS, before mentioned; and his comedy, called THE SCHOLAR,<2.16> which he composed at sixteen years of age, when he came first to Gloucester hall, acted with applause afterwards in Salisbury Court. He died in a very mean lodging in Gunpowder Alley,<2.17> near Shoe Lane,<2.18> and was buried at the west-end of the church of S. Bride, alias Bridget, in London, near to the body of his kinsman Will. Lovelace, of Gray's Inn, Esq., in sixteen hundred fifty and eight,<2.19> having before been accounted by all those that well knew him to have been a person well versed in the Greek<2.20> and Latin<2.21> poets, in music, whether practical or theoretical, instrumental or vocal, and in other things befitting a gentleman. Some of the said persons have also added, in my hearing, that his common discourse was not only significant and witty, but incomparably graceful, which drew respect from all men and women. Many other things I could now say of him, relating either to his most generous mind in his prosperity, or dejected estate in his worst state of poverty, but for brevity's sake I shall now pass them by. At the end of his Posthume Poems are several elegies written on him by eminent poets of that time, wherein you may see his just character." Such is Wood's account; it is to be regretted that that writer did not supply the additional information, which he tantalizes us by saying that he possessed, and could have published, had he not been afraid of being tedious. His love of brevity is, in this case, most provoking. As might be expected, the Journals of Parliament cast additional light on the personal connexion of Lovelace with the Kentish Petition of 1642, which was for the GENERAL redress of existing grievances, not, as the editor of the VERNEY PAPERS seems to have considered, merely for the adjustment of certain points relative to the Militia. Parliamentary literature has not a very strong fascination for the editors of old authors, and the biographers of Lovelace have uniformly overlooked the mine of information which lies in the LORDS' AND COMMONS' JOURNALS. The subject was apparently introduced, for the first time, into Parliament on the 28th March, 1642, when a conference of both Houses took place, respecting "a petition from Kent, which, praying for a Restoration of the Bishops, Liturgy and Common Prayer, and other constitutional measures, was voted seditious and against privilege and the peace of the kingdom;" on the same occasion, Lord Bristol and Mr. Justice Mallett were committed to the Tower for having in their possession a copy of the document. On the 7th April it was ordered by both Houses, that the Kentish Petition should be burned by the hands of the common hangman. On the 28th April, the Commons acquainted the Upper House, by Mr. Oliver Cromwell, "that a great meeting was to be held next day on Blackheath, to back the rejected Kentish Petition."<2.22> Two days later, a strange scene occurred at Westminster. "30 April, 1642. The House being informed that divers gentlemen of the county of Kent were at the door, that desired to present a petition to the House; "They were called in, presented their Petition, and withdrew. "And their Petition was read, and appeared to be the same that was formerly burnt, by order of both Houses, by the hands of the common hangman. Captain LEIGH reports that, being at the Quarter Sessions held at MAIDSTONE, he observed certain passages which he delivered in writing. "Captain Lovelace, who presented the Petition, was called in; and Mr. Speaker was commanded to ask him, from whose hand he had this Petition, and who gave him warrant to present it. "'Mr. GEO. CHUTE delivered him [he replied] the Petition the next day after the Assizes.' "'The gentlemen [he continued], that were assembled at BLACKHEATH, commanded him to deliver it.' "[The Speaker then inquired] whether he knew that the like was burnt by the order of this House, and that some were here questioned for the business. "'He understood a general rumour, that some gentlemen were questioned. "'He had heard a fortnight since, that the like Petition was burned by the hand of the common hangman. "'He knew nothing of the bundle of printed petitions.' "He likewise said, 'that there was a petition at the Quarter "Sir William Boteler was likewise called in, [and] asked when he was at Yorke. "[He] answered, 'On Wednesday last was sevennight, he came from "'He heard of a petition that was never delivered. "'He never heard of any censure of the Parliament. "'He heard that a paper was burnt for being irregularly burnt [?presented]. "'He had heard that the Petition, that went under the name of the Kentish Petition, was burnt by the hands of the common hangman. "'He never heard of any order of either, [or] of both, the Houses concerning [the Petition]. "'He was at Hull on Thursday or Friday was a sevennight: as he came from Yorke, he took Hull in the way. He had heard, that Sir Roger Twisden was questioned for