Part 12
[_An Elegy, &c._ Although this appears neither in _1653_ nor in _1677_, it is included, with some corruptions not worth noting, in some editions both before and after the latter. Gifford ascribed to Cleveland another unsigned Elegy in _Jonsonus Virbius_ and one of the Odes to Ben Jonson on his own Ode to himself, 'Come, quit the loathèd stage'. There is no authority for the ascription in either case, and the styles of both pieces are as unlike as possible to Cleveland's.]
[Line: 2 Orig., by a slip, '_your_ own cause'. Cleveland may have meant to address the poet throughout, or till the last verse; but, if so, he evidently changed his mind.]
News from Newcastle:
Upon the Coal-pits about Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
England 's a perfect world, has Indies too; Correct your maps, Newcastle is Peru! Let th' haughty Spaniard triumph till 'tis told Our sooty min'rals purify his gold. This will sublime and hatch the abortive ore, When the sun tires and stars can do no more. No! mines are current, unrefined, and gross; Coals make the sterling, Nature but the dross. For metals, Bacchus-like, two births approve; Heaven's heat 's the Semele, and ours the Jove. 10 Thus Art doth polish Nature; 'tis her trade: So every madam has her chambermaid. Who'd dote on gold? A thing so strange and odd, 'Tis most contemptible when made a god! All sins and mischiefs thence have rise and swell; One Indies more would make another Hell. Our mines are innocent, nor will the North Tempt poor mortality with too much worth. Th' are not so precious; rich enough to fire A lover, yet make none idolater. 20 The moderate value of our guiltless ore Makes no man atheist, nor no woman whore. Yet why should hallowed Vesta's glowing shrine Deserve more honour than a flaming mine? These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, Than a few embers, for a deity. Had he our pits, the Persian would admire No sun, but warm 's devotion at our fire. He'd leave the trotting Whipster, and prefer This profound Vulcan 'bove that Wagoner. 30 For wants he heat, or light? would he have store Of both? 'Tis here. And what can suns give more? Nay, what 's that sun but, in a different name, A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame? Then let this truth reciprocally run, The sun 's Heaven's coalery, and coals our sun; A sun that scorches not, locked up i' th' deep; The bandog 's chained, the lion is asleep. That tyrant fire, which uncontrolled doth rage, Here 's calm and hushed, like Bajazet i' th' cage. 40 For in each coal-pit there doth couchant dwell A muzzled Etna, or an innocent Hell. Kindle the cloud, you'll lightning then descry; Then will a day break from the gloomy sky; Then you'll unbutton though December blow, And sweat i' th' midst of icicles and snow; The dog-days then at Christmas. Thus is all The year made June and equinoctial. If heat offend, our pits afford us shade, Thus summer 's winter, winter 's summer made. 50 What need we baths, what need we bower or grove? A coal-pit's both a ventiduct and stove. Such pits and caves were palaces of old; Poor inns, God wot, yet in an age of gold; And what would now be thought a strange design, To build a house was then to undermine. People lived under ground, and happy dwellers Whose jovial habitations were all cellars! These primitive times were innocent, for then Man, who turned after fox, but made his den. 60 But see a fleet of rivals trim and fine, To court the rich infanta of our mine; Hundreds of grim Leanders dare confront, For this loved Hero, the loud Hellespont. 'Tis an armado royal doth engage For some new Helen with this equipage; Prepared too, should we their addresses bar, To force their mistress with a ten years' war, But that our mine 's a common good, a joy Made not to ruin but enrich our Troy. 70 Thus went those gallant heroes of old Greece, The Argonauts, in quest o' th' Golden Fleece. But oh! these bring it with 'em and conspire To pawn that idol for our smoke and fire. Silver 's but ballast; this they bring ashore That they may treasure up our better ore. For this they venter rocks and storms, defy All the extremities of sea and sky. For the glad purchase of this precious mould, Cowards dare pirates, misers part with gold. 80 Hence 'tis that when the doubtful ship sets forth The knowing needle still directs it north, And Nature's secret wonder, to attest Our Indies' worth, discards both east and west. For 'tis not only fire commends this spring, A coal-pit is a mine of everything. We sink a jack-of-all-trades