Part 11

When I sack’d the Seaven-hill’d Citty I mett the great redd Dragon: I kept him aloofe With the armour of proofe, Though here I have never a rag on. Boldly I preach, &c.

With a fiery sword and targett There fought I with this monster: But the sonnes of pride My zeale deride, And all my deedes misconster. Boldly I preach, &c.

I unhorst the whore of Babel With a launce of inspirations: I made her stinke, And spill her drinck In the cupp of abominations. Boldly I preach, &c.

I have seene two in a vision, With a flying booke betweene them: I have bin in dispaire Five times a yeare, And cur’d by reading Greenham[122]. Boldly I preach, &c.

I observ’d in Perkins Tables[123] The black lines of damnation: Those crooked veines Soe struck in my braines, That I fear’d my reprobation. Boldly I preach, &c.

In the holy tongue of Chanaan I plac’d my chiefest pleasure: Till I prickt my foote With an Hebrew roote, That I bledd beyond all measure. Boldly I preach, &c.

I appear’d before the arch-bishopp, And all the high commission: I gave him noe grace, But told him to his face That he favour’d superstition. Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, Miters, copes, and rotchets: Come heare mee pray nine times a day, And fill your heads with crotchets.

ORATIO DOMINI DOCTORIS CORBET, EX ÆDE CHRISTI, IN FUNUS HENRICI PRINCIPIS.

(Mus. Ashm. No. 1153.)