the like Petition. "'He was yesterday at BLACKHEATH.' "Resolved, upon the question, that Captain Lovelace shall be presently Committed prisoner to the Gatehouse. "Resolved, upon the question, that Sir William Boteler shall be presently committed prisoner to the Fleet. "Ordered, that the sergeant shall apprehend them, and carry them in safe custody, and deliver them as prisoners to the several prisons aforesaid." On the 4th May, 1642, the House of Commons ordered Mr. Whittlock and others to prepare a charge against Mr. Lovelace and Sir William Boteler with all expedition; but nothing further is heard of the matter till the 17th June, When Lovelace<2.23> and Boteler petitioned the House separately for their release from custody. Hereupon Sir William was discharged on finding personal bail to the extent of <pounds>10,000, with a surety for <pounds>5000; and in the case of his companion in misfortune it was ordered, on the question, that "he be forthwith bailed upon GOOD security." This "good security," surely, did not reach the sum mentioned by Wood, namely, <pounds>40,000; but it is likely that the author of the ATHENAE is ONLY wrong by a cypher, and that the amount fixed was <pounds>4000, as it has been already suggested. Thus Lovelace's confinement did not exceed seven weeks in duration, and the probability, is that the sole inconvenience, which he subsequently experienced, was the loss of the bail. The description left by Wood and Aubrey of the end of Lovelace can only be reconciled with the fact, that his daughter and heiress conveyed Kingsdown, Hever,<2.24> and a moiety of Chipsted, to the Cokes by marriage with Mr. Henry Coke, by presuming that those manors were entailed; while Lovelace Place, as well perhaps as Bayford and Goodneston, not being similarly secured, were sold to defray the owner's incumbrances. At any rate it is not, upon the whole, very probable that he died in a hovel, in a state of absolute poverty;<2.25> that he received a pound a week (equal to about <pounds>4 of our money) from two friends, Cotton and another, Aubrey himself admits; and we may rest satisfied that, however painful the contrast may have been between the opening and close of that career, the deplorable account given in the ATHENAE, and in the so-called LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, is much exaggerated and overdrawn. It has not hitherto been remarked, that among the Kentish gentry who, from time to time, elected to change the nature of their tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace,<2.26> who, by Act of Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who died in 1576, and who was great-grandfather to the author of LUCASTA. The circumstance that the real property of Thomas Lovelace aforesaid, situated in Kent, was released by Act of Parliament, 2 and 3 Edw. VI. from the operations of gavelkind tenure (assuming, as is most likely to have been the case, that he was of the same stock as the poet, though not an immediate ancestor,) seems to explain the following allusion by Dudley Lovelace in the verses prefixed by him to LUCASTA, 1649:— "Those by the landed have been writ, As well as the subjoined lines by Lovelace in the poem entitled, "Next would I court my LIBERTY, There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly relations with many of them—such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad. In 1643, Henry Glapthorne, a celebrated dramatist and poet of the same age, dedicated to Lovelace his poem of WHITEHALL, printed in that year in a quarto pamphlet, with elegies on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester.<2.27> The pages of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius (or rather probably from a Latin version of the original), and with other<2.28> members of the University.<2.29> Although it is stated by Wood that LUCASTA was prepared for the press by Lovelace himself, on his return from the Continent in 1648, it is impossible to believe that any care was bestowed on the correction of the text, or on the arrangement of the various pieces which compose the volume: nor did his brother Dudley Posthumus, who edited the second part of the book in 1659, perform his task in any degree better. In both instances, the printer seems to have been suffered to do the work in his own way, and very infamously he has done it. To supply all the short-comings of the author and his literary executor at this distance of time, is, unfortunately, out of the power of any editor; but in the present republication I have taken the liberty of rearranging the poems, to a certain extent in the order in which it may be conjectured that they were written; and where Lovelace contributed commendatory verses to other works, either before or after the appearance of the first portion of LUCASTA, the two texts have been collated, and improved readings been occasionally obtained. The few poems, on which the fame of Lovelace may be said to rest, are emanations not only of the stirring period in which he lived, but of the peculiar circumstances into which he was thrown at different epochs of his life. Lovelace had not the melodious and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson). Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but, in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets would not have been ashamed to own. Winstanley was so far right in instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what Herrick would have made of it; it would have furnished the theme for one more invocation to Julia. From Suckling we should have had a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited to the subject. Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his inspiration had evaporated), to pour out his feelings to Lady Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song, "Shall I wasting in Despair," is certainly superior to the SONG TO ALTHEA. Wither was frequently equal to Lovelace in poetical imagery and sentiment, and he far excelled him in versification. The versification of Lovelace is indeed more rugged and unmusical than that of any other writer of the period, and this blemish is so conspicuous throughout LUCASTA, and is noticeable in so many cases, where it might have been avoided with very little trouble, that we are naturally led to the inference that Lovelace, in writing, accepted from indolence or haste, the first word which happened to occur to his mind. Daniel, Drayton, and others were, it is well known, indefatigable revisers of their poems; they "added and altered many times," mostly for the better, occasionally for the worse. We can scarcely picture to ourselves Lovelace blotting a line, though it would have been well for his reputation, if he had blotted many. In the poem of the LOOSE SARABAND (p. 34) there is some resemblance to a piece translated from Meleager in Elton's SPECIMENS OF CLASSIC POETS, i. 411, and entitled by Elton "Playing at Hearts." "Love acts the tennis-player's part, And an address to the Cicada by the same writer, (IBID. i. 415) opens with these lines:— "Oh, shrill-voiced insect that, with dew-drops sweet In the poem called "The Grasshopper" (p. 94), the author speaks of the insect as "Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear, The similarity, in each case, I believe to have been entirely accidental: nor am I disposed to think that Lovelace was under any considerable or direct obligations to the classics. I have taken occasion to remark that Lovelace seems to have helped to furnish a model to Cleveland, who carried to an extraordinary length that fondness for words and figures derived from the alchymist's vocabulary; but as regards the author of LUCASTA himself, it may be asserted that there are few writers whose productions exhibit less of book-lore than his, and even in those places, where he has employed phrases or images similar to some found in Peele, Middleton, Herrick, and others, there is great room to question, whether the circumstance can be treated as amounting to more than a curious coincidence. The Master of Dulwich College has obligingly informed me, that the picture of ALTHEA, as well as that of Lovelace himself, bequeathed by Cartwright the actor to Dulwich College in 1687, bears no clue to date of composition, or to the artist's name, and that it does not assist in the identification of the lady. This is the more vexatious, inasmuch as it seems probable that ALTHEA, whoever she was, became the poet's wife, after LUCASTA'S marriage to another. The CHLOES, &c. mentioned in the following pages were merely more or less intimate acquaintances of Lovelace, like the ELECTRA, PERILLA, CORINNA, &c. of Herrick. But at the same time an obscurity has hitherto hung over some of the persons mentioned under fictitious names in the poems of Lovelace, which a little research and trouble would have easily removed. For instance, no one who reads "Amarantha, a Pastoral," doubts that LUCASTA and AMARANTHA are one and the same person. ALEXIS is Lovelace himself. ELLINDA is a female friend of the poet, who occasionally stayed at her house, and on one occasion (p. 79) had a serious illness there. ELLINDA marries AMYNTOR, under which disguise, I suspect, lurks the well known Maecenas of his time, Endymion Porter. If Porter be AMYNTOR, of course ELLINDA must be the Lady Olivia Porter, his wife. ARIGO (see the poem of AMYNTOR'S GROVE) signifies Porter's friend, Henry Jermyn. It may be as well to add that the LETTICE mentioned at p. 121, was the Lady Lettice Goring, wife of Lovelace's friend, and third daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. This lady died before her husband, to whom she brought no issue. The following lines are prefixed to FONS LACHRYMARUM, &c. by John Quarles, 1648, 8vo., and are subscribed, as will be seen, R. L.; they may be from the pen of Lovelace; but, if so, it is strange that they were not