It is, to the envious meant

A mere upbraiding grief, and torturing punish

ment.

See now the chapel opens, where the king
And bishop stay to consummate the rites;
The holy prelate prays, then takes the ring,
Asks first, who gives her ?-I, CHARLES-then
he plights

One in the other's hand,
Whilst they both stand

Hearing their charge, and then

The solemn choir cries, Joy! and they return, Amen!

O happy bands! and thou more happy place,
Which to this use wert built and consecrate!
To have thy God to bless, thy king to grace,
And this their chosen bishop celebrate,
And knit the nuptial knot,

Which time shall not,

Or canker'd jealousy,

With all corroding arts, be able to untie!

The chapel empties, and thou mayst be gone Now, sun, and post away the rest of day: These two, now holy church hath made them one, Do long to make themselves so' another way: There is a feast behind,

To them of kind,

Which their glad parents taught

One to the other, long ere these to light were brought.

Haste, haste, officious sun, and send them night Some hours before it should, that these may

know

All that their fathers and their mothers might
Of nuptial sweets, at such a season, owe,
To propagate their names,
And keep their fames

Alive, which else would die;

For fame keeps virtue up, and it posterity.

The ignoble never lived, they were awhile
Like swine, or other cattle here on earth :
Their names are not recorded on the file

Of life, that fall so; Christians know their birth Alone, and such a race,

We pray may grace,

Your fruitful spreading vine,

But dare not ask our wish in language Fescennine.

Yet, as we may, we will,-with chaste desires,
The holy perfumes of the marriage-bed,
Be kept alive, those sweet and sacred fires
Of love between you and your lovely-head!
That when you both are old,

You find no cold

There; but renewed, say,

After the last child born, This is our weddingday.

Till

you behold a race to fill your hall,

A Richard, and a Hierome, by their names Upon a Thomas, or a Francis call;

A Kate, a Frank, to honour their grand-dames, And 'tween their grandsires' thighs,

Like pretty spies,

Peep forth a gem; to see

How each one plays his part, of the large pe

digree!

And never may there want one of the stem,
To be a watchful servant for this state;
But like an arm of eminence 'mongst them,
Extend a reaching virtue early and late!
Whilst the main tree still found
Upright and sound,

By this sun's noonsted's made

So great; his body now alone projects the shade.

They both are slipp'd to bed; shut fast the door,
And let him freely gather love's first-fruits.
He's master of the office; yet no more
Exacts than she is pleased to pay: no suits,
Strifes, murmurs, or delay,

Will last till day;

Night and the sheets will show

The longing couple all that elder lovers know.

XCIII.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF POOR BEN;

TO THE BEST OF MONARCHS, MASTERS, MEN, KING CHARLES.

Doth most humbly show it, To your majesty, your poet:

That whereas your royal father,
JAMES the blessed, pleas'd the rather,
Of his special grace to letters,
To make all the Muses debtors
To his bounty; by extension
Of a free poetic pension,
A large hundred marks annuity,
To be given me in gratuity
For done service, and to come:

And that this so accepted sum,
Or dispens'd in books or bread,
(For with both the muse was fed)
Hath drawn on me from the times,
All the envy of the rhymes,
And the ratling pit-pat noise.
Of the less poetic boys,
When their pot-guns aim to hit,
With their pellets of small wit,
Parts of me they judg'd decay'd;
But we last out still unlay'd.
Please your majesty to make
Of your grace, for goodness sake,

Those your father's marks, your pounds
Let their spite, which now abounds,
Then go on, and do its worst;
This would all their envy burst:
And so warm the poet's tongue,
You'd read a snake in his next song.

XCIV.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LORD TREASURER OF ENGLAND.

AN EPIGRAM.

If to my mind, great lord, I had a state,*
I would present you now with curious plate
Of Noremberg or Turky; hang your rooms,
Not with the Arras, but the Persian looms :

3 Those your father's marks, your pounds.] The petition succeeded; the reader has, annexed to our poet's life, a copy of the warrant creating him poet laureat, with a salary of £100.

per annum.

WHAL.

The warrant is dated March 1630, the Petition must therefore be referred to the beginning of that year.

If to my mind, great Lord, I had a state.] The learned reader may compare this with the 8th ode of the fourth book of Horace, as it seems to be copied from it. Our poet, as we find by some verses wrote by no well-wisher to him, received forty pounds for this Epigram. Let the reader judge which was greatest, the generosity of the treasurer, or the genius and address of Jonson. WHAL.

Whalley has strange notions of copying. Jonson has taken a hint from the opening of the Ode to Censorinus, and that is all.

The verses to which Whalley alludes are in the 4to. and 12mo. editions, 1640, in which this Epigram also appears; in Eliot's Poems, they are thus prefixed.