Quam sit semper vobis facile, et pronum, justo servire, sobriisque lachrimis obtemperare, ipsi mihi vos dixistis modo, qui egregio oratori, et invicto argumento fideliter cessistis, mihi tantum post consumptum humorem, et historiæ, meæ fidem vestram et suspiria præstituri. Si qua autem unquam ageretur causa quæ suis viribus staret, neque patrono aliquo, aut oratore indigeret, hæc ipsa profecto hodierna est, quæ nec adversarium infestum habet, nec facilem auditorem postulat; hæc ipsa est, quæ in omni familia versata, vexata, compressa, ad forum postea, et cœlum provocat, humano generi se dat obviam, et una Britannia nunc orbem replet. Tam multa, variaque unius mors est, ut ubique moriatur; tam frequens dolor ut humanitatem omnem hac ipsa cogitatione imbuat. Nescit enim domestica esse aut paucorum fama, pervia simul et ambitiosa, utrumque simul minatur polum, rumpetque mœnia aut transibit caprificus: ideoque facti repetitione aliqua opus est; ad metus vestros, et necessitates descendite, affectus vestros interrogate, quis desiderii modus aut finis. Dicite tandem utrum timere quicquid possitis, aut amare sine Henrico, sitque ille miseriæ vestræ vera causa, qui felicitati vestræ sola spes emicuit—quare aures ego hodie vestras non appello, sed oculos, neque auditores ut olim neque censores alloquar, sed homines, sed Britannos. Adeste igitur, Anglosissimi Academici, lassi, queruli, mihique per hunc mensem a primo hujus nuncio ruinæ, non tacito sed muto post lachrimas jam deliberatas aspirate, et dolorem illum, quem vel vita nostra vincere non possumus, data quasi opera dolendo leniamus. Exanimat enim possessorem ægrum luctus longus, et prodigus mentem sine sensu vulnerat, et quasi jam humanitas potius aut natura, quæ morbus dici vellet, lachrimarum suarum epulis impleri gaudet, et imperiosa consuetudine satiatur. Quare redeat jam ad se oculus unusquisque vestrûm, animamque in oculos arripiat. Henricum cogitet sive principem sive nostrum et vincet, credo ratio, aut suadebit pietas, ut omnes hodie simus Heracliti sive enim ad majorum sepulchra et imagines, proavosque ejus multum remotissimos revertimur, honor est et crescit acervus, nec sine centum regibus potest prodire, si patremque matremque jam superstites, quod sæpius proferre juvat jam superstites, jam supra cyathum, et cultrum, pyram flammamque jam superstites, et si quid votis nostris precibusque jam litare possumus, sero superstaturos. Hos si repetimus Deus est in utroque parente. Si cunabula respicimus, et Lucinam ejus, quid in illa infantia non debuit esse plus quam mortale, quæ a sponsoribus Belgiis et immortali Elizabetha Christo initiata, et æternitati, pueritiam autem nullam habuit, qui annum ... unum excessit ex ephebis, et tanquam tempus præcipitare mallet, quam expectare, annos non ætate sed virtute æstimat, neque hominem se longævum esse sed virum cupit. In omni actione, rebusque gestis se juvenem præbuit, solum in affectu senem, et suos annos sic explevit, ut nonagenarium esse illum vellet quis libenter agnoscere. Senectutem pariter nec habuit nec exoptavit, neque exhæreditavit eum morbus, sed industriam, vitæque suum patrimonium reliquum aut laboribus vendidit, aut studio decoxit. Diuturnioris spem vitæ ei natura dederat, dare melioris non poterat; indicium prorsus quod illum cæca fortuna non vidisset maximum; mens pariter condidisset optimum, adeone raro succumbit tenuiori, et æternum elementum gloriæ perituræ auræ infeliciter serviet? Adeone virtus qua vivimus minor erit vilissimo illius aeris haustu, quo vivendum est. Atqui redeat in Chaos unde prognatum est, ingratum illud aeris elementum, si malis tantum indulgeat, invideat bonis, si inutili populo spiret, principibus lateat, principibus huic. Ecquis mihi vestrûm hanc Syntaxim imputat, illum ut dicam principibus, qui et multus erat, virtutemque in aliis fractam et remissam, totam sibi suisque imperiis mancipasset; unaque sua anima effecit præstantissima, ut si veteres philosophos interrogamus, infinitum animarum exercitum in hoc uno extitisse crederent? Sed consulite memoriæ vestræ et officio, historiam revocate, narrate Principem; quisquamne melior? quisquamne major? Deo scilicet et cœlo stirpeque sua animoque proximus: non tamen ideo humani oneris, aut terreæ vicinitatis immemor, Deumque immortalem quem metu subditissimo coluit, semper et admiratus est; precibus imperatoriis, et quasi libera servitute quotidie vincit; movet hortatu, docet Salomonis æmulus familiam sensu, populum fama concitat, prælucet ipse omnibus pietate, neque autoritate bonos sed exemplo facit. Irasci aliquando, neque potuit, neque vellet, neque pœna cujusque, sed pœnitentia contentus est, credo itaque ut qui sine felle viveret, sine sanguine imperaret. Neque amabilis magis, et mansuetus quam domesticus et frugalis; servorum nomina, studia, vitæque instituta cognovit, in domo sua mensaque ipse paterfamilias, nimirum ut qui Œcumenicus esse debuit, Œconomicus quandoque esse posset. Studia sua et exercitia corporis, (quam cœli et Decembris patientissimus erat) campestria plerumque et in sole fuerunt.

Gaudet equis, canibusque, et aprici gramine campi,

et quo longius a luxuria, oppidoque decessit, eo proxime accessit famæ et probitati. Rei militaris non tam studiosus, quam peritus fuit, eoque timore simul a transmarinis optimè ... redde Deo populum suum, I, curre per Alpes, Romamque diu personatam et histrionicam aut vero cultu induas, aut falso spolies. Hoc unum restat faciendum, tuisque illud artibus permissum est, et in tua solius sæcula servatum opus. Nec male præsagiebat Roma præstigiatrix illa famelica, quæ longo te jejunio et siti petiit, quæ ferro et igni liberalem dat operam, morti principum plus quam scientiæ et religioni incumbit, et quasi jam virtuti morbus adhæreret, potius quam invidiæ, nullam non pyxidem, herbamque eruit, quo suis exorcismis, et impudicæ nequitiæ superstes non fiat. Tu vero quam facile illudis ... ejus, et crudelem industriam antevertis, ni virtus ipsa pro Jesuita, et febris pro veneno est. His tu remediis hac demum medicina sanaris (H. P.) et dum medicus ... studium, gloria tua, et proprium meritum interficiunt, unus Peleo juveni non sufficit, Henrico sufficeret (ut transeam finitimos) Sabaudia et Hispania ab utraque India timeris, nec audet vexisse tuam Oceanus carinam, atque iisdem non ita pridem ægrotavit Henricus magnus ille Galliæ rex, qui ferro et hostili parricidio transfixus Henricis omnibus mortem propinavit.