admitted, with other productions of a similar character, into the volume published by the poet himself in 1649, or into that edited by his brother in 1659. TO MY DEAR FRIEND THE AUTHOR. The Son begins to rise, the Father's set: Arms of Lovelace of Bethersden: Gules, on a chief indented argent, three martlets sable. <2.1> Pedigree of the family of Richard Lovelace, the poet. Richard Lovelace, of Queenhithe (temp. Hen. VI.). The above has been partly derived from a communication to the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for Dec. 1791, by Sir Egerton Brydges, who chiefly compiled it from Hasted, compared with Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, 474, where there are a few inaccuracies. It is, of course, a mere skeleton-tree, and furnishes no information as to the collateral branches, the connexion between the houses of Stanley and Lovelace, &c. Sir Egerton Brydges' series of articles on Lovelace in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, with the exception of that from which the foregoing table is taken, does not contain much, if anything, that is new. On the 3rd of May, 1577, Henry Binneman paid "vi<pence> and a copie" to the Stationers' Company for the right to print "the Briefe Course of the Accidents of the Deathe of Mr. Serjeant Lovelace;" and on the 30th of August following, Richard Jones obtained a licence to print "A Short Epitaphe of Serjeant Lovelace." This was the same person who is described in the pedigree as dying in 1576. His death happened, no doubt, like that of Sir Robert Bell and others, at the Oxford Summer assizes for 1576. See Stow's ANNALES, fol. 1154. In 1563, Barnaby Googe the poet dedicated his EGLOGS, EPITAPHES, The following is a list of the members of the Lovelace family who belonged to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn from 1541 to 1646:— Thomas Lovelace, admitted 1541. For these names and dates I am indebted to the courtesy of the Steward of Gray's Inn. Sir William Lovelace, the poet's grandfather who, according to Berry, died in 1629, was a correspondent of Sir Dudley Carleton (see CALENDARS OF STATE PAPERS, DOMESTIC SERIES, 1611-18, pp. 443, 521, 533; Ibid. 1618-23, p. 17). It appears from some Latin lines before the first portion of LUCASTA, that the poet's father served with distinction in Holland, and probably it was this circumstance which led to Lovelace himself turning his attention in a similar direction: for the latter was on service in the Low Countries, perhaps under his father (of whose death we do not know the date, though Hasted intimates that he fell at the Gryll), when his friend Tatham, afterwards the city poet, addressed to him some verses printed in a volume entitled OSTELLA (printed in 1650). <2.2> Mr. A. Keightley, Registrar of the Charterhouse, with his usual kindness, examined for me the books of the institution, in the hope of finding the date of Lovelace's admission, &c., but without success. Mr. Keightley has suggested to me that perhaps Lovelace was not on the foundation, which is of course highly probable, and which, as Mr. Keightley seems to think, may account for the omission of his name from the registers. <2.3> "He was matriculated at Gloucester Hall, June 27, 1634, as "filius Gul. Lovelace de Woolwich in Com. Kant. arm. au. nat. 16.'"—Dr. Bliss, in a note on this passage in his edition of the ATHENAE. <2.4> Bethersden is a parish in the Weald of Kent, eastward of Smarden, near Surrenden. "The manor of Lovelace," says Hasted (HISTORY OF KENT, iii. 239), "is situated at a very small distance SOUTH-WESTWARD from the church [of Bethersden]. It was in early times the property of a family named Grunsted, or Greenstreet, as they were sometimes called; the last of whom, HENRY DE GRUNSTED, a man of eminent repute, as all the records of this county testify, in the reigns of both King Edward II. and III., passed away this manor to KINET, in which name it did not remain long; for WILLIAM KINET, in the 41st year of King Edward III., conveyed it by sale to JOHN LOVELACE, who erected that mansion here, which from hence bore his name in addition, being afterwards styled BETHERSDEN-LOVELACE, from which sprang a race of gentlemen, who, in the military line, acquired great reputation and honour, and by their knowledge in the municipal laws, deserved well of the Commonwealth; from whom descended those of this name seated at BAYFORD in SITTINGBORNE, and at KINGSDOWN in this county, the Lords Lovelace of Hurley, and others of the county of Berks." The same writer, in his HISTORY OF CANTERBURY, has preserved many memorials of the connexion of the Lovelaces from the earliest times with Canterbury and its neighbourhood. William Lovelace, in the reign of Philip and Mary, died possessed of the mansion belonging to the abbey of St. Lawrence, near Canterbury; after the death of his son William, it passed to other hands. In 1621, Lancelot Lovelace, Esq., was Recorder of Canterbury; in 