SIR,
Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men.
These vertues now are banisht out of towne,
Our Civill Wars have lost the civicke crowne.
He highest builds, who with most art destroys,
And against others fame his owne employs.
I see the envious caterpillar sit
On the faire blossome of each growing wit.
The ayre's already tainted with the swarms
Of insects, which against you rise in arms.
Word-peckers, paper-rats, book-scorpions,
Of wit corrupted the unfashion'd sons.
The barbed censurers begin to looke
Like the grim Consistory on thy booke;
And on each line cast a reforming eye
Severer then the yong presbytery.
Till, when in vaine they have thee all perus'd,
You shall for being faultlesse be accus'd.
Some reading your LUCASTA will alledge
You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest.
And one, the loveliest that was yet e're seen,
Thinking that I too of the rout had been,
Mine eyes invaded with a female spight
(She knew what pain 't would be to lose that sight).
O no, mistake not, I reply'd: for I
In your defence, or in his cause, would dy.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or mine aid doth clime.
Him valianst men and fairest nymphs approve,
His booke in them finds judgement, with you, love.
Andr. Marvell
TO COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON THE PUBLISHING OF HIS INGENIOUS POEMS.
If the desire of glory speak a mind
More nobly operative and more refin'd,
What vast soule moves thee, or what hero's spirit
(Kept in'ts traduction pure) dost thou inherit,
That, not contented with one single fame,
Dost to a double glory spread thy name,
And on thy happy temples safely set
Both th' Delphick wreath and civic coronet?
Was't not enough for us to know how far
Thou couldst in season suffer, act and dare
But we must also witnesse, with what height
And what Ionick sweetnesse thou canst write,
And melt those eager passions, that are
Stubborn enough t' enrage the god of war
Into a noble love, which may expire<9.1>
In an illustrious pyramid of fire;
Which, having gained his due station, may
Fix there, and everlasting flames display.
This is the braver path: time soone can smother
The dear-bought spoils and tropheis of the other.
How many fiery heroes have there been,
Whose triumphs were as soone forgot as seen?
Because they wanted some diviner one
To rescue <thee> from night, and make <thee> known.
Such art thou to thy selfe. While others dream
Strong flatt'ries on a fain'd or borrow'd theam,
Thou shalt remaine in thine owne lustre bright,
And adde unto 't LUCASTA'S chaster light.
For none so fit to sing great things as he,
That can act o're all lights of poetry.
Thus had Achilles his owne gests design'd,
He had his genius Homer far outshin'd.
Jo. Hall.<<9.2>>
<9.1> Original has ASPIRE.
<9.2> The precocious author of HORAE VACIVAE, 1646, and
of a volume of poems which was printed in the same year.
In the LUCASTA are some complimentary lines by Lovelace
on Hall's translation of the commentary of Hierocles on
the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1657.
TO THE HONORABLE, VALIANT, AND INGENIOUS COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS EXQUISITE POEMS.
Poets and painters have some near relation,
Compar'd with fancy and imagination;
The one paints shadowed persons (in pure kind),
The other paints the pictures of the mind
In purer verse. And as rare Zeuxes fame
Shin'd, till Apelles art eclips'd the same
By a more exquisite and curious line
In Zeuxeses (with pensill far more fine),
So have our modern poets late done well,
Till thine appear'd (which scarce have paralel).
They like to Zeuxes grapes beguile the sense,
But thine do ravish the intelligence,
Like the rare banquet of Apelles, drawn,
And covered over with most curious lawn.
Thus if thy careles draughts are cal'd the best,
What would thy lines have beene, had'st thou profest
That faculty (infus'd) of poetry,
Which adds such honour unto thy chivalry?
Doubtles thy verse had all as far transcended
As Sydneyes Prose, who Poets once defended.
For when I read thy much renowned pen,
My fancy there finds out another Ben
In thy brave language, judgement, wit, and art,
Of every piece of thine, in every part:
Where thy seraphique Sydneyan fire is raised high
In valour, vertue, love, and loyalty.
Virgil was styl'd the loftiest of all,
Ovid the smoothest and most naturall;
Martiall concise and witty, quaint and pure,
Iuvenall grave and learned, though obscure.
But all these rare ones which I heere reherse,
Do live againe in Thee, and in thy Verse:
Although not in the language of their time,
Yet in a speech as copious and sublime.
The rare Apelles in thy picture wee
Perceive, and in thy soule Apollo see.
Wel may each Grace and Muse then crown thy praise
With Mars his banner and Minerva's bayes.
Fra. Lenton.<10.1>
<10.1> The author of the YOUNG GALLANT'S WHIRLIGIGG, 1629,
and other poetical works. Singer does not give these lines.
In the WHIRLIGIG there is a curious picture of a young gallant
of the time of Charles I., to which Lovelace might have sat,
had he been old enough at the time. But Lenton had no want
of sitters for his portrait.
TO HIS HONOURED AND INGENIOUS FRIEND, COLONEL RICHARD LOVELACE,
ON HIS "LUCASTA."
Chast as Creation meant us, and more bright
Then the first day in 's uneclipsed light,
Is thy LUCASTA; and thou offerest heere
Lines to her name as undefil'd and cleere;
Such as the first indeed more happy dayes
(When vertue, wit, and learning wore the bayes
Now vice assumes) would to her memory give:
A Vestall flame that should for ever live,
Plac't in a christal temple, rear'd to be
The Embleme of her thoughts integrity;
And on the porch thy name insculpt, my friend,
Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.
The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.
Tho. Rawlins.<11.1>
<11.1> A well known dramatist and poet. These lines are not
in Singer's reprint.