Credamus tragicis quicquid de Colchide torva Dicitur et Progne: nam clamat Roma peregi, Confiteor, puerisque meis aconita paravi, Quæ deprensa patent; facinus tamen ipsa peregi. Tune duos unâ sævissima vipera cœnâ? Tune duos?—Septem, septem si forte fuissent[124].

Verum credo nihil horum est (Academici) orationis meæ horribilius est non religionis. Egoque cæsus olim pulvere Novembris, hodie cæcubio, hodie insanio. Nos utinam vani: Totus igitur est in apparatu Henricus noster quem quærimus, jamque aut equo insidet, aut choræis hasta vel gladio dominatur, ipse Hymenæus etiam et nuptias coronat, ovant et triumphant una dulcissima mortalium, pax, Anna et Jacobus, et fervet annis nitentibus fratri Carolus et totus in illos. Invitant, properant, parant Fredericus et Elizabetha, et ver illud perpetuum et poeticum hac solum in regione deprehenditur. Æstate prima Woodstochiam suam cogitat Henricus, et vicinam academiam adventu primo, scholaresque (quos vocat suos) accersit, ut habeat convivas musas, et si placuerit, convictores; juvat et meminisse potestis, qualis ibi tum in scena prodierit, in qua ipse erat pro triumpho, ipse pro spectaculo. Quotus illa nocte adest Henricus?—Quotus princeps, quam magnificus, quam innocens, cui vel esuriens Jesuita potuit ignoscere. O dementiam suavem, gratissimum errorem, et religiosum delirium, in vobis redivivum Principem, Britanni, jubilate Henricum, O beatum impostorem.

Qui istud nec audiunt, nec credunt malum, nos miseros, qui in illa hostium multitudine et via fortunæ viximus, et nescire dolorem non minus sit difficile, quam cognitum extinguere. Quod si vox populi, quæ aliquando Dei esse dicitur, eadem potuisset de morte tua et fama decernere, caruisses hodie lachrimis, et longo nostrorum funeri superfuisses. In te enim non tam morientis fatum, quam pacis, quam reipublicæ situm est; non peris sed destruis, neque mors hæc dat, sed confusio; diluvium est, nec caret prodigio. Oraculum est, nec sine sacerdote aut pontifice potest intelligi. Quam non mortalis eras Henricus, mortalis; adeone nonus esse nunquam potes, et nullus esses, brevis est quia bonus, minorque quia melior.

Nobis interim quod reliquum, quam ut festinetis juvenes, animamque principis fugitivam, per silentium et solitudinem sequamini: ut longitudinem vitamque inimicis posthac exoptetis, sociisque vestris, fratribusque suadeatis, quam sit senectus post fatum principis vilis et ignominiosa. Nos interim viri, qui in longiori ludibrio constituti sumus, consulamus huic vitio, facinusque ætatis lachrimis expiemus; et experiamur modo utrum anima principis excellens, quæ palatio sui corporis clarissimo valedixit, in nostris animis et hisce lachrimarum insulis habitare velit, certemus invicem pietate, et ingenioso luctu contendamus, summus ne dolor feriet non volentem satis, nec viventem minus. Dixi.

IN OBITUM DOMINI THOMÆ BODLEII.

(Ex Libro cui Titulus “Bodleiomnema; seu, Carmina et Orationes in Obitum ejus.” Oxon. 1613. 4to.)