1638, Richard Lovelace, Esq., held that office; and in the year of the Restoration, Richard Lovelace, the poet's brother, was Recorder. In the Public Library at Plymouth, there is a folio MS. (mentioned in Mr. Halliwell's catalogue, 1853), containing "Original Papers of the Molineux and LOVELACE Families." I regret that I have not had an opportunity of inspecting it. Mr. Halliwell does not seem to have examined the volume; at all events, that gentleman does not furnish any particulars as to the nature of the contents, or as to the period to which the papers belong. This information, in the case of a MS. deposited in a provincial library in a remote district, would have been peculiarly valuable. It is possible that the documents refer only to the Lovelaces of Hurley, co. Berks. <2.5> "The Humble Petition of the Gentry, Ministers, and Commonalty, for the county of Kent, agreed upon at the General Assizes for that county." See JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, iv. 675-6-7. The "framers and contrivers" of this petition were Sir Edward Dering, Bart., of Surrenden-Dering; Sir Roger Twysden, the well-known scholar; Sir George Strode, and Mr. Richard Spencer. On the 21st May, 1641, Dering had unsuccessfully attempted to bring in a bill for the ABOLITION of church government by bishops, archbishops, &c., whereas one of the articles of the petition of 1642 (usually known as DERING'S PETITION) was a prayer for the restoration of the Liturgy and the maintenance of the episcopal bench in its integrity. A numerously signed petition had also been addressed to both Houses by the county in 1641, in which the strongest reasons were given for the adoption of Dering's proposed act. From 1641 to 1648, indeed, the Houses were overwhelmed by Kentish petitions of various kinds. This portion of Wood's narrative is confirmed by Marvell's lines prefixed to LUCASTA, 1649:— "And one the Book prohibits, because Kent "Sir William Boteler, of Kent, returning about the beginning of APRIL 1642, from his attendance (being then Gentleman Pentioner) on the king at YORKE, then celebrating St. GEORGE'S feast, was by the earnest solicitation of the Gentry of Kent ingaged to joyn with them in presenting the most honest and famous Petition of theirs to the House of Commons, delivered by Captain RICHARD LOVELACE, for which service the Captain was committed Prisoner to the GATE HOUSE, and SIR WILLIAM BOTELER to the Fleet, from whence, after some weeks close imprisonment, no impeachment in all that time brought in against him [Boteler], many Petitions being delivered and read in the House for his inlargement, he was at last upon bail of <pounds>20,000 [<pounds>15,000] remitted to his house in LONDON, to attend DE DIE IN DIEM the pleasure of the House."—MERCURIUS RUSTICUS, 1646 (edit. 1685, pp. 7, 8). The fact was that, although on the 7th of April, 1642, the Kentish petition in favour of the Liturgy, &c. had been ordered by the House of Commons to be burned by the common hangman (PARLIAMENTS AND COUNCILS OF ENGLAND, 1839, p. 384), Boteler and Lovelace had the temerity, on the 30th of the same month, to come up to London, and present it again to the House. It was this which occasioned their committal. In the VERNEY PAPERS (Camd. Soc. 1845, p. 175) there is the following memorandum:— "Captaine Lovelace committed to the Gatehouse ! Concerning <2.6> "Gatehouse, a prison in Westminster, near the west end of the Abbey, which leads into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street, and the Almonry"—Cunningham's HANDBOOK OF LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. But for a more particular account, see Stow's SURVEY, ed. 1720, ii. lib. 6. "The Gatehouse for a Prison was ordain'd, <2.7> By an inadvertence, I have spoken of THOMAS, instead of WILLIAM, Lovelace having perished at Caermarthen, in a note at p. 125. <i.e. note 52.1> <2.8> It appears from the following copy of verses, printed in Tatham's OSTELLA, 1650, 4to., that Lovelace made a stay in the Netherlands about this time, if indeed he did not serve there with his regiment. UPON MY NOBLE FRIEND RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ., HIS BEING IN HOLLAND. AN INVITATION. Come, Adonis, come again; Wert thou sated with the spoil Phillis, fed with thy delights, Elpine, in whose sager looks All the swains that once did use By thy sweet Althea's voice, <2.9> Peter, or rather PETRE House, in Aldersgate Street, belonged at one time to the antient family by whose name it was known. The third Lord Petre, dying in 1638, left it, with other possessions in and about the city of London, to his son William. (Collins's PEERAGE, by Brydges, vii. 10, 11.) When Lovelace was committed to Peter House, and probably long before (MERCURIUS RUSTICUS, ed. 1685, pp. 76-79), this mansion was used as a house of detention for political prisoners; but in Ward's DIARY (ed. Severn, p. 167), there is the following entry (like almost all Ward's