shop, and sound An inversed Burse, an Exchange under ground. This Proteus earth converts to what you'd ha' 't: Now you may weave 't to silk, then coin 't to plate, 90 And, what 's a metamorphosis more dear, Dissolve it and 'twill melt to London beer. For whatsoe'er that gaudy city boasts, Each month derives to these attractive coasts. We shall exhaust their chamber and devour Their treasures of Guildhall, the Mint, the Tower. Our staiths their mortgaged streets will soon divide, Blathon owe Cornhill, Stella share Cheapside. Thus will our coal-pits' charity and pity At distance undermine and fire the City. 100 Should we exact, they'd pawn their wives and treat To swap those coolers for our sovereign heat. 'Bove kisses and embraces fire controls; No Venus heightens like a peck of coals. Medea was the drudge of some old sire And Aeson's bath a lusty sea-coal fire. Chimneys are old men's mistresses, their inns, A modern dalliance with their measled shins. To all defects the coal-heap brings a cure, Gives life to age and raiment to the poor. 110 Pride first wore clothes; Nature disdains attire; She made us naked 'cause she gave us fire. Full wharfs are wardrobes, and the tailor's charm Belongs to th' collier; he must keep us warm. The quilted alderman with all 's array Finds but cold comfort on a frosty day; Girt, wrapped, and muffled, yet with all that stir Scarce warm when smoth'red in his drowsy fur; Not proof against keen Winter's batteries Should he himself wear all 's own liveries, 120 But chilblains under silver spurs bewails And in embroid'red buckskins blows his nails. Rich meadows and full crops are elsewhere found: We can reap harvest from our barren ground. The bald parched hills that circumscribe our Tyne Are no less fruitful in their hungry mine. Their unfledged tops so well content our palates, We envy none their nosegays and their sallets. A gay rank soil like a young gallant grows And spends itself that it may wear fine clothes, 130 Whilst all its worth is to its back confined. Our wear 's plain outside, but is richly lined; Winter 's above, 'tis summer underneath, A trusty morglay in a rusty sheath. As precious sables sometimes interlace A wretched serge or grogram cassock case. Rocks own no spring, are pregnant with no showers, Crystals and gems grow there instead of flowers; Instead of roses, beds of rubies sweat And emeralds recompense the violet. 140 Dame Nature not, like other madams, wears, Where she is bare, pearls on her breasts or ears. What though our fields present a naked sight? A paradise should be an adamite. The northern lad his bonny lass throws down And gives her a black bag for a green gown.
[_News from Newcastle_, if not Cleveland's, is infinitely more of a Clevelandism than any other attributed piece, either in the untrustworthy (or rather upside-down-trustworthy) _Cleaveland Revived_ or elsewhere. It first appeared as a quarto pamphlet, 'London. Printed in the year 1651. By William Ellis', and with a headline to the poem 'Upon the Coalpits about Newcastle-upon-Tyne'. This quarto furnishes the only sound text. It was reprinted very corruptly in _Cleaveland Revived_, _1660_, and thence in the editions of _1662_, _1668_, _1687_, and later. A collation of _1660_ is given. Title in _1660_ 'News from Newcastle, Or, Newcastle Coal-pits'. MS. Rawlinson Poet, 65 of the Bodleian has a version agreeing in the main with _1660_.]
[Line: 1 has] hath _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 5 'obortive' _1668_.]
[Line: 7 _1651_, later texts, and _MS._ 'No mines', which has no meaning without a stop or interjection.]
[Line: 8 'nature's' _MS._]
[Line: 10 'Heaven heats' _1660_. The mine is the womb of Semele warmed by the sun: the furnace the thigh of Jove heated by coal.]
[Line: 11 her] the _1660_: its _MS._]
[Line: 12 has] hath _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 15 'sin and mischief hence' _1660_: 'sin and mischief thence' _MS._]
[Line: 16 Indies] India _1660._]
[Line: 17 mines] times _MS._]
[Line: 19 _1660_ 'so': _1651_ 'too', unconsciously repeating the 'too much' of l. 18.]
[Line: 20 none] no _MS._]
[Line: 22 Simply an adaptation of the earlier conclusion--
'Should make men atheists and not women whores'. ]
[Line: 23 Vesta's glowing] Vestals' sacred _1660_. shrine] shine _MS._]
[Line: 29 trotting Whipster] Phoebus, of course.]
[Line: 30 This] Our _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 31 light? would he] light, or would _1660_. store] Misprinted 'more' in _1651_.]
[Line: 32 suns] Sun _MS._]
[Line: 33 that] the _1660_.]