Obrue Bodleium saxis, prosterne colossis, Adde libros oneri, dimidiasque scholas, Aut lacrymis manes lassa, aut ululante papyro, Quæ solet afflictis incubuisse rogis; Non tamen efficies, quin summo in culmine victor Imperet, et molem perforet ille suam; Nam famæ cedunt lapides, et tecta sepulchris Dum memorant dominos hæc monumenta suos.

CORRECTIONS.

Page 36, verse 11, _for_ ken _read_ hen. 50, ” 7, _dele_ a. 80, ” 10, _for_ consider _read_ consider’d. 94, note, _for_ brought _read_ bought. 100, ” _for_ Guynes _read_ Luyne. 119, line 7, _for_ Nescis _read_ Nescio. 137, verses 4 and 5. It should have been observed, that the Prince and Buckingham on their journey wore false beards for disguises, and assumed the names of Jack and Tom Smith. 144. The two first lines of this beautiful poem are here printed as they are found in the editions of 1647 and 1672; but they stand much better in Bishop King’s Poems, page 51, edit. 1657:

Let no profane ignoble foot tread _neer_ This hallow’d peece of earth, _Dorset lies here_.

FOOTNOTES

[1] An EPITAPH on Master VINCENT CORBET.

I have my piety too, which, could It vent itself but as it would, Would say as much as both have done Before me here, the friend and son: For I both lost a friend and father, Of him whose bones this grave doth gather: Dear Vincent Corbet, who so long Had wrestled with diseases strong, That though they did possess each limb, Yet he broke them, ere they could him, With the just canon of his life; A life that knew nor noise nor strife: But was by sweetning so his will, All order and composure still. His mind as pure, and neatly kept As were his nourseries, and swept So of uncleanness or offence, That never came ill odour thence! And add his actions unto these, They were as specious as his trees. ’Tis true, he could not reprehend, His very manners taught t’ amend, They were so even, grave, and holy; No stubbornness so stiff, nor folly To licence ever was so light, As twice to trespass in his sight; His looks would so correct it, when It chid the vice, yet not the men. Much from him, I profess, I won, And more, much more, I should have done, But that I understood him scant: Now I conceive him by my want; And pray, who shall my sorrows read, That they for me their tears will shed: For truly, since he left to be, I feel I’m rather dead than he. Reader, whose life and name did e’er become An epitaph, deserv’d a tomb: Nor wants it here through penury or sloth, Who makes the one, so it be first, makes both.

JONSON’S Underwoods.

[2] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. Parker, 49.—Vincent Corbet left his copyholds in Twickenham and Thistleworth (or Isleworth) to his wife, and legacies to various others. See page 118.

[3] Wood’s Annals of Oxford, vol. ii. p. 312. ed. Gutch, 4to. 1796.

[4] Heylyn’s Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 68. fol. 1668.

[5] See a curious account of the proceedings on this occasion by an eye witness, in Leyland’s Collectanea, vol. ii. 626. ed. Hearne, 1770.

[6] One of the ballads written on this occasion is (through the kindness of my friend John Dovaston, esq.) in a manuscript in my possession, beginning,

To Oxenford our king is gone With all his noble peers.—&c.

[7] Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. 394. 4to. 1778.

[8] A William Lake, who was M. A. and a fellow of Clare Hall in 1619, had also a ring bequeathed him by Ruggles, and might have been the author. See Hawkins’s edition of Ignoramus. Utrum horum mavis accipe.

[9] Biographical Sketches, vol. i. p. 38.

[10] Spencer, whose college disappointments forced him from the University. Milton is reported to have received corporal punishment there. Dryden has left a testimony, in a prologue spoken at Oxford, much against his own University. The incivility, not to give it a harsher appellation, which Gray met with, is well known. That Alma Mater has not remitted her wonted illiberality, is to be fairly presumed from a passage in her late most poetical son, Mr. Mason:

Science there Sat musing; and to those that loved the lore Pointed, with mystic wand, to truths involved In geometric symbols, scorning those Perchance too much, who woo’d the thriftless Muse.

English Garden.

[11] See Lysons’s Environs, vol. ii. p. 148 et seq.