entries, unluckily without date):—"My Lord Peters is an Essex man; hee hath a house in Aldersgate Street, wherein lives the Marquis of Dorchester:" implying that at that period (perhaps about 1660), the premises still belonged to the Petre family, though temporarily let to Lord Dorchester. Another celebrated house in the same street was London House, which continued for some time to be the town residence of the Bishops of London. When it had ceased to be an episcopal abode, it was adapted to the purposes of an ordinary dwelling, and, among the occupants, at a somewhat later period, was Tom Rawlinson, the great book-collector. See Stow, ed. 1720, ii. lib. iii. p. 121. <2.10> How different was the conduct, under similar circumstances, of the lady whom Charles Gerbier commemorates in his ELOGIUM HEROINUM, 1651, p. 127. "Democion, the Athenian virgin," he tells us, "hearing that Leosthenes, to whom she was contracted, was slain in the wars, she killed herself; but before her death she thus reasoned with herself: 'Although my body is untoucht, yet should I fall into the imbraces of another, I should but deceive the second, since I am still married to the former in my heart.'" <2.11> Wood's story about LUCASTA having been a Lucy Sacheverell, "a lady of great beauty and fortune," may reasonably be doubted. Lucasta, whoever she was, seems to have belonged to Kent; the SACHEVERELLS were not a Kentish family. Besides, the corruption of Lucy Sacheverell into Lucasta is not very obvious, and rather violent; and the probability is that the author of the ATHENAE was misled by his informant on this occasion. The plate etched by Lely and engraved by Faithorne, which is found in the second part of LUCASTA, 1659, can scarcely be regarded as a portrait; it was, in all likelihood, a mere fancy sketch, and we are not perhaps far from the truth in our surmise that the artist was nearly, if not quite, as much in the dark as to who Lucasta was, as we are ourselves at the present day. <2.12> This is a mistake on the part of Wood, which (with many others) ought to be corrected in a new edition of the ATHENAE. Lawes did not set to music AMARANTHA, A PASTORAL, nor any portion of it; but he harmonized two stanzas of a little poem to be found at p. 29 of the present volume, and called "To Amarantha; that she would dishevel her Hair." <2.13> Hasted states that soon after the death of Charles I. the manor of Lovelace-Bethersden passed by purchase to Richard Hulse, Esq. <2.14> On the title-page of this portion of LUCASTA, as well as on that which had appeared in 1649, the author is expressly styled RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ.: yet in Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, p. 474, he is, curiously enough, called SIR Richard Lovelace, KNT. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the error is on Berry's side. <2.15> The most pleasing likeness of Lovelace, the only one, indeed, which conveys any just idea to us of the "handsomest man of his time," is the picture at Dulwich, which has been twice copied, in both instances with very indifferent success. One of these copies was made for Harding's BIOGRAPHICAL MIRROR. Bromley (DICTIONARY OF ENGRAVED BRITISH PORTRAITS, 1793, p. 101) correctly names F[rancis] Lovelace, the writer's brother, as the designer of the portrait before the POSTHUME POEMS. <2.16> Winstanley, perhaps, intended some allusion to these two lost dramas from the pen of Lovelace, when he thus characterizes him in his LIVES OF THE POETS, 1687, p. 170:—"I can compare no man," he says, "so like this Colonel LOVELACE as SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, of which latter it is said by one in an epitaph made of him:— 'Nor is it fit that more I should acquaint, As to the comparison, Winstanley must be understood to signify a resemblance between Lovelace and Sydney as men, rather than as writers. Winstanley's extract is from WITS' RECREATIONS, but the text, as he gives it, varies from that printed by the editor of the reprint of that work in 1817. <2.17> Gunpowder Alley still exists, but it is not the Gunpowder Alley which Lovelace knew, having been rebuilt more than once since 1658, It is now a tolerably wide and airy court, without any conspicuous appearance of squalor. There is no tradition, I am sorry to say, respecting Lovelace; all such recollections have long been swept away. When one of the old inhabitants told me (and there are one or two persons who have lived here all their life) that a great poet once resided thereabout, I naturally became eager to catch the name; but it turned out to be Dr. Johnson, not Lovelace, the latter of whom might have been contemporary with Homer for aught they knew to the contrary in Gunpowder Alley. It appears from Decker and Webster's play of WESTWARD HOE, 1607 (Webster's Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. 