The Lucasta Poems online

following memorandum: -

"Captaine Lovelace committed to the Gatehouse ! Concerning
Sir William Butler committed to the Fleete ! Deering's
! petition."

"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,
When in this land the third king EDWARD reign'd:
Good lodging roomes, and diet it affords,
But I had rather lye at home on boords."
Taylor's PRAISE AND VIRTUE OF A JAYLE AND JAYLERS,
(Works, 1630, ii. 130).

By an inadvertence, I have spoken of THOMAS, instead of
WILLIAM, Lovelace having perished at Caermarthen, in a note
at p. 125.

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;
What distaste could drive thee hence,
Where so much delight did reign,
Sateing ev'n the soul of sense?
And though thou unkind hast prov'd,
Never youth was more belov'd.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.

Wert thou sated with the spoil
Of so many virgin hearts,
And therefore didst change thy soil,
To seek fresh in other parts?
Dangers wait on foreign game;
We have deer more sound and tame.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.

Phillis, fed with thy delights,
In thy absence pines away;
And love, too, hath lost his rites,
Not one lass keeps holiday.
They have changed their mirth for cares,
And do onely sigh thy airs.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For Venus brooks not thy delay.

Elpine, in whose sager looks
Thou wert wont to take delight,
Hath forsook his drink and books,
'Cause he can't enjoy thy sight:
He hath laid his learning by,
'Cause his wit wants company.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For friendship brooks not thy delay.

All the swains that once did use
To converse with Love and thee,
In the language of thy Muse,
Have forgot Love's deity:
They deny to write a line,
And do only talk of thine.
Then, lov'd Adonis, come away,
For friendship brooks not thy delay.

By thy sweet Althea's voice,
We conjure thee to return;
Or we'll rob thee of that choice,
In whose flames each heart would burn:
That inspir'd by her and sack,
Such company we will not lack:
That poets in the age to come,
Shall write of our Elisium.

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.

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.'"

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.

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."

Hasted states that soon after the death of Charles I. the
manor of Lovelace-Bethersden passed by purchase to Richard Hulse,
Esq.

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.

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.

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,
Lest men adore in one
A Scholar, SOULDIER, Lover, and a Saint.'"

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.

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.

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.

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, &c. had made collections for him,
and given him money.....Geo. Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet street,
carried xx 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.

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."

See p. 149, NOTE 3. His acquaintance
with Hellenic literature possibly extended very little beyond
the pages of the ANTHOLOGIA.

His favourites appear to have been Ausonius and Catullus.

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.

"The humble petition of Richard Lovelace, Esquire,
a prisoner in the Gate-house, by a former order of this
House." - JOURNALS, ii. 629.

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.

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.

See Lambarde (PERAMBULATION OF KENT, 1570, ed. 1826,
p. 533).

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.
"Sir,
"I have so long beene in your debt that I am almost desperate
in my selfe of making you paiment, till this fancy by
ravishing from you a new curtesie in its patronage, promised
me it would satisfie part of my former engagements to you.
Wonder not to see it invade you thus on the sudden; gratitude
is aeriall, and, like that element, nimble in its motion and
performance; though I would not have this of mine of a French
disposition, to charge hotly and retreat unfortunately: there
may appeare something in this that may maintaine the field
courageously against Envy, nay come off with honour; if you,
Sir, please to rest satisfied that it marches under your
ensignes, which are the desires of
"Your true honourer,
"Hen. Glapthorne."

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.

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.



ADDITIONAL NOTES.





LUCASTA:

Epodes, Odes, Sonnets,
Songs, &c.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

Aramantha,
a
PASTORALL.

BY
RICHARD LOVELACE,
Esq.


LONDON,
Printed by Tho. Harper, and are to be sold
by Tho. Evvster, at the Gun, in
Ivie Lane. 1649.



THE DEDICATION.

TO THE RIGHT HON. MY LADY ANNE LOVELACE.