[12] The forwardness of the clergy to publish their labours is thus ludicrously satyrized by Robert Burton: “Had I written divinitie positively, there be so many bookes in that kinde, so many commentators, treatises, pamphlets, sermons, expositions, that whole teams of oxen cannot draw them: and had I beene as forward and ambitious as some others, I might haply have printed a sermon at Paules Crosse, a sermon in Saint Maries Oxon, a sermon in Christ-Church, or a sermon before the Right Honourable, Right Reverend, a sermon before the Right Worshipful, a sermon in Latin, in English, a sermon with a name, without, a sermon, a sermon, &c.”

Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 15. fol. 1632.

[13] Harl. MSS. No. 7000. Cabala, p. 220. fol. 1663.

[14] On the 26th of August.

[15] It occurs, with some variations, in a scarce poetical miscellany called Wit Restored, 8vo. 1658, the use of which, in common with many other volumes of still greater rarity and value, I owe to the liberality of Thomas Hill, esq.

[16] MS. Ashmole, A 37.

[17] Martis, 27 Aug. 1605. “The comedy began between nine and ten, and ended at one; the name of it was Alba, whereof I never saw reason; it was a pastoral, much like one which I have seen in King’s College in Cambridge. In the acting thereof they brought in five or six men almost naked, which were much disliked by the queen and ladies, and also many rustical songes and dances, which made it very tedious, insomuch that if the chancellors of bothe the Universities had not intreated his majesty earnestly, he would have been gone before half the comedy had been ended.” Leyland’s Collectanea, vol. ii. p. 637. edit. 1770.

Mercurii, 28 Aug. 1605. “After supper, about nine of the clock, they began to act the tragedy of Ajax Flagellifer, _wherein the stage varied three times_; they had all goodly antique apparell; but, for all that, it was not so well acted by many degrees as I have seen it in Cambridge. _The king_ was very weary before he came thither, but much more wearied by it, and _spoke many words of dislike_.” Ibid. p. 639.

[18] Although the register of Flore, the residence of Dr. Hutton, was preserved from an early date during the lifetime of Brydges, an early one is not now to be found. That of Christ-Church, Oxford, is not so old as the death of the bishop: his name is not found in that of Twickenham.

[19] Wit Restored, 8vo. 1658.

[20] Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. col. 736.

[21] Harl. Catalogue, 464. fol. 3. He appears to have conceded a portion of the patronage attending his elevation, as in the Museum is “Carta Ricardi Corbet episcopi Norwicensis, qua concedit Georgio Abbot, archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, preximam advocationem, nominationem, præsentationem, liberam dispositionem, et jus patronatus archidiaconatus Norfolciæ, dat. 15 Maii, an. 8 R. Caroli 1.” Harl. MSS. No. 464. Fol. 3.

[22] Strafford State Papers and Dispatches, vol. i. p. 221. folio.

[23] He was author of a curious sermon, printed in 1627, 4to. under the title of “Woe to Drunkards,” which was republished with king James’s Counterblast, and other philippics against _tobacco_ and _coffee_; 4to. 1672. Upon the intrusion of the Book of Sports, Ward told his congregation that “the Church of England was ready to ring changes on religion, and that the Gospel stood on tip-toe ready to be gone.” For these words he was suspended.

[24] Harl. MS. No. 464. fol. 13.

[25] Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 522. fol.

[26] Notwithstanding these harsh measures, which originated with Laud—for, to the praise of our amiable prelate, he had not a grain of persecution in his disposition—“the Walloon company in 1637 having undertaken to repayre and make fit the church of Little St. Maryes to be used for God’s worship by the said congregation, and also to repayre the yard on the northside, had a lease for forty years. Which lease hath been renewed, and now it is the church of the French congregation.” Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. ii. 57. fol. 1739.

[27] Strype’s edition of Stowe’s Survey, book iii. page 151. edit. fol. 1720.

Perhaps his fellow-collegian Cartwright intended an immediate compliment to Corbet in the following lines:

Two sacred things were thought, by judging souls, Beyond the kingdom’s power, Christ-Church and Pauls, Till by a light from heaven shewn the one Did gain his second renovation.