67), that there was another Gunpowder Alley, near Crutched Friars. <2.18> Hone (EVERY-DAY BOOK, ii. 561, edit. 1827), states, under date of April 28, that "during this month in 1658 the accomplished Colonel Richard Lovelace died IN THE GATEHOUSE AT WESTMINSTER, whither he had been committed," &c. No authority, however, is given for in assertion so wholly at variance with the received view on the subject, and I am afraid that Hone has here fallen into a mistake. <2.19> Aubrey, in what are called his LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, but which are, in fact, merely rough biographical memoranda, states under the head of Lovelace:—"Obiit in a cellar in Long acre, a little before the restauration of his Matie. Mr. Edm. Wyld,<<AN.1>> &c. had made collections for him, and given him money…..Geo. Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet street, carried xx<shillings> to him every Monday morning from Sr….Many and Charles Cotton, Esq. for….moneths, BUT WAS NEVER REPAYD." Aubrey was certainly a contemporary of Lovelace, and Wood seems to have been indebted to him for a good deal of information; but all who are acquainted with Aubrey are probably aware that he took, in many instances, very little trouble to examine for himself, but accepted statements on hearsay. Wood does not, in the case of Lovelace, adopt Aubrey's account, and it is to be observed that, IF the poet died as poor as he is represented by both writers to have died, he would have been buried by the parish, and, dying in Long Acre, the parochial authorities would not have carried him to Fleet Street for sepulture. <<AN.1>> P. xxiv. MR. EDM[UND] WYLD. This gentleman, the friend of Aubrey, Author of the MISCELLANIES, &c., and (?) the son of Sir Edmund Wyld, seems to have furnished the former with a variety of information on matters of current interest. See Thoms' ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS, 1839, p. 99. He is, no doubt, the E. W. Esq., whom Aubrey cites as his authority on one or two occasions, in his REMAINS OF GENTILISM AND JUDAISM. He was evidently a person of the most benevolent character, and Aubrey (LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, ii. 483) pays him a handsome tribute, where he describes him as "a great fautor of ingenious and good men, for meer merit's sake." <2.20> See p. 149, NOTE 3.<i.e. note 63.4> His acquaintance with Hellenic literature possibly extended very little beyond the pages of the ANTHOLOGIA. <2.21> His favourites appear to have been Ausonius and Catullus. <2.22> On the 5th May, 1642, a counter-petition was presented by some Kentish gentlemen to the House of Commons, disclaiming and condemning the former one.—JOURNALS OF THE H. OF C. ii. 558. <2.23> "The humble petition of Richard Lovelace, Esquire, a prisoner in the Gate-house, by a former order of this House."—JOURNALS, ii. 629. <2.24> This property, which was of considerable extent and value, was purchased of the Cheney family, toward the latter part of the reign of Henry VI, by Richard Lovelace, of Queenhithe. <2.25> I do not think that there is any proof, that Gunpowder-alley was, at the time when Lovelace resided there, a particularly poor or mean locality. <2.26> See Lambarde (PERAMBULATION OF KENT, 1570, ed. 1826, p. 533). <2.27> As so little is known of the personal history of Lovelace, the reader may not be displeased to see this Dedication, and it is therefore subjoined:— "To my Noble Friend And Gossip, CAPTAIN RICHARD LOVELACE. <2.28> It has never, so far as I am aware, been suggested that the friend to whom Sir John Suckling addressed his capital ballad:— "I tell thee, Dick, where I have been," may have been Lovelace. It was a very usual practice (then even more so than now) among familiar acquaintances to use the abbreviated Christian name in addressing each other; thus Suckling was JACK; Davenant, WILL; Carew, TOM, &c.; in the preceding generation Marlowe had been KIT; Jonson, BEN; Greene, ROBIN, and so forth; and although there is no positive proof that Lovelace and Suckling were intimate, it is extremely probable that such was the case, more especially as they were not only brother poets, but both country gentlemen belonging to neighbouring counties. Suckling had, besides, some taste and aptitude for military affairs, and could discourse about strategics in a city tavern over a bowl of canary with the author of LUCASTA, notwithstanding that he was a little troubled by nervousness (according to report), when the enemy was too near. <2.29> From Andrew Marvell's lines prefixed to LUCASTA, 1649, it seems that Lovelace and himself were on tolerably good terms, and that when the former presented the Kentish petition, and was imprisoned for so doing, his friends, who exerted themselves to procure his release, suspected Marvell of a share in his disgrace, which Marvell, according to his own account, earnestly disclaimed. See the lines commencing:— "But when the beauteous ladies came to know," &c. |
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