[Line: 34 on flame] or flame _1660_.]
[Line: 36 coalery] Original and pleasing. 'Collier' is used below.]
[Line: 37 scorches] scorcheth _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 38 bandog's] lion's _1660_. lion] bandog _1660_.]
[Line: 42 or] and _MS._]
[Line: 43 the] this _MS._]
[Line: 45 'Un_bottom_,' by evident error, in _1668_.]
[Line: 47 Thus] Then _MS._]
[Line: 49 'offends' _1660_. 'affords' _1660_.]
[Line: 60 but made] made but _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 61 rivals] vitals _1660_.]
[Line: 63 dare] do _1660_.]
[Line: 68 their] this _1660_, _MS._]
[Lines: 71-2 Omitted in _1660_ and all later texts. _1651_ misprints 'Argeuauts'.]
[Line: 73 'em] them _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 75 ashore] on shore _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 76 better] richer _MS._]
[Line: 78 extremities] extremity _1660_.]
[Line: 81 'tis that] is it _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 82 knowing] naving _1660_: knavish _MS._]
[Line: 83 wonder] wonders _1660_.]
[Line: 84 both] with _MS._]
[Line: 85 For 'tis not] For Tyne. Not _1660_ (without the period at l. 84), _MS._]
[Line: 86 of] for _1660_.]
[Line: 87 _1651_ mispunctuates with a comma at 'sink'; _1660_ adds comma at 'jack-of-all-trades' and 'sound': _MS._ punctuates correctly.]
[Line: 88 inversed] inverse _1660_.]
[Line: 89 you'd] you'l _1660_.]
[Line: 90 weave 't] wear't _1660_. then] now _1660_. coin 't] com't _1660_.]
[Line: 91 And] Or _MS._]
[Line: 92 melt] turn _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 93 boasts] boast _1660_.]
[Line: 94 derives] doth drive _1660_, _MS._ these] our _1660_, _MS._ coasts] coast _1660_.]
[Line: 96 treasures] treasure _1660_, _MS._ the Mint, the] and mint o' th' _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 97 staiths] Wooden erections projecting into the river, which were used to store the coal and fitted with spouts for shooting it into the ships. divide] deride _1660_.]
[Line: 98 'Blathon their Cornhill, Stella' _MS_: 'Blazon their Cornhill-stella,' _1660_.] Blathon, now Blaydon, the mining district. 'owe' = own. 'Stella' Hall, near Blaydon, was a nunnery before the Dissolution, when it passed into the hands of the Tempests. (Mr. Nichol Smith kindly supplied this information.)]
[Line: 102 swap] swop _1660_.]
[Line: 105 drudge] drugge _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 109 the] a _1659_. brings] gives _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 110 life] youth _1660_.]
[Line: 113 tailor's] sailor's _MS._]
[Line: 115 with] in _1660_.]
[Line: 116 on] in _1660_, _MS._]
[Line: 117 that] this _1660_.]
[Line: 119 Not] Nor'st _MS._ 'proof enough' _1651_: 'enough' is omitted in _1660_, and deleted by a seventeenth-century corrector in the Bodleian copy of _1651_.]
[Line: 121 chilblains] chilblain _1660_.]
[Line: 126 fruitful] pregnant _1660_.]
[Line: 128 and] or _MS._]
[Line: 134 Cleveland has used 'morglay', Bevis's sword, as a common noun elsewhere; but of course an imitator might seize on this.]
[Line: 138 grow] are _1660_.]
[Line: 139 sweat] sweet _1668_, _1687_, _MS._]
[Line: 142 on] in _1660_. or] and _1660_. 'breasts, not ears' _MS._]
[Lines: 145-6 Or as a modern Newcastle song, more decently but less picturesquely, puts it in the lass's own mouth--
'He sits in his hole, As black as a coal, And brings the white money to me--O!' ]
An Elegy upon King Charles the First, murdered publicly by his Subjects.