To the richest Treasury
That e'er fill'd ambitious eye;
To the faire bright Magazin
Hath impoverisht Love's Queen;
To th' Exchequer of all honour
(All take pensions but from her);
To the taper of the thore
Which the god himselfe but bore;
To the Sea of Chaste Delight;
Let me cast the Drop I write.
And as at Loretto's shrine
Caesar shovels in his mine,
Th' Empres spreads her carkanets,
The lords submit their coronets,
Knights their chased armes hang by,
Maids diamond-ruby fancies tye;
Whilst from the pilgrim she wears
One poore false pearl, but ten true tears:
So among the Orient prize,
(Saphyr-onyx eulogies)
Offer'd up unto your fame,
Take my GARNET-DUBLET name,
And vouchsafe 'midst those rich joyes
(With devotion) these TOYES.
Richard Lovelace.

This lady was the wife of the unfortunate John, second Lord
Lovelace, who suffered so severely for his attachment to the King's
cause, and daughter to the equally unfortunate Thomas, Earl of
Cleveland, who was equally devoted to his sovereign, and whose
estates were ordered by the Parliament to be sold, July 26, 1650.
See PARLIAMENTS AND COUNCILS OF ENGLAND, 1839, p. 507.



VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR.



TO MY BEST BROTHER ON HIS POEMS CALLED "LUCASTA."

Now y' have oblieg'd the age, thy wel known worth
Is to our joy auspiciously brought forth.
Good morrow to thy son, thy first borne flame
Which, as thou gav'st it birth, stamps it a name,
That Fate and a discerning age shall set
The chiefest jewell in her coronet.

Why then needs all this paines, those season'd pens,
That standing lifeguard to a booke (kinde friends),
That with officious care thus guard thy gate,
As if thy Child were illigitimate?
Forgive their freedome, since unto their praise
They write to give, not to dispute thy bayes.

As when some glorious queen, whose pregnant wombe
Brings forth a kingdome with her first-borne Sonne,
Marke but the subjects joyfull hearts and eyes:
Some offer gold, and others sacrifice;
This slayes a lambe, that, not so rich as hee,
Brings but a dove, this but a bended knee;
And though their giftes be various, yet their sence
Speaks only this one thought, Long live the prince.

So, my best brother, if unto your name
I offer up a thin blew-burning flame,
Pardon my love, since none can make thee shine,
Vnlesse they kindle first their torch at thine.
Then as inspir'd, they boldly write, nay that,
Which their amazed lights but twinkl'd at,
And their illustrate thoughts doe voice this right,
Lucasta held their torch; thou gav'st it light.
Francis Lovelace, Col.



AD EUNDEM.

En puer Idalius tremulis circumvolat alis,
Quem prope sedentem castior uret amor.
Lampada sic videas circumvolitare Pyrausta,
Cui contingenti est flamma futura rogus.
Ergo procul fugias, Lector, cui nulla placebunt
Carmina, ni fuerint turpia, spurca, nigra.
Sacrificus Romae lustralem venditat undam:
Castior est illa Castalis unda mihi:
Limpida, et , nulla putredine spissa,
Scilicet ex puro defluit illa jugo.
Ex pura veniunt tam dia poemata mente,
Cui scelus est Veneris vel tetigisse fores.
Thomas Hamersley, Eques Auratus.

Old ed. SIDENTEM.

Old ed. CARTIOR.

See Scheller's LEX. TOT. LAT. voce PYRAUSTA and PYRALIS



ON THE POEMS.

How humble is thy muse (Deare) that can daign
Such servants as my pen to entertaine!
When all the sonnes of wit glory to be
Clad in thy muses gallant livery.
I shall disgrace my master, prove a staine,
And no addition to his honour'd traine;
Though all that read me will presume to swear
I neer read thee: yet if it may appear,
I love the writer and admire the writ,
I my owne want betray, not wrong thy wit.
Did thy worke want a prayse, my barren brain
Could not afford it: my attempt were vaine.
It needs no foyle: All that ere writ before,
Are foyles to thy faire Poems, and no more.
Then to be lodg'd in the same sheets with thine,
May prove disgrace to yours, but grace to mine.
Norris Jephson, Col.



TO MY MUCH LOVED FRIEND, RICHARD LOVELACE Esq.

CARMEN EROTICUM.

