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Or your allies, you make your books your friends, And study them unto the noblest ends, Searching for knowledge, and to keep your mind The same it was inspired, rich and refined.

These graces, when the rest of ladies view, Not boasted in your life, but practised true, As they are hard for them to make their own, So are they profitable to be known:

For when they find so many meet in one,
It will be shame for them, if they have none.

LORD BACON'S BIRTHDAY.

Hail, happy Genius of this ancient pile! 85
How comes it all things so about thee smile?
The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst
Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst!
Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day
For whose returns, and many, all these pray;
And so do I. This is the sixtieth year
Since Bacon, and thy lord was born, and here
Son to the grave wise Keeper of the Seal,
Fame and foundation of the English weal.
What then his father was, that since is he,
Now with a title more to the degree;
England's High Chancellor: the destined heir
In his soft cradle to his father's chair;
Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,

85 York-House in the Strand, which was Bacon's residence when at the top of his fortune. Here he kept his sixtieth birthday with great splendor in 1620.

Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.
'Tis a brave cause of joy, let it be known,
For 'twere a narrow gladness, kept thine own.
Give me a deep-crowned bowl, that I may sing,
In raising him, the wisdom of my king.86

THE POET TO THE PAINTER.

AN ANSWER. 87

Why, though I seem of a prodigious waist,
I am not so voluminous and vast,

But there are lines, wherewith I might be embraced.

....

86 Nothing is more remarkable in Jonson's character than the steadiness of his friendship. When Jonson wrote this poem, Lord Bacon was in the full tide of prosperity; the year after, misfortune overtook him, and he continued in poverty, neglect, and disgrace till his death, which took place in 1627. Yet the poet did not change his language; nor allow himself to be checked, by the unpopularity of the exChancellor's name, or the dread of displeasing his sovereign and patron, from bearing that generous testimony to his talents and virtues, which is inserted in his Discoveries, and which concludes with these words: "My conceit of Lord Verulam's person was never increased by his place or honor; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever by his work one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength, for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole, in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest." - G.

87 This answer is an acknowledgment of the following unintelligible piece of doggerel, here inserted, with its title, as it is printed in the folio:

'Tis true, as my womb swells, so my back stoops, And the whole lump grows round, deformed, and droops;

But yet the Tun at Heidelberg had hoops.

You were not tied by any painter's law
To square my circle, I confess, but draw
My superficies that was all you saw;

Which if in compass of no art it came
To be described by a monogram,

With one great blot you'd formed me as I am.

But whilst you curious were to have it be
An archetype, for all the world to see,
You made it a brave piece, but not like me.

O, had I now your manner, mastery, might,
Your power of handling, shadow, air, and spright,
How I would draw, and take hold and delight!

A POEM SENT ME BY SIR WILLIAM BURLASE.

THE PAINTER TO THE POET.

To paint thy worth, if rightly I did know it,
And were but painter half like thee, a poet;
Ben, I would show it:

But in this skill, my unskilful pen will tire,
Thou, and thy worth, will still be found far higher;
And I a liar.

Then, what a painter's here! or what an eater
Of great attempts! whenas his skill's no greater,

And he a cheater!

Then, what a poet's here! whom, by confession
Of all with me, to paint without digression

There's no expression.

Put you are he can paint; I can but write:
A poet hath no more but black and white,
Ne knows he flattering colors, nor false light.

Yet when of friendship I would draw the face,
A lettered mind, and a large heart would place
To all posterity; I will write Burlase.

AN

EPIGRAM ΤΟ WILLIAM, EARL OF
88
CASTLE.

NEW

When first, my lord, I saw you back your horse, Provoke his mettle, and command his force

88 William Cavendish, earl, marquis, and afterwards Duke of Newcastle, and husband of the voluminous Duchess of Newcastle, distinguished himself during the Civil Wars by his devotion to the cause of Charles I., the zeal he displayed in raising troops, and the ability with which he conducted the desultory military operations in which he was opposed to the army of the Parliament. The king constituted him general-in-chief over all the forces raised north of the Trent, and in several English counties, empowering him at the same time to confer the honor of knighthood, to coin money, and to issue any declarations he thought expedient; powers which the duke is said to have used with great moderation. In April, 1644, he made a successful movement for the relief of York; but the advantage gained through his skill was thrown away by the rashness of Prince Rupert, who, contrary to his advice, risked the fatal battle of Marston Moor. Seeing that the royal cause was lost, the Duke of Newcastle made his way to Scarborough, and took shipping for Hamburg, from whence he removed to Amsterdam and Paris, and finally to Antwerp, where he spent the remaining years of his exile. He was soon reduced to the last extremity of distress, pawning his clothes for a dinner, while the Parliament were levying enormous sums upon his estates. His losses were

To all the uses of the field and race,
Methought I read the ancient art of Thrace,
And saw a centaur, past those tales of Greece,
So seemed your horse and you both of a piece!
You showed like Perseus upon Pegasus,
Or Castor mounted on his Cyllarus ;

Or what we hear our home-born legend tell,
Of bold Sir Bevis and his Arundel:
Nay, so your seat his beauties did indorse,
As I began to wish myself a horse : 89

estimated at upwards of £ 730,000; for which some compensation was made to him on his return to England at the Restoration, when he was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Ogle and Duke of Newcastle. But he was now too old to take any part in public affairs, and, retiring into the country, he devoted the rest of his life to study. He died in December, 1676, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. As may be gathered from the epigram, the Duke of Newcastle was one of the most skilful horsemen of his time. He also excelled in fencing, an accomplishment which Jonson has likewise celebrated; see post, p. 252. Of his Grace's writings, which are not numerous, and which consist chiefly of a few comedies and occasional poems, the most celebrated is his treatise on the management of horses. This work was originally written in English, translated into French by a Walloon, and first published at Antwerp in 1658, La methode nouvelle de dresser les Chevaux, &c. It was afterwards enlarged by the author, or altogether rewritten, and published in London in 1667, under the title of A New Method and extraordinary Invention to dress Horses, and work them according to Nature; as also to perfect Nature by the Subtlety of Art. — B.

89 An allusion, probably, to a passage in Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poetry, where, speaking of Pugliana's discourse upon horses, he says, "If I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse." — G.

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