Were not my faith buoyed up by sacred blood, It might be drowned in this prodigious flood; Which reason's highest ground doth so exceed, It leaves my soul no anch'rage but my creed; Where my faith, resting on th' original, Supports itself in this, the copy's fall. So while my faith floats on that bloody wood, My reason 's cast away in this red flood Which near o'erflows us all. Those showers past Made but land-floods, which did some valleys waste. 10 This stroke hath cut the only neck of land Which between us and this red sea did stand, That covers now our world which curséd lies At once with two of Egypt's prodigies (O'ercast with darkness and with blood o'errun), And justly since our hearts have theirs outdone. Th' enchanter led them to a less known ill To act his sin, than 'twas their king to kill; Which crime hath widowed our whole nation, Voided all forms, left but privation 20 In Church and State; inverting every right; Brought in Hell's state of fire without light. No wonder then if all good eyes look red, Washing their loyal hearts from blood so shed; The which deserves each pore should turn an eye To weep out even a bloody agony. Let nought then pass for music but sad cries, For beauty bloodless cheeks and blood-shot eyes. All colours soil but black; all odours have Ill scent but myrrh, incens'd upon this grave. 30 It notes a Jew not to believe us much The cleaner made by a religious touch Of this dead body, whom to judge to die Seems the Judaical impiety. To kill the King, the Spirit Legion paints His rage with law, the Temple and the saints. But the truth is, he feared and did repine To be cast out and back into the swine. And the case holds, in that the Spirit bends His malice in this act against his ends; 40 For it is like the sooner he'll be sent Out of that body he would still torment. Let Christians then use otherwise this blood; Detest the act, yet turn it to their good; Thinking how like a King of Death he dies We easily may the world and death despise. Death had no sting for him and its sharp arm, Only of all the troop, meant him no harm. And so he looked upon the axe as one Weapon yet left to guard him to his throne. 50 In his great name then may his subjects cry, 'Death, thou art swallowed up in victory.' If this, our loss, a comfort can admit, 'Tis that his narrowed crown is grown unfit For his enlargéd head, since his distress Had greatened this, as it made that the less. His crown was fallen unto too low a thing For him who was become so great a king. So the same hands enthroned him in that crown They had exalted from him, not pulled down. 60 And thus God's truth by them hath rendered more Than e'er man's falsehood promised to restore; Which, since by death alone he could attain, Was yet exempt from weakness and from pain. Death was enjoined by God to touch a part, Might make his passage quick, ne'er move his heart, Which even expiring was so far from death It seemed but to command away his breath. And thus his soul, of this her triumph proud, Broke like a flash of lightning through the cloud 70 Of flesh and blood; and from the highest line Of human virtue, passed to be divine. Nor is 't much less his virtues to relate Than the high glories of his present state. Since both, then, pass all acts but of belief, Silence may praise the one, the other grief. And since upon the diamond no less Than diamonds will serve us to impress, I'll only wish that for his elegy This our Josias had a Jeremy. 80
[_An Elegy, &c._ See above. First printed in _Monumentum Regale_, _1649,_ p. 49; then in the _1654_ edition of Cleveland.]
[Line: 3 _1654_, _1657_, _1669_ 'doth'. Other (it is true inferior) texts, such as _1659_, _1665,_ and the successors of _1677_, 'do': which any one who has ever read his Pepys must know to be possible in the singular.]
[Line: 33 'this' _1649_: 'their' _1653_ and later editions.]
[Line: 35 paints = 'tries to disguise'.]
[Since these sheets were last revised, and when they were ready for press, Mr. Simpson discovered and communicated to me some variants (from Bodley MSS.) of Cleveland's pieces on Chadderton (_v. sup._ p. 81) and Williams (p. 69). His note is as follows:
"There is a version of the _Elegy upon Doctor Chadderton_ (page 81) in Ashmole MS. 36-7, fol. 263. After l. 14 four lines are inserted:
We thought, for so we would it have, Thou hadst outlived death and the grave, Hadst been past dying, and by thine own Brave virtue been immortal grown.
Not very brilliant, but no one would have any motive for interpolating such lines. Further, ll. 17-18 are omitted.
25 'dear S^{nt}.' i.e. as conjectured in the note, 'Saint.'
30 'Kend' written in a larger hand, with a view to emphasis. Query, a favourite word of Chadderton?
In the same MS. is a version of the poem on Archbishop Williams (p. 69). Most readings are bad, but the following are noteworthy:
4 concorporate one.
11 And vindicate whate'er.
55 when happier ages (which of late The viper cherish'd) with unpartial fate." ]
* * *
* * * * *
POEMS
AND
TRANSLATIONS.
BY
_THOMAS STANLEY_ Esquire.
_Quæ mea culpa tamen, nisi si lusisse vocari Culpa potest: nisi culpa potest & amasse, vocari?_
Tout vient a poinct qui peut attendre.