Deare Lovelace, I am now about to prove
I cannot write a verse, but can write love.
On such a subject as thy booke I coo'd
Write books much greater, but not half so good.
But as the humble tenant, that does bring
A chicke or egges for's offering,
Is tane into the buttry, and does fox
Equall with him that gave a stalled oxe:
So (since the heart of ev'ry cheerfull giver
Makes pounds no more accepted than a stiver),
Though som thy prayse in rich stiles sing, I may
In stiver-stile write love as well as they.
I write so well that I no criticks feare;
For who'le read mine, when as thy booke's so neer,
Vnlesse thy selfe? then you shall secure mine
From those, and Ile engage my selfe for thine.
They'l do't themselves; this allay you'l take,
I love thy book, and yet not for thy sake.
John Jephson, Col.

TO FOX usually means to intoxicate. To fox oneself
is TO GET DRUNK, and to fox a person is TO MAKE HIM DRUNK.
The word in this sense belongs to the cant vocabulary.
But in the present case, fox merely signifies TO FARE or TO FEAST.

A Dutch penny. It is very likely that this individual
had served with the poet in Holland.

Three members of this family, or at least three persons
of this name, probably related, figure in the history of the
present period, viz., Colonel John Jephson, apparently a military
associate of Lovelace; Norris Jephson, who contributed a copy
of verses to LUCASTA, and to the first folio edition of Beaumont
and Fletcher's plays, 1647; and William Jephson, whose name occurs
among the subscribers to the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, 1643.



TO MY NOBLE AND MOST INGENIOUS FRIEND,
COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS "LUCASTA."

So from the pregnant braine of Jove did rise
Pallas, the queene of wit and beautious eyes,
As faire Lucasta from thy temples flowes,
Temples no lesse ingenious then Joves.
Alike in birth, so shall she be in fame,
And be immortall to preserve thy Name.



ANOTHER, UPON THE POEMS.

Now, when the wars augment our woes and fears,
And the shrill noise of drums oppresse our ears;
Now peace and safety from our shores are fled
To holes and cavernes to secure their head;
Now all the graces from the land are sent,
And the nine Muses suffer banishment;
Whence spring these raptures? whence this heavenly rime,
So calme and even in so harsh a time?
Well might that charmer his faire Caelia crowne,
And that more polish't Tyterus renowne
His Sacarissa, when in groves and bowres
They could repose their limbs on beds of flowrs:
When wit had prayse, and merit had reward,
And every noble spirit did accord
To love the Muses, and their priests to raise,
And interpale their browes with flourishing bayes;
But in a time distracted so to sing,
When peace is hurried hence on rages wing,
When the fresh bayes are from the Temple torne,
And every art and science made a scorne;
Then to raise up, by musicke of thy art,
Our drooping spirits and our grieved hearts;
Then to delight our souls, and to inspire
Our breast with pleasure from thy charming lyre;
Then to divert our sorrowes by thy straines,
Making us quite forget our seven yeers paines
In the past wars, unlesse that Orpheus be
A sharer in thy glory: for when he
Descended downe for his Euridice,
He stroke his lute with like admired art,
And made the damned to forget their smart.
John Pinchbacke, Col

Many poets have celebrated the charms of a CAELIA;
but I apprehend that the writer here intends Carew.

Waller.

Original has IS.

P. 10. JOHN PINCHBACK, COL[ONEL].
Pinchback neither is nor was, I believe, a name of common
occurrence; and it is just possible that the Colonel may be the
very "old Jack Pinchbacke" mentioned by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange,
in his MERRY PASSAGES AND JESTS, of which a selection was given
by Mr. Thoms in his ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS, 1839. L'Estrange,
it is true, describes the Colonel as a "gamester and rufler,
daubed with gold lace;" but this is not incompatible with the
identity between the PINCHBACKE, who figures in LUCASTA, and
OLD JACK, who had perhaps not always been "a gamester and ruffler,"
and whose gold lace had, no doubt, once been in better company than
that which he seems to have frequented, when L'Estrange knew him.
The "daubed gold lace," after all, only corresponds with the
picture, which Lovelace himself may have presented in GUNPOWDER
ALLEY days.




Villiers Harington, L.C.



TO HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS POEMS.

He that doth paint the beauties of your verse,
Must use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equall master to you prove.
My heart is all my eloquence, and that