Poems, 188, 8vo. 1651.

[28] Ath. Oxon. vol. i. p. 601. edit. 1721.

[29] Harl. MS. No. 750. Malcolm’s Londinum Redivivum, vol. iii. p. 80. It occurs, also, with some difference, in Mus. Ashm. No. 1153.

[30] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. 97. Sadler.

[31] Gomersall, in an epistle to Barten Holiday. See his poems, p. 7. edit. 1633.

[32] Fuller’s Worthies, page 83. fol. 1662.

[33] Headley, i. 38.

[34] From hence it should seem that the edition 1647 was not published at the time this preface was written.

[35] Robert Gomersall was entered of Christ-Church, Oxford, in 1614, at the age of fourteen, where, in 1621, he proceeded M. A. In 1625 he took refuge from the plague at Flore in Northamptonshire, of which the editor of the Biographia Dramatica erroneously supposed he was rector. He was afterwards vicar of Thorncombe in Devonshire, and died in 1646. His poems, which are rather easy than correct, were published with Lodwick Sforza, a tragedy, in 1633 and 1638, from which the above epistle is transcribed.

[36] Saint Paul’s cathedral was in Corbet’s time the resort of the idle and profligate of all classes: the author, _quisquis ille fuit_, of “A Sixefold Politycian,” 4to. 1609. attributed to _Milton’s father_, describes its frequenters as “superstitious idolaters of St. Paul (and yet they never think of Paul nor any apostle) and many of them have that famous monument in that account as Diogenes had _Jovis porticus_ in Athens; who to them which wondered that he had no house nor corner to eat his meat in, pointing at the gallerie or walking-place that was called Jovis Porticus, said, that the people of Athens had builded that to his use, as a royal mansion for him, wherein he might dine and sup, and take his repast.

“And soe these make Paules like Euclides or Platoes school, as Diogenes accounted it, κατατριβην, a mispending of much good labour and time, and worthily many times meet with Diogenes’ fare, and are faithful and frequent guests of Duke Humphray.” P. 8.

[37] This was not the first censure of sir Christopher Hatton’s extravagant monument; as, according to Stowe, some poet had before complained on the part of Sydney and Walsingham, that

“Philip and Francis have no tomb, For great Christopher takes all the room.”

[38] “Coryate’s Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travels in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands.” 4to. 1611. Re-printed in 3 vols. 8vo. 1776.

[39] Quia valde lutosa est Cantabrigia.

[40] Ludus per spatium 6 horarum infra.

[41] “A bushel of March dust is worth a king’s ransom.”

[42] Coll. Eman. abundat puritanis.

[43] The king entered Cambr. 7 Mar. 1614-5.

[44] Samuel Harsnett, then bp. of Chichester.

[45] Vestis indicat virum.

[46] Nethersoli Cant. orator, qui per speculum seipsum solet ornari.

[47] Orator hoc usus est vocabulo in oratione ad regem.

[48] Actores omnes fuere theologi.

[49] Ludus dicebatur “Ignoramus,” qui durabat per spatium sex horarum.

[50] Idem quod Bocardo apud Oxon.

[51] Insigniss. stultus.

[52] Paulus Tompsonus, qui nuper laesæ majest. reus ob aurum decurtat.

[53] Decorum quia Coll. est puritanorum plenum: scil. Emanuel.

[54] The former is Taylor, the celebrated water-poet: the latter, William Fenner, a puritanical poet and pamphleteer of that period, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Oxford. He was preferred to the rectory of Rochford, in Essex, by the earl of Warwick. He died about 1640.

Archbishop Laud in his annual account to the king 1636, page 37, mentions one Fenner, a principal ringleader of the Separatists, with their conventicles, at and about Ashford in Kent.

[55] See Lodge’s Illustrations of British History, 4to. vol. iii. p. 178; Brydges’s Peers of the Reign of James the First, vol. i.; and Winwood’s Memorials.