Printed for the Author, and his Friends, 1647.
POEMS,
BY
_THOMAS STANLEY_ ESQUIRE.
_Quæ mea culpa tamen, nisi si lusisse vocari Culpa potest: nisi culpa potest & amasse, vocari?_
[Illustration]
Printed in the Year,
1651.
INTRODUCTION TO THOMAS STANLEY
Thomas Stanley, poet, scholar, translator, and historian of philosophy, occupies a position in literary history, and in the general knowledge of fairly instructed people, which is less unenviable than that of Cleveland, almost equally curious, but more distinctly accidental. In a way--in more ways than one--he cannot be said to be exactly unknown. Everybody who has received the once usual 'liberal education', if not directly acquainted with his work on classical literature, has seen his _History of Philosophy_ referred to in later histories; and his notes on Aeschylus quoted, and sometimes fought over, in later editions. His translations have attained a place in that private-adventure Valhalla of English translations--Bohn's Library. A few at least of his poems are in all or most of the anthologies. Not many writers have such an anchor with four flukes, lodged in the general memory, as this. And yet there are probably few people who have any very distinct knowledge or idea of his work as a whole; his _Poems_ (until a time subsequent to the original promise of them in this Collection) had never been issued since his own day save in one of the few-copied reprints of the indefatigable Sir Egerton Brydges; and he makes small figure in most literary histories.
The reasons of this, however, are not very far to seek. For a very considerable time during the later seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century, if not later, Stanley was a recognized authority on history and scholarship: but during this time a philosopher and a scholar would have been usually thought to derogate, strangely and not quite pardonably, by writing and translating love poetry in a style of 'false wit' the most contrary to the precepts of Mr. Addison. We cannot even be sure that Stanley himself would not have been short-sighted enough to feel a certain shame at his harmless _fredaines_ in verse, for he certainly never published or fully collected them at all after he was six and twenty, though he lived to double that age. He seems, moreover, though most forward to help other men of letters, to have been in all other ways a decidedly retiring person--a man of books rather than of affairs. Though an unquestioned Royalist, and not accused of any dishonourable compliance, he seems to have been quite undisturbed during the Civil War, no doubt because of his observation of the precept [Greek: lathe biôsas]. In short, he took no trouble to keep himself before any public except the public of letters, and the public of letters chose to keep him only in his capacity as scholar.
If, however, he put himself not forward it was not for want of means and opportunity to do so. After some mistakes about his genealogy, it has been made certain that he was descended, though with the bend sinister, from the great house that bears the same name, and through a branch which enriched itself by commerce and settled in Hertfordshire and Essex. His mother was a Hammond of the family which has been referred to in dealing with his uncle the poet (vol. ii), and he was also connected with Sandys, Lovelace, and Sherburne, all of whom were his intimate friends, as were John Hall and Shirley the dramatist. He seems always to have been a man of means: and used them liberally, though less thoughtlessly than Benlowes, in assisting brother men of letters. He is not said to have been at any of the great schools, but his private tutor William Fairfax (son of Edward of Tasso fame) appears to have grounded him thoroughly in scholarship. At thirteen he went to Pembroke College (then Hall), Cambridge, entering in June 1639 and matriculating in December. He is said to have entered at Oxford next year. He was co-opted at Cambridge in 1642 as (apparently) a gentleman pensioner or commoner. He married early, his wife's name being Dorothy Enyon, and they had several children, of whom four survived him when he died, in 1678, at Suffolk Street, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
There is a tendency--which is perhaps rather slightly unfair than positively unjust--to suspect a poet who is specially given to translation: and not exactly to discard the suspicion in the ratio of his excellence as a translator. The reason behind this is sufficient, as has been said, to free it from the charge of positive injustice as a general rule, for it may be plausibly contended that a true poet, with nature and his own soul to draw upon, will not experience any great necessity to go to some one else for matter. But these general rules are always dangerous in particular application, and therefore it has been said that the notion is not quite fair. In fact, if it is examined as it does apply to individuals, it becomes clear that it will not do as a general rule at all--that like some other general rules it is practically useless. That Chaucer was _grant translateur_ may be said to be neither here nor there in the circumstances. But Spenser did not disdain translation; Dryden evidently did it for love as well as for money, though the latter may have been its chief attraction for Pope; and a poet such as Shelley, who was very nearly _the_ poet, by no means despised it.