A FRAGMENT OF ONE OF THE LOST QUATERNIONS OF EUPHEME. 58 You worms (my rivals), whiles she was alive How many thousands were there that did strive To have your freedom? For their sakes forbear Unseemly holes in her soft skin to wear; But, if you must (as what worm can abstain?) With your disordered eating, to deface her, her. First, through yon ear-tips see you work a pair Turns into water, may the cold drops take, Enough to ransom many a thousand soul 58 See ante, page 298. From Notes and Queries, 1st. series, III. 367. 59 1 ON THE AUTHOR, WORKS AND TRANSLATOR. Who tracks this author's, or translator's, pen And hath the noblest mark of a good book, For though Spain gave him his first air and Vogue He would be called henceforth The English Rogue, But that he's too well suited, in a cloth Finer than was his Spanish, if my oath Here's all I can supply 59 Prefixed to the Translation of The Spanish Rogue, by James Mabbe, 1623. James Mabbe learned his Spanish by accompanying Sir John Digby when he went as ambassador to Spain. He adopted the quaint name of Don Diego Puede Ser (that is, Don James May-Be), and translated other Spanish books. To your desert, who have done it, friend. And this Fair emulation and as envy is, When you behold me with myself the man That would have done that which you only can. ODE αλληγορική. 60 I. Who saith our times nor have nor can Produce us a black swan ? Behold where one doth swim Whose note and hue 60 These spirited and thoroughly Jonsonian stanzas are prefixed to a Poem published in 1603, with the following title, "PANCHARIS: The First Booke, containing The Preparation of the Love betweene Owen Tudyr, and the Queene, long since intended to her Maiden Majestie; And now dedicated to The Invincible James, Second and greater Monarch of Great Britaine, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, with the Islands adjacent. Printed at London, by V. S. for Clement Knight. 1603." This work, of which only one copy is known to exist (among Burton's books in the Bodleian) was first described in 1865 by Mr. Collier, in his Bibliographical Catalogue, Vol. II. p. 443, and afterwards reprinted in the following year in his "green series," or "Illustrations of our old English Literature." Particular attention was called by him to this Ode of Jonson's, which has, notwithstanding, been overlooked by Mr. Hazlitt. The notices of Scotland are especially interesting, as showing for how many years before he actually visited it the localities of his ancestral land had occupied his mind. His mention of the drinking habits of the Danes, in the same year in which Hamlet was first published, has hitherto escaped Shakespearian commentators.- CUNNINGHAM. Besides the other swans admiring him, A gentler bird than this Did never dint the breast of Tamisis. II. Mark, mark, but when his wing he takes How upward and direct! Whilst pleased Apollo Smiles in his sphere to see the rest affect This swan is only his, And Phoebus' love cause of his blackness is. III. He showed him first the hoof-cleft spring, The clear Dircæan fount Where Pindar swam; The pale Pyrene and the forked Mount: To brooks and broader streams, From Zephyr's rape would close him with his beams. IV. This changed his down, till this, as white As the whole beard in sight, And still is in the breast; That part nor wind, Nor sun could make to vary from the rest, So much doth virtue hate, For style of rareness, to degenerate. V. Be then both rare and good and long Nor let one river boast Thy tunes alone; But prove the air, and sail from coast to coast : Salute old Mône. But first to Cluid stoop low, The vale that bred thee pure as her hills' snow. VI. From thence display thy wing again Over Ierna main To the Engenian dale; There charm the rout With thy soft notes, and hold them within pale That late were out. Music hath power to draw, Where neither force can bend, nor fear can awe. VII. Be proof, the glory of his hand, (Charles Montjoy) whose command Hath been all harmony: And more hath won |